Closure of its warehouses in the province | Quebec wants to wean Amazon

The Government of Quebec is studying the possibility of doing without the services of the Amazon giant, to whom it granted tens million dollars in public contracts, in the wake of the closure of its warehouses in the province.
In response to a question from the Quebec Solidarity co-spokesperson, Ruba Ghazal, at the Red Salon on Tuesday, Prime Minister François Legault said that he had entrusted the president of the Treasury Board, Sonia Lebel, the mandate to “review the contracts” with the American company.
“Obviously, you have to be careful not to have a [effet] Boomerang where Amazon wins because we break a contract. We will first look for the next contracts, we will try to avoid Amazon. Then we are looking at if we can break, indeed, the contracts with Amazon, “he explained.
If there is nothing but the Prime Minister “would also dream” than to replace Amazon, it should be a major challenge. The blue basket, set up during the pandemic, represented an attempt in this sense, which turned out to be unsuccessful.
“You have to have a site that is as beautiful, I would say, or as easy to use as that of Amazon, then it also supposes to have home delivery everywhere,” said François Legault.
Lebel tempers expectations
Before journalists, Sonia Lebel, however, tempered expectations. His mandate, “is to examine our behavior, of the government, facing this business”. “But you know, the first responsibility of the government is not to take revenge on a business, but to see in the best interest of Quebecers,” she said.
Photo Josie Desmarais, Archives La Presse
Sonia LeBel
If employees of the Quebec public sector sometimes buy articles on Amazon, its IT services by far represent a greater expenditure for the State.
Since 2011, $ 88.8 million in IT services have been bought by Quebec in Amazon for data hosting by its Amazon Web Services subsidiary (AWS).
The digital giant is the largest supplier in the world of infonuagic services to the public sector. Its global market share at the end of 2024 was 31 %, compared to 20 % for Microsoft and 12 % for Google.
Amazon is however only the fourth infonuagic supplier of the Quebec public sector, in value of the contracts received since 2011, according to data compiled by The press from the government’s electronic tender system. Its share of this market is around 4 %. Microsoft largely dominates, at 30 %.
A boycott claimed
The termination by Quebec of its contracts with Amazon was claimed by the CSN which launched Tuesday a boycott campaign against the multinational following the announcement of the closure of warehouses in Quebec.
The Central Union estimates now, counting the employees of these warehouses and those of subcontractors who lose their jobs in stride, that 4,500 workers are affected.
The workers of the Amazon Laval warehouse had accredited a union, attached to the Commerce Federation, affiliated to the CSN, last April. However, they had not yet managed to negotiate their first collective agreement.
It was the only Amazon warehouse in Quebec where workers were unionized. However, a unionization campaign was underway in other establishments.
During a press conference on Tuesday in Montreal, the president of the CSN, Caroline Senneville, claimed to see an anti -syndical gesture. “This decision, it comes at a time when there are other attempts to unionize elsewhere in Canada. And it is, in our opinion, an intimidation measure with regard to these workers. »»
With Lia Lévesque, the Canadian press