On this week’s episode of Free Lunch by The Peak, we sat down with Jim Stanford to talk about the wave of autoworker strikes in the US and Canada and what it means for the sector. 

As some Canadians prepping for Thanksgiving come face-to-face with $120 turkeys, the government is asking big grocers to do something, anything, to lower food prices. 

What happened: The feds announced that Canada’s five biggest grocers — Loblaw, Metro, Empire, Walmart, and Costco — committed to several actions that will lower prices, including price freezes for “key food products” (exact foodstuffs were unspecified) and price matching. 

Picture the life of a digital nomad: You’re probably thinking of oceanfront workplaces, rainforest yoga, and drinking out of coconuts. But what about just heading to Toronto?

Driving the news: Per Bloomberg, the list of picturesque destinations cutting the red tape and offering remote work visa schemes is growing, including places like Barbados, Portugal, and Germany. Some are even extending visas in hopes of boosting business and innovation. 

As the calendar turns and labour unrest in Canada continues, the Summer of Strikes is evolving into the Autumn of Arbitration (which is way less catchy, but just as important). 

Driving the news: Per a new RBC report, amidst a surge of high-profile strikes, first-year raises for union workers are up 7.1% as of July — the highest rate since the early 1990s.

Big congrats to anyone who works for Ford on your big raise. Next round is on you!

Driving the news: Workers at Ford’s Canadian facilities voted to ratify a deal negotiated between their union, Unifor, and the automaker that includes a 15% wage increase over the next three years.

On this week’s episode of Free Lunch by The Peak, we sat down with Brendon Bedard, Senior Economist at Indeed, to talk about the weakening labour market, and what it means.

Young people hoping to start a family in Canada are taking one look at their grocery bill and saying “maaaaybe a dog?”

Driving the news: The rising cost of living in Canada has created a quality of life crisis for young people, leading many of them to not have kids, per a new StatCan report. Over a third of young adults don’t think they can afford to have a child in the next three years.

Looking to put some extra muscle into your side hustle? Look no further than our robot pals.

Driving the news: A new Morgan Stanley survey found that the incomes of gig workers who used generative AI were 21% higher compared to those who didn’t. The report’s most optimistic reading projects AI to add US$1.4 trillion to the side hustle economy by 2030. 

If the Bank of Canada (BoC) is looking for a new mantra during these trying times, might we suggest, “What goes up must come down… to the 2% inflation target.” 

What happened: Canada's annual inflation rate in August jumped to 4% from 3.3% in July, increasing the odds of a rate hike at the BoC’s next meeting on October 25. To make matters worse, core measures that filter out extreme price changes also rose to 4% from 3.75%. 

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: Your phone rings, you pick it up, and within 0.01 seconds, you realize it’s a scammer. You hang up and swear off answering calls for good. 

Turns out the same thing is happening to most of us.

Driving the news: Nearly half of Canadians have been targeted by a scam attempt recently, per a new TransUnion report, and the most commonly reported type of scam was “vishing,” which you might know better as “those scam phone calls I get at every waking hour.”