Dominion Stores (Ontario)
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Dominion Stores Ltd. (which may or may not continue to exist as a legal entity) is presently an operator of supermarkets in the Greater Toronto Area of Ontario, Canada and has 60 locations province wide. Once a national chain owned by media mogul Conrad Black's Argus Corporation, it is now part of Metro Inc., with its stores outside Ontario having been sold to third parties.
The remnants of Dominion Stores had been acquired by A&P Canada from Argus in the late 1980s. A&P subsequently rebranded all its stores in the Greater Toronto Area as Dominion stores (absorbing Miracle Food Mart), while Dominion locations elsewhere in Southern Ontario took the A&P name. The territory of Dominion stores as compared to that of other stores owned by Metro Inc. is approximately the following: the City of Toronto; York Region, excluding Stouffville; the Cities of Mississauga and Oakville; and the Cities of Pickering and Ajax. In some markets west of Toronto Dominion Stores were bought by Canada Safeway. Metro acquired A&P Canada from A&P effective August 15, 2005. A&P has retained a minority ownership share of A&P Canada.
The fate of the Dominion locations outside Ontario is as follows:
- Northwestern Ontario: At least two stores (located in Thunder Bay) were acquired by Canada Safeway
- Newfoundland and Labrador: Loblaws operates a chain under the Dominion banner; see Dominion Stores (Newfoundland and Labrador).
- New Brunswick: Shortly after the A&P acquisition, these stores were sold to Food Group Inc., which operated them under the Village banner until they themselves were sold to Loblaws (see Atlantic Superstore) in 1995.
- Nova Scotia: These locations were sold to IGA, but Loblaws took over IGA's Atlantic Canada locations as well in 1999.
- Western Canada: Dominion stores in these provinces were closed, leaving many suburban shopping malls scrambling to fill large, now-vacant sections. According to some, this event, coupled with the subsequent collapse of several department store chains, sparked a wave of mall renovations in many parts of the country.
Dominion's original slogan was "mainly because of the meat", but is now "We're fresh obsessed", which is shared with A&P. The jingle for the original slogan was written by Bob Hahn, who wrote over 1500 Canadian advertising jingles. [1]
Dominion's distribution centres are located in Toronto and Mississauga.
