Amazon officials evaluating Toronto as a potential host for the company’s second headquarters were keen to learn about the benefits of government-provided universal medicare, Toronto’s education system and the city’s booming tech sector.

Toronto Global, the federal-provincial-local agency co-ordinating the regional bid for Amazon’s “HQ2”, revealed those details, and few others, about Amazon’s two-day visit in mid-March.

“They were very interested in hearing more about our tech sector and the benefits that come from our publicly funded health care and education systems,” Julia Sakas, Toronto Global spokesperson, wrote in an email.

“It was a very productive and positive visit, and an opportunity for us to promote the incredible access to highly-skilled, highly-educated, diverse, global talent available to them in the Toronto Region.”

Amazon officials told the bid promoters they are visiting all 20 shortlisted cities — Toronto is the only non-U.S. finalist — and asked for discretion about details of the “working visit.”

Sakas would not say how many Amazon employees visited or where they went.

She did say that Toronto Global reinforced to the Amazon delegation the message in the region’s bid book — that the GTA has a “steady, sustainable supply of skilled talent at a cost that few others can even come close to matching. And as a result of our nimble immigration system, we offer access to the world’s top talent in a way that U.S. locations can’t match.”

Mayor John Tory’s office confirmed Tory “was glad to have the opportunity to tell the Toronto Region's unique story in person,” to Amazon officials, his spokesperson Don Peat said. The mayor told them “there is no other city region in North America that can boast the same talent, the same quality of life, the same vibrancy and economic strength.”

The Seattle-based retail behemoth says it plans to invest more than $5 billion (U.S.) into the second-headquarters and hire as many as 50,000 highly-paid employees in the city chosen to host it. The stakes have inspired a fevered competition reminiscent of those for rights to host an Olympics.

Toronto’s rivals include Washington, Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, New York City, Newark, and Raleigh, N.C.

As well as being the only city on the list where employee health costs are primarily covered by government medicare, Toronto is rare in making its entire bid public and by deciding not to dangle financial incentives that, for some bids, total billions of dollars.

A 10-person Amazon delegation toured Denver in January, the Denver Post reported.

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Chicago, aggressively courting Amazon with tools including a slick video voiced by Canadian Star Trek actor William Shatner, got a two-day visit from company officials also in March after the Toronto stop.

The Amazon delegation hit Washington, D.C., the home of company founder Jeff Bezos, in early March.

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