Pedestrians pass a Mountain Equipment Co-op store in downtown Toronto.Fred Lum
An online protest against Mountain Equipment Co-op last weekend was a small one but it quickly led to a big decision: On Thursday, the outdoor-gear retailer cut ties with brands that make water bottles and stand-up paddleboards but are owned by a U.S. company that also sells assault rifles and ammunition.
The controversy began to arise after the murder of 17 people at a Florida high school in mid-February. People in sports such as running and cycling thereafter realized brands such as CamelBak were owned by Vista Outdoor Inc. The Utah company owns Savage Arms, which makes assault rifles similar to the gun used in the Florida killings.
The protest against MEC selling Vista Outdoor brands emerged with a petition and tweets and Facebook posts. MEC on Sunday night on Twitter said the question would be a top management priority on Monday. Thereafter, MEC provided daily updates. Signatures on the petition to end ties with Vista Outdoor topped 50,000. Early Thursday morning, MEC chief executive David Labistour announced in an open letter to MEC's five-million-plus members that the co-op would stop selling the Vista Outdoor brands.
The decision comes amid a rapid trend: Numerous U.S. companies are backing away from deals they have with the National Rifle Association. Retailers such as Dick's Sporting Goods have said they won't sell assault rifles any more.
But MEC went a step further. The co-op doesn't sell guns. Still, it decided to stop carrying several popular products, because their corporate owner was in the guns business. For MEC, the question of corporate ownership is a new frontier in social responsibility. And MEC's experience this week showed a new level of intensity from customers.The co-op has always had impassioned members, even in seemingly small matters. When MEC changed its brand name to initials from Mountain Equipment Co-op, some people were upset.
"We speak about living in an exponential world," Mr. Labistour said in an interview. "The speed at which this has happened compared to the last big ones has been way faster. This is an example of the changing velocity of the world we live in. If there's a lesson for corporate Canada, it's, boy, pay attention to consumer sentiment, because this stuff can move very quickly."
Later on Thursday, another Canadian retailer, Running Room Ltd., with 110 stores in Canada and the United States, said it would stop buying from CamelBak, which makes water bottles and similar products. The Stanton family, owners of Running Room, cited the concerns of many customers with the connection to assault rifles.
Running Room, as with MEC, said it will do a review of all its suppliers and vendors "for any other potential conflicts."
CamelBak is based in Petaluma, Calif., apart from its Utah parent, and sought on Thursday to distance itself from Vista Outdoor. The parent company, meanwhile, said nothing and did not respond to requests for comment.
"A major concern for the boycott centres around the incorrect assumption that the purchase of any of our products may support a cause that does not fit the mission/values of our brand. That is not the case," CamelBak's statement said. MEC said analyzing corporate structures will take time to figure out.
MEC had long-standing connections to brands such as CamelBak, which predate current corporate ownership. Vista Outdoor became an independent company in 2015, spun out from Alliant Techsystems Inc., a large U.S. aerospace and defence industry company known as ATK. That year, Vista Outdoor paid US$400-million for CamelBak, as it tried to diversify away from guns and ammo. Mr. Labistour noted that sentiments on this issue were scattered, but the majority of MEC members wanted the co-op to cut ties with Vista Outdoor.
Vista Outdoor brands are widely sold in places such as Costco and Walmart. Some retailers such as Canadian Tire Corp. Ltd. are carrying on business as usual. Canadian Tire owns Sport Chek. Canadian Tire sells ammunition from Vista Outdoor's Savage Arms and Sport Check sells products such as bike and ski helmets from Vista Outdoor's Giro and Bell.
"Canadian Tire and its family of companies carries a wide assortment of products ranging from sporting goods and casual apparel to automotive and home decor," company spokeswoman Joscelyn Dosanjh said in an e-mailed statement. "To meet the diverse interests of Canadians, we always consider product mix, assortment and customer preference when determining what products are sold in our stores."
Canadian Tire did not address the question of Vista Outdoor.
Mr. Labistour said MEC doesn't have any control of the issue, but the co-op's decision-making could have a small influence on a conversation around the need for greater gun control.