The sale of point blankets in Canadian Tire stores will mark the company’s first product launch since it acquired Hudson’s Bay intellectual property in May.Christopher Katsarov/The Globe and Mail
Canadian Tire Corp. Ltd. CTC-T will soon begin selling the distinctive Hudson’s Bay point blanket, and is committing to direct all proceeds from the sales – at a minimum of $1-million per year – to Indigenous-led initiatives.
The company announced on Thursday that it will soon begin selling the wool blankets in its stores. The initial launch will be a limited run, with more blankets to be made available in future. It is the first product launch since Canadian Tire acquired Hudson’s Bay intellectual property during its bankruptcy proceedings in a $30-million deal announced in May.
It will also ensure that an initiative Hudson’s Bay launched in 2022, called “Oshki Wupoowane,” (“a new blanket” in the Ojibwe language,) will continue. The partnership saw Hudson’s Bay direct proceeds from sales of the blankets to a fund administered by the Gord Downie and Chanie Wenjack Fund, or DWF, which provides grants to various initiatives focused on Indigenous culture, art and education.
“The point blanket is both an enduring Canadian emblem, and a symbol recognized by most Indigenous people and communities of colonial harm,” said the charity’s president and chief executive officer Sarah Midanik, who is a member of the Métis Nation of Alberta. The Blanket Fund partnership provided an opportunity to shed light on that complex history, Ms. Midanik added, and to endow the blankets with a new purpose.
In the three years since its launch, the fund has allocated more than $1.1-million through ongoing “capacity-building” grants, which focus on grassroots Indigenous organizations; and a further $690,300 through “reconciliation action” grants that support one-time projects and events that connect Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.
Indigenous hunters, translators and guides that worked for Hudson’s Bay used the blankets as currency as the company’s fur-trading business grew. The ‘points’ were lines sewn into the fabric, indicating their value.Christopher Katsarov/The Globe and Mail
The fund has now grown to $1.5-million, not including the grants that have already been allocated. But the collapse of Canada’s oldest retailer created uncertainty for the future of the program.
“We were frantically trying to figure out, what does that look like? Is there a chance for us to continue the program in a different way?” Ms. Midanik recalled of hearing the news that the Bay would be forced to permanently close all of its stores and wind down the business.
A significant difference in Canadian Tire’s partnership is a $1-million annual minimum commitment to the fund, meaning that if the net proceeds of the blanket sales fall short of that number, the retailer will make up the difference.
According to Ms. Midanik, under Hudson’s Bay, the program received hundreds of thousands of dollars each year, in addition to an initial one-time $1-million donation from the Hudson’s Bay Foundation. But Canadian Tire’s commitment will represent a significant step up in funding. The guaranteed minimum will allow the Blanket Fund to support more organizations, she added.
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In consultation with Indigenous communities, DWF developed a participatory granting model, in which applicants for the grants also take part in the funding selection process.
Canadian Tire will announce more details in the coming weeks about the sale of the blankets. In August, during a quarterly conference call with analysts, chief executive officer Greg Hicks hinted that some products featuring the HBC stripes could be on shelves in time for the holidays, with further product launches planned for the second half of 2026.
For now, the blankets will not be available online, but will be sold in Canadian Tire stores.
“We are exceptionally proud to be the stewards of HBC’s legacy – and as one of the nation’s longest-standing companies, we don’t take the responsibility lightly,” Mr. Hicks wrote in a press release on Thursday.
In addition to HBC’s well-known multistripe design, which was introduced in the late 18th century, the blankets have been produced in other colours and patterns over the course of their history. The blankets’ supplier will continue to be the AW Hainsworth mill in Yorkshire, England, which was founded in 1783, and the manufacturing process will remain the same.
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The point blankets are a vestige of Hudson’s Bay’s beginnings as a fur-trading business. The 1670 Royal Charter of King Charles II – a historic document whose future is yet to be decided – granted the company a trading monopoly over a massive tract of land encompassing roughly 40 per cent of what is now Canada, and parts of the modern U.S.
Indigenous hunters, translators and guides played a pivotal role in the growth of HBC, and the company’s traders were often the first point of contact between Europeans and Indigenous people. The blankets were used as currency by those traders: The “points” were lines sewn into the fabric, indicating their value.
The blankets have also been marketed over the years as nostalgic symbols of Canadiana. Perhaps driven by that connection, many shoppers rushed to Bay locations this spring to buy up the blankets before the stores closed forever. Ms. Midanik said the charity has been in discussions with Hudson’s Bay about ensuring the proceeds from those sales are directed toward the Blanket Fund. Company spokesperson Tiffany Bourré declined to comment on those discussions.
“It has such a rich and robust and complicated history, and is often recognized as a tool of colonization and genocide,” Ms. Midanik said of the point blanket, adding that it can also be repurposed as a tool of reconciliation.
“This is one way for that to be manifested through an iconic piece of history that tells such an important story, about not just the creation of Canada, but about the relationship with Indigenous peoples, and how we’re here today.”