Imperial Oil's Calgary campus was photographed on Tuesday, September 30, 2025. Photo by Brent Calver/Postmedia

They had two hours to dread what was about to happen.

Staff at Imperial Oil Ltd. got an email in the early afternoon on Sept. 29 asking them to show up for an all-hands meeting later in the day.

They were about to get some life-changing news. Their employer, a major oil producer almost as old as Canada, was going to reveal a dramatic shift in strategy. Imperial would be selling its sprawling headquarters in Calgary, cutting hundreds of jobs and potentially outsourcing many of those positions overseas.

One worker said they had suspected something was up, but nothing that seismic. The worker, who spoke with the Financial Post on the condition their identity remains confident

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