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Markets: Canada’s main stock index fell yesterday as a welcome decrease in annual inflation failed to calm investor nerves over the war in Iran and incoming tech earnings.

Like us after a high-octane spin class, this Canadian fitness app is completely spent and ready to die. 

Driving the news: Vancouver-based app Flex AI is winding down operations after running out of money and failing to secure a buyout, per BetaKit. The app, which accrued nearly one million users as of 2022, is still online as the company liquidates its remaining assets. 

Why it’s happening: Flex didn’t confirm the reason for its misfortunes, but the likely cause is the glut of fitness apps saturating the market. There are thousands of competitors offering similar services — and with the rise of apps made via vibecoding, more are surely coming. 

Why it matters: Flex is the exact type of product (fitness-related or not) facing an existential threat from vibecoding — a replicable idea, with little in the way of a proprietary advantage to act as a moat, which users can now easily make their own personalized version of.

Yes, but: Vibecoding has led to a spike in apps, with the number of new apps released in Apple’s App Store growing 30% last year and doubling in the first half of 2026. But that doesn’t mean people will use them — App Store downloads only grew 3% last year.—QH

Trump imposes new tariffs on Canada. The U.S. President signed an executive order yesterday to slap a 50% tariff on a wide range of Canadian products, from certain food items to cement to hockey sticks. The new duties are five times higher than the rate currently being applied to a small list of non-CUSMA-compliant exports, and would apply to products that have so far been exempt under CUSMA. Some major categories of goods will be exempt, including energy, critical minerals, potash, and fish. A senior Trump official said the move was in response to “Canada's retaliation against U.S. trade policy and its discrimination against U.S. motor vehicles, dairy, and alcohol.” The new tariff rate will take effect in 30 days, barring any last-minute changes of heart from the occupant of the Oval Office—and we know by now those are always a possibility. (CBC News)

The courts put Paramount-Warner Bros. merger on ice. A federal judge in the U.S. has ordered the two studios to pause their proposed US$110 billion deal for at least two weeks, citing lawsuits from 12 states seeking to block the merger on antitrust grounds. The pause, which could cost Paramount US$7 million a day, can be extended to 28 days as the claims in the lawsuits are evaluated. (Associated Press)

Canada’s annual inflation rate dropped to 2.8% last month. Thanks mostly to a 10% decline in gas prices, inflation eased below analyst expectations in June. That’s down from a recent high of 3.2% in May. Core inflation — the Bank of Canada’s preferred metric — fell below the central bank’s 2% target, the first time it's done so since December 2020. (The Canadian Press)

📡 What else is on our radar:

The news isn’t always the most fun thing to read (we do our best to keep things light, but sometimes we don’t have the best source material).

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What they’re saying: “We want oil, we need oil and we have found over the last couple of decades that one of the best places in the world to get oil from is Canada,” U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra said at a conference yesterday. He also let slip that Prime Minister Mark Carney apparently offered to roughly double oil exports to the U.S. during trade talks last year.

Why it matters: While Ottawa is focused on diversifying the customer base for energy exports, the reality is that the U.S. is still the biggest client around (despite what Donald Trump might say). All of this new oil and gas infrastructure — not one, but two pipeline construction announcements dropped yesterday — could mean more black gold flowing south.

Domino's Pizza may be winning the pizza wars, but it's lost its iron grip on late-night food orders.

Driving the news: Domino’s narrowly beat its Q2 revenue expectations, but saw its U.S. same-store sales growth slow to 0.1% in the second quarter, down from 3.4% a year ago. 

Why it’s happening: Before we all had virtual on-demand restaurants in our pockets, pizza was the only game in town for food delivery. Today, chains like Starbucks, Chipotle, and McDonald's — which now sells more delivered food than any other quick-service restaurant — are poaching delivery dollars en masse. 

Why it matters: The democratization of delivery has exposed the fact that there are actually a lot of things we’d choose over pizza. In Canada, pizza didn’t even rank in the top ten most ordered foods on Uber Eats last year (burrito bowls, burgers, and chicken sandwiches reigned supreme).  

Yes, but: It’s primarily the big restaurant groups, with the resources to build their own delivery apps, that have benefited from the pizza delivery exodus. Independent restaurants accounted for less than 12% of the mobile app delivery market, according to one U.S. study, partly because of the expense of using third-party platforms. 

Our take: The reason McDonald’s is being ordered more than any other food likely has more to do with the price point than our collective craving for Big Macs.—LA

🚣 1.98 million. Visitors that go to Muskoka every year, despite only having 65,000 residents — around 30 tourists per resident during peak season. The cottage hub gets 62% of its yearly visitors in June, July, and August, which is the highest summer concentration of any Canadian destination.

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