Keep Amazon out of Canada, booksellers ask
Written by on March 9th, 2010 in Latest News.
The Canadian Booksellers Association is trying to block Amazon.com from setting up a distribution centre north of the border.
Amazon now uses Canada Post to fulfil Canadian orders from its U.S. hub. The company has applied to the Canadian Heritage and Official Languages office to establish a cultural business in Canada.
But the booksellers association argues the additional competition would not be a net benefit to Canada or the Canadian-controlled bookselling sector.
On Monday, association president Stephen Cribar wrote a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Industry Minister Jim Flaherty and Heritage Minister James Moore, outlining the concerns.
“Individual Canadian booksellers have traditionally played a key role in ensuring the promotion of Canadian authors and Canadian culture,” Cribar said in the letter. “These are values that no American dot-com retailer could ever purport to know or promote.”
The association contends that allowing Amazon to operate a business within Canada would contravene the Investment Canada Act, which requires that foreign investments in the book publishing and distribution sector be compatible with national cultural policies. Canadian cultural laws also protect the Canadian book industry from foreign competition.
In 2002, the booksellers association failed in its attempt to block Amazon.ca from having an online presence in Canada. Ottawa ruled at the time that the Investment Canada Act didn’t apply to Amazon.com as long as it had no bricks-and-mortar retail presence in Canada.
