Hudson's Bay hearing on lease deal adjourned as B.C. billionaire Ruby Liu appears without lawyer
Liu said she intends to hire a new lawyer. She was previously represented by both Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP and Miller Thomson but has parted ways with each.
Article content
Gavin Finlayson, a Miller Thomson lawyer, appeared in court to confirm he was no longer representing Liu, but did not say why.
Article content
Speaking to reporters outside the courthouse later, Liu said she had been dropped by her lawyer 'all of a sudden' on Sunday after a disagreement over whether his firm should be paid $3 million more to represent her.
Article content
Liu said her legal counsel was the topic of a letter she sent Osborne, but declined to offer further details. Osborne had advised her during the court session that parties are not to communicate with the judge outside of the hearing.
Article content
Article content
Osborne pressed Liu to find a lawyer in part because it will help her navigate the Bay's creditor protection case, which began in March, when the retailer admitted it was unable to cover bills and had no hope of finding lender support.
Article content
A sales process uncovered no one willing to buy the business, so it liquidated all 80 of its stores and 16 Saks locations.
Article content
The company got 12 bids for 39 leases but chose Liu to buy 28 because the terms she offered were 'the most favourable.'
Article content
A copy of the agreement she entered with the Bay was given to the court over the weekend but sealed. Prior filings, however, show Liu made a deposit of $9.4 million, which would equate to a purchase price of $94 million for 25 leases.
Article content
A package prepared by Liu's former lawyers and obtained by The Canadian Press early June shows she told landlords she could open stores within 180 days of receiving leases and would pour millions into rehabilitating properties.
Article content
Article content
Landlords almost immediately panned her plans, saying she doesn't have the suppliers, financing or retail management experience to run a department store.
Article content
Bay lawyer Ashley Taylor told Osborne there has since been 'an ongoing dialogue' between Liu and stakeholders. David Bish, who represents Cadillac Fairview, disagreed and said the landlords remain 'deeply concerned.'
Article content
'This is the hill to die on for landlords,' Bish said.
Article content
To aid in the Bay's wind down, Restore wants the court to appoint a 'super monitor' to subject the department store chain to even more oversight. If the court doesn't agree, Restore suggests appointing Richter Consulting Inc. as a receiver.
Article content
The Bay argued it doesn't need more oversight because it's properly governed. It maintains the Liu deal is the best shot it has at recovering more cash for creditors.
Article content
Pathlight Capital LP, one of the Bay's other lenders, supports the Liu transaction but won't finance the extra time it could take to close the deal.
Article content
Meanwhile, the monitor said more oversight may be appropriate at some point. It's prepared to step up, when necessary.
Article content
Its report also revealed the Bay has several other lease deals in the works. One has been reached with a landlord wanting to buy its own lease for less than $250,000. Another is with an unnamed party wanting seven leases.
