Well beside the wages paid to local employees, income taxes on those wages, corporate income taxes paid in Canada, GST/HST collected on sales, and of course profits earned by wal mart that can be attributed to Canadian investors
@archited Not to mention the revenue generated to Canadian producers who sell their products to Walmart, the money they spend on utilities, transportation, storage. They might not be good, but I doubt a Canadian-based big box retailer would be any better. Real Canadian Superstore's owner, Loblaw Co., also explores their employees, kills smaller competitors and ships a lot of it's profit abroad (might I remind you that the Weston family is mostly UK-based).
The money these things make circulate locally is still a net positive, especially when you consider how long a space such as that one was empty, generating nothing but costs.
And then there's the likely additional foot traffic at the mall itself, which could very well help sustain the current businesses there, if not stimulate the opening of new ones. The concept of anchor stores is not completely outdated and, if there's a good synergy between the mall and the anchor store, it can be very beneficial.
Not no mention that this is now another grocery store that can be reached by LRT, which might prove itself very useful and beneficial to a lot of people, especially students and people who chose not to have a private vehicle, considering our climate, after all, how many of these do we have? If we're being realistic, we have Safeway at Southgate and Save On Foods on Jasper/109. If we're being generous, we have Save On Foods on 112 ave/82 st, Safeway in Century Park and Superstore in Clareview, and even these are a bit of a walk in the winter. We'll have the Ice District City Market, but it caters to a higher income public.
