Home Hardware in Winnipeg Finally Opens 2025

Peavey Mart closed both Winnipeg locations in January of this year. The entire company shut down but in Alberta but is slowly opening locations again. This might not be easy in Winnipeg because their former location at 2860 Pembina Highway has been taken over by the dealer-owned Home Hardware.

The Pembina location was also formerly a Zellers so the hope is that Home Hardware will be the one that find long term success in the 30,000 square foot location. The new owners are an Inuit family that operate the EPLS Group of Companies centered along the western shore of Hudson Bay. Two Home Hardwares in Arviat and Rankin Bay Inlet in Nunavut are owned by the family already. A distribution center in Winnipeg supplies the group.

The relationship between Nunavut and Manitoba has only grown in recent years and is likely to grow more. As for Home Hardware, it is a familiar friend to those in rural Manitoba with 25 locations already in the province. Across Canada, the company has 1000 dealer owned stores. To be sure the Winnipeg location will be very big for their locations. The EPLS Group will be able to use the buying power of their Winnipeg store to get good prices and supplies for their stores up north.

All around this is a good Canadian business story. A Canadian retail outfit opens in an area of Winnipeg in need of a store for renovators and contractors owned by an Inuit business from the north. This is the best kind of story.

Over the last months, there has been some indication that some of the gaps in the economy are starting to fill. The cost of living, housing and have seen some improvement although it has been painfully slow. Supply chains is like turning a ship. It is a slow and long turn. The loss of Peavey Mart hurt several areas of the economy but Home Hardware has been adding steadily over the years and now filling gaps left by the closures across Canada.

Some businesses such Home Hardware are not easily or conveniently replaced by online. The Canada Post strike repeatedly cutting service showed rural areas the weakness of the delivery system for online products. Home Hardware, by contrast, is owned locally, supplied nationally and is located right in communities where needed. For south Winnipeg along Pembina Highway, the new store will bring people in from that area and beyond the Perimeter Highway. 

It may be we have not seen the last of Peavey Mart or Zellers in Manitoba but the ascendance of Home Hardware is undeniable.

Manitoba/Nunavut All Weather Road

Manitoba and Nunavut have announced again that they are looking at an all-weather road between the two jurisdictions.

Just how many times do they have to announce a project over and over again? Look at this from 2007:

Nishi-Khon/SNC-Lavalin consultants have completed the route selection study to determine the best route for a road link between Rankin Inlet and the existing highway network in Manitoba. The study, jointly funded by the governments of Nunavut and Manitoba and Kivalliq Inuit Association, forms one of the key initiatives being undertaken with Nunavut under a Memorandum of Understanding between Manitoba Infrastructure & Transportation and Nunavut Economic Development and Transportation.

The study included an assessment of social, economic, environmental and financial impacts of road development for each of the three potential corridors (Western via Lynn Lake, Central via Thompson and Eastern via Gillam) that were examined and included extensive community, stakeholder and public consultation.

The consultant has concluded that the recommended alignment for a route linking Rankin Inlet to the existing highway network in Manitoba is the Eastern Route Alternative. The Eastern Route Alternative starts near Gillam and runs northerly via Churchill to Rankin Inlet. The approximate length is 1 100 km and the estimated cost of construction is $1.2 billion.

The full report is here.

The NDP have to stop announcing projects over and over again and act like it hasn't been studied and costed out numerous times. Get on with it.



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