The federal industry minister is calling for a review of Ottawa’s “business relationship” with Amazon after the company said it will close all seven of its warehouses in Quebec.
“They’ll have me fighting to make sure that this is not going to go unanswered in Canada,” Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne said.
The closure will eliminate 1,700 permanent jobs and 250 temporary ones. It comes after workers at an Amazon warehouse in the Montreal suburb of Laval, Que. managed to unionize in May.
Amazon is dismissing the suggestion that the closures are linked to a unionization push in the province and says it’s about delivering efficient and cost-effective services to customers.
It said in a statement Friday that it’s “happy to discuss this matter further with Minister Champagne and other officials in Quebec and Canada.”
Champagne hasn’t said how the federal government might respond. Ottawa has ongoing contracts with Amazon and the federal government’s website lists more than 200 contracts signed since 2020. Several of those contracts are worth more than $5 million, including a $22.7-million contract.
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“I’m not going to tell them what I’m going to do in advance. That’s called negotiation 101,” he said. “Let them reconsider, let them figure out what we might do as a review.”
Champagne said he spoke with the CEO of Amazon Canada and sent a letter to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy saying it’s not too late to reconsider. He posted the letter online Thursday evening.
“We’re standing up. I can tell you they were quite surprised,” he said. “I think we had more than one million views yesterday, so they’re not used to that kind of response from Canada, and I’m glad we did it.”
Champagne said the company wasn’t transparent about the extent of the layoffs in the conversation with Amazon, adding he got only half the story.
“This is also about treating Canada with respect,” he said. “I’m even less pleased than I was yesterday.”
Amazon said in the statement that when it makes “operational decisions like this, we generally share the news first with employees and then officials.”
