City of Montreal announces it will stop ordering from Amazon

A delivery truck drives past Amazon's DXT6 warehouse in the Montreal suburb of Lachine on Monday, Jan.27, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christinne Muschi

Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante announced on Thursday afternoon that the city would stop ordering from the U.S. giant Amazon until further notice.

In a post on social networking sites, Plante said that the city was “going through the list of (its) suppliers with a fine-tooth comb to find local or international alternatives.”

“Despite the reprieve from customs tariffs, Montreal is not letting its guard down,” wrote the mayor. “We are showing solidarity and buying local whenever possible.”

US President Donald Trump has threatened to impose tariffs of 25 per cent on Canadian products and 10 per cent on energy. Earlier this week, he postponed the implementation of these tariffs until March.

On Jan. 22, Amazon announced that it was changing its business model in Quebec and would therefore be closing all its warehouses there.

Including the employees of these warehouses and those of subcontractors who are losing their jobs in the process, some 4,500 workers are affected, according to the CSN.

In August 2023, the Journal de Montréal reported that the City of Montreal was spending the equivalent of $1,000 every day on Amazon.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Feb. 6, 2025.