One of the big factors driving our housing affordability crisis is that it's become much more expensive to build new housing than it used to be. But why? To get an overview of what's driving growth in housing costs, we're joined by Russell Hixson, the editor of SiteNews, a trade outlet covering Canada's construction sector. 2:12 - What it costs to build housing in different cities now, and why it's increased so much. 5:53 - Where builders are seeing their costs grow the most. 7:59 - What's happening with lumber prices. 10:06 - How builders have responded to higher costs. 14:14 - How costs break down between materials and labour. 19:56 - How a shortage of construction labour is driving up costs. 23:33 - Potential technological solutions that could lower costs in the near term. 28:57 - What policy changes could be made by governments to lower costs. ----- Links: SiteNews More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

There are a lot of exciting developments happening in the neurotechnology space that could dramatically improve how we detect, prevent, and treat cognitive decline and conditions like dementia and diseases like Alzheimer's. On this episode, one of the world's foremost neuroscientists, Dr. Allison Sekuler, joins us to talk about her work in this field, some of the innovations she's most excited about, how innovations in AI and AR/VR will be applied to brain health, and what it's going to mean for how we age. Also: We get her advice on how to keep our brains working well into our old age. 🧠 6:45 - How cognitive health changes as we age 9:22 - What are the most important factors impacting brain health, and how people can prevent cognitive decline 12:49 - Innovations in treatments of cognitive decline 15:58 - How new tech is making it possible to detect dementia and Alzheimer's earlier than ever 20:30 - Is brain health among Canadians getting better or worse, overall? 27:19 - Some of the most promising technological innovations in the space, and the companies working on them 31:07 - Applications of AR/VR for brain health 35:18 - How large language models and the human brain differ, and whether AI will ever get good enough to be indistinguishable from human cognition 39:46 - Applications of AI for brain health 42:21 - Is technology making our brains less healthy? ----- Links: Cogniciti brain health test: https://cogniciti.com/ Centre for Aging + Brain Health Innovation: https://www.cabhi.com/ Free hearing test: https://www.baycrest.org/Hearing-Services/Audiology-(Hearing-Services)-(1) More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

This time last year, not many people were predicting the economy would look like it does today. Many big name economists predicted that we would need to endure years of high unemployment to get inflation back down to a more manageable level. So why were those forecasts so off? And what lessons should we draw from what happened last year to inform our predictions for the economy this year? Roger Aliaga-Díaz is Vanguard's Global Head of Portfolio Construction and Chief Economist for the Americas. He joins us on this episode to talk about his outlook for the economy in the year ahead and how the last cycle is shaping his thinking. 1:57 - What's the outlook for Canada's economy this year. 3:04 - Why rates are likely to stay elevated for years to come. 7:11 - How government spending pushes rates higher. 9:08 - Why so many economists got inflation wrong and what lessons we can learn. 16:52 - What are the factors keeping inflation above the 2% target. 19:25 - How should ordinary investors think about allocating their investments this year. ----- Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

And we're back for 2024. On this episode, Daniel Foch, real estate investor and co-host of the Canadian Real Estate Investor Podcast, joins us to break down the state of Canada's housing market heading into 2024 and his bets for the year to come. 5:46 - The three possible scenarios ahead of us 8:26 - What a soft landing in the economy means for housing 10:48 - The looming "renewal wall" in mortgages and what it means 13:21 - Why Canada is turning into a renters economy 14:58 - Why purpose-built rentals are becoming popular again 19:12 - Why the government doesn't actually know much about who owns what real estate 23:52 - What's happening with rents 27:04 - The impact of international students on the rental market 36:27 - Do rental builds still pencil if population growth slows? 42:04 - The impact of recent zoning changes on supply 53:00 - Dan's bets as an investor for 2024 ----- Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

The Free Lunch gang and Brett Chang from The Peak Daily podcast see how their forecasts from last year fared and make some new calls for the year to come. Thanks for listening, and see you back in the new year. Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

