Of course I would cede to Mr. Balsillie, because he's been more on the ground there than I have, but in talking with the folks there, including Bianca Wylie, who is the citizen activist, and in reading everything that I have read, there's no question. I mean, this is how Sidewalk Labs operates.
They go into cities offering things that the municipality cannot afford and they do it for a quid pro quo—the suspension of law. They say, “We'll come into your city and provide all of these things, but we don't want to have to deal with policies and we don't want to have to deal with politics, so you're going to have to clean all that up if you want our money.”
This is the direct bypassing of democracy in order to impose their vision, which ultimately is aimed at their own narrow commercial purposes.