Musings —01.18.2018 09:44 AM
—John Tory deserves credit for getting Toronto this far
Pretty impressive, whatever happens next.
Huge @JohnTory win. 'Toronto the only Canadian city on Amazon short list of HQ2 candidates' #topoli #onpoli #cdnpoli https://t.co/Xykqh6Pv2e
— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) January 18, 2018
Oh, c’mon.
The chances that Canada would ever be a prospective location for the Amazon HQ is delusional. Cities like Winnipeg, Calgary and whomever were making a farcical gesture at submitting their application to begin with.
Vancouver would never have been a viable option, and neither would have Montreal. So which city does that leave?
Amazon leaving Toronto on their list is a gesture of goodwill towards Canadian customers. Its the only city that we could have reasonably expected to be on Amazon’s list and not get our hopes up at the same time.
With NAFTA’s looming death and a weak logistical infrastructure system, no Canadian city could reasonably compete with an American one that could provide ridiculous incentives to Amazon.
Any city that does succeed in courting Amazon is going to give up a significant amount of potential tax revenue as is because the prospective benefits will outweigh the costs and the existing infrastructure can be built on; a Canadian city just can’t provide what Amazon is seeking.
Mayors across Canada have been trying to make this an easy political touchdown and its highly disingenuous.
1) This bid wasn’t put forward by Tory. It was a group called Global Toronto and several mayors from the GTA were involved in it.
2) Cities like Boston are offering Amazon billions of dollars worth of tax breaks and other incentives. Global Toronto is not.
The chances Amazon picks the GTA are slim.
How many billions would Amazon have to spend to cover employee health costs if they chose an American city?
To answer my own question, 50,000 employees × $5,000 per year health insurance × 20 years is $5 billion.
No idea. How much do they spend on their 40,000 or so employees at their current head office in Seattle? If that were a concern, one would think they would have left Seattle a long time ago, and more than one Canadian entrant would have made the final 20. You are assuming Amazon has a strong employee benefit package.
How much would Amazon have to pay in inflated electricity prices in the GTA? How much would they have to pay in carbon taxes? How much would more would they be paying in corporate taxes in Canada vs the US?
Never under estimate how much the people of Silicon Valley hate Trump, if Toronto gets it, it will be a major anti Trump statement.
And the Ontario Liberals can take credit for making Ontario such a low-wage haven that it’s being used as a selling point :
“Amazon would save $1.5B a year in salaries if new HQ in Toronto area: Ed Clark”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/amazon-headquarters-clark-gta-1.4360079
Set up shop in Ontario and pay your employees slave wages !
Software developers are paid less in Canada then the US, but it is far from slave wages. They are probably taking into account far lower health insurance costs. Our minimum wage is higher then most places in the US. Hence, Canada has less inequity.
I understand one of their criteria is housing costs, which is a problem for Toronto.