Shopify president wants to buy HBC sign and post it 'loud and proud' for Canadian entrepreneurs

Harley Finkelstein is interested in buying the Hudson’s Bay sign recently removed from the exterior wall near the entrance to the company’s former Queen Street flagship store in Toronto.

“Who is calling for this removal? If this decision is done, I’d love to buy that sign and post it loud and proud for every entrepreneur to see. Can someone help me do this?,” Shopify’s president p osted on X on Friday.

@harleyf I have sent inquiries to both @ParthiKandavel and @stephenholyday who both sit on the Heritage Toronto board. Will also be sending a letter to Minister of Heritage, Marc Miller. We cannot allow our national antiquities to be plundered without a fight!

— IntegrityTO (@integrity_to) February 6, 2026

An earlier X post by IntegrityTO showed the sign’s removal . ( IntegrityTO identifies is a non-partisan civic advocacy group intent on promoting transparent, responsible, and effective municipal governance in Toronto.) It subsequently responded to Finkelstein , saying that the organization has written to two members of the Heritage Toronto board and plans to write a letter to federal Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, Marc Miller . “We cannot allow our national antiquities to be plundered without a fight!,” reads a line in the post.

Taking IntegrityTO’s lead, Finkelstein tagged Miller in a subsequent X post , asking: “can you help here pls?”

“That Hudson’s Bay Company sign matters,” Fonkelstein told National Post in an emailed statement. “Founded in 1670, HBC was one of the oldest continuously operating companies in the world. Older than Canada itself. Built by merchants and risk takers who looked at a cold, enormous, uncertain place and decided to build anyway.

“I pray at the altar of great entrepreneurs because they bend history. They create jobs, cities, industries, culture. They compound ambition across generations. If I could buy that sign, I would hang it somewhere every startup founder could see it. Not as nostalgia. As proof. This is what is possible when you build boldly in Canada.”

Finkelstein got support on X from another entrepreneur, Jeremie Romand, co-founder & CEO at Attain , a business coaching app.

Romand wrote: “Should also buy the Hudson Bay brand and make it some sort of a platform to help and support Canadian entrepreneurs to build the future of this country. Would be a great link from heritage to future.”

Should also buy the Hudson Bay brand and make it some sort of a platform to help and support Canadian entrepreneurs to build the future of this country.Would be a great link from heritage to future.

— Jeremie Romand (@jrmrmnd) February 6, 2026

Other X users showed there support, writing: “Please do it” and “ Would love to see this!”

National Post reached out to HBC for comment but hasn’t received a response.

The downtown Toronto HBC store closed in 2025 after the company went through liquidation. Most exterior branding and the famous HBC stripes were removed as part of the wind‑down of the chain. It was bought by HBC when it acquired the Simpsons department store chain in the late 1970s, then fully rebranded as an HBC store in 1991.

HBC was founded in 1670. However, as the fortunes of big department stores waned, so went Hudson’s Bay . Ownership left hands in Canada, shifting to foreign and private equity control. In 1979, HBC was bought by the late Kenneth Thomson. It later passed into the hands of American financier Jerry Zucker. Then after Zucker’s death, U.S. private equity firm NRDC Equity Partners, acquired HBC in 2008.

More recently, in March 2025, HBC filed a plan to restructure the company and ultimately liquidate all its stores.

Canadian Tire bought HBC’s intellectual property, including its branding and trademarks, for $30 million. It’s unknown what the company plans to do to preserve aspects of the HBC brand.

HBC hired Heffel Fine Art Auction House to auction off tranches of Hudson’s Bay’s 4,400 pieces of art and artifacts since November to help the defunct retailer recoup cash for its creditors.

An in-person auction Heffel hosted in November 2025 focused on art. The first online sale, which ran through December 2025, added HBC point blankets. A third auction ran until the end of January 2026 and focused on retail-era curios. Many of the items, including a slew of striped blankets as old as 1930, hearken back to HBC’s origins as a fur-trading business born in 1670. For example, there’s a replica of an oil and gas beaver pelt cheque, a “land for offer” sign and a Churchill, Man., “first shipment” souvenir plate.

Several more sales will be held throughout the remainder of the year. Whether the sign that interests Finkelstein will be among them is unclear.

• Canadian Tire buying Hudson's Bay stripes and brand name for $30M: 'Meant to stay Canadian'
• HBC wants to hold an auction for its art and artifacts, including its royal charter

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