You can’t spell apocalyptic without IPO

Good morning. We are living in a golden age of newly discovered cute critters.

Mere weeks after the confirmation of the first new cat species in a century, a group of biologists say they have discovered the first new penguin species in more than 100 years. Called Pygoscelis kerguelensis, the little guys were found on the remote Kerguelen Islands in the Indian Ocean. 

We hope that science keeps finding new species of our favourite animals until morale improves.

Today’s reading time is 6 minutes.

Markets: Canada’s main stock index sank again yesterday, staying around two-month low levels, as climbing long-term bond yields continued to wreak havoc on the markets.

It may be losing tens of billions of dollars, but Anthropic still believes it can land the highest valuation in history. 

Driving the news: The AI company’s IPO prospectus revealed that, despite rapid growth over the past year, it reported a net loss of US$42 billion in 2025, per Reuters. Nonetheless, the company is reportedly targeting a $2 trillion valuation for its public market debut, which is expected in November. 

Zoom in: CEO Dario Amodei spent about a third of the prospectus warning investors that the technology they would be funding “may pose existential risks to humanity.” Anthropic noted that it will continue to operate as a Public Benefit Corporation, which, in theory, allows leaders to balance investor interest with safe AI development. 

Why it matters: The prospectus shines a light on how safety fears could put a damper on the long-awaited IPOs of the AI industry’s two biggest players. When you couple the doomsday alarm bells with a $2 trillion valuation and soaring operating costs, betting on Anthropic or OpenAI has become a far riskier proposition. 

Our take: So far, the AI race has largely been centred around building the most powerful, cost-efficient models as quickly as possible. Now, top labs are going to be fighting a PR battle to convince all of us that they’re the ones building the “safe” AI.—LA

Economic growth flatlined in July. Canada’s real GDP was essentially unchanged in July per new Statistics Canada data, with declines seen in sectors like manufacturing, mining, and oil and gas extraction. While this isn’t too discouraging (and early estimates show an August rebound), a new Deloitte Canada report did set off some alarm bells — cutting the growth forecast for Canada's economy next year by 20% due to the trade war. (CBC News)

LNG Canada gets the green light for expansion. The consortium approved a $33 billion expansion of its liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports facility off the coast of Kitimat, B.C. The facility began exports of LNG to Asia last year, and with these upgrades, capacity is set to nearly double from the current export levels of 2.1 billion cubic feet per day. (CBC News)

Saskatchewan is ready to go nuclear. The province unveiled a new plan to establish nuclear energy infrastructure, with the goals of building two reactors, getting the first one online by 2042, and achieving 2,600 megawatts of energy from them by 2050. Premier Scott Moe said that this amount of energy “could power the equivalent of 2.6 million homes.” (Global News)

📡 What else is on our radar:

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🤝 Meet Darren Goldin. He’s the co-founder of Entomo Farms, North America's largest producer of crickets raised specifically for human consumption. We sat down with Darren to talk about why people are so hesitant to eat bugs, the best recipes to add crickets to, and how protein-maxxing has breathed new life into the bug business. 

Why are crickets such a tough sell to a North American?

People have really strong cultural relationships with food. It would be like trying to convince an East Indian person to eat a cow. It's just culturally taboo. For whatever reason, North Americans have this perception that insects are gross. One of the things we would say early on is, “North Americans will carve a chunk of flesh off a cow's behind, and that's not gross. But somehow a cricket is gross.” It's not something that's logical. It doesn't really make any sense. As you're brought up, you're taught what is food and what is not food. 

From a biological, evolutionary perspective, that's a really important part of being a human animal — knowing what you can eat and what you can't eat, because there are lots of things that can kill you. So that part of our brain, I think, is very difficult to adjust if you don't grow up with it culturally.

How many crickets do you personally eat in a week?

I probably eat crickets two times a week now. Most of the time I'm putting them in yogurt in the morning. I'll mix some in with yogurt, then add a little bit of honey, sometimes some fruit. I just like that combination of flavours. And I'd probably eat 100 or 150 crickets per serving, if I was going to guess. When my kids were younger, if we were making pancakes, I'd add a couple of tablespoons of cricket powder to the pancake mix. It darkened it up a little bit, but I didn't hide it from them. They didn't care, because they grew up with it as normal. Same thing if you bake cookies. Or in the winter, I'll make lots of chili, and I'll add the beef and all the vegetables, and then a few heaping tablespoons of the powder.

Is it inevitable that we'll all be eating bugs eventually given the environmental impact of other animals?

That's a tough question. I think at some point it will become necessary for humans to augment the amount of traditional proteins that we eat. I don't think cows or chickens should go away. The reality is just that the whole planet cannot eat steak for dinner every night. So it will become an important part of a sustainable planet. It might be crickets, or it might be some other insect that someday, for whatever reason, tastes better or is even more efficient than crickets. We really are at the tip of the iceberg in this whole paradigm shift in how humans feed themselves and in our relationship with food.

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

The global anti-financial crime watchdog is treating Canada like a student who just isn’t living up to their full potential. 

Driving the news: Canada’s financial crime defences got a passing grade in a long-awaited report from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) but did not do so with flying colours. The FATF downgraded financial institutions from “largely compliant" to “partially compliant,” and highlighted law enforcement's "persistent” trouble in prosecuting money laundering.

Why it matters: While the results aren’t stellar, Canada did avoid being put on the “grey list” of countries the FATF deems as having insufficient anti-financial crime controls. This would have been a back-breaking blow during a period of renewed focus on foreign investment. 

What’s next: Hopefully, this report will be (another) kick in the pants for Canada to step up its financial crime-fighting. It has taken some action this year, most notably pledging $352.7 million over the next five years to get a new Financial Crimes Agency up and running.—QH

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📺 4. Number of streaming services that the average Canadian pays for, according to a new study from Roku. The survey also found that Canadians spent 80 hours every year deciding what to watch, which shouldn’t come as a surprise to any of us who have spent entire nights indecisively scrolling through Netflix.

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