The Peak Weekend Reader

Good morning. With Alberta’s referendum vote coming up on October 19, we wanted to publish a story focused on what a vote to leave could mean for Alberta’s economy. So we tapped Patrick Lennox, an author and national security scholar based in Edmonton, for today’s feature, which points out that the referendum has already cost the province a lot — one estimate puts the price at $3,000 for every Albertan in foregone investments due to the uncertainty. “Secession referendums, regardless of outcome, are not consequence-free propositions — not as far as the stock and bond markets are concerned,” he writes. “Even as far-fetched as this referendum in Alberta may seem, the economic implications of staging such an event do not exist in a vacuum.”

Our story gets into the hard costs of holding the vote itself, the estimated costs of creating an independent Alberta, and — most starkly — the costs Alberta’s economy has already incurred by holding the vote to begin with. 

And, coming up next week, we have a pretty fun story for those who’ve been following the Letterboxd acquisition whispers.

Happy reading,

Liz

🏀 Musty old gymwear sells for millions at auction. A Chicago Bulls jersey worn by Michael Jordan in Game 3 of the 1998 NBA Finals sold at auction this week for US$12.26 million, shattering the previous record for most expensive NBA jersey sold at auction… which was held by the jersey His Airness wore in Game 1 of that same series. 

🚍 POV: you just stole a public bus. In August, some joyriders broke into a Toronto Transit Commission yard and drove around in a training bus. Unsurprisingly, they drove rather recklessly and hit a pole at one point. Now, video evidence of this act of criminal mischief has been uploaded to YouTube under the apt title “shitty drivers: north queen edition.”

🤖 AI jobs apocalypse unlikely, according to TD Economics. Don’t panic, everyone. A new report from TD economists crunched the numbers and found that “AI is more likely to reshape how work is performed rather than eliminate a large number of jobs outright.” Now that those fears are out of the way, all we have to worry about is a non-jobs AI apocalypse.

☕️ Keurig says it’s cracked plastic-free coffee pods. The company that kickstarted the coffee pod revolution unveiled a new product called AltaRounds: a single serving of coffee in a seaweed-derived puck-shaped package. Traditional pods are a nightmare to recycle or compost, but Keurig says AltaRounds are easily compostable and fully biodegrade in six months.

Japan, perhaps more than any other country, has a rich history of celebrity endorsements (our personal favourite example: this Parliament Cigarettes commercial from the 1990s with Charlie Sheen). However, Japanese convenience store operator FamilyMart has taken things to a new level by hiring Lady Gaga to star not in a commercial for the chain, but in a recruitment video.

The ad could prove to be something of a turning point for corporate Japan as it continues to struggle with a national labour shortage crisis that has taxed much more than just the convenience store industry. The country currently has around 800,000 active job vacancies, with 1.2 openings for every one jobseeker — in parts of industries like construction, that ratio is as high as 7.9-to-1.

The strategy of making workplaces look more attractive is one that Japanese companies have taken instead of raising wages — real annual earnings for a full-time worker were basically unchanged between 2014 and 2024. But splashing big on securing a Gaga cameo rather than, say, investing in employee development, is something new altogether.  

In the 30-second clip, a cadre of Lady Gagas rocking matching platinum bobs and chic versions of the FamilyMart uniform mop the aisles, stock the shelves, and ask the viewer “Why not work at FamilyMart?” The spot — as well as other developments like a modern update of its uniform — is a direct appeal to the young, tech-savvy workers FamilyMart and other Japanese convenience stores are desperate to attract as they contend with labour shortages, wobbly sales, and reputations for grinding working conditions. Currently, FamilyMart is seeking to hire some 10,000 part-time staff, while 7-Eleven is looking for around twice as many.

As Japan continues to age and its workforce continues to decline, the issue is more likely to get worse before it gets better, and pop stars cosplaying as employees isn’t going to solve the issue. One potential solution, though, that has seen a lot of uptake, is the welcoming of more foreign workers. There is already a record number of foreign workers in the country who hold Specified Skilled Worker visas. And, starting next April, the government is implementing a new stream that could see as many as 426,000 foreigners enter the workforce over a two-year span. Between the two streams, an additional 1.23 million workers could soon be on the job. 

However, there are major concerns that the nation’s language schools will not be able to take on the rush of foreign workers who will need to obtain proficiency in Japanese in order to stick around. Likewise, as with any nation that relies on a sudden influx of foreign workers to offset labour shortages (see: Canada), there are fears that the already crunched housing market and social services apparatus won’t be able to support all these newcomers. All said, nations trying to navigate how to build workforces as their populations rapidly age will likely be one of the defining economic trends of the next several decades.

📡 What else is on our radar: 

To estimate the cost of separation from Canada, Alberta tapped the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy to produce a sole-sourced, $1.5 million study, which was released last month. The final, hypothetical tab? $170 million. Edmonton-based author Patrick Lennox argues that’s the wrong figure to focus on, and points to some hard lessons from Brexit and the Quebec referendum votes that Alberta will learn.

Also below the fold today…