"Owner of beleaguered Toys 'R' Us Canada floats rebrand in court files"/ "Toys 'R' Us Canada gets court approval to split business among 3 buyers"

Jun. 19, 2026 "Owner of beleaguered Toys 'R' Us Canada floats rebrand in court files": Today I found this article by Tara Deschamps on CBC:

The owner of Toys "R" Us Canada is trying to buy some of the retailer's assets 

so it can keep the chain going 

or rebrand the beleaguered business 

that has been in creditor protection since February.

A lawyer representing a numbered company that owns the retailer has filed a letter in court saying his client has a licence to use the Toys "R" Us name until Jan. 25, 2027.

After that date, the letter says the numbered company, which operates as Putman Investments, 

hopes to extend that licence 

or rebrand the business.

The letter does not say what the chain could be rebranded to. 

Putman Investments also runs 

Northern Reflections, 

HMV, 

Sunrise Records, 

Ricki's 

and Cleo.

The letter offers the first insights the public has gotten into what Toys "R" Us Canada's owner has planned for the crumbling chain that has 

shrunk from 53 to 15 stores 

within about two years.

Putman Investments owner Doug Putman has never commented publicly on Toys "R" Us Canada's collapse and the chain 

and his lawyers have not responded to questions from The Canadian Press about his plans for the company's assets.

As part of the company's plans, the letter says Putman Investments has struck an agreement to continue operating its store at Sherway Gardens, a mall in Toronto's west end.

The location would bolster a deal it reached to buy 

10 Toys "R" Us Canada store leases, 

the brand's inventory, 

equipment 

and bank accounts.

The deal still needs court approval, 

which the company is expected to seek Monday.

At that hearing, a judge will also consider whether 

American toy brand manager Ad Populum will be able to buy the rights to about 

150 Toys "R" Us Canada 

and Babies "R" Us Canada trademarks.

Toys "R" Us Canada 

and its U.S. counterpart 

are owned and operated separately, 

though WHP Global has the rights to Toys "R" Us 

and licenses them to U.S. and other regional operators like department stores Macy's and Kohl's.

Putman Investments bought Toys "R" Us Canada from Fairfax Financial in 2021 

with plans to revamp the business.

Instead, it wound up so in debt 

it had to turn to the court to keep creditors at bay.

It owes at least $120 million to its vendors 

and "substantial" amounts to many landlords, 

who sued the company in the last few years in hopes of recouping owed amounts.

To help try to pay them back, 

Toys "R" Us Canada put its 

trademarks, 

inventory, 

leases 

and equipment 

up for sale

earlier this year.

The 10 locations Putman Investments wants to buy as part of that process are in 

Ontario, 

Alberta 

and Winnipeg.

Fox Group Jumbo Canada, 

an Israeli company bringing Jumbo discount stores to the country,

wants the Toys "R" Us store lease at Vaughan Mills, a mall just north of Toronto. 

A court is expected to decide whether to approve that sale also on Monday.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/toys-r-us-owner-rebranding-9.7242041

Jun. 22, 2026 "Toys 'R' Us Canada gets court approval to split business among 3 buyers": Today I found this article by Tara Deschamps on CBC:

An Ontario court is giving Toys "R" Us Canada permission to 

split up and sell the business to three buyers, 

including its current owner, 

who wants to keep operating the chain 

or rebrand it.

Judge Jane Dietrich said she will sign paperwork Monday approving the three deals,

which will help the beleaguered retailer pay down some of the millions of dollars in debt it accumulated before filing for creditor protection in February.

The first deal will sell the rights to the Toys "R" Us Canada and Babies "R" Us Canada names and logos, 

along with 150 of their trademarks to Ad Populum.

U.S.-based Ad Populum and its affiliates own retailer 

Party City and manage the companies behind the 

Chia Pet brand 

and Graceland, the Elvis Presley attraction in Tennessee.

The trademarks include the rights to the 

Geoffrey the giraffe mascot, 

the Toys "R" Us Canada jingle 

and phrases like "wish book," 

"gotta get it deals" 

and "play more ... spend less."

