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Good morning. It’s rare these days you see somebody stick around at a single workplace for over a decade, but Bobby Webster of the Toronto Raptors is proof that loyalty to your employer can pay off. After 13 years with the club, including nine as general manager, he was promoted to executive-vice president and signed a multiyear contract extension to boot.

Considering how many heads have rolled at Raptors owner MLSE over the past few months, this feels like an especially impressive achievement.  

Today’s reading time is 5½ minutes.

Markets: Canada’s main stock index bounced back yesterday after getting absolutely rocked at the end of last week, with the energy and tech sectors reacting well to Iran and Israel pausing military retaliations.

There are about to be some extremely irritable Canadian teens. Spare a thought for their parents. 

What happened: The federal government will ban social media for children under 16 as part of an online harms law that will be tabled in the House of Commons tomorrow, according to the Globe and Mail. 

Yes, but: Ottawa’s proposed ban reportedly includes a carve-out for social media companies that can prove they’ve mitigated the risk their platform poses to kids. A new digital regulator will outline the safeguards platforms need to put in place to meet this criteria. In other words, the ban may not wind up actually being as comprehensive as it sounds.

Why it matters: Countless studies now show social media’s negative effects on children’s mental health and development, and three-quarters of Canadians support a social media ban for kids under 16. The real question is whether Ottawa, or any government, can make a ban work in practice. So far, the answer has been: not really. 

Our take: Based on the carve-out for ‘non-harmful’ social media companies, this law may wind up being more of a pressure tactic to get platforms to step up their safety controls than a true, outright ban. It wouldn’t be all that surprising if the major social media platforms announce a few new guardrails and avoid ever actually having to boot under-16s.—LA

Ottawa is forcing the CRTC to scrap its foreign streamer fees. The feds are directing the broadcasting regulator to completely scrap its regulations that would force foreign streamers like Netflix and Disney to use a portion of their Canadian revenues to fund local film, television, and news. Ottawa will reportedly hold talks directly with the streamers to find a “more reasonable rate” to contribute. Before it was even implemented, the levy had become a trade irritant with the U.S., while streamers claimed it would force them to raise prices for Canadian customers. (Globe and Mail)

The US$100,000 H-1B visa application fee was thrown out in court. A federal judge ruled yesterday that the six-figure application fee that the Trump administration implemented for the H-1B visa was unlawful and must be reversed. American companies (particularly big tech firms) have long relied on the immigration pathway to bring in skilled foreign workers, including Canadians. Trump, who argued the visa program was displacing American tech workers, raised the price of applying for an H-1B visa by ~1,900% last fall. (Bloomberg News)

Airlines are getting financial assistance from Ottawa to help ease fuel costs. The federal government is offering loans as big as $150 million to airlines that are struggling with the soaring cost of jet fuel, which has doubled in price since February. Collectively, airlines are expected to see their profits cut in half this year, and many have been forced to cancel routes and raise airfares. (The Canadian Press)

📡 What else is on our radar: 

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What they’re saying: “We pissed off a lot of people, and that’s not the way I do business,” Kevin O’Leary told Salt Lake City’s ABC4, referring to the backlash his proposed data centre is facing in Utah. Last week, he agreed to demands from the Utah Senate president to use 75% less land for the project and committed to various environmental requirements.

Why it matters: The situation points to growing backlash against data centre projects and how firms looking to build them (even ones led by execs known for their brash style) will need to compromise to push the projects through. O’Leary will likely have to do this song and dance again as his planned Alberta centre comes under fire.

When smartphones started getting popular, you’d sometimes hear people worry that they would cause a fertility crisis by somehow shrivelling up our reproductive organs. 

Well, it turns out those concerns were valid, just not for the reasons people thought. 

Driving the news: A new study in the National Bureau of Economic Research linked the drop in U.S. birth rates, which began in 2007, to the release of the iPhone, which also happened in 2007. The hypothesized causation was that Apple’s smartphone led to “reduced in-person interactions, increasing pornography use, and [reduced] sexual frequency.” 

Zoom in: The study used a quite ingenious method, comparing birth rates in U.S. counties predominantly covered by AT&T — which between June 2007 and February 2011 was the only network that serviced iPhones — with those where the carrier had little-to-no presence. 

Why it matters: The fertility drop is a global issue, with the average number of children born to each woman falling below the “replacement rate” in more than two-thirds of countries. This means an aging population and fewer new world citizens to keep things running in the future.

Our take: Smartphones are one thread in a web of reasons — from economic stress to increased contraceptive access — for why there are fewer babies. They may be, however, the bleakest cause: people losing the ability to form actual, real-life relationships.—QH

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🚛 20. Driverless trucks that are currently delivering products to Loblaw locations in Ontario. The autonomous truck company, Gatik, is expected to have 50 of its driverless delivery vehicles on the roads in Southern Ontario by the end of the year.

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