Canadian retailers offer their own Black Friday sales even though their Thanksgiving is a month earlier. "Anecdotally, the malls were packed," said Sally Ritchie, a spokeswoman for the Retail Council of Canada. "Black Friday is increasingly becoming an event here in Canada." Neither Black Friday nor Cyber Monday have historically been much of an event in Canada, which celebrates Thanksgiving in October, but that seems to be changing. "If we look at where Black Friday, Cyber Monday was in Canada last year compared to this year, I think it's a much bigger weekend than it was last year, so I think we do see a trend there," said Daniel Baer, national retail industry leader at Ernst & Young. (Source reuters.com)

Target Corp. is locked in a fight to prevent Zellers employees from maintaining their union status Target’s blueprint for Canada entails converting about 135 Zellers stores to the Target name by 2013 after letting go all the Zellers employees and starting fresh with newly hired staff – and no union. Currently about 15 of the Zellers stores are unionized. But now, in a test case, the union has applied to the B.C. Labour Relations Board to declare Target as the "successor employer" to Zellers at an outlet in Burnaby, B.C., and keep the employees unionized. "It could be quite a battle," said Richard Chaykowski, a professor at Queen’s University’s School of Policy Studies in Kingston. "Any decision a government board makes would potentially be only Round 1." Target and its discount archrival, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., have fought the United Food and Commercial Workers for years as the union attempts to organize the retailers' employees and improve their pay and working conditions. So far, the retailers have managed to keep unions out in North America, although for brief periods the unions have succeeded in organizing some employees. (Source theglobeandmail.com)

Vancouver-based counterculture magazine Adbusters has kicked off an "Occupy Christmas" campaign targeting consumerism over the festive season. As protesters continue to be ousted from Occupy sites across North America, the Canadian magazine widely credited with starting it all has kicked off a new campaign—Occupy Christmas. Adbusters, a non-profit alternative magazine based in Vancouver, is now targeting the "rabid consumerism" of the gift-giving season. "Let’s use the coming 20th annual Buy Nothing Day to launch an all-out offensive to unseat the corporate kings on the holiday throne," states the publication’s website. Occupy may have been fun for some activist but to take it to "Occupy Christmas" may be just go to far even for that group. (Source theepochtimes.com)

The Canadian Manhattan Push  "If they can make it There" special on CBC news tells a great story how Canadian retailers are storming Manhattan as the U.S. is storming Canada. A Joe Fresh store just opened along with Mackages, Vancouver's Aritiza and Lululemon. All have chosen to set up shop in one of the world's toughest retail markets. (Source cbc.ca)

Canadian government may be reducing old manufacturing tariffs that could reduce Canadian Prices and make them more competitive with U.S. prices. "This government has shown tremendous leadership in reducing tariffs on the manufacturing sector, and we look forward to the next logical step of reducing or eliminating tariffs in the retail sector," said Diane J. Brisebois, president and CEO of Retail Canadian Council. "This will provide a win-win as it will foster economic growth and have the added benefit of providing more competitive pricing to Canadian consumers." In his announcement Minister Flaherty acknowledged that "some of these old-fashioned tariffs get in the way" and it is time "to get rid of them". Brisebois noted that the economic benefits of eliminating these manufacturing tariffs would be multiplied were the manufacturers to pass the savings along to retailers. (Source newswire.ca)