Independent bookstore owners across Quebec and Canada are sounding the alarm over the federal government’s plans to slap further retaliatory tariffs on American goods, which will include books.
At Librarie Pulp Books and Cafe in Verdun, co-owner Alex Nierenhausen
is bracing for impact.
“The margins for independent bookstores, bookstores in general, are some of the slimmest in the retail industry,” he said. “We really, cannot afford to take any kind of hit.”
But a big hit is expected to come on April 2, when books will be included on Canada’s list of 25 per cent counter tariffs.
It’s an unprecedented move Nierenhausen says will affect more than half of Pulp’s books, adding that it will devastate Canada’s literary industry, and have little impact on the U.S. economy.
“We can’t absorb the 25 per cent tariff ourselves,” he said. “We would shutter within weeks.”
Faced with unaffordable books costing $5- $15 dollars more, Nierenhausen fears readers will have no choice but to turn to sites like Amazon, which he says can afford to absorb the tariffs.
It’s not only American books that will be affected, because some English-language Canadian books are printed in the U.S., warehoused there, and then shipped to Canada, especially if they’re with a major publishing house.
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s book ‘Value(s) is among those books printed south of the border.
It’s a complex issue, and the solution is not as simple as simply choosing to buy Canadian books, explains Rebecca West of the Association of English-Language Publishers of Quebec.
“Where was the book written? Where is the paper sourced from? Where is the book actually printed? Where is it then warehoused and distributed, and then where is it ultimately sold? So, you know, in the process of the creation of one Canadian book, it’s really often a multinational if not global process.”
West says in the past, books and other cultural products have been exempt from tariffs.
“Books should not become weaponized. and in this really complex and ongoing trade war, it would be unprecedented,” she said.
If the U.S. responds in kind by taxing books coming from Canada, many fear it would be a devastating blow to Canadian authors and publishers who rely heavily on sales in the U.S.
“We do not want, our great Canadian books going to the States to have any disincentive to be purchased by American bookstores or libraries,” said West.
As the deadline approaches, independent bookstores across the country have been taking to social media, calling on book lovers to write to their MP, hoping with enough pressure the government will remove books from the tariff list.
“We have to rally the troops, we have to start making some noise,” said Nierenhausen
