Walmart Canada

Walmart Canada was established on January 14, 1994, through the acquisition by Walmart of 122 Canadian leases of Woolco, a subsidiary of Woolworth Canada. These Woolco stores were renovated and converted into the Walmart banner. Walmart did not acquire 22 other Woolco stores that were either unionized or had downtown locations. Some former Woolco stores were sold and re-opened as Zellers stores. By acquiring these Woolco storefronts, Walmart Canada had expanded to 260 stores by 2005, making it Canada's second-largest retail chain. The first CEO of Walmart Canada was R. Bruce West.

All 16,000 former employees of the Woolco stores that Walmart acquired were retained, retrained, and given a five percent raise. Mario Pilozzi, a senior vice-president at Woolco when the deal was signed, eventually became CEO of Walmart Canada. Pilozzi, who retired in 2008, has proclaimed that he and "his management team took a limping chain and turned it into the Walmart powerhouse that became a game-changer on the Canadian business scene. Retailers changed, Canadian manufacturers faced demands and volumes they had not seen before, real estate transitioned from enclosed malls to big-box plazas". Reflecting on the 1994 deal in 2013, a Walmart Canada spokesman was quoted as saying "Even though Woolco had seen better days and was struggling, there was still an enormous amount of talent in that company. I think that is one of the reasons Walmart has succeeded in Canada, is because we started with a fantastic team that we re-motivated".

On July 24, 2009, Walmart Canada Bank was incorporated under the Bank Act in Canada. On May 17, 2018, Wal-Mart Canada announced it had reached a definitive agreement to sell Wal-Mart Canada Bank to First National co-founder Stephen Smith and private equity firm Centerbridge Partners, L.P., on undisclosed financial terms. On the purely coincidental date of April 1, 2019, Centerbridge Partners, L.P. and Stephen Smith jointly announced the closing of the previously announced acquisition of Wal-Mart Canada Bank and that it was to be renamed Duo Bank of Canada, to be styled simply as Duo Bank. Though exact ownership percentages were never revealed in either company announcement, it has also since been revealed that Duo Bank was reclassified as a Schedule 1 (domestic, deposit-taking) federally chartered bank of the Bank Act in Canada from the Schedule 2 (foreign-owned or -controlled, deposit-taking).

In 2015, Walmart Canada disabled their online photo site, blaming a third party vendor, believed to be PNI Digital Media. Walmart's shutdown was followed shortly after by other companies suspending their photo site whilst an investigation took place. In common with other potential victims there was no confirmation or denial about whether hackers had stolen customer photographs as well as data and payment information. In September 2018, Walmart Canada began offering same-day delivery at some of its locations through a partnership with Instacart. Later, on March 15, 2021, Walmart Canada announced that it would close six stores and spend over $500 million to renovate over 60 percent of its stores over the next five years. Following this, in the summer of 2023, Walmart opened a new, 140,000 square foot supercentre in Montreal, raising the total number of Walmart locations in Canada to 403 as of December 2023. Additionally, the company also announced that it has invested nearly $1 billion in 2023 alone to renovate its stores, and launch its "Store of the Future" in Mississauga, Ontario.

Since 1994, many of the shopping centres in which Walmart is located have been developed by SmartCentres (originally known as First Pro), a real estate company founded by Mitchell Goldhar. At present, Smartcentres is the landlord for approximately 100 Walmarts in Canada. Beginning in the fall of 2006, Walmart opened new Supercentres in Canadian cities. Walmart Canada also operated Sam's Club stores in Ontario from 2003 to 2009. On February 26, 2009, they announced that it would close all six of its Canadian Sam's Club locations. This was part of Walmart Canada's decision to shift focus towards Supercentre stores, but some industry observers suggested that the operation was struggling to compete with Costco and the non-membership Real Canadian Superstore (known as Maxi & Cie in Quebec).

In June 2005, Vancouver City Council voted 8–3 to reject Wal-Mart's proposal to build its first store in the city, a 143,000-square-foot (13,300 m2) store on Southeast Marine Drive. All eight Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) councillors against the project, while Mayor Larry Campbell and Non-Partisan Association (NPA) councillors, Sam Sullivan and Peter Ladner, were in favour. Wal-Mart's proposed store was designed by local architect Peter Busby for sustainable development, with windmills generating power and underground wells heating and cooling the building which would consume 1/3 the energy of a normal store, and it was endorsed by city planners and staffers. Councillor Anne Roberts stated that her opposition was due to potential traffic and congestion that the store would bring to south Vancouver, although she later remarked "I'm not a fan of Wal-Mart, and I've always been concerned about their labour practices, about getting goods from sweatshops".

In 2011, Walmart Canada acquired the leases of 39 Zellers stores from Target, originally one of the 189 leaseholds purchased from Hudson's Bay Company and slated for conversion to Target Canada stores. Walmart Canada managed to convert and reopen some of the former Zellers stores before Target Canada's launch. Unlike Walmart's 1994 move into Canada, Walmart Canada this time did not guarantee the jobs of the employees whose stores it was acquiring.

Walmart Canada launched the "Urban 90" format in 2012, a set of smaller Supercentres averaging 90,000 sq ft (8,400 m2). On May 8, 2015, following the bankruptcy of Target Canada, Walmart Canada announced its intent to acquire 13 former Target locations, along with its distribution centre in Cornwall, Ontario subject to court approval. These locations included an unopened location at the Bayshore Shopping Centre in Ottawa.