Adin Wener is one of the owners and founders of Henderson Brewing Company, one of the largest craft breweries in Toronto, and he joins us today to explain the ins-and-outs of the craft beer business, from supply to chains to hardware innovation to product development. 3:10 - What is Henderson Brewing and how did it grow? 7:11 - Why craft beer boomed, and where it's at today. 9:13 - The basics of the craft brewery business model. 11:29 - How bars and restaurants choose what beer to serve. 14:10 - The margins on brewing beer vs. hospitality and events. 18:55 - How Henderson develops new beers. 25:06 - Why some beers flop. 27:59 - Are young people drinking less than in the past? 31:36 - Why non-alcoholic beer is getting better. 36:58 - What sort of innovations have there been in brewing? 42:33 - Big trends in beer and alcohol. — Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

As Ontario's Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade, Vic Fedeli has been front and centre for some of the largest investments in the province's history happening in clean tech. He joins us today to talk about how he thinks about industrial policy, what it takes to attract businesses to the province, and why he thinks the big bets the province has taken on EVs and batteries will pay off. 3:28 - What does it mean to "sell Ontario"? 6:41 - What businesses is the province trying to attract? 9:11 - How the province has worked with the federal government to attract business. 12:06 - The case for the province's large investments in battery and EV plants. 17:00 - Does Ontario have a shortage of skilled workers needed for cleantech? 19:48 - Has the province embraced industrial strategy? Is that a change from the past? 30:17 - Which one federal policy would you change to attract more business to the province? — Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

Crypto has been through a challenging period, with the sharp decline of prices in DeFI and NFT markets, the collapse of FTX, and Binance's CEO facing criminal charges. But with Bitcoin on a sustained rise, there are signs that the crypto winter may be ending. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong joins us to talk about what's next for the industry and his long-term vision for crypto. 2:33 - After everything that's gone down in the sector, why should people still care about crypto? 5:50 - What use cases for crypto is Brian most interested in? 8:59 - Is crypto a useful hedge against inflation? 12:00 - How crypto could shape monetary and fiscal policy. 13:11 - How should people protect themselves from the volatility of crypto? 15:32 - How does Coinbase make its money now, and how will that evolve? 20:01 - What's the regulatory environment for crypto like in Canada? 21:23 - As crypto becomes more regulated, do exchanges become just another centralized financial institution? 24:36 - Brian's long-term vision for crypto and what motivates him. — Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

Jeremie Harris, co-founder of AI safety research company Gladstone AI, joins us to explain the fallout from the OpenAI board shakeup, what it means for the AI space, and the implications for work on AI safety. 2:37 - What went down at OpenAI 7:19 - What this means for Microsoft 9:00 - Winners & losers post-shakeup 11:04 - The conflict between the AI safety crowd and accelerationists 14:23 - Differences between OpenAI and Anthropic's approach to safety 17:23 - Impact of OpenAI changes on AI safety 21:58 - Was there a breakthrough at OpenAI? What is Q*? 32:09 - What would real-world consequences of better AI be? 41:06 - The effective altruist movement and role it plays in AI 47:45 - Are we making progress on AI safety problems? What's the prognosis? — Links: Gladstone AI (https://www.gladstone.ai/) Last Week in AI Podcast (https://www.lastweekinai.com/) Jeremie's first episode on Free Lunch (https://readthepeak.com/episodes/a-disturbing-conversation-about-ai) More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

In a lot of ways, the economy we have is created by our laws. That may seem obvious, but it’s easy to forget that when you’re just going about your business, all those little daily transactions happen with a larger framework. Things like how much the stuff you buy costs and what people get paid are, to a great extent, determined by the laws we make rather than just “economic laws.” One of the most important pillars of that institutional framework our economy functions in is competition law, and to really understand Canada’s competition laws and how they work, on this episodewe’re joined by Professor Jennifer Quaid. Professor Quaid is an Associate Professor and Vice-Dean of Research in the Civil Law Section at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law, and she’s worked on some of the most important competition cases in Canada.  Today’s show is a true deep dive, and quite long, so we’ve turned it into two parts. In the first part last week, we looked at the details of what competition law is for, and how it’s meant to work in Canada. In this episode, part 2, we look at how that law was applied in the case of the Rogers-Shaw deal, and some of the changes to competition law the federal government is exploring now.  — Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

