Amazon stays course on Quebec shutdown plan despite pressure from Ottawa – Montreal [Video]

Plans to close all seven of Amazon warehouses in Quebec are unchanged, the company said Friday even as the federal industry minister called for a review of Ottawa’s “business relationship” with the online retail giant.

“They’ll have me fighting to make sure that this is not going to go unanswered in Canada,” Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne said Friday.

The closure will eliminate 1,700 permanent jobs and 250 temporary ones. It comes after workers at an Amazon warehouse in the Montreal suburb of Laval, Que. managed to unionize in May.

Amazon dismissed the suggestion that the closures are linked to a unionization push in the province and has said it’s about delivering efficient and cost-effective services to customers.

Initially the company said in a media statement Friday that it’s “happy to discuss this matter further with Minister Champagne and other officials in Quebec and Canada.”

Champagne said in an online post …