Walmart plans to spend $6.5 billion to build stores and enhance its supply chain in Canada, a move that comes on the heels of the American retailer naming a new leader for the country.
Walmart, based in Bentonville, Arkansas, said the money will be spent over the next five years on the construction of dozens of new outlets across Canada.
"Walmart Canada is on an ambitious growth journey to serve even more Canadians, better and differently than ever before," Gui Loureiro, regional CEO of Walmart Canada, said in a statement. "This $6.5 billion investment is the largest we've made in Canada towards expanding our footprint since we first arrived here 30 years ago."
Walmart credited outgoing Canada CEO Gonzalo Gebara for leading the growth planning. The company, with a network of 400 stores nationwide, said this month that Gebara was stepping down after a 25-year career and would be replaced as president and CEO by Venessa Yates in the coming weeks.
Walmart Canada also said it has completed the $3.5 billion investment program it first announced in 2020. That spending effort included the modernization of 180 stores, the construction of four new stores, and the creation of distribution facilities in Cornwall, Ontario; Surrey, British Columbia; Rocky View County, Alberta; Moncton, New Brunswick; and the Vaughan, Ontario.
The Cornwall operation sits about an hour’s drive west of the would-be Vaudreuil warehouse just beyond the Ontario border. Walmart surprised some observers when it cancelled plans to occupy a 457,000-square-foot fulfillment centre in Vaudreuil, just west of Montreal at the end of 2023.
Walmart will start its expansion with five new so-called supercentres in Ontario and Alberta, all of which will be open by 2027.
Plans include a location in Port Credit just west of Toronto that Walmart said will open in the summer of 2025. Another location at the Hopedale Mall in Oakville, Ontario, is scheduled top open in late 2025, and the locations in the Alberta cities of Calgary, Edmonton and Fort McMurray by 2027, Walmart said.
The retailer also said it had signed an agreement with Canada Cartage, the country's largest provider of fleet services, to buy Walmart Canada's fleet business.
"Canada Cartage has deep expertise in providing dedicated fleet services and has been serving Canadian businesses for more than 110 years," Matt Kelly, vice president of the supply chain for Walmart Canada, said in a statement. "Through Canada Cartage, we can serve customers even better and more flexibly and provide fleet employees with exciting growth opportunities at one of Canada's largest and most trusted supply chain service providers."
Walmart's expansion comes with Seattle-based Amazon's decision this month to close all its warehouses in Quebec and eliminate 1,700 jobs as it moves to third-party delivery in the province.
Walmart previously closed a retail store in the city of Jonquière after its employees unionized in 2004. The retailer has not been entirely absent from Quebec, however, as it opened a 140,000-square-foot outlet at the Marché Central shopping centre in mid-2023.