Federal Minister François-Philippe Champagne told the boss of Amazon Canada that he was going to request a “review” of “business relations” between Ottawa and the extremely wealthy multinational which announced the end of its activities in Quebec on Wednesday.
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In a “very tough” call with the director in question on Wednesday, Mr. Champagne expressed his “frustration” and “deep concern” about the way Amazon handled the announcement of its decision.
On Thursday, Mr. Champagne told the Politico media outlet that he had not received any call or notice from Amazon regarding the closure of its 7 distribution centers in Quebec, ending the employment of nearly 2,000 employees.
“I know that a lot of CEOs of multinationals, when they intend to do something that would have an impact on workers, on Canadian industry, are used to giving notice to discuss and review the situation,” declared the minister in an interview that The Journal could hear.
-“That was not the case, and the fact that I had to initiate the call with the CEO of Amazon Canada was completely unprecedented, in my experience,” he added.
The Journal calculated that various federal government departments and agencies have awarded at least $145 million in contracts to Amazon since 2020, most of them for cloud computing and IT services. The real amount could be around $200 million.
Mr. Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, told the head of Amazon Canada that he was going to “request a review of the business relationship that exists” between the federal government and the multinational.
He said he had already spoken to colleagues about it.
Amazon’s decision “cannot go unanswered,” he said.
