No business is too big to fail and plenty of once-prominent Canadian firms have collapsed spectacularly due to factors ranging from poor management and overleveraging to plummeting demand and unbeatable competition. We take a look at 15 major companies that bit the dust.

A Canadian institution, Eaton's was founded in 1869 by Northern Irish immigrant Timothy Eaton and grew to become the nation's number one department store. The much-loved Toronto-based chain, which was one of the first in the country to do away with haggling and offer a money-back guarantee, boasted an iconic catalogue and was one of Canada's biggest private employers.

Eaton's market share peaked at 50% during the 1950s, but it was all downhill from there. A combination of fierce competition from Sears, poor management by the Eaton family and a downturn in sales following the early 1980s recession crippled the chain. Eaton's finally folded in 1999 after 130 years in business and was sold off to arch-rival Sears Canada.

Canadian Airlines was once the country's second biggest airline after Air Canada. At the peak of its operations in the mid 1990s, the Calgary-headquartered carrier, which featured a Canada goose on its logo, flew to 160 destinations around the globe and had 11.7 million passengers per year. It pulled in billions of dollars and was a founding member of the Oneworld airline alliance.

The airline's demise came in the late 1990s. The Asian economic downturn in 1998 hit the international carrier hard, and its performance began to nosedive. In 2000 the vultures moved in and the airline and its aircraft were bought up by rival Air Canada. The Canadian Airlines brand was ditched and the merger was finally completed in 2001.

If you're of a certain age, you might remember shopping at Towers discount department store, or Bonimart as the chain was known in Quebec. You may have even scored some serious bargains there. Founded in Toronto in 1960, the retailer had 51 locations across the country at its height. In 1987, Toronto's Towers Riverdale store even featured in an episode of Degrassi Junior High.

Famed for its in-house restaurants and cheesy TV commercials, the chain got into financial trouble in the late 1980s and was acquired in 1990 by Hudson's Bay Company and merged into Zellers. The last Towers/Bonimart stores closed their doors for good the following year, and the chain was no more.

However, Zellers, the discount department store chain that swallowed up Towers/Bomimart, sadly met the same fate. Established in 1931, the cheap and cheerful retailer was purchased by Hudson's Bay Company in 1978 and expanded aggressively during the 1990s. By the end of the decade, the cut-price chain counted a total of 350 stores nationwide.

Then Walmart showed up and rained on its parade. During the 2000s, Zellers just couldn't compete with the American upstart and the Canadian firm lost significant market share. In 2011, the retailer's remaining 220 stores were offloaded to another US company Target, which rebranded the vast majority of locations. Still, two Zellers-branded stores survive to this day in Ontario.

Target on the other hand has completely disappeared north of the 49th parallel. The company's Canadian subsidiary came into being in 2011 upon the purchase of Zellers from Hudson's Bay Company. The firm pursued ambitious plans to expand throughout the nation, openining 124 stores almost overnight in 2013, but soon fell flat on its face.

Uncompetitive pricing and a poor selection of goods on offer compared to its stores in the US resulted in an epic fail for Target Canada. The retailer lost billion of dollars in what was described as an “unmitigated disaster” by Maclean's magazine. In 2015, Target had to call time on its Canadian operation and every single store was shuttered.

Proceeding its lookalike the DMC DeLorean by seven years, the Bricklin SV-1 sports car was the brainchild of American entrepreneur Malcolm Bricklin. The unique vehicle, which wowed motor enthusiasts with its gull-wing doors and plastic bodywork, was assembled in Saint John, New Brunswick from 1974 to 1975.

The launch of Bricklin SV-1 in 1974 caused something of a sensation, but despite wall-to-wall publicity, the Canadian car crashed and burned. Quality control issues, parts shortages, unsustainable price increases and an unreliable workforce sealed its fate and the vehicle was discontinued the following year. All in all, just 3,000 models rolled off the production line.

Dominion was Canada's leading supermarket chain from the 1950s well into the 1980s. Founded in 1919, the chain is remembered by older Canadians for its catchy jingle that ended with “It’s mainly because of the meat!”, a slogan that is unlikely to go down well with today's multitude of vegan and vegetarian shoppers.

Supermarket price wars during the 1970s and 1980s battered the chain's bottom line and the firm was acquired by A&P Canada in 1985. Many of the stores went on to be rebranded and parts of the chain were sold off to Loblaw and other retailers. Metro bought A&P Canada in 2005 and by 2009, all remaining Dominion stores were converted into Metro locations.

Canada 3000 came into being in 1988 and was the world's largest charter airline during the late 1990s serving 90 destinations in 22 countries including the US, UK, France, Iceland and Fiji. In 2000, the airline went public raising tens of millions in its IPO and bought two rival operations in early 2001. Canada 3000 was on a high.

