📈 The Peak’s Year in Review

Good morning. And welcome to The Peak’s annual Year in Review! 

For the week leading up to the new year, we’ll be bidding farewell to 2025 by looking back on the year’s top stories and handing out some awards. Today, we’re reviewing January and February, and picking the Biggest Storyline.  

—Quinn Henderson

Trudeau steps down. After nine years at the helm, Justin Trudeau resigned as Liberal leader and prime minister. It was an ignominious end for a PM who started his tenure fêted by the global press, only to end with toxic approval ratings and a caucus in revolt. But don’t shed too many tears — he seems happy these days dating a pop superstar, shopping at Canadian Tire, and supporting his son’s music career. (Jan. 7 Edition)

Wildfires tear through L.A. For 24 days, ferocious blazes raged in L.A.’s Palisades and Eaton neighbourhoods, claiming 30 lives and causing up to US$131 billion in damages. It was one of the 10 costliest disasters in U.S history, and served as an early annual reminder of the devastating toll wildfires now regularly take. Back home in Canada, it would end up being the second-worst wildfire season on record, surpassed only by 2023. (Jan. 11 Edition)

Amazon bids adieu to Quebec. In a shocking decision, Amazon shuttered all of its Quebec fulfillment centres, resulting in the dismissal of over 1,700 workers. While it said the switch to a third-party provider was all about savings, critics pointed out it may have more to do with the Laval fulfillment centre, which became the first unionized Amazon workplace in Canada months before. The union has since taken Amazon to court over the move. (Jan. 23 Edition) 

DeepSeek rattles the AI industry. When Chinese firm DeepSeek released a high-level AI model that cost just US$6 million and used older chips, it sparked a tech sell-off. This included Nvidia suffering a record one-day loss for any company. While stocks rebounded, “DeepSeek moments” are now a fairly common occurrence as cheaper Chinese models call into question exorbitant AI spending and further stoke fears of a bubble. (Jan. 28 Edition)

DOGE had its day. Elon Musk’s government department (which isn’t actually a government department and supposedly was never led by Musk) decimated the U.S. public sector in the name of efficiency, eliminating over 290,000 jobs as of November. However, DOGE began to crumble when Musk and Trump went through a messy friendship breakup. By this time next year, it likely won’t exist, but its impact will still be felt. (Feb. 28 Edition) 

Winner: Tariffs. It’s the one word that sparked the most panic, animated the most political discourse, and ultimately defined the year. Trump got the ball rolling in early February with a blanket tariff on Canadian goods and didn’t stop there, piling on additional levies for exports like steel and autos. Things only got more confusing amid a ceaseless flurry of threats, counter-tariffs, negotiations, removed counter-tariffs, and CUSMA compliance studies. For the sake of Canadian industry (and our sanity) we hope SCOTUS strikes them down in 2026.

Runner-up: Data centres. As the AI race continued unabated, players both big and small realized they would soon need a lot more compute power. The result was a year full of billion-dollar data centre deals. While places like Alberta courted data centre developers, there are concerns about these power-hungry behemoths driving staggering increases to electricity bills. 

Runner-up: Defence spending. Amid heightened global instability, defence spending went up pretty much everywhere. Canada got serious about it, too. With upcoming investments in submarines and fighter jets, Ottawa might finally reach NATO’s goal of spending at least 2% of GDP on defence. It’s just too bad NATO raised that target from 2% to 5% back in July.

On Feb. 17, a Bombardier CRJ900 jet flown by Delta Air Lines ended up both on its back and on fire while landing at Toronto Pearson. Miraculously, no one died. The spectacular crash was the result of a hard impact that crushed the right-side landing gear, causing the plane to dip and the right wing to break off, flipping it upside down and igniting the flames.

We just know that this could’ve been avoided if Nathan Fielder was in the cockpit.

🥤 30. Years that Coca-Cola manufactured and distributed Nestea in Canada. This year, Keurig Dr Pepper took over the contract. However, Coca-Cola owned the Nestea recipe and began using it for Fuze, leading to confusion in the grocery aisles over the real Nestea.  

🚆 300 km/h. Top speed of the electric passenger trains on Canada’s first high-speed rail network, which is planned to run between Toronto and Quebec City. That’s nearly twice as fast as Via Rail’s trains. The feds announced the $80 billion plan this year, but we’ll have to wait over a decade for it. 

🍝 ~160. Arrests made in one of Italy’s largest anti-mafia busts in decades, with authorities taking down members of the infamous Cosa Nostra. Italy’s crackdown on the mob in recent years has actually shifted mafia power centres to Canada — in particular Southern Ontario.

It’s our Boxing Day deal that can’t be beat — today’s mini-crossword! 

And once you’re done with that, give today’s sudoku a shot.