In the round

Once you saw the ad, it was game over. You knew you had to have ‘em, and no one would get in your way: “L’eggo my Eggo”. Simple, but boy did it click. The iconic slogan was coined in 1972, and has been enticing us to eat frozen waffles ever since 🤤

Those words became the building blocks of a brand, which probably came as no surprise to Lego. Speaking of, the toy company recently made headlines thanks to an English artist. David A Lindon has crafted a microscopic Lego piece! 

That would be a tiny brick in your hand ;)

(Love nostalgia? Play today’s trivia below for a chance to win a $25 Tim Hortons eGift Card!)

IN THE NEWS

Canadian economy outgrew expectations

The Canadian economy’s near-term outlook remains up in the air as the United States continues to threaten a trade war, but heading into the year, it was roaring back from a standstill.

According to data released by Statistics Canada, GDP growth in Q4 came in at 2.6%, considerably higher than the 1.8% predicted by economists polled by Reuters and the Bank of Canada.

The unexpected growth was driven largely by auto purchases, including trucks, sport utility vehicles, and vans, which rose considerably as interest rates fell enough for consumers to handle taking out auto loans.

It was the fastest rate of quarterly growth in Canada in two years, according to StatsCan, but such momentum could all be quelled just as quickly as it appeared.

"Canada’s economy showed some evident sparks of life in the final quarter of 2024 as it responded to lower interest rates and a sales tax holiday, but that flame could still be extinguished in 2025 if the country faces a tariff wall," Avery Shenfeld, chief economist at CIBC Capital Markets, said in a note to clients. 

TRAVEL

CTA proposes fining passengers who disclose resolutions

The Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) is proposing an amendment to the Canada Transportation Act that would allow the government to fine air passengers who publicly disclose the details of complaint resolutions that the CTA or airline requests be kept confidential.

The act was updated last year to require carriers to publicize certain details of a complaint resolution, but the update included a provision that the CTA keep details of the resolution confidential if such a request is made by either the airline or the passenger.

The new proposal would implement guidelines for fining a party who violates that confidentiality.

“The updates through this designation exercise are not the result of the observation of any systemic issue,” says agency spokesman Jadrino Huot. “[They do] not signal the CTA’s intent to use these authorities for the purpose of enforcing confidentiality, either with airlines or passengers, or that any penalties will be applied automatically.”

Gabor Lukacs, founder of Air Passenger Rights, called the proposal unconstitutional, likening it to a proposal to keep small claims court settlements confidential under threat of fine.

“Once mediation turns into binding decision-making, that cannot be kept confidential unless there are some very, very important issues like protecting victims in sexual assault cases,” he said.

MONEY MONDAYS

Some Canadian businesses thriving on tariff threats

Tariff threats from south of the border are causing panic and concern for a great many Canadian businesses and consumers, but some are benefitting by getting an injection of new customers looking to exclusively buy Canadian.

“This is usually our slowest time of year, coming off the holiday season, when we have a couple of months to regroup,” said Julie Brown, co-founder of Toronto-based apparel brand Province of Canada. “This year, I’m not complaining, but we haven’t really had that reprieve.”

Her business saw sales double in February compared to its normal margins, and it’s led her to consider hiring more staff to handle the soaring demand.

Similar trends are being followed with Toronto-based mattress makers, Silk & Snow. CEO Albert Chow says customers appear to be choosing them because they’re Canadian, though he “doesn’t really shout it from the rooftops.”

According to e-commerce platform, Shopify, Canadian merchants in the mattress business are increasingly stocking mattresses from Silk & Snow, with sales up a staggering 213% in January and February.

PETS

Blinking buddies

Humans blink when looking at each other as a way of bonding. It’s not a conscious thing, but it helps connect us on a social level and keeps the atmosphere peaceful.

New research seems to suggest that dogs do this too, particularly when they’re around other dogs. It’s possibly a consequence of domestication and a social habit picked up from humans over thousands of years.

“The idea that individual dogs can synchronize with each other in such a subtle and hardly perceptible way raises fascinating questions about how they communicate,” says Martina Francesconi, an ethologist at the University of Pisa. “They might be more in tune with one another than we realized.”

Blinking in sync with another person (or dog) is called facial mimicry, and to see if dogs do this, study lead Chiara Canori, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Parma, and her team video recorded dogs making several facial gestures and edited the videos together to produce 71-second clips for 54 dogs to watch on a big screen.

The parts of the video when the on-screen dogs were blinking resulted in most of the 54 participating pups increasing their blinking frequency by 16%.

It’s not conclusive, but Canori says the study reveals new insight into the deeply complex ways animals communicate with each other.

MEDICINE

Promising results in pancreatic cancer vaccine trial

A 3.2-year-long trial for an mRNA vaccine designed to boost the immunity of certain pancreatic cancer patients found eight of the 16 trial subjects showed continually-strong immune responses after their tumors were removed and they were given the vaccine.

The BioNTech trial included early-stage pancreatic cancer patients whose tumors had not spread to other parts of the body and remained small enough to remove via surgery.

Typically, the immune system isn’t great at attacking cancer because it’s programmed to not recognize its own body as a threat, which cancer cells are.

However, certain past studies found “spontaneous immune responses” in some survivors of pancreatic cancer, leading the researchers who helped develop the mRNA vaccine to investigate if and how that immune response could be replicated.

They were able to do so by developing the vaccine to target the corrupted/mutated cells found in a pancreatic tumor.

The eight trial participants who didn’t show a strong immune response were seemingly hindered by the fact that their tumor removal also required them to have their spleens removed, which weakened their immune systems.

The researchers say the results are promising, but not necessarily conclusive, because it’s difficult to determine causality. Still, just 10% of those diagnosed with pancreatic cancer live longer than five years, meaning any progress could be monumental.

ODDITIES

Citigroup accidentally sends client $81 trillion

It’s a good thing Citigroup was able to reverse an accidental transaction caused by a “fat finger error,” given that that error resulted in a client being credited $81 trillion, or about basically the value of the entire global economy and about 18% of all global wealth.

Obviously no single entity has this type of money to give in the first place, but a computer error that was missed by two staffers at Citigroup attempted to make it so, regardless.

The client would have been able to buy every single publicly traded share in the United States stock market, and still would have had about $19 trillion left over, just in case they felt like buying a few dozen countries afterwards.

“Despite the fact that a payment of this size could not actually have been executed, our detective controls promptly identified the inputting error between two Citi ledger accounts and we reversed the entry,” said a Citigroup spokesperson. “Our preventative controls would have also stopped any funds leaving the bank.

“While there was no impact to the bank or our client, the episode underscores our continued efforts to continue eliminating manual processes and automating controls through our transformation.”

STAKE TRIVIA

Feeling bookish?

From fashion, to music, movies and more, the ’80s were one heck of a decade. It might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you put yourself back there, but it was also a great decade for books! 🤓 

Put on those reading glasses and get ready to remember some of the classics with today’s trivia! Complete the game and earn a shot at a $25 Tim Hortons eGift Card ;)

Winner will be notified tomorrow afternoon—keep an eye on your inbox!*

Have a great day ahead Staker!

Today’s issue written by Michael Cowan, Joey Cowan, and Maureen Norman.


*SEE FULL STAKE TRIVIA CONTEST RULES HERE.