Outside the DXT4 Amazon warehouse in Laval, Quebec, hundreds of workers and their allies held a picket line on Feb. 5. At Canada’s first unionized Amazon warehouse, they demanded that the company immediately end its illegal campaign of union-busting, which culminated in the company announcing it was closing all Quebec warehouses.
Those workers are part of a broader movement against Amazon, which has exploded onto the political scene in the province since the American tech giant announced it was leaving on January 22. The province is buzzing around a rapidly growing campaign to punish Jeff Bezos’ company—the fourth largest in the world by value, and the second largest private employer—for its attacks on workers.
All levels of government have a role to play in responding to this attack on workers’ rights. They have a number of tools in their toolbox, if they decide to use them.
Cancel contracts and subsidies
The governments of Quebec and Canada hold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of contracts with Amazon, primarily with Amazon Web Services (AWS) for cloud hosting services and IT support. It should immediately begin the process of preparing to find other providers.
The federal government has signed over 200 contracts with Amazon since 2020. The vast majority of these are with AWS for online infrastructure for federal agencies and associated consulting fees. The largest of these contracts are from the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and Health Canada—but they cover many departments, from Natural Resources Canada to the Canada Revenue Agency. Quebec, for its part, also holds a significant amount of contracts with AWS for provincial agencies, with contracts valuing over $170 million.
Beyond those contracts, Quebec has also given a number of sweetheart deals to the company which could be rescinded—including allowing it to pay significantly reduced electricity rates at its data centre in Varennes. Amazon was also granted a 15-year tax holiday in Quebec because of the scale of its investments in the province.
The federal government has already committed to review all of its contracts with Amazon, and Quebec Premier Francois Legault has said that he is exploring the possibility of severing the province’s contracts with the company. Legault’s party, however, voted down a motion from the opposition party Quebec Solidaire which would have committed the government to provide no further funds to Amazon.
Quebec, for its part, does a relatively significant amount of business with local cloud providers. The federal government relies more heavily on American cloud infrastructure—something which, as the U.S. becomes more belligerent in its dealings with Canada, could lead to serious problems around data security.
It would be difficult to break existing contracts in mid-session, but governments could absolutely take on a commitment to no longer do business with Amazon. Doing so would require the construction of our own cloud servers and internet infrastructure, rather than relying on AWS and other American tech companies like Microsoft. It would be a smart move for Quebec to take advantage of its head start and build an industrial strategy for a Quebec-based cloud infrastructure which could replace American companies in Canada.
Choke out the subcontractors
When Amazon announced it was leaving Quebec, it specified that customers could still make and receive orders—just that now, rather than having their warehouses and logistics be run by the company itself, they would be run by subcontractors.
For the most part, these companies don’t officially have employees—they have “contractors” who are paid per delivery, rather than per hour. Contractors also don’t have access to employment insurance, benefits, workplace protections, or any of the basic rights that workers have won over generations. They generally pay for their own vehicles and repairs. They do not have the right to unionize.
The distinction between such companies—many of which are fly-by-night operations which only exist to fulfill Amazon orders—and Amazon itself is dubious. They are an integral part of the “Amazon model,” and the company’s logistics operation could not exist without them. Amazon is now using them as a shield to maintain market access without having to respect Quebec’s labour laws.
Governments could ban the exploitative practices associated with gig economy operations, and require that such companies classify their workers as employees rather than contractors. This would allow for workers to access labour tribunals in order to keep companies in line with labour law—and directly attack Amazon’s strategy of maintaining market access without any of the contingent responsibility for workers.
Nationalize the warehouses
Amazon has opened a total of seven warehouses in Quebec since 2020—important infrastructure which could be taken over and put to public use in a scaled up public logistics network.
The 4,700 workers who lost their jobs at Amazon could be given priority in the hiring process for staffing the newly public warehouses and delivery network. The government could levy punitive fines on Amazon for its illegal union-busting and make it pay for any retraining.
This would require industrial planning from the federal government. Canada Post, as a ready-made and publicly owned logistics network in Canada, is the most obvious candidate to lead that transition—and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers has a well-developed plan for service expansion.
Doing so would provide a shot in the arm to Canada Post, which has been struggling to keep up with low-wage competitors like Amazon. It could help the crown corporation take back market share in the crucial parcel sector, where it has consistently lost ground in recent years to gig economy operations. Competition from such operations has put the future of the post office in jeopardy. The one-two punch of banning exploitative gig practices and handing over more infrastructure to the post office could reorient the sector as a whole.
Send a message to union-busters, save Canada Post, and get former Amazon workers back on the job quickly, with significantly improved working conditions—nationalizing the warehouses is a path to all of those ends simultaneously, if done properly.
While Amazon would likely complain of unfair trade practices, this move would likely be allowed under the terms of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), the free trade deal which regulates trade between Canada and the United States. Section 14.8 of that agreement explicitly allows for governments to expropriate property and resources if the action is “for a public purpose,” follows the laws of the country, and includes compensation for the expropriated party.
The United States government could—and likely would—still challenge the action in a state-to-state trade tribunal, and may decide to respond unilaterally, as it has already done with its unprompted tariff threats. Canada, however, would have a strong legal case to justify nationalization.
All of these moves are possible using existing legal frameworks. They also neatly fit within a plan to make Quebec and Canada more self-sufficient in the face of an increasingly unreliable, unstable, and unhinged United States.
It has become popular across the political spectrum to say that Canada needs to be more independent. Taking on Amazon would be a huge step in that direction.