The second transaction will transfer 

10 store leases, 

the brand's inventory,

 equipment, 

logistics contracts 

and bank accounts and balances 

to a numbered company run by current Toys "R" Us Canada owner Doug Putman.

Lawyers representing Putman have said in court documents that he has a license to use the Toys "R" Us name until Jan. 25, 2027, and hopes to extend that agreement or rebrand the business.

The final deal will sell the lease for a Toys "R" Us Canada store at Vaughan Mills, a mall just north of Toronto, to Fox Group Jumbo Canada, an Israeli retailer moving its discount home-goods stores to Canada.

Toys "R" Us Canada is already preparing to vacate the location, with signs on the store windows alerting customers to the impending closure.

The toy retailer has not disclosed the value of any of the transactions, but it owes at least $120 million to its vendors and "substantial" amounts to landlords.

Before filing for creditor protection, the retailer closed 53 stores across Canada within two years. 

It has since shuttered more locations and is now down to 15 stores and 260 employees.

It remains unclear what form Toys "R" Us Canada will take in the future.

Ad Populum has not said whether it intends to use the trademarks to operate stores or license the Toys "R" Us name to other companies that want to run a retailer or manufacture merchandise.

He previously launched a chain of home-goods stores called 

Rooms + Spaces 

and took over T. Kettle's tea shops. 

Both brands have closed all their stores since Putman took ownership.

He has also been an executive at Everest Toys, which was founded by his father and forced into receivership last year by TD Bank, which is owed $25 million, according to court documents.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/toysrus-court-approval-sale-9.7244928

My week:

Sun. Jun. 28, 2026:

Lillian L, Halifax, Nova Scotia, would like to know:

How will you celebrate Canada Day?

Not celebrating

67.27% (2004)

City events / festivals

15.78% (470)

Fireworks

10.20% (304)

Traveling

3.46% (103)

Camping

3.29% (98)

My opinion: Not celebrating.

Sun. Jun. 28, 2026:

Maxime L, Longueuil, Québec, would like to know:

Are you taking a vacation this summer?

Yes

52.78% (1746)

No

47.22% (1562)

My opinion: No.  I will still have fun and relax in Edmonton.

Sat. Jul. 4, 2026:

Niamh D, Sidney, British Columbia, would like to know:

Have you ever lived somewhere other than Canada?

No

79.09% (2648)

Yes

20.91% (700)

My opinion: No.

"U.S. tariffs go easy on Alberta. That lets separatists go harder on Canada"/ "Half of Calgary Chamber members would consider leaving if Alberta separates: poll"

Jun. 21, 2026 "U.S. tariffs go easy on Alberta. That lets separatists go harder on Canada": Today I found this article by Jason Markusoff on CBC:

Several factors have triggered concern in some corners of the country about the role the United States may play in Alberta’s upcoming referendum on separation. 

They range from a Trump cabinet secretary’s remarks, 

to administration meetings with separatists, 

to the spectre of U.S.-based foreign influence campaigns.

But what if the biggest lift Washington gave to the independence movement was done in plain sight 

and through official policy channels, 

even though it was likely inadvertent 

and an indirect boost?

We’re talking about tariffs 

— or, namely the lack of them against the province now eyeing a divorce with Canada.

The economy-rattling trade penalties have bound many Canadians together against a perceived common external menace. 

But because Alberta’s industries are largely unaffected by the tariffs that are hitting other regions hard, 

separatists have perhaps been able to harness public frustrations against an internal foe,

 rather than a foreign one.

Let’s unpack this.

Fueling the way

When U.S. President Donald Trump initially threatened and applied various duties on virtually everything the United States imported last year, 

one of his first broad exemptions was on oil and gas products that comply with the North America trade agreement, as most do. 

That benefited U.S. refiners that rely on Canadian crude, 

and forestalled the sort of fuel price shock Washington was averse to 

(before Trump’s Iranian incursion).

But this also brought huge relief to the trading neighbour next door, 

given that oil is by far Canada’s largest U.S. export. 

Of course, nowhere would a major tariff shock to oil be felt more than Alberta, the key oil-producing province.

The second-largest export industry in Alberta?

