Hudson’s Bay gifts war memorials to TD Bank, Royal Canadian Legion branches

The Roll of Honour, a memorial to employees of the defunct retailer Simpson's who served with the Canadian Forces and were killed during the Second World War, is shown at the Hudson's Bay store in Toronto, Tuesday, April 22, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Giordano Ciampini

TORONTO — Several war memorials previously on display at Hudson’s Bay stores are getting new homes.

Plaques from the department store’s Calgary, Winnipeg and Vancouver locations have all been donated to local branches of the Royal Canadian Legion, said Franco Perugini, a senior vice-president of real estate and legal at the defunct retailer, in a Wednesday email to The Canadian Press.

Another memorial commemorating Simpsons employees who died in the Second World War was given to TD Bank, the financial institution revealed the same day. Simpsons is a former department store HBC bought in 1978.

The plaques have been in need of a new home since Hudson’s Bay closed all of its stores earlier this year and started winding down the business.

The collapse almost immediately caught the attention of lawyer E. Patrick Shea, who sits on the senate of the 48th Highlanders of Canada and is the RCAF Foundation’s secretary.

In the spring, he started advocating for HBC’s memorials to be preserved in the same communities they had long been displayed, because he felt they were the last connection many neighbourhoods have to the people who went off to war as teens.

When he learned the memorials would be saved, he said he was “thrilled to death” but not surprised.

“What has happened was inevitable,” he said. “As soon as I raised the issue, people realized what these memorials meant to the public and what they meant to other people, and they focused on getting them to the right home.”

The plaque saved in Vancouver honours staff who fought in either the First or Second World War, while those in Calgary and Winnipeg were a tribute to employees who were part of the latter conflict.

The legions, which are open to the public, will likely display them in their bar areas or where they have other memorabilia and plaques, Shea said.

The memorial TD received was labelled a “Roll of Honour” and inscribed with a message commemorating workers that made the “supreme sacrifice.” It was previously displayed by a bank of elevators at HBC’s Toronto flagship store on Queen Street, where it was flanked by Canadian flags and a wreath of poppies.

TD has since moved it several blocks south to a branch on Front Street, which has a public museum displaying artifacts from the company’s more than 170-year history.

The branch is situated where the founder of Simpsons opened a warehouse in 1905 for a mail-order business.

Getting to add the HBC memorial to the location was “exciting” because it “helps us connect to the materiality of history” in a way that is more profound than a book or podcast, said Amy Korczynski, TD’s corporate heritage collections curator.

When the bank unveiled the memorial in its new home on Monday, Shea said there were military members and veterans from the same regiments as people listed on the plaque.

“So it was a bit of a homecoming,” he said.

His efforts to preserve war memorials will continue at St. James Garlickhythe Anglican Church in England, where HBC was headquartered before it shifted home base to Canada in 1970.

The church has two marble plaques honouring HBC employees who lost their lives in the First and Second World War, but on a recent visit, Shea learned they’re tucked away in a bell tower.

He thinks they deserve to be more accessible and is now working with the priest to relocate them to a more prominent space, when the church does upcoming renovations.

He is also advocating for a plaque to be added to memorialize Indigenous employees who served in the wars but were missing from the list.

“Until all Hudson Bay memorials and every other memorial has a safe and secure place, my job is not done,” Shea said.

Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press