Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory may seemingly have little to do with the story of Amazon, but the large company is offering a Golden Ticket to a very lucky city with a chance to locate a secondary headquarters outside Seattle.
Given the desperation of North American cities to attract any sort of decent-paying jobs with tax breaks, Amazon's potential really can be a Golden Ticket.
Like any good want ad, Amazon has a few requirements: metro areas with more than 1 million people, a business-friendly environment, urban or suburban locations, good transportation, and available real estate for its $5-billion, 50,000-employee structure.
There are plenty of reasons why Amazon would not pick a Canadian city, but Canada and those cities do offer distinct advantages over their counterparts south of the 49th parallel.
Winnipeg, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, and Halifax are some of the Canadian cities making a bid.
Calgary and Edmonton can offer a lower tax system. Both cities would love to have a more consistent financial outlook that isn't tied to oil.
Winnipeg offers a lot of land and potential. Ottawa offers language diversity. But neither has strong transportation options.
Winnipeg and Edmonton offer rather cold climates; snow was spotted last week in Edmonton.
Vancouver has a lot to offer, but high prices and being really close to Seattle would be drawbacks.
Montréal hasn't been mentioned too often in the conversation. Education, transportation, quality of life, relatively inexpensive, and language diversity are supreme assets. The cost of doing business in Montréal would be discouraging as would the winter weather.
Halifax doesn't have a lot of any of the requirements. But Halifax is smart in making a bid to draw attention to its growing high-tech field in the Nova Scotia capital.
Windsor will likely be a part of the Detroit bid. That possibility would create some incredible international harmony, especially once the Gordie Howe bridge gets built.
Realistically, Toronto has the best and perhaps only shot at Amazon HQ2 for Canada. Toronto offers plenty of people, amazing diversity, growing tech segment, highly strong growth as a city, suburban infrastructure, and great transportation.
Regardless of the Canadian city, Canada offers a few advantages over the United States:
- much easier for foreign engineers to come to Canada and stay in the country
- don't have to worry about health care
- advantageous exchange rate: At 80¢ on the dollar, you only have to pay $25 U.S./hour to get $30 Canadian/hour.
- free trade agreements with Europe and potentially Asia outside of NAFTA
- more politically stable (civilized discourse, no threats to shut down government)
Data crunchers from The New York Times Upshot blog ran the numbers through and got Denver as the Amazon HQ2 winner. The blog admitted that they didn't consider Canada in its analysis.
"With apologies to Canada, we’ve set aside Toronto and several other large cities because they’re not included in most of the data sets we’ve used to determine which places meet Amazon’s needs."
Jens Von Bergmann, a data analyst for Mountain Math, crunched the numbers based on the criteria of the Upshot blog and came up with Calgary as the Amazon HQ2 winner. Quality of life gave Calgary the edge over Toronto and Vancouver in the end.
Amazon will certainly consider data in its consideration. But there is one factor that may not be as obvious. Amazon picked Seattle in 1994 at a time when Seattle wasn't as large or as expensive as it is now. Of course, some of that expensive part comes from having Amazon in a city.
If Canada has that type of city, Calgary would have been a supreme choice.
If Canada is going to be in the Top 5 choices, Toronto is still the best bet.
CanadianCrossing.com trade coverage
The Amazon chase is a microcosm of the job search. People interpret Amazon's words in a way that will help them think they have a shot at the job. They play to their strengths and dread the proverbial "what would you say are your weaknesses" question.
Even in rejection, those cities might be enhanced by a good word or encouragement from Amazon. And you can't win if you don't try.
Like the job search, there are plenty of North American cities that could really use that Golden Ticket. All but one of the cities will ultimately be left with a candy bar minus a Golden Ticket. For the city that gets the Golden Ticket, its citizens are hoping that Amazon HQ2 is their everlasting gobstopper.
photos credit: Steve Colwill; pixabay.com/skeeze
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