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WORK
Issue #17 10.14.2026
The weekly standup
Everything you need to know before you have to microwave your coffee (for the first time).
💳
Instant payments are coming. The big banks may not be.
🍔
McDonald’s has an AI opinion on your Big Mac price.
🍁
Ottawa wants to buy Canadian. The vendor list had other plans.
The office chatter ☕
What everyone’s pretending not to read during meetings.
🍔
Your Big Mac has a personal price tag
McDonald’s has been using AI to suggest different prices for the same menu items by location. One Big Mac cost over 20% more than another two miles away. Franchisees can technically set their own prices, though several say the pressure to follow the algorithm is real. Smart pricing? Maybe. Awkward at the drive-thru? Definitely (The Peak).
🍁
“Buy Canadian” meets the fine print
Nearly a third of federal procurement dollars have gone to American-controlled companies since the current government took office, up from one-fifth before. Trade rules and a thin Canadian field in areas like cloud software make switching tough. Good intentions? Check. Canadian alternatives? Still loading (The Peak).
Like what you’re reading?
The breakroom bulletin 📌
What’s hot, what’s not and what’s all for show.
Getting promoted 📈
🚢
Exports got in early
Canada’s trade surplus hit $4.2B in August. Statistics Canada says some of that may be businesses shipping early to dodge new U.S. tariffs. Call it panic-buying, with invoices (CBC News).
🏗️
Ottawa just became a homebuilder
Build Canada Homes, a new Crown corporation, has $13B to build affordable housing on public land. Good news for trades. Less good news for anyone trying to hire one (CBC News).
On a PIP 📉
📉
Santa’s budget is under review
Only 42% of Canadians expect to boost holiday budgets, down nine points from last year. The holidays are still on. The impulse buys are getting a second opinion (Retail Insider).
🏬
Good luck finding a storefront
RioCan’s properties are 98.8% leased, and new tenants are paying about 60% more per square foot than existing ones. Great year to be a landlord. Rough year to be a new tenant (Retail Insider).
Corporate Theatre 🎭
🕵️
Even the spies have a hiring problem
CSIS plans to outsource parts of its hiring, which can take 12 to 18 months and includes digging into your family and financial background. Turns out the hardest part of being a spy is the application (HR Reporter).
🏛️
Parliament has a ghostwriter
The Economist’s AI-detection check flagged up to 20% of longer House of Commons remarks in late 2025 as likely AI-written. If your team’s emails suddenly got more polished, you’re in good company (HR Reporter).
Ideas worth stealing 💡
🎳
Give them a reason to stay
Malls are swapping department stores for bowling and axe throwing, and JLL says visits to these venues average 140 minutes. You don’t need a bowling lane. Start with a decent chair (Retail Insider).
🔧
Point AI at the boring stuff
One in four Canadian small business owners say AI has helped. Owners seeing results aimed it at a real bottleneck: quotes, customer questions, evening admin. Getting Sunday nights back is a pretty good return (Retail Insider).
The Thing I Can’t Stop Thinking About 🧠
What good is a payment rail the big banks skip?
📖
The story
None of Canada’s Big Six banks are scheduled to join the first phase of Real-Time Rail, the instant payment system first targeted for 2019, according to four unnamed sources. Payments Canada won’t name participants. Finance says it will work toward all major institutions participating by summer 2027.
📶
The signal
Canada is the only G7 country without an instant payment rail. Payments that look instant on your screen can still take hours or days to settle. But a rail only matters if the big players use it: one fintech CEO calls a rail most Canadians can’t access “kind of performative.”
🛫
The takeaway
Faster payments won’t change your cash flow until your bank is on the rail. So don’t plan around them yet: ask your bank and payroll provider where they stand. The bigger lesson applies beyond payments. Launching new infrastructure is the easy part. Getting everyone to actually use it is the real project (BetaKit).
Smart people saying smart things 💬
One post, tweet or take that’s making people in the world of work stop scrolling.
This week, XPRIZE founder Peter Diamandis shared a reminder that curiosity, motivation and a bit of humility will take you far, and a skills gap is something to work on, not a ruling on what you can do.
You do NOT need to be the world’s leading expert to start working on any problem or idea. All you need is enough curiosity and motivation, even humility, to ask the basic questions. We aren’t born with all the skills learned; that is a gap you can work on. DO NOT treat it as a verdict.
— Peter Diamandis (@PeterDiamandis) October 4, 2026
My music at work 🎵
One song helping us survive another week of impromptu Slack huddles.
The last thing before we jump 🦘
This week was full of things that launched and haven’t landed. A payment rail that may start without the big banks. A buy Canadian pledge that keeps running into the vendor list. Announcing the future is the easy part: getting people to use it is the real job.
See you next week.
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