What's happening to e-commerce in Canada?

HBC announced that they were 'pausing' all online e-commerce activities, as well as their affiliate relationships. HBC (Hudsons Bay Company, Zellers, Home Outfitters) is the second major Canadian retailer to shift strategy away from eCommerce, after Canadian Tire pulled a similar move less than a month ago.

As part of a strategic review, Hudson's Bay Company has decided to suspend the sale of merchandise on its banner websites - The Bay, Zellers, Home Outfitters and Hbc.com as of Thursday, February 5th, 2009. Over the coming months, Hudson's Bay Company will be developing an e-commerce strategy for each of the banners and plan to re-launch in the future.

I heard today from a reliable source that Canadian Tire's shift was motivated by different reasons. Apparently, franchisees of the Canadian Tire banner complained loudly enough to the top brass that the web store was 'stealing business' from their bricks and mortar locations, and that that was one of the reasons they pulled the plug.  

Barring reasons outside of the channel (like pressure from a dealer network) is there any reason why these big retailers can't make money online?  Amazon can do it.  Is it because Canada is so vast and patio sets are so bulky?