Canadian Booksellers Fight Amazon

MAIN NEWS HEADLINES
March 11 – March 18, 2010 Edition

TORONTO/AUTHORLINK NEWS/03/11/10–The Canadian Booksellers Association last week urged the Ministry of Canadian Heritage to reject Amazon.com’s application to enter the Canadian market, claiming that such a move “would detrimentally affect the country’s independent businesses and cultural industries.”

In a press release distributed on March 8, the association urged those opposed to Amazon.com’s entry into the Canadian market to write or e-mail their local ministries.

“Individual Canadian booksellers have traditionally played a key role in ensuring the promotion of Canadian authors and Canadian culture,” said CBA President Stephen Cribar in a statement. “These are values that no American dot.com retailer could ever purport to understand or promote.”

In the press release, the CBA contended 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 and be of net benefit to Canada and the Canadian-controlled sector.

“CBA urges the Canadian government and the Department of Canadian Heritage to continue its support of our unique cultural perspective by placing reasonable limits on American domination of our book market and rejecting Amazon.com’s current application.