Then 9/11 happened. The devastating terrorist attacks on America led to a massive dip in revenues for the airline at a time when they had recently expanded. Unable to carry on, Canada 3000 abruptly ceased trading in November 2001 and filed for bankruptcy, leaving as many as 50,000 passengers stranded at destinations across the world. 

Founded in 1966, Dylex owned a number of instantly recognisable retail brands including BiWay, the discount store that would make many a 1990s kid cringe when dragged in there by their parents, Thriftys, an altogether cooler clothing chain, women's clothing company Braemar, and more.

Overleveraging to fund expansion in the US spelled the end for Dylex, which had bitten off more than it could chew. The firm filed for bankruptcy protection in 1995 and its brands were all sold off by 2001. Today, just Fairweather and Tip Top Tailors survive, but plans are afoot to revive the BiWay chain, with a store poised to open in Toronto's North York neighbourhood this summer.

Canada's one-time leading music retailer, Sam the Record Man was established in 1959 and boasted 140 locations coast to coast by the 1980s. The flagship store in Yonge Street, Toronto was a mecca for music lovers and its neon sign emblazoned with two supersized vinyl discs fast-became one of the city's most famous landmarks.

Sam the Record Man was a victim of the internet as well as competition from the likes of HMV. By the late 1990s, the chain was floundering and it entered bankruptcy in 2001. The Yonge Street flagship held on until 2007, before it too succumbed. Thankfully, the eye-catching sign survived and was recently restored and re-erected at a location on Victoria Street overlooking Yonge-Dundas Square.

Seagram started out in 1857 as a humble whisky distillery in Waterloo, Ontario and enjoyed rapid growth in the 1920s thanks to Prohibition south of the border – Seagram supplied American bootleggers with huge amounts of booze at this time. The firm continued to expand impressively during the 20th century and was considerably cash-rich by the 1980s.

During the 1980s and 1990s Seagram diversified in a big way, buying up a 24.3% stake in chemicals giant DuPont, French cognac maker Martell and a controlling interest in MCA, which had assets that included Universal Theme Parks. Many of the firm's acquisitions were ill-advised however and the conglomerate imploded in the 2000s.

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Another Canadian airline that failed in a majorly spectacular way, Jetsgo offered cheap flights domestically and to scores of destinations in the US and Caribbean. At one time, the budget airline, which launched in 2001, was the third largest carrier in Canada and controlled a hefty 10% of the domestic market.

The airline was only off the ground for several years until it encountered serious problems. Abysmal management, sky-high fuel prices, intense competition and more were its undoing, and on 11 March 2005, Jetsgo suddenly halted services and entered bankruptcy protection, stranding thousands of understandably irate passengers. Despite plans to relaunch, the airline went into liquidation in May of that year.

Founded in Sorel-Tracy, Quebec in 1977, Jacob cornered the market in chic formal clothing for the discerning female customer and by the early 2000s the chain had 200 boutiques across the country. Strictly for grown-ups, the company's stylish offerings flew off the racks until H&M and Zara arrived on the scene.

Jacob struggled to compete with these European retailers and their more affordable price-points, and its sales slumped. The chain declared bankruptcy in 2014 and shuttered the majority of locations. Five boutiques in Quebec stayed open for a time, but these stores have since closed. While there are no plans for it to return as a retailer, Jacob is now selling a limited line at Costco and is looking to relaunch its popular range of perfumes.

Back in the 1980s and early 1990s, Canadians wanting to spend their hard-earned cash on computers and gadgetry made a beeline for their local Future Shop store. The chain, which was established in 1982, was the country's largest retailer of PCs and consumer electronics at the time and turned over hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

During the late 1990s, increased competition hurt the business and Future Shop was acquired by US rival Best Buy in 2001. The American firm continued to operate Future Shop as a distinctive chain, but called time on the brand in 2014. The remaining 66 Future Shop stores were subsequently converted to Best Buy locations.

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Nortel was established in Montréal in 1895 as the Northern Electric and Manufacturing Company. One of Canada's oldest telecom companies, the venerable firm pioneered numerous innovations most notably in digital communications. In its hey day, the company represented over 35% of the value of Toronto’s Stock Exchange and employed 94,500 worldwide.

Nortel made the fatal error of snapping up California's Bay Networks for an inflated price at the height of the dot-com bubble and lost market share to Cisco in the 2000s. Mismanagement and accusations of accounting fraud didn't help, and as a result, the multinational's share price tanked. In 2009, the firm collapsed in what was then Canada's biggest corporate bankruptcy, leaving pensioners, shareholders and ex-employees high and dry.

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