Mayors 'Singing for the Colonel' to attract Amazon

There's lots of talk about how Mayor Watson (Ottawa) and mayors of other Canadian cities, are 'singing for the colonel" with the hopes of their city being chosen for Amazon v.2.0

But read this first: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/amazon-workers-sleep-tent...

and if you don't know what 'singing for the colonel' means, read this, a story, told often by former Prime Minister Mulroney, and recounted in the book Defining Leadership, by Bernie Swain.

'...Colonel Robert McCormick, who owned the Chicago Tribune, was going to build both a paper mill and a new town to support it – called Baie-Comeau – 260 miles northeast of Quebec City on the St. Lawrence River. The mill would supply paper for both the Tribune and the New York Daily News, which was owned by in-laws of McCormick’s. Brian Mulroney's father worked at the mill. 

"...During one of the Colonel’s visits when I {Brian Mulroney] was a teenager, he and his wife arrived with a large contingent of big shots from Chicago and New York, including Jack Dempsey, the former world heavyweight boxing champion. You can imagine the excitement in town. A large party was planned at the hotel, and I was conscripted to be a waiter, bartender, and dishwasher. My father was in the union, and he was invited to a party as a union representative.

Word went out that Colonel McCormick’s wife had a favorite song called Dearie, and company managers scoured town looking for someone who knew it. That would be me. So, between carrying plates, I stood on a table and my sister Olive played the piano and I sang Dearie. When I was done, Colonel McCormick came over, thanked me, and gave me a crisp $50 American bill, which I promptly brought home to the banker. (Mom)..."

And so, now...Canadian Mayors are once more, singing for the Colonel. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.