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Issue #20 11.04.2026
The weekly standup
Everything you need to know before you have to microwave your coffee (for the first time).
💰
Cheap money is officially a memory
🤝
The trade war might actually be wrapping up
🧮
77% of Canadian employers pulled a workforce lever this year
The office chatter ☕
What everyone’s pretending not to read during meetings.
🤝
The trade war might actually be ending
Canada-US trade talks intensified over the weekend, with sources calling negotiations “all consuming.” The sudden urgency? Midterms are next week, and most American voters blame tariffs for higher prices. Nothing motivates a deal like a deadline, but don’t update the forecast until the ink dries (The Peak).
🧮
Canadian employers are rearranging the furniture
77% of Canadian employers took at least one workforce action this past year, from hiring pauses to layoffs to leaning on AI. Tariff chaos drove over half of it, meanwhile 44% are redesigning processes around AI, but fewer than half have a formal AI policy. The tools arrived before the rulebook. Worth writing one before the furniture moves itself.
Like what you’re reading?
The breakroom bulletin 📌
What’s hot, what’s not and what’s all for show
Getting promoted 📈
📈
Four green months in a row
Canadian small business sales rose 2% year over year in the September quarter, the first sustained streak since mid-2025. Alberta did most of the heavy lifting thanks to oil prices. It’s not a recovery yet. But after 18 months, up is up (Retail Insider).
🚜
The excavator is learning to drive itself
Bedrock Robotics raised US$600 million to retrofit construction vehicles with self-driving kits, with Canadian VC money in the round. Canada needs 51% more construction workers by 2030. The robots aren’t taking jobs here: they’re filling the ones nobody can (The Peak).
On a PIP 📉
🧵
A century in business, no one to hand the keys to
Kastners in Cornwall is closing after 100-plus years, joining a wave of independent retailers winding down as owners retire. One similar shop closed right after its best sales year. The demand is there, the succession plan isn’t.
⏰
The west coast just cancelled the clock change. Sleep experts have notes.
Starting November 1, BC, AB and MB go to permanent daylight time. The catch: December sunrises near 9 a.m., darker commutes and a sleep researcher warning employers to expect groggier teams. The province voted to keep the light; the circadian clock didn’t get a ballot (HR Reporter).
Corporate Theatre 🎭
📹
Influencers want in on the small business club
YouTube is lobbying Ottawa to let creators access BDC loans, arguing they contribute $2 billion to GDP and support 35,000 jobs. Somewhere, a loan officer is about to evaluate “going viral” as a revenue model (The Peak).
💻
Apple made a laptop that costs more than a car
The new touchscreen MacBook Pro starts at $2,899, but spec it to the max and you’ll pay $14,549. Blame the memory shortage and AI’s appetite for hardware. The touchscreen took a decade to arrive. The invoice got here right on time (TechCrunch).
Ideas worth stealing 💡
🍕
A pizza chain just out-loyaltied the giants
Salvatoré topped Quebec’s loyalty rankings in its first year, beating Tim Hortons and McDonald’s with a simple program and rewards people actually redeem. Canadians belong to 22 loyalty programs and use nine. Don’t aim for the wallet: aim for the nine (Retail Insider).
🔮
“Be more proactive” is not feedback
Half of managers say they give weekly feedback. Only 20% of employees agree. One expert calls vague review comments the horoscope of feedback: everyone recognizes themselves, nobody knows what to do differently. Tell people sooner and tell them specifically. That’s it.
The Thing I Can’t Stop Thinking About 🧠
Cheap money isn’t coming back
📖
The story
The Bank of Canada raised its key interest rate to 2.5%, the first hike since July 2023. Rising oil prices shocked the bank into acting early, and it’s openly leaving the door ajar for more, with inflation not projected to return to 2% until mid-2028.
📶
The signal
The last time inflation surged, the BoC arguably waited too long and spent two years playing catch-up. This hike says the bank would rather move early and be wrong than move late and be sorry. Caution is now the strategy, and borrowing costs will reflect that.
🛫
The takeaway
Most business plans written this decade quietly assumed rates would keep drifting down. The sharper assumption now is that money stays expensive and the businesses that thrive will be built for that: leaner debt, honest forecasts and growth that doesn’t depend on a rate cut arriving on schedule (The Peak).
Smart people saying smart things 💬
One post, tweet or take that’s making people in the world of work stop scrolling.
This week, entrepreneur and investor Gary Vaynerchuk pushes back on the fear that keeps most ideas in the drafts folder: worrying about the audience before you’ve even stepped on stage.
So many are worried about looking “cringey”… You know what’s really cringey? Worrying about what other people think and letting the fear of losing keep you from trying in the first place. So many of you are so scared of being boo-ed that you never get started. Your embarrassment is your advantage. Whatever it is that you want to do, please don’t allow yourself to be at the mercy of other people’s opinions. You choose. You choose who you listen to. You choose who you are surrounding yourself with. You choose to believe in YOU. Why are you taking somebody else’s opinion about yourself greater than your opinion about yourself? If you take anything from this, know that you have to believe in yourself first.
— Gary Vaynerchuk (@garyvee) October 28, 2026
My music at work 🎵
One song helping us survive another week of impromptu Slack huddles.
The last thing before we jump 🦘
A funny pattern this week: everything got more expensive except the excuses. Borrowing costs went up, laptops went up and employers everywhere pulled levers to adjust.
Meanwhile the cheapest moves on the board cost nothing at all: telling a candidate they didn’t get the job, giving feedback before review season, writing the AI policy before the AI writes itself into the org chart.
The businesses that get through a pricier decade won’t necessarily be the ones that spend the most. They’ll be the ones that stopped paying for silence.
See you next week.
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