Article content
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
21 minutes ago
What the U.S. dairy industry really wants from Canada
U.S. dairy producers insist they're not looking for Canada to dismantle its supply management system, but they do want Canada to follow the letter and spirit of the existing deal that governs the dairy trade between the two countries. U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly blasted Canada as unfair and ripping us off with massive dairy tariffs, in a way that isn't fully accurate. However, senior figures in the U.S. dairy industry are concerned there's also some misrepresentation happening north of the border, creating a false perception of what U.S. producers are actually seeking in terms of access to the Canadian market. Shawna Morris, executive vice-president for trade policy and global affairs with the National Milk Producers Federation and the U.S. Dairy Export Council, says it's not true that her industry wants Canada to abandon its system for protecting the dairy sector. We've never been out to eliminate Canada's supply management, said Morris in an interview from her office in Arlington, Va., just outside Washington. It's much easier to create a boogeyman and fear-mongering around that being the goal of the Americans, but that's certainly not what our industry has advocated. Enlarge image (new window) Donald Trump dances as he departs a September 2024 campaign event at Central Wisconsin Airport in Mosinee, Wis. The top dairy-producing state in the U.S. has also been a key swing state in recent presidential elections, decided by less than one percentage point in each election since 2016. Photo: Associated Press / Alex Brandon Becky Rasdall Vargas, senior vice-president of trade and workforce policy at the International Dairy Foods Association lobby group, says she recognizes the Trump administration has been fairly abrasive in its tone toward Canada. But at the same time, I think we feel pretty ignored by Canada in terms of our legitimate trade concerns. Two main trade irritants According to Morris and Rasdall Vargas, the U.S. industry has two main irritants with Canada: how the Canadian government allocates the existing quotas for tariff-free imports of dairy products, and how Canadian milk producers dump cheap milk protein into the international market. The import quotas negotiated under the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA, which Americans call USMCA) are designed to give U.S. producers tariff-free access worth roughly 3.5 per cent of Canada's domestic demand for dairy products. Three per cent is pretty limited, said Morris. It's certainly not a situation where our industry is gonna come in and take over the Canadian dairy market. How much U.S. milk comes into Canada? See interactive chart here (new window) CUSMA sets import quotas for 14 categories of dairy products. That allows an annual volume of each category (new window) to enter Canada tariff-free, and any imports exceeding the quota would get hit with sky-high tariffs of 200 per cent or more. Canada's rationale for this is ensuring the domestic dairy industry thrives by effectively capping how much the U.S. can export each year, preventing cheaper American products from dominating the market. The U.S. government supports its dairy sector with hefty direct subsidies (new window) . The U.S. dairy industry says it's not asking for Canada's quotas to be increased or the tariff rates to be decreased. Rather, it wants changes to how Ottawa allocates the quotas: more specifically, who gets them. Big Canadian dairies dominate import quotas Much of the quota volume is allocated to major Canadian-owned dairy processing companies such as Saputo (new window) and Agropur (new window) . Industry analysts on both sides of the border say such companies have little incentive to import U.S. products that would compete with their own. According to the U.S. producers, this restricts their access to the Canadian market. Their evidence for that claim: Canadian trade statistics (new window) showing tariff-free imports from the U.S. have almost never reached the quota limits in any category. WATCH | What Donald Trump gets wrong (and right) about Canada's dairy tariffs: For five years, Canada's been playing games with these tariff rate quotas, said Morris. That's a lot of volume that should have been able to reach Canadian consumers. Despite those complaints, Canada's imports of U.S. dairy products have risen significantly since the CUSMA quotas took effect in 2020. Those imports totalled $897 million in 2024, according to Statistics Canada data (new window) , more than four times the value of imports in any year before 2020. Trade certainly should be far higher than it is, said Morris. That was what USMCA promised to deliver and quite frankly has fallen far short. A key change the U.S. producers would like to see is for Canada to grant retailers and the food-service sector a share of the tariff-free quotas, allowing them to import some U.S. dairy products directly. The U.S. industry also wants Canada to be far stricter in taking away allocations from importers that fail to use their full quota in a given year. While a bill that Parliament passed in June (new window) bars Ottawa from agreeing to raise the dairy import quotas or lower the tariffs, it doesn't prevent other changes to the system, leaving Canadian trade negotiators some wiggle room. WATCH | Canada's supply management system, explained: 'An inherent mismatch' The other chief complaint from the U.S. focuses on Canada's cheap exports of milk proteins, also described as milk solids, such as skim milk powder. The Americans argue that because Canada's supply management system keeps domestic prices artificially high, Canada can sell its excess production of