[mynegation]

I commend the position of Toronto's mayor John Tory who said (I am paraphrasing here): "no tax breaks, if you come - come based on our merits as a city alone".

Toronto is not likely to get Amazon for various reason (political climate being probably more important than tax breaks)

[apercu]

To clarify, you mean the current US political climate?

In all honesty, unless Amazon was going to go to Mississauga or Markham or something like that, I'd rather not have them. We need more jobs in the burbs, not more pressures on the inadequate Toronto infrastructure.

[mynegation]

Sauga and Markham are outside of Toronto municipality and - strictly speaking - are already not on the list. From the shortlist, they do not look like something Amazon is shooting for. They are in Seattle proper, not Kent or Everett.

Yes, I mean US political climate. Ontario Provincial govt created the commission headed by Ed Clark and issued a bunch of statements[1], but I had the impression that above city level they are like whatever.

[1] https://news.ontario.ca/opo/en/2018/01/statement-from-premie...

[apercu]

Sorry I wasn't clear. Yes, I know they aren't considering the burbs. But if they were (Toronto burbs, at least Mississauga, are something like the 30th largest cities in NA)it would be better than jamming Amazon and 50k employees in to Toronto.

[Bartweiss]

> Toronto is not likely to get Amazon for various reason

Which is the reason this competition happens. The top few candidate cities could all call truce and trust that they'll come out ahead over many iterations, but cities that expect they're not in the running without perks will never win the collective bargaining game. So they put up money, and the original strongest players respond to secure their positions, and the race begins.

[burfog]

Political climate is something that could go either way.

A city like Seattle would be comfortable for existing employees. It would do nothing to attract talent that dislikes that political climate.

[mynegation]

That's right. I actually have a pet theory that Toronto has already been chosen, but all this shortlisting thing is a theatre and removing almost all Canadian cities in the first round is for plausible deniability of the preference for Canada. I know, I know...

[walshemj]

cough cough Vancouver aka Hollywood north

[mynegation]

LOL Toronto is vying for this nickname too. I cannot know why Amazon decided against it for the shortlist, but I suspect that cost of living and housing situation that is even worse than Toronto and lack of the geographic diversity played the role.