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David Halsey didn’t envision spending his retirement years working as a sales associate at Canadian Tire.

But it’s where the former Sears Hometown store dealer has ended up after walking away from his unprofitable Lindsay, Ont. store a year and a half ago.

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“At 67 I’m working for $11 an hour,” Mr. Halsey chuckles.

“You do what you have to do. We used all of our retirement savings and we sold our house, sold all of the trucks we had for deliveries. We had to get rid of everything and we took a loss on it, but we had no income.”

Mr. Halsey and his wife Darlene are among hundreds of Sears Hometown store dealers represented in a $100-million class action lawsuit against Sears Canada that was certified this month. The dealers allege Sears Canada systematically depleted their livelihoods by changing commission structures and diverting sales away from dealers and towards its online site, Sears.ca.

Sears’ Hometown outlets have long been a fixture of small towns and villages across Canada, but they have plunged in number to 222 from 276 locations in the past two years. Seven of them have closed down this month alone.