Sask. bookstore owner concerned about Canadian tariffs on U.S. goods

Canadian retaliatory tariffs on American goods are expected to come into effect on Wednesday, and Canadian bookstore owners are hoping to keep books exempt from the import tax.

Peter Garden is the owner of Turning the Tide, a bookstore in Saskatoon. He said books written by Canadians are often printed in the United States, and would therefore be included in the tariffs.

Read More:

• Saskatchewan reverses ban of U.S. alcohol products that are produced in Canada
• Canola tariffs hit hard as AgriStability program falls short: Sask Oilseeds
• Trump threatens Canada, EU with more tariffs if they collaborate to harm U.S.

“The counter tariffs are meant to hit American-written and published books,” he said. “The problem that a lot of booksellers have been putting out is that there are a lot of Canadian-authored books that are printed and warehoused in the U.S.”

Garden said a lot of publishers moved their warehouses from Canada down to the U.S. about 10 years ago.

“It’s going to be very difficult, from a tariff perspective, to tell the difference between a Canadian-authored book and a U.S.-authored book,” Garden explained.

Garden said Canadian bookstores rely heavily on American-printed books, but he added that his store has a large number of Canadian-made books as well.

“We punch well above our weight in terms of the sale of Canadian-authored and published books,” he said.

“But still, two thirds of the books are coming from outside of Canada, and I would say the majority of those are U.S.-published and authored books.”

But Garden said it’s not as simple as just pivoting to sell only Canadian authored and printed books, as books are a unique product.

“Books aren’t like other goods,” he explained “If somebody’s looking to read a certain book, like the new book in ‘The Hunger Games’ series, (they’re) unlikely to substitute another book for that.”

Bookstore owners still aren’t sure how much of a price increase books will see due to the Canadian tariffs, and Garden said the Canadian Independent Booksellers Association has been negotiating with publishers.

“It sounds like, in the shorter term, that the publishers are going to try and eat a lot of the tariff cost,” he said. “I don’t think that that’s a sustainable solution to this… there may be a putting off of reprinting books. There may be other supply chain issues.”

Last week, Laura Carter, executive director of the Canadian Independent Booksellers Association sent a letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney, along with Heather Reisman, the founder and CEO of Indigo Inc.

The letter asks the federal government to keep books exempt from the retaliatory tariffs, citing economic issues along with the educational value of reading.

In the letter, Reisman and Carter said books are a fundamental tool for education, research and intellectual development, adding that Canadian bookstores will feel the effects of the tariffs while companies like Amazon will likely be able to evade them.

Garden said the message to the government was clear.

“Don’t tariff books – it’s too complicated,” he said. “In (the) industry, there’s going to be collateral damage that’s probably going to hurt the industry more than it helps.”