Let’s not play Amazon’s game

There’s something unappealing about Canadian and American mayors scrambling over one another to be the first to smooch Jeff Bezos’s boots, desperate to curry favour and get the new Amazon headquarters located in their town.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau writing a sickly letter to the Amazon founder isn’t any better. “Dear Jeff,” the letter opens, “Canadian cities are progressive, confident, and natural homes for forwardthinking global leaders.”

News reports of Amazon’s gruelling working conditions don’t strike me as particularly progressive, but never mind that. The sales pitch continues. “Hey Amazon. We’d change our name for you. Calmazom? Amagary? Love, Calgary ;),” representatives from the largest city in Alberta chalked on the streets of Seattle, where Amazon has its main headquarters.

That a company can make demands and watch 238 municipalities across Canada and the United States line up to satisfy those requests says a great deal about a corporate versus city power imbalance.

There’s more to it than the unbecoming nature of supposedly mature cities and their leaders reeking of the sour sweat of desperation and longing, glassy-eyed, for a US$5-billion headquarters and the supposed 50,000 jobs that go with it.

Beyond the wealth that comes from those two things, is this good for us, as local residents and taxpayers?

The situation, writes David Dayen in The New Republic, a U.S. magazine, is “the nation’s largest bribery scandal” and “an embarrassing orgy of corporate welfare.”

This is mostly an American problem, because for Ottawa, any money that’s tossed directly at Amazon would come from provincial or federal government pockets.

Cities can’t directly make such cash offers here.

Ed Clark, the former TD Bank president who’s heading up Ontario’s bid, says there won’t be direct cash incentives from the province either. Just other ones, such as trying to produce more graduates who’d be attractive to Amazon. Fair enough, but Ontario has bought corporations off before, offering Honda nearly $86 million in 2014 to secure its investment in an auto plant in Alliston. (Ontario’s auditor general concluded in 2015 that the province had no idea if its corporate welfare spending was doing any good.)

Now, even if Ontario were to forgo offering a bribe for Amazon, there are other examples of indirect corporate welfare that taxpayers are on the hook for more generally, as a way to attract business and development — a municipal political culture that favours the interests of corporations.

Amazon demands proximity to public transit, and while Ottawa’s already building more, this is public expense as prerequisite for private investment. Or, consider the city’s brownfields program, which exists to help private entities clean up contaminated soil.

Then there’s the land. Would Amazon buy? Lease? Would Canadian taxpayers just give it up? LeBreton Flats is national land, belonging to all Canadians. The National Capital Commission wouldn’t say, calling it “premature,” and Invest Ottawa, which is behind the local bid for Amazon’s headquarters, also said those were details to be sorted out later.

Or, how about some subtle sleaze: One of the selling points of Ottawa, according to the video pitch made to Amazon, is that corporate bigwigs will be within spitting distance of Canada’s regulators and legislators.

It’s not a particularly pleasant incentive, especially if you consider that Amazon has been investigated for violating sanctions against Iran.

Yes, Amazon promises boatloads of jobs at handsome salaries.

Is that worth the price of the cheque that could be cut? Does it make for good cities to beg corporate giants for attention? Just look at public funding for arenas and stadiums. They’re often pitched as beneficial to a city as a whole, but the research finds little evidence that this is true.

So, yes, it’d be great if Amazon came to Ottawa; the enthusiasm of the project’s backers is infectious. It would not, on the other hand, be great if it cost Ontario taxpayers a pile of money.

Even worse, by walking this path, we’re sure to already cost some other city, or state or province, a lot of money, as it plays Amazon’s game to get the best deal for its new HQ.