Booksellers, Indigo ask court to force government to... -
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Published on: 8/3/2002
Last Visited: 8/3/2002
"We're asking for a technical review," said Todd Anderson, president of the booksellers association which represents independent booksellers across the country.
"We're arguing a very technical point of the law," Anderson said in an interview."We're arguing, yes they're a Canadian business."
The government's book policy requires Canadian control of any company that distributes, publishes or sells books in Canada.
Seattle-based Amazon.com side-stepped the Canadian ownership restriction by creating Amazon.ca, which launched June 25, as a U.S. company with no employees or place of business in Canada.
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Anderson said the federal government has a responsibility to properly review Amazon.ca, the Canadian online operation of U.S.-based Internet book retailer Amazon.com, under all the Canadian regulations.
"It is incredible that our government could take the position that a business of the scale and scope of Amazon.ca in Canada, under the control of non-Canadians, with a massive domestic supply, warehousing, marketing, and delivery operation, all in Canada expressly to sell to Canadians, would not be subject to the Investment Canada Act and the book policy," Anderson said in a statement Friday.
In its application, the association notes three other similar cases, including one between Indigo and U.S. retailer Borders Inc., where retailers were prevented from starting up business in Canada.
"The book policy limits foreign investment in the retail book distribution business to Canadian controlled joint ventures and accordingly would prohibit the Amazon.ca business," the application notes.
Anderson explained that the association and Indigo don't want to shut Amazon.ca down, adding that the retailer already sold books into the Canadian market through its U.S. Web site before Amazon.ca was established.
"We want them to play by the rules that everyone else has played by," he said."We want them to invest in Canada and we want them to have 51 per cent control by Canadians."
© The Canadian Press, 2002
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