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. 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.

Exterior of a typical Dominion store (at Don Mills Centre in Don Mills, Toronto, ON)

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, while Dominion locations elsewhere in Ontario took the A&P name. 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:

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 Etobicoke and Mississauga.