“Major Reinvention in Progress” says a sign in bold, capital letters, hanging above the entrance to a newly renovated Sears in Erin Mills Town Centre.

The irony wasn’t lost on customers heading in and out of Canada’s failing department store on Tuesday afternoon, hours after Sears Canada announced its plans to close down all operations, putting its 12,000 store employees out of work. The news comes after Sears already closed 59 stores and announced the closure of another 11, including stores at Fairview Mall and Scarborough Town Centre.

“Reinvention for who?” said Carolyn Hitchinson, a longtime Erin Mills resident, on her way into Sears. “That sign really irritates me. It is a misrepresentation of what they’re doing, getting ready to sell before Christmas and letting all those poor people go.”

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Liquidation sales at stores, including at Erin Mills Town Centre in Mississauga, are scheduled to begin Oct. 19 and would take 10 to 14 weeks to complete, pending court approval.

As a watch repair licensee for Sears for the past three years, Shaukat Hussain was holding out hope that the department store would secure a buyer. However, as of Tuesday, Sears had been unsuccessful.

Now, Hussain says his livelihood is in jeopardy. The 67-year-old isn’t sure he’ll be able to find a place to rent that’s as affordable or draws in as many customers as the small area off of Sears’ main lobby here.

“There’s a tradition for customers of going to Sears to have their watches fixed and (the brand) Sears gives them extra trust and confidence in my service,” said Hussain who repairs as many as 50 watches a day.

“It’s sad what’s happening. My customers say, ‘What will we do without Sears?’”

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That’s a question Irene Ranieri, 87, doesn’t have an answer for on her way to pick up presents for a dozen grand- and great-grandchildren.

She worked at the Square One Sears for 25 years, from the 1970s to mid-1990s. She said she “thoroughly enjoyed” working in the catalogue division, assisting customers who were picking up their ordered items.

“At one time it was a thriving industry,” Ranieri, 87, said. “I’m very, very disappointed.”

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Shoppers Margaret and Jack Leishman both grew up in small Quebec towns and, as children, waited eagerly for the Sears catalogue to arrive. As a young married couple, they’d drop off their orders and pick up their purchases at the Sears office in Lachute. When they and their two daughters made the move to Mississauga 27 years ago, Sears was the first place where they shopped. In the first years of his retirement, Jack, 80, said he would wander over to browse “everything” — appliances, clothing, tools.

“We’re devastated,” said Margaret, 75. “Really, honestly devastated.”

The Sears catalogue is what defined Christmastime for Hitchinson when she grew up in the 1960s.

“It was a big thing,” she said. “I’d wait for the catalogue and then cut, cut, cut and lay out all the things I wanted for Christmas.”

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