Last January, Amazon announced 20 cities as finalists for its soon-to-be-built US$5-billion headquarters, which it says will house up to 50,000 employees. Unlike many finalists, Toronto did not offer Amazon any tax incentives in its initial bid.
Amazon has revealed almost no public information about what it’s asking Toronto—or any of the 19 American cities that are also finalists—to offer.
But, an analysis of lobbying records by The Logic shows that after Toronto was shortlisted, Amazon dramatically ramped up its efforts to get government contracts for its cloud services business from the federal government, Alberta and British Columbia and the City of Toronto.