milk proteins internationally at artificially low prices, undercutting the competition. It frankly makes no sense that you could have one of the highest milk prices in the world and yet be exporting dairy protein at some of the lowest prices globally, said Morris. That's just an inherent mismatch. Canada's pricing of milk solids for the export market is currently the subject of a U.S. International Trade Commission investigation, ordered by (new window) the Trump administration, with a hearing scheduled for Monday (new window) . Dairy Farmers of Canada declined a request for comment on the case. During the recent election, all major parties expressed support for supply management and stated that it would be off the table in upcoming trade negotiations, the organization said in a news release (new window) in June. The Trump administration is not the first to accuse Canada of breaching CUSMA terms on dairy. Enlarge image (new window) Cows wait to be milked at a dairy farm in Granby, Que., on Feb. 5. Photo: The Canadian Press / Christinne Muschi Joe Biden's administration twice took legal action over Canada's handling of the dairy quotas, claiming it was unfairly undermining (new window) U.S. access to the Canadian market. The U.S. won the first dispute (new window) , which it launched in 2021, but failed (new window) to win the second, in 2023. Now in 2025, Rasdall Vargas says her industry wants Canada to be willing to hear its true concerns and do something about them. Ultimately, when we have a trading partner who isn't taking our concerns seriously until they're threatened to do so, it's also not a good feeling from our side, she said. Whatever anyone thinks about Trump's bluster on Canadian dairy, Rasdall Vargas believes it's having an impact. I think that's the president's way of having our back, probably more abrasively than Canada would like, she said. I will say I've never seen Canadian dairy interests take U.S. concerns about Canadian dairy policy more seriously than in the past six months. Mike Crawley (new window) · CBC News · Senior reporter Mike Crawley has covered Ontario politics for CBC News since 2009. He began his career as a newspaper reporter in B.C., spent six years as a freelance journalist in various parts of Africa, then joined the CBC in 2005. Mike was born and raised in Saint John, N.B. Follow Mike Crawley on Twitter (new window)
National Post
21 minutes ago
- National Post
Laryssa Waler: Stop the tariff tit for tat — let's build a Canada the world wants to bet on
Donald Trump's threat to impose sweeping tariffs on Canada landed with all the grace and subtlety of a toddler in full meltdown mode. He and his team are considering duties as high as 35 per cent on everything from lumber to autos. Predictably, Canada is preparing retaliatory measures. Article content We've seen this movie before, but as any parent knows, reasoning with a tantrum rarely works. With two sons and 13 years spent honing my skills in tantrum diplomacy, I've learned firsthand that yelling louder or digging in rarely helps. You win by stepping back, staying calm, and changing the game entirely. Article content Article content Article content Article content First: cut the cost of capital. Canada's combined federal-provincial corporate tax rate sits around 26.2 per cent — among the highest in the G7, and significantly above the OECD average of 23.9 per cent. And with falling corporate and personal tax rates in the U.S., we're lagging even further behind. If Canada does nothing, we risk losing investment to our neighbours south of the border for good. Article content Consider Ireland, home to just 5.5 million people, where a 12.5 per cent corporate tax rate attracted giants like Apple, Intel, and Pfizer. Far from gutting public services, this strategy created a 24 billion euros (C$38.5 billion) surplus in 2023 and gave Ireland the fiscal strength to establish a sovereign wealth fund. Similarly, Singapore's statutory corporate tax rate of 17 per cent often drops even lower thanks to smart exemptions and streamlined processes. Last year, Singapore, with a population of nearly six million people, attracted nearly $190 billion in foreign direct investment — almost double Canada's performance. Article content Of course, reducing taxes and regulations won't be painless. In the short term, this transition will mean challenges — especially for those industries that have come to rely on our overly regulated, taxpayer-subsidized, Ottawa-knows-best, economy. Instead, let's shift current subsidies toward retraining programs, job transition assistance, and targeted support to help workers adjust and thrive in a more competitive, forward-looking economy. Article content Tax reform alone isn't enough — we need to replace cumbersome red tape with red-carpet service. Investors don't just look at costs; they're closely watching timelines and value predictability. Right now, Canada is infamous for project delays. Ottawa needs to deliver on its promised 'one-door, one-year' approvals guarantee. If regulators can't reach a decision within 12 months, the default answer should become yes. Article content Let's also make livability our defining advantage. Corporations don't just invest in markets — they move their families. Canada used to be a natural winner here, but our shine has dulled. Carjackings in Toronto have more than doubled since 2019, violent crime rates are climbing, and housing costs have soared — starter homes in Toronto and Vancouver regularly exceed seven figures. Our education system often seems more focused on woke social justice initiatives than on mastering the basics, and our students' math and reading scores are slipping. The reality is, the highly skilled immigrants that accompany foreign direct investments are beginning to look elsewhere.
