Sports is a big business, but it's changing dramatically in the era of streaming and the decline of the cable bundle. Old leagues are trying to adapt (see: Major League Baseball's controversial pitch clock), while new franchises pop seemingly out of nowhere (see: Formula One). Meanwhile, the sports media landscape is becoming more fragmented, with new players like Netflix and Apple competing aggressively for broadcasting rights. Adam Seaborn, sports media analyst and Head of Partnerships at Toro...
Mar 14, 2023•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 14
Inflation has (arguably) been the biggest economic story of the past year in Canada, so it's worth taking the time to really understand it. How is it calculated? What's contributing to it right now? And how do different sectors of the economy affect how prices in other sectors fluctuate? Turns out it's pretty complicated. Fortunately, Trevor Tombe, Professor of Economics at the University of Calgary and a Research Fellow at The School of Public Policy, is here to explain all of that and more, al...
Mar 07, 2023•59 min•Ep. 13
Markets are enjoying a surprisingly strong start to the year after a rough last-half of 2022. Inflation has fallen from its peaks, and more people are talking about a soft-landing—or even a "no-landing" scenario—for the economy. But there's good reason to think we aren't out of the woods yet. On this episode of Free Lunch by The Peak, BlackRock's Senior Strategist for North America ,Kurt Reiman, joins us to unpack what's happening in the economy, both in Canada and globally, and what it means fo...
Feb 28, 2023•53 min•Season 1Ep. 12
Canada's housing market is in a strange place right now. Prices are dropping, but affordability is the worst it's ever been. There's enormous unmet demand for homes, but the pace of new construction is falling and developers are going under. Buyers and sellers are in a holding pattern, waiting to see what central banks do next. Where do we go from here? On this episode, Daniel Foch joins us to break down what he's seeing in real estate markets across Canada, where he thinks prices are headed, an...
Feb 21, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 11
In 2016 a long-time employee at the Publix grocery store chain in Atlanta cashed in over $1 million of the company's stock and retired early. That's because Publix employees are part of something called an employee ownership trust, which allows them to accumulate a stake in the business over time. Employee ownership trusts already exist in the US and UK, and their advocates say they improve job satisfaction, boost performance, and lead to secure retirements. But in Canada, where setting up such ...
Feb 14, 2023•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 10
After soaring during the pandemic, tech companies big and small have spent the past year cutting costs and laying off thousands of workers. At the same time, unemployment is at a record low, job vacancies are high, and many non-tech businesses are complaining about a labour shortage. So what can we really learn about the broader economy from the tech winter we're experiencing now, and what impact will it have on Canada? April Fong, executive editor of The Logic, joins us to answer these question...
Feb 07, 2023•41 min•Season 1Ep. 9
Buying local food and produce is a big deal for a lot of Canadians—but so is the rising cost of groceries, and local options are often (though, as we'll find out in this episode, not always) more expensive. Why is that? In this episode, we dig into the supply chain of an Ontario baking business that relies on local suppliers and farmers for its products, and look at how the cost of doing business locally stacks up against big agricultural producers. Joining us to explain how the local agricultur...
Jan 31, 2023•54 min•Season 1Ep. 8
Anyone who has dealt with Canada's healthcare system knows that it's under incredible strain. Part of that is because of the pandemic and the backlogs that piled up over the past three years. But many of the factors that led to the crisis we're now facing have been building up for much longer than that. Dr. Saad Ahmed, a family physician based out of Vancouver and lecturer at the University of Toronto's Department of Family & Community Medicine, joins us to break down how exactly our healthc...
Jan 24, 2023•1 hr 8 min•Season 1Ep. 7
Electric vehicles are going mainstream. Governments around the world are setting aggressive targets for EV adoption (Canada is aiming for 100% of light vehicles sold to be electric by 2035), and automakers are investing heavily in ramping up EV production to meet surging demand. But who is going to make all the vehicles and the all-important batteries that go into them? Erik Reed argues that Canada should, and joins us to break down what the EV supply chain looks like today and how Canada can fi...
Jan 17, 2023•54 min•Season 1Ep. 6
Between ChatGPT generating limericks in the style of George Costanza and Lensa turning your profile picture into a cartoon, AI seems to have finally broken into mainstream awareness in the past few months. But what's going on below the surface? How did the technology advance to this point? Who has been funding its development, and how does it actually work? We dig into all of those issues (and other very basic questions we had about the technology) in this conversation with Ryan Khurana, Chief o...
Jan 10, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 5
Canada's housing market has become our national obsession, and with good reason. Years of skyrocketing prices are now meeting surging mortgage rates, and the result is some of the least affordable housing in the world. What's driving that affordability crisis, and what comes next? On this episode of Free Lunch by The Peak, we speak with Mike Moffatt, a Senior Director at the Smart Prosperity Institute and Assistant Professor at Ivey Business School. Mike argues that a lack of supply is the key d...
Jan 03, 2023•56 min•Season 1Ep. 4
In this special holiday episode, we're joined by Brett Chang from The Peak Daily to look back at 2022, chat through some of the biggest stories of the year, and make some predictions about what's to come in 2023. Plus: Our reading recommendations from the year. We're back to our regularly scheduled programming next week. See you in the new year!
Dec 27, 2022•40 min•Season 1Ep. 3
The system of low-cost, hyper-efficient manufacturing that emerged after the end of the Cold War promised to deliver the goods—literally—and usher in a new era of high growth and cheap consumer products. But after years of supply chain disruptions brought on by the pandemic and growing detachment between China and the West, we're now seeing how fragile that system really can be. Is it time for something new? Sean Speer thinks so. He's the PPF Scotiabank Fellow in Strategic Competitiveness at the...
Dec 20, 2022•47 min•Season 1Ep. 2
Canada's labour market has been through a wild ride over the past 3 years or so, from pandemic-era lockdowns to an incredible re-opening bounceback and record low unemployment. And now, with the Bank of Canada trying to cool off the economy and a recession (maybe?) on the horizon, things are getting... strange. On this episode of the podcast, we talk with Brendon Bernard, a Senior Economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab who knows the job market inside and out. He walks us through exactly what's happe...
Dec 13, 2022•49 min•Season 1Ep. 2
Welcome to Free Lunch by The Peak, a new weekly podcast for Canadians that digs deep into economics, business, finance, and tech. Join us every Tuesday morning for new episodes. Search and follow Free Lunch by The Peak wherever you get your podcasts.
Dec 08, 2022•2 min•Season 1Ep. 1
