Choo choo

Good morning. It’s back to school season, which means shopping carts are full of Hilroy exercise books with a map of Canada on the front — we used them, you used them, and Canadian kids will keep using them until paper becomes obsolete. But Hilroy is in hot water this year, as one variant of the book features a map without Newfoundland and Cape Breton.

Though these misprinted books have been in circulation since last year, our post-Lake America reality has seemingly made the average Canadian consumer more vigilant about matters of national geography.

A quick programming note: we are off for Labour Day and won’t be in your inboxes on Monday. Happy long weekend!

Today’s reading time is 5½ minutes.

MARKETS

▲	TSX	36,633.12	+1.50%
▲	S&P 500	7,747.71	+1.06%
▲	DOW JONES	53,686.11	+1.18%
▲	NASDAQ	26,584.06	+1.40%
▲	GOLD	4,520.3	+2.39%
▲	OIL	91.67	+0.73%
▲	CAD/USD	0.7252	+0.37%
▲	BTC/USD	81,567.6	+5.57%

Markets: Canada’s main stock index and top Wall Street indexes surged yesterday after the Federal Reserve’s governor supported taking a wait-and-see approach to interest rates. Meanwhile, Ski-Doo maker BRP ticked up after the company raised its full-year guidance.

TRANSPORTATION

Via Rail is Getting a Major Makeover

Source: Timothy Stevens - CC BY-SA 4.0. / Wikipedia Commons.

With trains old enough to remember Elvis’s debut single, Via Rail is getting a much-needed upgrade.

What happened: The federal government announced it will spend $4.7 billion to acquire 313 new Via Rail passenger cars, the largest investment in the service’s history. The new cars, meant to replace fleets on long-distance and rural routes, will be designed and built entirely in Canada.

In July, Ottawa announced a $1.9 billion investment to build new locomotives for Via Rail. Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon said the upgraded equipment would improve Via Rail’s reliability, the lack of which has hurt ridership.

Why it matters: Anyone who’s been on a Via train lately can tell you it’s not exactly the model of punctuality (or comfort). The new cars and locomotives should help limit mechanical delays and accommodate more passengers, but Canada’s rail system still has structural issues that need to be addressed.

Last year, Via’s on-time performance sat at an abysmal 35%, down from an average of 80% in the mid-2000s. For comparison, on-time performance for trains in the U.S. last year was 72%, while some European countries are as high as 94%.
The tardiness largely comes down to track priority and speed limits. Privately owned CN Rail owns ~83% of the tracks Via operates on, while Via owns ~3%. Since CN prioritizes its cargo trains, Via passengers deal with constant delays.

Our take: The upgraded Via Rail trains will give Ottawa something positive to point to when the embattled Alto high-speed rail project inevitably goes belly up.—LA

BIG PICTURE

Source: Andrew Neel / Pexels.

OpenAI claims its newest model has reached AGI. The AI company unveiled its new Astra model class yesterday, which president Greg Brockman personally believes reached the threshold of artificial general intelligence (AGI) — the point at which AI surpasses human capabilities. OpenAI, which is already grappling with safety concerns from multiple rogue AI incidents, cautioned that the Astra model sometimes tries to evade human monitoring (not a great sign). On the bright side, it can autonomously book you a tennis court slot. (Axios)

Canada’s exports to the U.S. hit new lows. Canada’s trade surplus narrowed in July to $769 million — down from $4.2 billion in June — while the overall share of Canada’s exports heading to the U.S. fell to 66.3%. That’s the lowest mark since 1997, excluding the pandemic. Canadian exports to the U.S. in July fell 6.6%, the steepest drop since April of 2025, the month of Donald Trump’s infamous Liberation Day tariffs. (Bloomberg News)

Canadian artists’ group sues Suno over AI music. SOCAN, the largest member-based music rights organization in Canada, has filed a lawsuit against AI music company Suno, alleging it infringed on the copyrights of its artists, including The Tragically Hip, Avril Lavigne, and Celine Dion. Suno, which lets users generate AI music in the style and sound of musicians, is facing similar lawsuits from major labels like Universal Music. (CBC News)

📡 What else is on our radar:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is set to visit Canada next week, a trip that will reportedly include multiple stops.
A new 100% U.S. tariff on drones took effect yesterday. The levy, which Canadian manufacturers will be subject to, was primarily designed to reduce reliance on Chinese drones.
Nvidia has confirmed that it’s acquiring open-source AI company Hugging Face for ~US$13 billion.
Speaking of US$13 billion AI deals, that’s how much trading firm Jane Street agreed to pay Crusoe as part of a five-year AI cloud agreement.
Air Canada announced three new European destinations it will begin flying to next summer.

DEAL OF THE WEEK

Source: Web Summit - SZ9_9339 - CC BY 2.0 / Wikimedia Commons.

Ukraine’s former defence minister is starting a defence tech startup. Mykhailo Fedorov — who was controversially sacked by the Ukrainian government earlier this year — said the company will use Ukraine’s wartime experience to make technologies for the country and its allies. Its first lead investor: Palantir CEO Alex Karp, who chipped in an undisclosed amount.

Why it matters: The move could ruffle the feathers of European nations that have helped bankroll Ukraine’s war efforts while the U.S. has pulled back. They might not like seeing prized proprietary info they get from backing Ukraine go elsewhere, and they also might not like ultra-American Palantir getting involved, with several countries trying to cut ties with the company.

WORLD

Canadian Food Regulators Probe Indian Snack Food Raid

Source: Zoshua Colah / Unsplash.

A bag of chips with a bilingual label in a Loblaws: very normal. A bag of chips with a bilingual label in a raided Indian warehouse: very alarming.

What happened: The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) opened an investigation into an operation in India that was illegally relabelling packaged food products from companies like PepsiCo and Nestlé. There is concern some of these products may have been on their way to Canada after Reuters found an English-French label on a bag of chips.

While the CFIA said there’s no evidence at this time the products are in Canada, it’s alarming as the labels had changed nutritional info and expiry dates, and Indian officials say the relabelled goods were expired or almost expired.

Catch-up: The bag in question was discovered in a raid carried out by authorities in Mumbai last week. There has been a widespread crackdown this year by Indian regulators against food safety violations, sparked by new leadership and campaigning from social media users.

Probes have mostly focused on restaurants after years of widespread complaints about kitchen health code violations, though they have also targeted sketchy food distributors. Since April, food regulators have conducted more than 24,000 raids.

Why it matters: The interconnectedness of global food supply chains means that food safety in other countries can affect food safety here. India’s crackdown could indirectly help some Canadian consumers, too.—QH

DROP THE PIN

🌎 Hint: This island nation is the birthplace of steelpan, calypso, and soca music, hosting one of the world’s biggest Carnival celebrations. Its unique cuisine has evolved through strong Indian, African, Chinese, and European influences, with doubles and roti among its most famous (and delicious) street foods.

Think you know where this oasis is? Lock in your guess here.

ONE BIG NUMBER

☔️ ~1,500. Calls that Toronto Fire Services responded to on Wednesday during a heavy thunderstorm that damaged buildings, led to power outages, and left some residents stuck on scaffolding. It’s the second most calls that the city’s fire department has received in a 24-hour period.