In a lot of ways, the economy we have is created by our laws. That may seem obvious, but it’s easy to forget that when you’re just going about your business, all those little daily transactions happen with a larger framework. Things like how much the stuff you buy costs and what people get paid are, to a great extent, determined by the laws we make rather than just “economic laws.” One of the most important pillars of that institutional framework our economy functions in is competition law, and to really understand Canada’s competition laws and how they work, on this episodewe’re joined by Professor Jennifer Quaid. Professor Quaid is an Associate Professor and Vice-Dean of Research in the Civil Law Section at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law, and she’s worked on some of the most important competition cases in Canada.  Today’s show is a true deep dive, and quite long, so we’ve turned it into two parts. In this first part, we get into the details of what competition law is for, and how it’s meant to work in Canada. Next episode, in part 2, we’ll look at how that law was applied in the case of the Rogers-Shaw deal, and some of the changes to competition law the federal government is exploring now.  — Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

Two things are true: Electric vehicles have never been better, and the vast majority of people in Canada (and the US) still aren't buying them. So what's going on? Has the EV transition hit a roadblock or are these natural growing pains that will get worked out in time? And how are the automakers factoring all this into their plans for the future? Brian Kingston, President and CEO of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association, joins us on this episode to explain what's going on inside the automaking sector and where the Big Three automakers see challenges and opportunities when it comes to EVs. ----- Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

This episode originally aired in July 2023. Canada's population is growing quickly. Really quickly. Last month, we surpassed the 40 million mark, and we're growing faster than any other G7 country. Between 2016 and 2021, Canada has grown twice as quickly as the US. And the reason for that growth is simple: Immigration. Of the growth we saw in 2022, immigration accounted for around 95% of it. And this is by design. By 2025, the federal government wants to add 500,000 new permanent residents to Canada every year. So how our immigration system works matters quite a bit.  But a growing number of economists and experts are warning that it might not be working so well anymore. One of those people is Mikal Skuterud, a professor in the economics department at the University of Waterloo and the Director of the Canadian Labour Economics Forum.  Mikal has argued that the economic case for immigration policy has begun to break down as Canada has tried to scale up the number of people coming here. On this episode, he joins us to explain exactly how our immigration system works and why, in his view, it has started to fail.  ----- Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

The cost-of-living pressure created by high inflation and rising interest rates hurt consumers, of course. But it's also creating headaches for many retailers. In this episode, Marty Weintraub, leader of Deloitte's National Retail Consulting practice in Canada, joins us to explain the many ways that the cost-of-living squeeze Canadians are feeling is also impacting the retail sector, from a sharp uptick in shoplifting to a squeeze on mid-tier stores. ----- More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

Many of us have a vague sense of what industrial policy means, and we might even have an opinion about the specific forms it can take. But that fuzziness around even the definition of industrial policy has made studying it — and learning what makes industrial policy succeed and fail — difficult. Dr. Réka Juhász is trying to change that. Through her innovative academic work (and that of her collaborators at The Industrial Policy Group), she is advancing our understanding of how governments are using industrial policy, and what specific policies they are adopting. On this episode, Réka walks us through how she took a new approach to researching this topic, what actually constitutes industrial policy, and why she believes more governments have turned to these policies in recent years. ----- More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

A lot of the big trends in the economy right now are converging in the auto sector, and the negotiations over new contracts for autoworkers at the Big Three carmakers: Ford, GM, and Stellantis.  You’ve got the conflict between workers and employers over wages, and some evidence that workers may have more leverage than they’ve had in a long time. You’ve got the clean energy transition, with the rise of EVs and what that means for the industry and people who work in it. And you’ve got the push to manufacture more things onshore again, and preserve an industry that’s been an engine for middle-class jobs for decades. On today’s show Jim Stanford joins us to explain how all these issues are playing a role in the negotiations between Unifor and UAW and the Big Three, and what autoworkers want to see in their new contracts. Jim is an economist and Director of the Centre for Future Work, and spent 20 years as Economist and Director of Policy for the union formerly known as the Canadian Auto Workers (and now known as Unifor).  Note: This episode was recorded prior to the Unifor strike at the GM facilities in Ontario. ----- More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

