January 26, 1987 

Secretary of the Senate 

Simon Fraser University 

Burnaby, B.C. 

V5A 1S6 

For Information 

Dear Sir: 

Re: Action of Queen's University re Federal Government's 

Surtax on Imported Books 

The Senate of Queen's University resolved at its January 22 

meeting, to write to Prime Minister Mulroney expressing concern 

about the Canadian government's 10Z surtax on imported books. 

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Among the reasons noted by the Senate were the following: 

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1. While textbooks are theoretically exempt from the tariff, 

in practice this exemption is difficult to obtain. The 

administrative burdens of the tariff (which in many cases require 

that the tariff first be paid and the claim to exemption 

established afterward) are such that publishers and distributers 

have a strong incentive simply to pay the tariff and pass the 

costs along to the consumer. 

2. Even if exempting textbooks from the tariff were 

practicable, in a university context it is wholly inappropriate 

to make a distinction between textbooks and non-textbooks. Much 

of the learning that occurs in a university happens through 

reading which goes beyond assigned textbooks. Precisely for this 

reason university bookstores are encouraged to stock as wide a 

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range of supplementary academic books as possible. 

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3.

Because the duty is applied on all books manufactured 

outside Canada, Canadians are placed in the position of paying a 

tax (whose intent is to affect the United States) on some books 

written by their own authors. Thus books written by Canadian 

academics but published by foreign university presses, or 

Canadian books co-produced, for financial or technological 

reasons, by foreign publishers, are subject to the tariff. 

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By effectively taxing reading and hindering the free flow 

of information, the tariff undermines the work of a university, 

as well as prejudicing the government's own announced objectives 

of promoting both Canadian culture and a knowledge-based economy. 

Yours sincerely, 

Margaret Hooey 

Secretary of the Senate 