London Mayor calls for provincial push for Amazon, critic says chances slim

An IveyBusiness school professor calls London's chances of bringing Amazon to town "slim to none" but Mayor Matt Brown believes a collaborative approach might help bring the retail giant to Ontario.

The Seattle-based company announced last week aplan to spend more than $5 billion to build asecond headquarters in North America, a project that Amazon said would create50,000 jobs over15 years.

The retail giant put out calls for bids to compete for the opportunity, which has drawn attention from several Canadian cities including London. Brown and Coun. Josh Morgan will present a letter of proposal to other councillors on Monday.

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However, Davin Raihawho's an assistant professor at Ivey, said thatAmazonwill most likely choosean American city.

"I don't think that London or any Canadian city has a very good chance at getting these headquarters," he said. "Canadian jurisdictions are not as competitive as U.S. jurisdictions in terms of aggressively pursuing these big projects."

Province wide approach

Raihaalso said the city would have to be confident with its technology leadership, which he said still has a long way to go.

"London's got a lot of attractive features to it but it's not the immediate obvious place when you think of electronic commerce," he said.

Raihapointed to another stumbling blockfor Canadian cities interested in Amazon: finding enough employees who could cross back and forth tothe United States. A potentially tricky situation given the current political climate in the U.S.

For his part, Mayor Brown is calling for a province-wide approach to luring Amazon.

"It's going to require a team Ontario approach communities from right across the province working together and putting out the best collective foot forward and saying this is something we can do collectively."

Still, Brown would prefer to have Amazon in London, possibly with workers from other cities in Ontario commuting to Londonusinga proposed high speed rail system.

"We're looking at opportunities to benefit from an investment like this whether in London, within the region, or across the province, it would have a positive impact."

Politicians in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal and Calgary have expressed interest in havingthe tech giant buildintheir cities.