Edmonton’s quiet Amazon bid remains shrouded in secrecy

Edmonton might be open for business — but experts say one way to really find out is to pry open the city’s confidential Amazon bid package.

Last year, Edmonton bid on a game-changing chance to bring 50,000 well-paying jobs to this city. What did it offer? Few people know.

The City of Edmonton and the Edmonton Economic Development Corp. (EEDC) have denied Postmedia’s freedom of information request for a copy of the unsuccessful proposal.

Instead, 400 pages of heavily redacted emails suggest how the bid was put together, highlighting an obsession with Calgary and a commitment to secrecy.

During the bid preparation, the mayor’s staff reassured the team that provincial officials would not share any details with Calgary.

However, EEDC chief of staff Adam Sweet complained to the mayor’s office that Premier Rachel Notley was Tweeting too much about the southern city.

Not even the mayor got a copy of the bid, says one email from EEDC telling recipients they are the only city employees to lay eyes on it. The names of the recipients are redacted.

The secrecy has several experts shaking their heads.

“It should be public,” said University of Alberta marketing professor Kyle Murray. Politicians can say whatever they want, but the bid would show what they mean.

“I’d like to see how open for business we really are,” said Murray, hoping there were serious financial incentives offered to show Edmonton knows how to play the game. “You can’t argue for diversifying the economy and then play a soft game when it comes to doing that.”

Besides, he said, for a long-shot city like Edmonton, the whole point of applying was to make a splash. “The real value in bidding was to say to the world, ‘ We’re open to this kind of business and here’s the kinds of things we’re willing to do.’ If it’s not open, you don’t get that value.”

In September, Amazon issued a North America-wide call for proposals to find a site for its second headquarters. The bid asked cities to quantify what tax waivers, grants and land incentives they could offer, and New Jersey offered up to $7-billion worth to support Newark’s bid.

Newark is one of 20 locations — 19 in the United States plus Toronto — that advanced to the next stage of proposals.

Amazon’s move created a frenzy. Some cities did make a splash. Calgary spent roughly $500,000 on its “we’d fight a bear for you” campaign, with hockey chants, chalk stencils in Seattle, site of Amazon’s headquarters, and a fullpage newspaper ad.

In total, 238 cities and private corporations entered.

CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS INFORMATION

Edmonton played a quiet game, turning down some media requests. It spent between $50,000 and $75,000 preparing the bid, and says it can’t be released because it has “confidential business information.”

“Respecting the confidentiality of our partners — both those we are working with to build a bid as well as those we are bidding to — is core to our ability to fulfil our mandate,” said Sweet, responding for the EEDC by email when asked again last week for the information.

There’s no contractual requirement with Amazon to keep it secret. Sweet said they had a marketing plan if they were shortlisted.

JUST MARKETING MATERIAL

University of Calgary economist Trevor Tombe says most of this secret bid is likely just marketing material, “though for Amazon I’m sure there were some special treats.”

Edmonton might fear releasing details will lead other companies to demand the same treatment, but that justification is poor public policy, he said.

Tombe dislikes subsidies for private companies in general. A subsidy only makes sense when it supports a public good that otherwise wouldn’t come from the market, like art or a low-income transit pass, he said. That’s not the case here, “otherwise there would be justification to subsidize every business in the city.”

‘SOMEWHAT CONCEITED’

In some ways, being secret defeats the purpose of bidding. Calgary’s bid worked because it drew attention, says Brenton Harding, a public affairs consultant who previously served in Alberta’s New York trade office.

“Just getting attention is important,” he said. “Calgary and Edmonton, they’re somewhat conceited. They believe the world knows about them. The world doesn’t.”

Subsidies are not the key to attracting business — subtle things play a role, Harding said, such as low crime rates, good transportation and the city’s attitude. Edmonton used to have a terrible view of itself. That’s now changing.

NORTH AMERICA-WIDE EFFORT

Greg LeRoy, head of the nonprofit organization Good Jobs First, said his group and other nonprofits are trying to reveal all the American bids.

The non-profit MuckRock submitted 100 freedom of information requests in the United States, tracking them publicly at muckrock.com.

Most of the bids simply celebrate what’s great about a city, which is ridiculous to hide, but historically, development has been rife with cronyism, backroom deals and projects that help politically connected friends more than the marginalized communities that pay for them, LeRoy said.

In the Amazon bids, “there’s going to be stuff people don’t like. But that’s not a reason not to put it out there,” said LeRoy, whose Washington D.C.-based organization is dedicated to increasing accountability in economic development. “We’ve never liked the secretive nature of how this all works.”

Calgary and Edmonton, they’re somewhat conceited. They believe the world knows about them. The world doesn’t.