76% of people who own small-to-medium-sized businesses are planning to retire within the next decade. What happens when they call it quits? Who will take over those businesses, if anyone? What will happen to the people they employ? These are all pressing questions, but the vast majority of small business owners in Canada do not have a succession plan. On this episode, Cordell Jacks, CEO and General Partner of The Regenerative Capital Group, joins us to explain... The scale of the wave of retirements coming in Canadian small businesses. The risks to the economy if we don't plan for the succession wave. Why entrepreneurs who buy businesses succeed more often than those who start from scratch. The interesting way his investment fund is incorporating social and community impact into their business model. ----- More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

If you want to make yourself mad about the state of transportation in Canada, all you have to do is go to Europe.  Anyone who’s made the trip can tell you that in almost every European country, it’s faster, more convenient, and more comfortable to take public transportation than it is here.  And the same is true now in many parts of Asia—places that not long ago were much poorer than Canada, with much less well-developed infrastructure.  So why is public transportation in Canada so far behind these other parts of the world? Why does it seem to take forever to get anything built here (and cost way more)? And what would we need to do differently to fix it? To answer these questions, we’re joined by Reece Martin, who is a public transport expert, consultant, and creator of the wonderful and fascinating YouTube channel RMTransit, which has 250,000 subscribers and hundreds of videos all about different transportation systems around the world.  ----- More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

Canada’s job market is confusing right now. On one hand, unemployment is still near record lows, last month’s job numbers from StatsCan exceeded expectations, and wages are finally starting to increase faster than inflation.  But...  Our population is growing so quickly that we actually added more people in July than the 40,000 jobs that were created, job vacancies are drying up, and compared to the US, our wage growth hasn’t been great at all.  Brendon Bernard is the Senior Economist at Indeed.com, and he’s back on the pod to unpack what's going on in Canada's job market and what it means for workers and businesses. ----- More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

If you look at a chart of global nuclear energy output over time, what you see is hockey-stick growth from the mid-1960s through the mid-1990s—and then nothing. After growing from zero to around 2600 THw, we just stopped building more of it. But that’s starting to change.  Around the world, new nuclear projects are starting up, and plants scheduled for shutdown are being refurbished to last for decades to come. And one of the places at the forefront of this nuclear renaissance is Ontario.  Ontario already produces an outsized share of the world’s nuclear energy—around 3.7% of the global total, ahead of Germany and the UK.  And in the last couple of years, it announced plans to increase that dramatically, with new reactors and refurbishments at its plants in Bruce Country, Darlington, and Pickering.  We recently had the chance to tour the Pickering facility and see firsthand the work that’s going on there.  Afterward, we sat down with Riley Found, a Senior Manager for New Nuclear Growth at Ontario Power Generation, to talk about what's driving the renaissance in Ontario's nuclear sector and what's changed since the last time we built nuclear in the 1980s. ----- More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

The Online News Act, or Bill C-18, has already radically changed how Canadians get their news. First and foremost, we can no longer get it on Facebook or Instagram. Google may be the next to go, depending on what the final regulations look like. But Canada isn't the first country to attempt to bring in regulations like C-18. Several European countries have tried to force Big Tech to pay publishers, too, and in some cases have been subject to news blocks that are still in effect. Ricard Gil is an Associate Professor and Distinguished Faculty Fellow of Business Economics Smith School of Business of Queen’s University, and has studied the impact of these regulations on the media industry in European countries. He joins us to explain what happened in Europe and how Big Tech's response has impacted the sector there. ----- Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

A recession is coming. A soft landing is around the corner. Inflation is here to stay. Inflation is transitory. Rates are going to stay elevated indefinitely. Central banks are going to cut rates soon. These are all messages that investors have heard at some point over the past two years or so, as every new bit of economic data seems to bring new forecasts about where the economy is heading. In such a confusing environment filled with mixed signals, how can the average person hope to manage their money effectively? On this episode, Andrei Bruno, Director, Exchange Traded Funds for Fidelity Canada, joins us to bring some clarity to this muddled picture and share his view on how to make smart investment decisions when the future is so unclear. ----- Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

