There is some truth to the original posting.  Not sure the company was surprised and should have done more due diligence, however, Ontario is a very expensive place to do business especially when compared to many of the states in the US.  One of the bigger differences I noted was the lack of staff (and product...) the Canadian stores had compared to the US locations.

That being said, not sure the upcoming changes with the labour laws will be any assistance with that regard.