Hit the brakes

Good morning. For a limited time, participating bakeries in Winnipeg, Calgary, Toronto, and Montreal will be serving up slices of the KD Mac & Cheesecake — a cheesecake made with that inimitable Canadian delicacy we all know and love: Kraft Dinner cheese powder. 

While this sounds like a munchie that someone who got way too high came up with, we must admit, we’re morbidly curious. 

Today’s reading time is 6 minutes.

Markets: Canada’s main stock index fell from its record high yesterday as investors thought, ‘hey, maybe we were a little too optimistic about a U.S.-Iran peace deal.’ Meanwhile, bank earnings season begins today with BMO, Scotiabank, and National Bank reporting.    

The secondary market for startup equity is booming. And now, so are the lawsuits for the companies brokering deals.

Driving the news: Vancouver-based startup Hiive, which functions as a quasi-stock market for investing in privately owned companies, is being sued by Nasdaq Private Market (NPM) for allegedly infringing on its patent, per the Globe and Mail. 

Why it matters: Hiive has capitalized on a booming market for secondary share sales, particularly for private tech companies that are putting off going public. The Vancouver startup launched its marketplace four years ago, and it’s already processed US$4 billion worth of transactions. 

Our take: Silicon Valley and Wall Street have had many chances to pour money into these AI giants early on, but individual investors have been largely shut out of their eye-popping returns. One venture capitalist told The New Yorker that by the time these tech giants go public, the valuations will have nowhere to go but down. “When these large companies go public at $1 trillion valuations, retail [investors] are going to get hosed.”—LA

Big tech is not happy about Ottawa’s proposed police powers bill. During a House of Commons committee meeting yesterday, Apple, Google, and a slew of other tech companies slammed Bill C-22, which would give law enforcement wider access to Canadians’ digital data for criminal investigations. Tech companies argued that complying with the law would make their systems more vulnerable to cyberattacks and violate their users’ data privacy. On the other hand, law enforcement agencies say they’re already being outpaced by new technologies and need easier access to digital information to catch criminals. (The Logic)

Canada and Germany struck a major LNG deal. Ottawa is set to announce a deal with Germany's SEFE to supply them with liquefied natural gas from the Ksi Lisims export terminal off the coast of B.C., a planned $10 billion facility that still hasn’t broken ground. Energy Minister Tim Hodgson has pitched Canada as a reliable trading partner for Germany and other European countries, which have been working to diversify their energy supply as the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East spark shortages. (Bloomberg News)

Ottawa said the Clarity Act wouldn’t apply to Alberta’s referendum. Prime Minister Mark Carney said he has been advised by a “council of experts” that the Clarity Act will not apply to Alberta’s referendum because it is a “question about a question” rather than a direct vote on leaving Canada. The Clarity Act requires that any referendum on separation must have a clear question and requires a clear majority to be enacted. (Globe and Mail)

📡 What else is on our radar:

Building our economy is like building a house. Without a solid foundation and the right supports in place, growth simply isn’t possible.

Canada’s forest products sector lays an economic foundation in rural and remote communities across the country. It helps support the infrastructure, supply chains, and local economies that keep Canada moving. That means:

The opportunity:
The sector is ready to scale—but growth depends on the right conditions: predictable regulatory timelines, coordinated approvals, and consistent adoption of modern building standards.

Bottom line: Build the right conditions → unlock sector growth → strengthen Canada’s economy. See how: fpac.ca

🤝 Meet Ryan Baddeley. He’s the co-founder and head chef of Pizzeria Badiali, one of the most popular and most acclaimed pizza places in Toronto, which opened its second location earlier this month. We spoke with Ryan about his culinary background, his favourite slice in the whole world, and what it was like collaborating with Miss Vickie’s.

What’s your history with pizza? You trained in Italy, correct? 

I did train in Italy, but I had never made pizza before Badiali. I worked at a famous butcher shop in Tuscany and I cooked at some restaurants in Sicily, but I had never made specifically pizza, even here in Toronto. It was more something that I would have after work as a chef in my early 20s, as a late night food option. Or something I loved eating when travelling in Italy and New York. But I had never really pictured myself doing it as a career move until COVID hit.

Do you have a favourite pizza place in the whole world?

It’s actually a bakery in Rome called Roscioli. It's been there for over a hundred years and they serve pizza al metro, which is a kind of long Roman-style pizza. It's typically very simply topped. I like their rossa slice, which is basically just a tomato sauce on their dough.

Last year, Miss Vickie’s made a chip inspired by Badiali’s vodka slice. How did that come to be?

It was very, very cool to be able to do something with Miss Vickie’s, not only because it's an iconic Canadian chip, but I think that it's the best chip also. They reached out to us via a PR agency. They were looking for someone to represent Toronto as a unique Italian flavour for their line of chips they were doing. They had a whole team come. Their flavour specialist came and we gave them a few pizzas to try. We were definitely trying to push the vodka pizza flavour as it was unique to us. We did a few rounds of flavour testing with them and I think they did a great job in nailing the amount of heat, the kind of dairy flavour and acidity, and little pizza oregano. And I think the branding as well, putting a slice on it was very cool.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Read the full Q&A here.

In many ways, the newest Ferrari model is typical — a €550,000 price tag, zero-to-60 miles in under 2.5 seconds — but it’s different in one key way: It’s ugly. Oh, it’s also electric. 

What happened: Ferrari has unveiled the Luce, its first-ever all-electric vehicle. The name, Italian for light, is meant to evoke a sense of “clarity and direction” according to the automaker. The concept apparently did not resonate with investors, as the company’s shares fell 8.4% yesterday. 

Zoom in: To put it lightly, the Luce has not been well received by Ferrari fans. While some have praised its specs, its design — made in partnership with former Apple design head Jony Ive — has been criticized for looking like a run-of-the-mill EV. 

Why it matters: Luxury carmakers are pulling back from EVs, with Lamborghini, Porsche, and McLaren all tempering electric expansions due to tepid demand. Ferrari forged ahead, but if the Luce doesn’t hit, it could be a while before more luxury EVs hit the road. While this in itself isn’t a big deal as these cars make up such a small percentage of vehicles, it could indicate a wider trend: shoppers bristling at EVs because they don’t feel like real cars.—QH

🐶 $54,000. Lifetime cost of owning some large dog breeds in Canada last year, according to a new report from Rover, up 17% from 2024. Smaller dogs proved to be the value investors’ choice, costing an average of $17,000. With the rate of pet-flation these days, we’d recommend a wiener dog.

What’s that? Why yes, we do have today’s mini-crossword, the daily sudoku, Codebreaker, and Who’s Who ready for you to play!