Just in time for the Easter holiday, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) will be rolling back thousands of prices to lure shoppers into stores for that special event shopping visit. This time, though, it's Wal-Mart's Canadian stores that will be rolling back the prices on hundreds of store shelves at each location.

The Easter holiday falls in March this year, as well as "Spring Break" for many kids (and many parents who scheduled vacations as well). As such, the mode to capitalize on a portion of this month certainly was not lost on the world's largest retailer. So, Wal-Mart will be promptly lowering prices on over 3,500 products in its Canadian stores due to Easter being the third-largest holiday shopping day of the year.

With Easter falling on the earlierstdate than in almost 200 years, this seems like a unique merchandising opportunity for any retailer. A fact that Wal-Mart recognizes is that two shopping dates -- Easter and Spring Break -- are so close to each other that it could press the wallets and purses of financially-strapped shoppers. The "price rollback" to the rescue, though. Wal-Mart's du-jour policy of competing mainly on price won't be taking a break this year.

Wal-Mart Stores (NYSE: WMT) has been trumpeting its moves into "green operations" recently, as the retailer strives to cut energy costs and make sure it is not wasting any resources in the operations of its stores and warehouses. Things like CFL light bulbs and freezers that don't run all the time have been some recent green-friendly moves. When running the world's largest retail operation, the sheer amount of energy to keep all that activity going is not a small matter, and Wal-Mart Canada, a division of the retailer, is taking one for the team by refusing to sell products from companies that use excessive packaging in their products.

Now, Wal-Mart is already stingy when it comes to the shelf space it devotes to almost all products anyway, but some manufacturers get by with larger-than-life packaging that is meant to showcase the actual product inside the package. All that excess packaging is probably just thrown away by the consumer (or recycled, we hope), but to erase that part of the equation, Wal-Mart Canada just won't sell products not conforming to smaller packaging requirements, according to the company.

Environmentally speaking, this is a great policy for the retailer. It's one that should be featured by the marketing and PR groups within Wal-Mart starting right now. The constant shots that Wal-Mart takes need to be counteracted by positive news from the retailer, and I don't see it enough. In fact, the way that Wal-Mart advertises ecologically-sound policies like this is practically non-existent, and that is not good enough. All of Wal-Mart's recent "green" initiatives may be in part publicity stunts, but they are real nonetheless. Why not scream about them from all the mountaintops in the world, Wal-Mart?

Wal-Mart Stores (NYSE: WMT) has made a pretty big PR push recently for all its "green" initiatives. From demanding smaller packaging containers to pushing eco-friendly light bulbs, the world's largest retailer wants to make sure that not only will it be a greener company, but that its customers will be greener too. Plus, it takes away from all the negative publicity Wal-Mart receives on so many fronts.

The company, regardless of motive, is doing things that really will be better for the sustainability of its locations, and also save the company money. One of the newer strategies features Wal-Mart's Canada division dimming store lighting by over 30% this summer. The retailer has a goal of reducing its carbon footprint by over 19,000 tons in 2007 -- this will help it get there.

Wal-Mart's Canada store count is 240, and the "dimming lights" project is expected to save an estimated 4,500 tons of carbon emissions over the course of the summer due to electricity savings that lead to less air pollution. It's interesting that Wal-Mart is not spinning this as a cost-savings measure but as a "saving-the-environment" measure -- and it's precisely what the retailer needs to do. Telling the world, consistently, that it's doing its part to reduce carbon emissions is a great leg on the good publicity show, which the retailer desperately needs.

In what has become standard procedure here in the U.S., four new Wal-Mart stores in Canada will be open 24 hours a day as the Christmas shopping season hits its frenzied peak next week. If there were 25 hours per day, I am sure every Wal-Mart Supercenter would be open every hour t capture as many sales as it could. There was an experiment in Transcona last year with a 24-hour Wal-Mart -- and the experiment was so successful that Wal-Mart Canada decided to expand the program this year to four new stores in Winnipeg.

Since there will be customers at all hours of the day in many countries, a Wal-Mart Canada exec said of the 24-hour Wal-Mart stance, "The feedback I got from customers was that they were just so happy that we were open." For 2006, the Wal-Mart Canada marathon begins at 7 a.m. on Dec. 18 and runs until 11 p.m. Dec. 23. During that entire time, none of the four Winnipeg-area Wal-Mart stores will close at all. The participating stores will include the Transcona, Garden City, Unicity and St. Vital locations.

In addition to the four Winnipeg stores, Wal-Mart will operate around the clock in 51 locations across Canada, according to the company. The reason? Customer demand -- especially at Christmas -- for stores to open on Sunday beyond the noon-till-six prescribed under Manitoba law. Thank goodness for people's procrastination, and of course there will be retailers who will be happy to fill that last-second gift-buying need.

Wal-Mart can breathe a sigh of relief for its Canadian operations. A union's attempt to organize the automotive department of a British Columbia Wal-Mart store has been thwarted by labor relations board in that Canadian province. Apparently, the board did not see the justification of trying to organized a specific subsection of Wal-Mart employees in a store without the entire store being included, and due to that action being considered undemocratic and unrepresentative, the attempted unionization failed.

However, a store in Saguenay, Quebec was the first Wal-Mart outlet in North America to organize a successful union drive -- so the efforts to organize a union collective are far from over in Canada and even the U.S. in my opinion. If entire stores have attempts at unionization, then that process should complete itself, even if it looks like a detriment to Wal-Mart. The employees will make the decision, and if Wal-Mart's workers feel they are not being treated fairly, a union could assist in that situation. Leave it to the employees, not politics.