That's a fair point. There may be others who do it.
At this stage, I guess I would ask what we are afraid of exactly. I think there are positives and there are negatives with respect to the big sellers, including the Chapters/Indigo type. I hear from many smaller publishers and authors who have many complaints about some of those big stores, and others who say they appreciate the fact that they're readily available.
This may sound a bit hokey, but I looked at the way Canada was during the Olympics—this proud, confident country, not afraid to be out there saying we're Canadian. I think it was fantastic. We all loved it. I would love to see that kind of energy and confidence in other areas, and it seems to me that a policy that expresses real concern that a foreigner might own a bookstore and that this might somehow harm a Canadian author or a Canadian publisher runs completely counter to the kind of confident country that I thought we saw in Vancouver last month.
We have nothing to be afraid of. I think Canadian authors and publishers are world-class. I think they are well established, and that there's no reason to think that even a foreign-owned book seller is going to change any of that.