The economy has been through a pretty turbulent period over the past few years, and one of the sectors that’s experienced that the most has to be the restaurant industry.  Pretty much all the big macro trends we’ve lived through show up here. Whether it’s the supply shocks of COVID, the inflation of the past 18 months, or disruptions in the labour market, restaurants have experienced all of these things in a really dramatic way.  And through it all, they’ve had to go on opening their doors and serving customers every night if they wanted to stay in business.  Today we talk to someone who has lived and worked through this firsthand to find out what it’s been like to be in the trenches running a restaurant during all of this, and what that can teach us about what’s going on in the economy more broadly. Our guest Yannick Bigourdan is the owner and operator of some of the best restaurants in Toronto, including The Carbon Bar and Lucie, and was also behind two local institutions, Nota Bene and Splendido. ----- Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

This episode originally aired on January 24, 2023. Anyone who has dealt with Canada's healthcare system knows that it's under incredible strain. Part of that is because of the pandemic and the backlogs that piled up over the past three years. But many of the factors that led to the crisis we're now facing have been building up for much longer than that. Dr. Saad Ahmed, a family physician based out of Vancouver and lecturer at the University of Toronto's Department of Family & Community Medicine, joins us to break down how exactly our healthcare system works and explain the root causes of its biggest problems. ----- Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

The wildfires Canada has experienced this year have been the worst on record, and it's not even close. Most of us have been impacted in one way or another. Hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes, and—tragically—a number of people have lost their lives. In this episode on Canada's wildfires, we are joined by Derek Nighbor, President of the Forest Products Association of Canada, to look at their impact on the forestry industry, how businesses in the sector are responding, whether we're facing another supply shock that will drive up prices in the lumber market, and what role the industry can play in mitigating the harm of wildfires in the future. We also talk about why this year's fires are so much worse than past seasons, and what other countries have done to reduce the risk of forest fires that Canada could look to for lessons. ----- Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

A lot has happened since 2018, but if you think back to that time, you might remember that Canada’s cannabis industry was booming.  There were multiple Canadian cannabis businesses that were valued at multiple billions of dollars. People were getting rich trading weed stocks and starting weed companies.  And this wasn’t just money moving around, like with meme stocks during the pandemic. The largest companies, like Canopy, Aurora, and Aphria, were spending money to build massive facilities across Canada and hiring thousands of people.  Then it all came crashing down.  Last week, the Nasdaq stock exchange said it would delist Canopy Growth Corp because its stock, which once traded for around $60, has been below the Nasdaq’s $1 threshold for too long.  So what happened? On today’s episode, Jay Rosenthal joins me to explain what went wrong in the cannabis industry and talk about what’s next for the sector both in Canada and the US.  Jay is the Director of Content at Dutchie, a leading tech partner for cannabis retailers around the world, and the co-founder of the Business of Cannabis. ----- Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

Last week the Bank of Canada hiked its policy interest rate to 5%, a 22-year high and a 10x jump from where they sat just over one year ago. By now, everyone is familiar with the Bank's rationale for aggressively raising rates: It has a mandate to ensure price stability and bring inflation down to a target of 2%. But how are higher rates actually pushing inflation down? When prices are driven up by supply shocks in Eastern Europe or labour strikes at ports, how much control over inflation does Canada's central bank actually have? On today's episode, economist and Columbia Business School professor Brett House joins us to explain how the Bank of Canada is thinking about interest rates and inflation today, what factors motivated them to raise rates again last week, and his view on whether we're now entering a new era of persistently higher inflation. ----- Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

Canada's population is growing quickly. Really quickly. Last month, we surpassed the 40 million mark, and we're growing faster than any other G7 country. Between 2016 and 2021, Canada has grown twice as quickly as the US. And the reason for that growth is simple: Immigration. Of the growth we saw in 2022, immigration accounted for around 95% of it. And this is by design. By 2025, the federal government wants to add 500,000 new permanent residents to Canada every year. So how our immigration system works matters quite a bit.  But a growing number of economists and experts are warning that it might not be working so well anymore. One of those people is Mikal Skuterud, a professor in the economics department at the University of Waterloo and the Director of the Canadian Labour Economics Forum.  Mikal has argued that the economic case for immigration policy has begun to break down as Canada has tried to scale up the number of people coming here. On this episode, he joins us to explain exactly how our immigration system works and why, in his view, it has started to fail.  ----- Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