It’s agriculture, which was also exempted from tariffs.

While Alberta’s trade economy has proceeded largely footloose and tariff-free,

that isn’t the case elsewhere in Canada.

Consider key industries in other big provinces: 

Quebec aluminum, 

Ontario steel and automobiles, 

British Columbia lumber.

“Despite Canada as a whole facing tariff pressures, 

the challenges are fairly different depending on the region,” 

said Salim Zanzana, an economist with RBC Economics.

His team has laid out how large those disparities are. 

The effective tariff rate being paid by Alberta is close to zero, 

compared to a rate 18 times larger in Ontario 

and 23 times larger in Quebec.

Trade policy experts Carlo Dade and Sharon Zhengyang Sun recently co-authored a paper highlighting the differing impacts of Trump’s tariff regime around Canada. 

The paper, for the New North America Initiative at the University of Calgary School of Public Policy, 

notes that Alberta’s gross domestic product is the most reliant on U.S. exports, 

but has among the least exposure to sectoral tariffs.

Tariffs in Alberta, particularly on lumber, 

still affect about $1 billion of provincial exports, 

an impact likely most felt in specific parts of the province, the report notes.

But the blast zone is wider and deeper elsewhere in Canada.

“That has Ontario rightly running scared and that puts forward the larger question for the challenge to the federation,” Dade said.

While other premiers have ventured south of the border to decry the mutual detriments of tariffs,

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has been in a position to argue for 

stronger trade ties 

and market expansions.

She sat for a podcast interview in September with U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra. 

Last week she urged others not to “panic and freak out with ads and overwrought commentary” in response to Trump’s periodic threats 

— which might be easier for a premier to do when large swaths of their jurisdiction’s key factories have not been imperiled when Trump makes good on some of his threats.

While most provinces have continued to block U.S. liquor sales, 

Alberta lifted its ban back in June 2025. 

It was joined only by Saskatchewan, 

whose major potash sector was also exempted from U.S. tariffs.

Alberta’s more relaxed attitude toward the United States extends beyond public policy.

While Canadian travel to the U.S. has taken a major hit since the tariff threat began last year,

that drop isn’t universal. 

It hasn’t been nearly as much of a phenomenon at Calgary’s largest airport.

The number of Canadians travelling back to Calgary International Airport from the U.S. in May was down by 8.2 per cent 

compared to where it was in May 2024, before Trump’s presidency. 

At other major Canadian airports, the figure was down 30 per cent or more.

Put together, Albertans have less urgency for sudden Canadian unity in the age of “51st state” rhetoric. 

And that’s where agents of Canadian disunity can step in.

Without much of a threat to defend against from outside Canada, 

that may have freed up Albertans’ frustrations to be channeled within Canada, 

toward a generations-old target for their ire.

Premier Smith has more routinely bemoaned federal policies than U.S. ones, 

although she maintains she’s a federalist. 

The separatists take it even farther, questioning the purpose of Canada altogether.

Jeffrey Rath, one of the most prominent separatist leaders, has routinely adulated Donald Trump and berated Prime Minister Mark Carney in the same social media posts.

And consider this exchange captured on video last week at a park outside Edmonton, where Derek Smith, who hosts the pro-independence podcast Unacceptable Fringe, was handing out separatist lawn signs.

He and a man from the nearby village of Onoway got into a discussion about Trump.

“What has he done that bad that everybody hates him so bad?” the visitor said.

“He says it like it is 

and people don’t like it 

and it’s too bad,” 

Smith replied. 

“I wish we had somebody like him running our country. We’d have jobs.”

Would they be wondering why Canadians dislike Trump if they were living in a different province, 

where they might know people hurt by shuttered truck assembly lines, 

or unsure how long subsidies can keep them going at the aluminum smelter?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/analysis-us-tariffs-impact-alberta-separatism-9.7242585

Jun. 24, 2026 "Half of Calgary Chamber members would consider leaving if Alberta separates: poll": Today I found this article on BNN Bloomberg:

A poll commissioned by the Calgary Chamber of Commerce suggests 

almost half of its members are prepared to move their businesses out of Alberta 

if the province votes to separate from Canada. 

