Like a student who hasn’t been paying attention during class, the Canadian Armed Forces are unprepared and hoping they don’t get called on.

Driving the news: Just 58% of Canadian troops who are meant to respond to a potential crisis in a NATO nation are actually ready to do so, per a Department of National Defence report seen by the CBC, mainly due to a lack of personnel and a lack of ready-to-use equipment. 

An untold number of artworks in galleries and collections worldwide have secret dark histories. Several countries are now stepping up their game to shine a light on them.

Driving the news: Canada and 21 other countries have signed on to a new agreement meant to clarify and enhance best practices for finding and returning art looted by the Nazis. The agreement builds upon a previous set of guidelines called the Washington Principles.

Here's one way to really make your TFSA returns sing: Invest in Beyoncé’s next hit song. 

Driving the news: If you’re looking to brag about owning 0.01% of “Single Ladies” at your next dinner party, a startup called JKBX has launched a digital marketplace that will let you buy shares in popular songs from artists including Taylor Swift and Major Lazer.

If there’s one thing we all can agree on, it’s that in Canadian business, publishing an open letter to your enemies in a newspaper is one of the most dramatic things you can do. 

What happened: That’s exactly what over 90 business leaders from top Canadian companies did when they publicly asked the country’s finance ministers to devise new rules for pension funds to invest more in Canadian businesses. 

The next big business opportunity in AI might be websites selling their users’ posts. 

The problem: Gas-powered cars are a big contributor to the world’s carbon emissions, but the transition to electric vehicles is sputtering as consumers remain skittish about pricey purchases. Toyota is one of the biggest skeptics among major automakers, estimating that the EV market will top out at 30% of drivers, meaning that carbon reduction will have to come from elsewhere.

With the Paris Olympics less than five months away, Canada’s sports bodies have put out a plea for more cash. 

What happened: The Canadian Olympic and Paralympic Committees (COC and CPC) submitted a budget request to the feds for $104 million in extra annual funding to cover rising operational costs of increased stakeholder demands, made clear by a new Deloitte report.

“Babe, wake up, Tiff Macklem is dropping the rate decision today…,” if this isn’t how your partner woke you up this morning, let us get you up to speed. 

Driving the news: The Bank of Canada is widely expected to hold interest rates steady today for the fifth consecutive rate announcement. This is even as the inflation rate dropped to 2.9%, far from its 8.1% peak in 2022 and within the bank’s target range of 1% to 3%.

A pistachio heist in Ontario hasn't just raised the eyebrows of people thinking, “Surely, no one could eat that many nuts,” but put businesses on high alert about food cargo thefts.

Driving the news: Some nutty thieves pulled off an Ocean’s Eleven-level heist on a cargo truck just outside of Waterloo, Ontario, earlier this year, making off with ~$70,000 worth of California pistachios, per the Toronto Star — though no word on whether they got all the shells off.

A fading star of Canadian malls now has a stench that not even a coconut body scrub can wash off.  

Driving the news: The Body Shop Canada is shuttering 33 (over a third) of its locations,  ending online sales, and laying off over 200 workers after filing for creditor protection. The brand says it had to take these measures after its parent company siphoned money from it. 

In the midst of a housing shortage, city officials are looking to build homes on top of some of the country's ~97 million parking spaces.

Driving the news: Toronto is the latest Canadian city to look into converting public parking lots into housing, following the examples of Vancouver, Calgary, Windsor, St. Catharines, and London. Roughly 74 parking lots, about a quarter of the city's lots, could be up for grabs. 

It’s getting more and more expensive to see sweaty men jump really high these days. 

Driving the news: The average price for season tickets to the Toronto Raptors will be ~4% higher on average next season.

Like a jaded and world-weary beat reporter who’s seen too much, Meta wants out of the news game.

What happened: Meta announced that it wouldn’t sign any more deals with news publishers in the U.S., Australia, U.K., France, and Germany. 

Canadian miners could be getting a shiny new pricing system that may help even the playing field with their competitors overseas. 

Driving the news: A federal cabinet minister says the government is exploring a way to manage prices of critical minerals, like nickel and cobalt, to mitigate the impact of a production boom overseas that’s sent mineral prices plunging.

 On this week’s episode of Free Lunch by The Peak, we sat down with Joe McReynolds, a co-author of the book Emergent Tokyo, to talk about what Western cities can learn from Japan’s capital — including how the city manages to keep rent super low for residents.  

A history of using Danish schnapps to smooth over land disputes could set the tone for a budding friendship between Greenland and Canada. 

Driving the news: Greenland, a 57,000-person island nation that also happens to be the 12th-largest country in the world, is looking to strengthen political and economic ties with Canada and the U.S. as part of a larger push to become more economically independent. 

From the creators of Musk vs. Zuckerberg, Musk vs. Advertisers, and Musk vs. Delaware comes the most thrilling instalment yet… Musk vs. OpenAI. 

What happened: Musk is suing the AI industry’s leading company, OpenAI, which he helped co-found in 2015, and its CEO, Sam Altman. He alleges that the company has betrayed its founding agreement to create AI for the benefit of humanity by inking its deal with Microsoft.  

The market for human-looking robots just got a lot more money pumped into it.

What happened: Figure AI announced a US$675 million Series B round that values the two-year-old robotics startup at US$2.6 billion. Some big names in tech seem to think it’s a solid enough bet that their cash comes with new partnerships.