By many measures, men aren't doing so well right now. Suicides and deaths of despair among men are rising. 15% of men report having no close friends. In a recent survey, 65% reported agreeing with the statement, "no one really knows me well." Men have fallen behind women when it comes to educational attainment, and most young men report feeling no sense of purpose. So, what's going on here? Matt Jeneroux thinks we have, among other things, a communication problem, and he joins us on this episode to explain why. Matt is the Member of Parliament for Edmonton Riverbend, the Shadow Minister for Supply Chains, and the founder of the Hi Dad Foundation, a non-profit set up to provide resources for young men and fathers in need of mental health support. ----- Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

Toronto is one of the epicentres of Canada's housing crisis. And while you may not care about the city's housing regulations (unless you live there), they are impacting you. Buyers priced out of the city end up scooping up homes elsewhere, driving up prices in other parts of the country. For a long time, Toronto hasn't done much to increase its own supply of homes. But that just changed: The city passed a new law making it possible to build multiplexes—up to 4 units in a single building—across the entire city. It's a big change in theory, but how will it play out in practice? Chris Spoke, a Toronto-based developer and real estate investor, joins us this week to explain how the change is playing out on the ground, and whether legal multiplexes can actually make a dent in our housing shortage. ----- Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

Our hosts are off this week, so we're bringing you one of our favourite episodes (just our third-ever) from back in January. Enjoy! Canada's housing market has become our national obsession, and with good reason. Years of skyrocketing prices are now meeting surging mortgage rates, and the result is some of the least affordable housing in the world. What's driving that affordability crisis, and what comes next? On this episode of Free Lunch by The Peak, we speak with Mike Moffatt, a Senior Director at the Smart Prosperity Institute and Assistant Professor at Ivey Business School. Mike argues that a lack of supply is the key driver of expensive housing in Canada—we get into the details of why that is and some of the ways our dysfunctional housing market warps our economy.

Basic income has been pitched as the solution to so many of our problems. Eliminating poverty, sparking entrepreneurship, empowering people to pursue their passions—all of these would be, its boosters claim, outcomes of a basic income. But not everyone is so optimistic about the idea. Lindsay Tedds is an associate professor at University of Calgary’s Department of Economics, and co-authored the book Basic Income and a Just Society: Policy Choices for Canada’s Social Safety Net. On this episode, she joins us to break down the pitfalls of a basic income, what the research shows its effects would be, and why she believes it's an idea that could, in many ways, actually make things worse. ----- Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

Every aspect of our economy—every transaction, every contract— is ultimately shaped by our laws, which are enforced by the police. But how policing actually works is, for many of us, a black box. Who makes decisions about what the police should do? How much do we spend on the policing we get? Is our policing system working, and for who? How could it work better? On this episode of Free Lunch by The Peak, Kent Roach, University of Toronto law professor and author of the 2022 Donner Book Prize-nominated book Canadian Policing: How and Why it Must Change, joins us to discuss all these issues and more. ----- Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

It's no secret that Canada's office market isn't doing so hot. Vacancies are still way above pre-pandemic levels, and some big companies like Shopify are giving up their leases altogether. In the US, where similar dynamics are in play, the value of some commercial buildings have been marked down by as much as 80% in fire sales by panicked landlords. Should we be worried about our own office real estate market? Brian Rosen, President and CEO of Colliers International's Canadian arm, joins us to explain what's going on in Canada's office real estate market, how landlords and tenants are responding, and what impact it's all likely to have on Canada's economy. ----- Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

Few sectors of the economy were as impacted by the pandemic as travel, and few rebounded as quickly when public health restrictions were lifted. Even now, demand for travel is through the roof, and it's driving up prices for everything from hotels to airfare to car rentals. At the same time, leisure budgets are often the first to be cut as cost-of-living pressures take their toll, and people cut back spending. So is the travel sector on the verge of another reckoning, or will demand hold up even as a recession looms? And how are businesses in the space responding? Few people have a better view of what's happening in travel than Airbnb Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer Nathan Blecharczyk, and he joins us today to share what he's seeing in the sector and break down how travel—and Airbnb—has changed post-pandemic. ----- Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

