MONTREAL — Amazon is pulling out of Quebec. The company said that it will shutter its seven fulfillment and sorting facilities in the province in the next two months, with more than 1,800 full- and part-time workers set to lose their jobs. The move follows the unionization of an Amazon facility in Laval in May 2024.

“Following a recent review of our Quebec operations, we found that returning to a third-party delivery model supported by local small businesses, similar to the one we had until 2020, will enable us to offer the same excellent service and deliver even greater savings to our customers in the long term,” said Amazon spokesperson Barabara Agrait in an emailed statement.

Amazon will continue to operate in Quebec and people and businesses within the province will still be able to trade and buy on Amazon.

The company said the move was unrelated to the successful union drive at its DXT4 facility in Laval by the Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN) in May 2024—the first and only in Amazon’s 13-year history in Canada. 

Amazon had attempted to stop the unionization effort by challenging the constitutionality of Quebec’s labour law. The province’s labour tribunal ruled against the company the following October, saying the CSN’s drive was legitimate. That same month, CSN spokesperson François L’Écuyer told The Logic that the union federation was actively campaigning at Amazon’s six other facilities in the province.

In a statement, CSN president Caroline Senneville decried what she called the company’s “rash closures,” and said the company’s plan to use subcontractors for its warehousing and distribution operations in the province goes against Amazon’s well-established model. “There are limits to taking us for idiots,” Senneville said. 

During a round of negotiations last week, Amazon offered a zero per cent wage increase to the union at DXT4, Senneville told The Logic. The decision to close its Quebec facilities was a “gesture of intimidation” designed to stifle further unionization efforts in the country, she said. 

Real estate-wise, it will be a relatively easy exit for Amazon. The company doesn’t own any of its facilities in Quebec; rather, it signed leases with some of the province’s biggest property development firms, including Montreal-based Broccolini. Apart from making it easier to close up shop, Amazon’s rent-not-own strategy has been a boon not only for these firms but for a bevy of Canadian real estate investment trusts, property managers and public pension funds. 

It’s not the first time a large retailing conglomerate has left Quebec shortly after one of its facilities unionized. In 2005, Walmart shuttered its store in Jonquière, about 200 kilometres northeast of Quebec City, after its employees voted to unionize, resulting in 190 layoffs. The company also closed a tire and oil change garage in 2008 in Gatineau, Que., after employees secured a collective agreement. 

This article has been updated to include additional comments from CSN president Caroline Senneville.