A bad habit

Good morning. A new apple just dropped, and it was developed right here in Canada. The Orléans apple, a blend of Honeycrisps and Empire created by Quebec growers, is just now hitting grocery store shelves after 25 years in the works.

The Orléans is apparently sweet, extremely crisp, and can be supplied from domestic orchards for at least 10 months of the year. There’s now really no reason to eat another mealy, bland Red Delicious again.

Today’s reading time is 5 minutes.

Markets this week: Tech earnings continue this week, with Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon all reporting. Investors will be watching closely for signs of how these companies are approaching AI spending after Meta triggered a sell-off by announcing plans to raise hundreds of billions of dollars to fund its investments.

Just a few years after opening its doors to online casinos, Ontario is feeling the repercussions. 

Driving the news: Lawmakers in Ottawa will vote this week on Bill S-211, legislation aimed at reining in gambling advertising across Canada. The push on Parliament Hill follows a report that the number of problem gamblers and gambling-related suicides in Ontario have both tripled since 2018. 

Catch-up: A CBC News analysis published with the University of Bristol found that across seven NHL games televised in Canada, viewers were shown ~3,000 gambling promotions (working out to around two to three per minute). Ontario and Alberta, the only provinces in Canada that allow private sportsbooks and casinos to operate, oppose Bill S-211, citing the loss of tax revenue.

Why it matters: The growing number of problem gamblers underscores just how quickly the public's habits can shift when they have access to a casino — which is promoted through constant advertising — in their pockets. The findings are a stark warning to Alberta, which only opened up its gambling market this year, and any other provinces looking to follow suit. 

Zoom out: Open gambling markets tend to increase the rate at which people run into serious financial difficulties. Studies have found that in areas where online betting is legal, average credit scores dropped by 1% and the likelihood of filing for bankruptcy increased by 25% to 30% after four years of legalization.—LA

The B.C. Conservatives won a majority government. Well, that backfired — after calling a snap election, Premier David Eby’s NDP was decisively defeated by the B.C. Conservative Party under its interim leader Lorne Doerkson. The Conservatives won nearly 50% of the popular vote and will enjoy a large majority in the legislature, while the NDP will search for a new leader after Eby resigned. How Doerkson will govern is still a question mark. His election campaign focused on expanding the province’s natural gas production, avoiding tax increases, and reducing the deficit. His caucus, however, is divided, and it’s unclear how much support he will command inside the party. (CTV News)

Canada and the U.S. may be getting closer to a trade deal. White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said in an interview with Fox News that the U.S. and Canada were “very close to finally having a deal.” The comments came after Donald Trump announced the U.S. would lift tariffs on some Canadian goods, a move widely seen as an attempt to bolster Republican candidates in the midterm elections. Janice Charette, Canada’s lead negotiator, said last week that there was no timeline for resuming formal negotiations. (Bloomberg)

Lula won re-election as Brazil’s president in a surprising runoff result. Brazil’s left-wing president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won a historic fourth term, narrowly defeating his right-wing challenger, Flávio Bolsonaro, in a runoff vote. After losing the first round of voting to Bolsonaro, who is the son of jailed ex-president Jair Bolsonaro, earlier this month, Lula was widely considered the underdog heading into yesterday’s vote, but an unexpected increase in voter turnout appeared to push him over the top. (Reuters)

📡 What else is on our radar: 

Most workplaces don't burn people out on purpose. It happens through habits nobody chose: lunch at the desk, back-to-back meetings, one last email at 10pm.

Those habits have a price. Alan surveyed 800 Canadian employees and found that stress-related absenteeism and lost productivity cost $14,100 per employee, every year. For a company of 50, that's over $700,000 annually.

Switching off is the hardest part. 69% check work messages after hours, and nearly a third were considering quitting, most often because of stress or burnout.

Most people want out of the cycle: 56% want healthier habits at work but can't make them stick.

The good news: habits can change. Wellbeing works best when it's built into the workday, not squeezed in around it.

Our guide digs into the stats behind what's wearing Canadian workers down, and how workplaces can turn it around.

Get the free guide →

🏦 Bank of Canada and Fed interest rate decisions. Canada’s big six banks are split on whether the BoC will raise its key interest rate on Wednesday morning, but investors are more certain, pricing in around an 85% chance of a hike. It would be the first rate increase since October of last year. On the other side of the border, new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh is expected to hold rates steady, with markets pricing the chances of a hold at around 80%. 

🇪🇺 Canada-EU summit kicks off. Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will meet in Montreal on Wednesday and Thursday, with reports suggesting the two leaders will announce a framework to guide co-operation between so-called “middle powers.” Carney has said that visa-free travel to Europe for Canadians will also be discussed at the summit. 

🗳️ Elections in Israel. Tomorrow is election day in Israel, and (like most recent elections in the country) it will mainly be a referendum on Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership. It will also be the first vote since the October 7th attacks in 2023. Netanyahu’s main challenger is Gadi Eisenkot, a former Israeli general who now leads a centrist political party. The outcome is likely to be close, and whoever eventually forms government will need the support of a coalition of other parties to reach a majority.

If your business doesn’t involve writing lots of code, it’s unlikely you’re seeing much benefit from AI yet.

What happened: Analysis by the investment firm Apollo found that productivity, profit margins, and revenue per worker were flat for 493 of the 500 businesses in the S&P 500 since the AI rollout began. The only seven exceptions were the Magnificent Seven tech companies: Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Tesla. 

Why it matters: The AI boom has been predicated on the promise that the technology will prove transformative for businesses of all types, not just the giants of the tech sector. So far, there isn’t much evidence of that happening.

Our take: To justify the unprecedented investments made in AI, the industry needs to find a way to make more money — and a lot of it. Estimates of exactly how much vary, but usually land in the trillions of dollars of new revenue by the end of the decade. Achieving that is going to require a lot more spending by a much broader segment of the economy than just seven tech companies.

AI is supposed to save time. Yet new Sage research with IDC found finance leaders lose 13 hours a week verifying AI outputs, while 71% would reject a 99% accurate system if they couldn’t understand how it reached an answer. Transparency is the key.

Explore why the shift from “black box” to “glass box” AI could change how finance teams use agentic AI at scale.

See the findings.

☀️ 50,391. Deaths in Europe caused by extreme heat this summer, according to a new study. That’s over 70% higher than the previous record of 29,480 set in 2022. France, Italy, Spain, and Germany reported the highest death tolls. 

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Get the week rolling with today’s mini-crossword, the daily sudoku, Codebreaker, and Who’s Who.