On April 28, a group of workers and activists occupied the lobby of the Hydro Quebec headquarters in Montreal to protest the provincial government's continued support and subsidies for Amazon. The action was organized by Workers' Alliance and the "Here, We Boycott Amazon" campaign as a part of their week of economic disturbance.
The North Star spoke with André-Philippe Doré, co-spokesperson for the boycott campaign, about the motivation for the action:
"We estimate that $170 million in rebates were given to Amazon for their servers, for their large data warehouses. The electricity installation for their data centre in Varennes was free. What we're criticizing is that Hydro-Québec is giving gifts to Amazon. In return, Amazon is taking away 4,700 jobs in Quebec."
Public funds for Amazon
Since Amazon began negotiating with the Quebec government in 2018, the list of incentives and benefits offered to the American multinational has been long: a 15-year tax holiday, re-zoning of farming land, reduced electricity rates, and lump-sum subsidies. The CAQ pulled out all the stops for Amazon. The pay-off was supposed to be thousands of jobs for Quebec workers, a disastrous deal in light of the company's decision to exit the province in response to the first Amazon warehouse unionization in Canada.
Félix Trudeau, president of the Amazon union in Laval, spoke to The North Star during the occupation:
"Despite Amazon's massive layoff of 4,700 people in Quebec, the company and its subsidiary, Amazon Web Services, continue to benefit from preferential electricity rates. [...] I think it would be very interesting to calculate in terms of money what Hydro-Québec actually gives in subsidies to Amazon, but if we were to compare that with what the government gives to Amazon workers, whatever the figure, it would be hilarious because $0 is what the Quebec government offers to Amazon workers. [...] No help is being given for probably the biggest, if not one of the biggest anti-union, mass layoffs in the history of Quebec."
Amazon has just shifted its warehouse operations to a more exploitable non-unionized subcontracted workforce and continued its profitable Amazon Web Services operations which are made more lucrative by the preferential electricity rates offered by Hydro-Québec and government contracts, Trudeau explains:
"In the end, Amazon hasn't really stopped their operations in Quebec; they're still trying to make money in Quebec. That's what's even more terrible about the situation: Amazon hasn't withdrawn from the Quebec market, not only with deliveries, but also with AWS, making money off the backs of Quebec workers. The provincial and municipal federal governments have completely tied themselves, hand and foot, to AWS for a lot of government services, they have really rolled out the red carpet for this multinational."
Management of Hydro-Québec in favour of the private sector
The CAQ government's continued financial support of Amazon, after it disgraced the workers, the people, and even the government itself, demonstrates its intention to sell out to private interests over the public good.
This was not the only failed investment of public resources to private multinationals undertaken by the Legault government. In March of 2025, the Swedish battery maker Northvolt declared bankruptcy, with over $700 million in public finances and preferential energy rates lost for a battery plant that will never be built.
Furthermore, the CAQ government's proposed Bill 69, fiercely opposed by Hydro-Québec workers, would open the door to the selling of public energy assets, the privatization of energy, rising consumer electricity prices, and the subcontracting of public jobs.
Trudeau was quick to draw the links between the government's attitude towards public resources and the preferential treatment towards private companies:
"We're seeing an attempt by multinationals and the Quebec government to attack the working class, to attack our living conditions, our working conditions, our rights. [...] We see this same logic of putting profit before everything else at work here with the attempt of Hydro-Québec privatization and in subsidies to Amazon."
"We stand in complete solidarity with the Hydro-Québec unions currently in negotiations. It is clear that their struggle is entirely legitimate, and their struggle is precisely against the privatization of Hydro-Québec. Their struggle against the CAQ's anti-worker reforms is also our struggle."