Probe Research conducted the online survey of 137 chamber members between June 8 and June 22. 

The poll comes as Albertans prepare for an October vote on 10 referendum questions,

 including one on whether the province should remain in Canada 

or begin the process of holding a separation referendum at a later date.

Forty-eight per cent of respondents said they are 

very 

or somewhat likely to relocate 

if the separation process moves forward,

while 39 per cent said they are unlikely to do so. 

Thirteen per cent are unsure.

“I actually looked at that number and my eyebrows went up and I thought, 

‘That is a significant number 

and that would be devastating for Calgary,’” 

said Deborah Yedlin, president and CEO of the chamber. 

Nineteen per cent of respondents reported slowing business expansion plans within Alberta, 

while 15 per cent are actively looking to relocate. 

Almost two-thirds of respondents reported that talk of separatism is already having a negative impact on their businesses, 

while around three-quarters see no tangible benefit from a break from Canada.

Ninety-one per cent said they are closely following the referendum discussion. 

Alberta has long benefited from its reputation of being an 

entrepreneurial, 

low-tax 

and resource-rich place 

to do business, 

Yedlin said. 

“But businesses make their decisions based on 

certainty 

and confidence 

and this will undermine all of it 

— no certainty and no confidence,” 

she said. 

“Whatever Alberta advantage we had will disappear.”

The Chamber also commissioned an analysis from University of Calgary economist Trevor Tombe, which found 

one in three Albertan workers 

— around 900,000 people 

— would be exposed to disruptions in trade 

with the rest of Canada 

and international markets. 

Drawing from the impacts of the United Kingdom’s split from the European Union, Tombe is also estimating 

a six per cent hit to Alberta’s gross domestic product per capita if the province separates,

along with a reduction of 175,000 jobs 

and a $62-billion cut to the provincial economy per year. 

A working paper published in November of last year by the U.S.-based National Bureau of Economic Research found that by 2025, 

Brexit had reduced the U.K.’s gross domestic product by six to eight per cent

 compared to what would have been the case 

if it had stayed in the EU. 

Investment slipped by an estimated 12 to 18 per cent, 

and employment and productivity each by three to four per cent, 

the paper said.

The British Chambers of Commerce has calculated that trade deals the U.K. has inked since Brexit have clawed back just one-tenth of the four per cent GDP loss the Office of Budget Responsibility predicted in 2020 would be caused by the split within 15 years.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who has said she counts herself in the “stay” camp,

shared some preliminary math for startup costs at a news conference earlier this month.

The province has also commissioned an 

economic study 

and tabbed an expert advisory panel on the potential costs of quitting Confederation. 

An independent Alberta would have 

to take on its share of Canada’s national debt, 

along with NATO commitments to defence spending 

and programs like Old Age Security and the Child Tax Benefit. 

And then there’s the infrastructure for 

a national pension program, 

employment insurance 

and border control. 

Trade agreements would need to be renegotiated. 

Alberta would need its own 

postal service, 

along with regulators for 

telecoms, 

railways 

and banks. 

All told, Smith said transitional costs could tally up to around 

$400 billion, 

with $25 billion to $50 billion in ongoing annual costs. 

Separatist leaders disagree, saying an independent Alberta would come with no more 

than $5.7 billion in startup costs 

and would post surpluses once tax revenue stops flowing to Ottawa.

The conversation around separation also needs to transcend the economic arguments, as important as those are, Yedlin said. 

“There are reasons for people in Alberta to feel like 

they haven’t been heard 

and to feel they’ve been taken for granted from a federal perspective. 

And my response to that is, 

‘That’s true.’ I grew up in this province, too,” 

she said. 

But she said the relationship with Ottawa has shifted, 

with a memorandum of understanding signed last year on a wide array of 

energy matters, 

including a path forward for a new west coast oil pipeline. 

“Let’s build on what we’ve established 

and how we’ve changed the trajectory of what’s possible.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 24, 2026.

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/business/2026/06/24/half-of-calgary-chamber-members-would-consider-leaving-if-alberta-separates-poll/