Hamilton even put $467,000 of cash behind its pitch, which it said was a 50/50 split between public and private funds.

Before falling out of contention, Calgary emblazoned the sidewalks across from Amazon’s current Seattle headquarters with messages including, “Hey Amazon. We’d change our name for you. Calmazon? Amagary? Love, Calgary ;)” and hung a 30-metre banner outside saying, “we’re not saying we’d fight a bear for you, but we totally would.” The same message ran in a full-page ad the city took out in the Seattle Times.

Halifax rolled out a flashy website mirroring Amazon’s fonts and buttons to claim that locating a second headquarters in that city would bring Amazon a savings of more than $10 billion over 10 years.

Winnipeg enlisted Blue Bomber football star Obby Khan and Mayor Brian Bowman in a cheeky video with Alexa, while Sault Ste Marie suggested that employees could canoe to work in a bid to attract the tech giant.