Login Canada has joined the growing chorus of book industry voices calling for books and other educational materials to be exempt from the upcoming Canadian counter-tariffs.

The Canadian government intends to impose a 25 per cent counter-tariff on a further $125 billion worth of goods imported into Canada from the U.S. on April 2 if the U.S. doesn’t remove the tariffs that apply to Canadian goods in the ongoing trade war. Books are included in these forthcoming tariffs.

In a letter shared with industry partners on March 25, Login Canada said it is “deeply concerned about the consequences of these misguided tariffs on books,” and urged all Canadians “to make their opposition to tariffs on books known today.”

Login president and CEO Mark Champagne, in his own letter to the government, highlighted the particular risks of implementing a tariff on educational materials.

“It seems highly hypocritical to fund education programs across the country, only to apply a tariff that paradoxically increases the cost of education and reduces its accessibility for all Canadians,” he wrote. “The detrimental effects on education, literacy, and innovation in Canada, as well as on stakeholders in the Canadian publishing industry—including publishers, wholesalers, distributors, printers, and retailers (campus-based, chain, or independent)—would be enormous.”

Login’s call to action echoes a joint letter sent to Prime Minister Mark Carney last week by the Canadian Independent Booksellers Association and Indigo. In their letter, the booksellers said that not excluding books from the counter-tariffs could have “devastating consequences for Canadian readers, our businesses, and our cultural landscape.”

Many independent booksellers, as well as distributor North 49 Books, have been making a similar case on their social media pages, encouraging readers and customers to submit their feedback to the finance department in advance of the April 2 deadline.

The potential impacts of the trade war on the Canadian book business have been uncertain since U.S. President Donald Trump first announced his plans to implement broad tariffs on all goods imported from Canada. Books that go into the U.S. from Canada have so far been exempt from the U.S. tariffs, though it was not always clear that would be the case.