We all know that prices are going up (and have been for some time, now). But how do retailers actually decide when and by how much to raise prices? Is it just a simple matter of charging whatever people will pay? Or is it determined by their own costs? And have businesses been using pandemic-era supply chain problems as an excuse to raise prices now, or have they been forced to do so by factors beyond their control? On this episode, Marty Weintraub, head of Deloitte's National Retail Consulting practice for Canada, joins us to break down how retailers are setting prices in the inflation era. We cover: The state of supply chains and how they're driving price. How consumer behaviour has changed after more than a year of inflation. Where consumer demand is falling, and where it's holding firm. How technology has changed the way companies set prices. Why many companies are raising prices rather than trying to steal market share. Whether "excuse-flation" is a real phenomenon. How the Canadian and US retail landscape differ right now. ----- Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act may be good news for the clean energy sector, but what does it mean for Canada? That's a more complex question. On one hand, some aspects of it are likely to benefit Canadian businesses. But much of the funding included in the legislation is reserved for American producers and could make it difficult for Canada to build its own domestic clean energy sector. If clean energy is going to be a big part of developed economies in the future, that's a problem. On this episode, Michael Bernstein, the Executive Director of Clean Prosperity, joins us to break down what's in the Inflation Reduction Act, what it means for Canada, and why he thinks Canada needs to develop its own clean industrial strategy that's tailored for our strengths. ----- Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

Various levels of government in Canada have allocated many billions (with a b) to projects aimed at building more affordable housing, and yet it doesn't seem like much is actually getting built—certainly not on the scale that we experienced in earlier decades. Why is that, and what needs to be done to change it? On this episode, we're joined by Jacob Gorenkoff and Marika Albert, two policy experts in the affordable housing space, to explain what's going on. ----- Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

In the past six months, publicly-available artificial intelligence models have advanced from an interesting toy to, with the launch of ChatGPT-4, something altogether different. The new version of OpenAI's language model can write reasonably good code, pass standardized tests like the LSAT with flying colours, and understand subtle jokes—things that machines have never done. As its capabilities have advanced, a growing number of people have expressed concern that AI could pose a threat to people—not just by wiping out jobs or being used to spread disinformation, but by acquiring goals of their own, and pursuing them at our expense. Our guest today, AI safety researcher Jérémie Harris, has advised top security officials in the US and Canada on these risks, and he joins us today to explain why he is concerned about where artificial intelligence is heading, and what it means for us. ----- Links: Get Jeremie's new book, Quantum Physics Made Me Do It Follow Jeremie on Twitter More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

Bank runs have been back in the news of late, but not in Canada. Here, our banking system appears to be doing just fine—as it has through every economic crisis in recent memory. Why is that? Financial historian John Turley-Ewart joins us to tell the story of how Canada's banking system came to be, why it has proven to be less vulnerable to bank runs than the US model, and whether Canadians have anything to worry about as banks in other countries collapse.

What went wrong at Silicon Valley Bank? In the course of a few days, the bank of choice for the US tech sector collapsed, forcing regulators to take unprecedented steps to avoid a broader financial crisis. On this bonus episode of Free Lunch by The Peak, Murad Hemmadi, a correspondent for The Logic covering business and innovation policy, joins us to unpack how SVB went under so quickly and what the impact of its failure is on the tech sector both in the US and Canada.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine threw the world's energy market into chaos and added a renewed sense of urgency to the search for new sources of power. Many Western governments, including Canada's, are betting big on wind and solar, but there's also growing interest in nuclear power as a reliable and clean alternative. At the same time, many people still have questions about how safe it really is (and whether building new plants is even feasible anymore). On this episode of Free Lunch by The Peak, Dr. Chris Keefer, a Toronto-based medical doctor and founder of Doctors for Nuclear Energy, joins us to make the case for nuclear energy. ----- Links: Follow Dr. Chris Keefer on Twitter Listen to the Decouple Podcast More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

Inflation has (arguably) been the biggest economic story of the past year in Canada, so it's worth taking the time to really understand it. How is it calculated? What's contributing to it right now? And how do different sectors of the economy affect how prices in other sectors fluctuate? Turns out it's pretty complicated. Fortunately, Trevor Tombe, Professor of Economics at the University of Calgary and a Research Fellow at The School of Public Policy, is here to explain all of that and more, along with where he sees inflation heading in the coming months. ----- Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Trevor Tombe on Twitter: @trevortombe Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe