📈 Closing the book

Good morning. Uber Eats celebrated the 10th anniversary of its global launch yesterday. You might not know this, but it originally began as a pilot in Canada (Toronto, specifically). In honour of its Canadian heritage, the app released data about Canadians’ favourite orders. 

While fries was the most-ordered dish on the app back in 2016, burrito bowl took the crown as of last year, and fries wasn’t even in the top five. It’s a sign of the times: a service we once used to give ourselves a l’il guilty treat is now just an optimized lunch delivery system.

Today’s reading time is 5½ minutes.

Markets: Strong earnings reports from chipmaker TSMC and U.S. banking giants Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs boosted the tech and financial sectors, respectively. This rising tide lifted the boats of both Canada’s main stock index and top Wall Street indexes.

B.C. is closing the book on its experiment with drug decriminalization. 

What happened: After three tumultuous years, B.C.’s first-in-Canada pilot decriminalizing the personal possession of illicit drugs will come to an end on Jan. 31. The province announced it won’t renew the program, as it “hasn’t delivered the results that we hoped for.”

Catch-up: The program was designed to reduce stigma attached to drug addiction and push cases out of the legal system toward health services providers. However, it was quickly met with backlash over a perceived staggering increase in public drug consumption. This resulted in a new ban that limited drug use to private residences and treatment centres.

Big picture: The province hasn’t specified how the program fell short, but the big issue (besides causing endless controversy) appears to be a failure to push a critical mass of users to health services. 

And while drug overdose deaths are down from 2023 levels, it’s highly contested that the pilot did anything to contribute to this — and even then, drug mortality rates remain alarmingly high, with an average of 4.8 drug-related deaths still occurring every day in B.C.

Why it matters: Debate continues over whether decriminalization is a flawed concept, or if it was a good idea doomed to fail by poor implementation and a lack of supporting measures. Regardless, it feels safe to say that it won’t be tried again in Canada for a long time.—QH  

Canada and China are smoothing things over. Ottawa and Beijing signed a non-binding agreement to deepen their economic cooperation, including potentially through Chinese investment in Canada’s energy sector. Canada is also aiming to boost its oil, gas, and agriculture exports to China. (CTV News)

Canada’s privacy watchdog is investigating Grok’s deepfakes. The privacy commissioner is launching a new investigation into xAI, the company responsible for the Grok chatbot embedded in the X platform. Three countries have already banned X over reports of Grok generating ​sexually ‌explicit deepfakes, while the EU and U.K. have launched investigations of their own. (Reuters)

Ottawa is making its first “Buy Canadian” purchase. Yes, “Buy Canadian” extends beyond the liquor store. The feds and the Ontario government are spending $950 million on 55 new Canadian-built subway trains for Toronto’s transit system. It’s the first purchase made under the new federal policy designed to prioritize Canadian materials and manufacturing. (Canada.ca)

Wikipedia is staying alive in the AI age. The online encyclopedia, which celebrated its 25th birthday yesterday, is partnering with Amazon, Meta, Perplexity, and Microsoft to share its trove of content. Despite chatbots stealing a lot of internet traffic, Wikipedia is still one of the top 10 most-visited websites in the world. (TechCrunch) 

Bombardier keeps flying high. The Canadian jetmaker will spend $100 million to build a new factory near Montreal, an announcement that sent its shares climbing to a 23-year high. The private jet biz is certainly looking strong. (Bloomberg News)—LA

We hate to say it, but all of those “crazy” sports fans complaining about the games being rigged might not have been so crazy after all.  

What happened: Prosecutors in the U.S. charged 20 people yesterday in connection with a game-fixing conspiracy, including a group of college basketball players who allegedly took bribes of up to US$30,000 per game to manipulate their performance on behalf of bettors. 

Why it matters: The integrity of sporting events has been undermined by the expansion of legal betting and the manipulation of games that has followed in its wake. But with the emergence of prediction markets, this type of fraud is also starting to affect everything from award show red carpets to geopolitical conflicts.

Our take: The world has turned into one big, easily manipulated casino. Until sports betting and prediction markets are properly regulated (if that’s even possible), these cases of insider trading and fraud will only become more common.—LA 

Cohere entered a partnership with ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS). The German shipbuilder has enlisted Canada’s leading AI company to see how its models can support operations aboard submarines. The link-up comes as Canada chooses between TKMS and South Korea’s Hanwha Ocean for a contract to supply 12 new naval subs.

Why it matters: As defence spending continues to increase everywhere, Cohere is developing a reputation in the space. It already has a close relationship with major defence tech player Palantir, and last month entered a partnership with French defence firm Thales.

🚀 46%. Share of Canadians who say they want to launch their own business this year, according to a new Ownr survey. The vast majority of would-be entrepreneurs say they are considering quitting their current job to pursue entrepreneurship, but cite financial unreadiness and fear of failure as the top barriers to taking the leap.

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We’ve got a terrific trio coming your way: The Peak’s Weekly News Quiz, the mini-crossword, and the daily sudoku. What fun! 

And for our games testers, play today’s bonus mini, and be sure to let us know if you experience any bugs.