National Post
21 minutes ago
- National Post
Kelly McParland: How Toronto built a condo glut amid a housing shortage
Article content While agonizing over six-plexes, the city is eagerly filling its crowded core with a bevy of new towers so high they've been accorded their own descriptive. At least eight 'supertall' skyscrapers are in the works, the largest (for now) being the SkyTower at the very foot of Yonge Street on the Lake Ontario shoreline, in a neighbourhood once envisioned as a sort of waterfront oasis away from the downtown crowds, but long-since abandoned to forests of obstructive condo towers and office buildings. Article content SkyTower is just the first of six high-rises planned for an address that was previously home to the Toronto Star newspaper, traditionally a campaigner for a 'liveable,' low-rise city, but which decamped last year for a posh location a short distance away. Article content At 105 storeys, SkyTower is six storeys taller than 19 Bloor West, another 'supertall' planned farther north at the confluence of Yonge and Bloor, ground zero for high-end shoppers and fashionistas. That structure, in turn, is just down the street and nine metres taller than The One, a much-troubled 85-storey real estate catastrophe that's been through partnership battles, financial crises, creditor protection and high-wire legal warfare in the decade since it was announced as what would then have been the city's tallest condominium building. It's now being revamped and completed by a court-approved builder after failing to attract a buyer a year ago. Article content Glitzy as the supertalls may appear, they find themselves thrusting skyward in a market fast plunging in the opposite direction. A survey by research firm Urbanation Inc. reported that a total of just 502 condo units were sold in the second quarter across the entire Greater Toronto and Hamilton region, an area stretching well beyond Toronto itself to include some seven million people. Article content That's down 69 per cent from last year, and 91 per cent below the average of the past decade, the lowest levels in 30 years. Only 170 of those sales were in Toronto itself. Meanwhile, 19 Bloor West alone is expected to add almost 1,300 new units when it's completed. Article content Don't reach for your hankie just yet, mind. For years now, Toronto condo sales have been largely a game of buy-and-flip. Some 70 per cent of new units went to investors hoping to make a quick profit by flipping the end product once construction ended, or renting it out at eye-watering rates. But rents are falling along with the market glut, leaving investors holding units worth less than they agreed to pay and having trouble borrowing enough to cover the difference. Dozens of developments have been cancelled or delayed as a result, many stuffed with tiny units 400- to 600 square feet in size, built by developers persuaded people would happily attempt to raise families in shoeboxes. Article content Anyone old enough to remember when Canadian teams still won Stanley Cups should know that busts are as integral to the real estate business as tyrants are to Russia. There hasn't been a serious one in Ontario since a crash in the 1990s that lasted about seven years, so a substantial shock now could hardly be deemed unreasonable. Article content Maybe it will force some useful changes. Something has to happen to that mass backlog of tiny, unwanted boxes in the sky. You can't solve a housing shortage with base prices starting at $1 million. Nor can you pretend you're building 'homes' when seven in 10 go to quick-buck investors planning to flip them at the first opportunity. Article content If Toronto politicians want to get serious about a problem they love to moan about but never really address, they'll organize a future with fewer hundred-storey playpens that will 'Transform Toronto's Skyline' — as if that should be a priority for an overcrowded city with some of North America's worst traffic — and recognize that a few hundred six-plexes would do a lot more to serve home-hungry people than another vanity project in the sky. Article content
