Christmas is coming late (or really early if you want to look at it that way) for about 425,000 Walmart employees who will be getting a raise to at least $15/ hour.

The pay raise comes on the heels of a great year for America’s largest employer, driven by pandemic induced e-commerce and grocery growth. Did Walmart’s US CEO John Furner listen to one too many Bernie Sanders speeches and start believing in redistribution? Not quite…

Bitcoin mania continues with the listing of the world's first Bitcoin ETF on the Toronto Stock Exchange. The Purpose Investments managed product is the first to be approved by regulators and should make it easier for investors to purchase the digital asset.

That's what Perseverance, the NASA rover that left Earth for Mars 6 months ago, will try to discover. 

Catch up fast: Perseverance landed at Jezero Crater yesterday afternoon and will now begin explore the Red Planet.

...because WestJet is cutting flights, staying home and nesting...get it now? Okay, we'll workshop it.

Anyway, the pride of Calgary is temporarily halting all operations in St. John’s, London, Lloydminster and Medicine Hat.

It’s really cold in Texas. Well, not cold for us but definitely cold for them. Texas winters are usually fairly moderate, which is why a recent storm sinking temperatures to below zero is causing havoc in the state.

Mississauga-based Li-Cycle, which recycles lithium batteries, is going public on the New York Stock Exchange at a valuation of more than CAD$2.1 billion.

Finally, a new place to take my Hinge matches post-COVID. 7-Eleven is applying to serve alcohol at 61 locations in Ontario. The convenience store chain is adding a selection of beer and wine to “complement [the store’s] fresh food and hot food programs.”

Some big developments from down under in the fight between the Australian government and Facebook / Google.

Yesterday, Canada’s most valuable company, Shopify, released their Q4 earnings and they were... as good as a fresh powder day at Whistler.

Have you ever accidentally sent the wrong amount in an e-transfer and worried that you were never going to get it back? That’s exactly what a contractor at Citibank did to the tune of $839 million, and a judge just ruled that the recipients can keep it!

A lot of guys (and gals) are using Toronto-based software startup Felix Health: they’ve reportedly grown their user base by a factor of eight since the start of the pandemic.

Felix is a virtual healthcare platform that specializes in “awkward” conditions. We’re talking about erectile dysfunction, cold sores, genital herpes, and hair loss. Normal stuff that not everyone is comfortable talking about.

Canadian legal software company Dye & Durham has raised $500 million to do what they do best: No, not build great software, but to buy other companies in their niche and squeeze as much value out of them as possible.

Eavor, a Calgary geothermal energy company, has raised $40 million from some (perhaps) unlikely backers: a few of the world's biggest oil companies.

The investment branches of Chevron and BP both chipped in to fund the startup's R&D of geothermal tech.

Months of backroom negotiations over a bailout for Canada's airlines could be coming to an end, the Globe & Mail reports.

What's happening: The airlines have been hit hard by the pandemic (no surprise) and have turned to the Federal government for help. 

Two Americans are set to be extradited to Japan to face charges for their role in helping the former CEO of Nissan escape the country. The Americans, father and son Michael and Peter Taylor, lost their bid to have to have the Supreme Court block their removal on Saturday.

Sit back and take a bite out of your delicious Canadian-grown apple because we've got some good news for our economic recovery: Canada's resources heavy economy is getting a big boost from surging commodity prices.

A coalition of NGOs including OxFam and Amnesty International is calling for COVID-19 vaccine patents to be open-sourced in order to scale up production faster.

China critics are raising red flags - of concern, not of the CCP -  about a new deal struck between Chinese technology giant Huawei and the federal government to fund research and development projects at Canadian universities.

Canada’s Ambassador to China is denying he had any role in fueling the opioid crisis in the United States.

It’s not every day a Canadian Ambassador has to make this kind of denial. Dominic Barton isn’t your average Ambassador. Barton served as the global managing director of McKinsey from 2009 to 2018. Prior to the top job Barton was the Asia Chairman for the consulting giant, running the firm’s Korea office before that.