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Joined January 2025
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Enjoy a feature creative piece from our weekly newsletter romanticising the dark evenings of Canadian winter.
Build Canada retweeted
The federal government is days from sharing Budget 2026. @FP_Champagne says Budget 2026 will "make life easier" for SMBs. 👀
These three small business tax limits haven’t moved in decades, and inflation has cut their value by up to 50%.
Budget 2026 could score easy points by indexing them.
Thursday’s federal budget will look to make life easier for Canada’s small- and medium-sized businesses, says Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne.
globalnews.ca/news/12130114/…
Last month, @Wealthsimple raised $425M at a $13.8B valuation! 🥳
Their success has meant that investors like Power Corp have outpaced even Nvidia's growth in recent months. 🙌
Building ambitiously in Canada pays off. 🏗️🍁
Wealthsimple made waves by disrupting a sluggish industry that the same players dominated for decades.
Now the old dogs have to learn some new tricks. 😏
No matter who you bank with, every Canadian will benefit from open banking.
From @andrewtgraham: buildcanada.com/memos/bankin… 🏦
Build Canada retweeted
The much anticipated Budget 2026 lands this Thursday.
Before it does, Canadians should understand how our government is performing against its Budget 2025 plans.
Planned deficit: $78.3B
April’s check-in: $66.9B
Final 2025 deficit: ??
Build Canada retweeted
This is a thoughtful piece.
I'm genuinely happy for Cohere that they're growing and scaling, but I will admit I've been asking myself a lot of bigger picture questions since this was announced, starting with: what problem does this solve?
Cohere isn't short of capital. Schwarz, Nvidia and Aramco invested. And the $1.68B announced comes after $240M in federal compute funding and stakes from PSP, EDC and BDC in earlier funding rounds.
So if it's not capital, what is the goal? The AI minister himself was quoted in a Betakit article saying the stake gives Ottawa "a seat at the table to control" this technology.
What does that mean? What are the terms of the deal? Is the intent here really for the Government of Canada to control the technology that Cohere is developing? I think Canadians deserve to know what kind of control is contemplated.
Beyond this specific deal, the bigger picture points to an evolving pattern in Canada’s industrial policy.
Equity stakes in private companies have historically only been taken by the Government of Canada in times of crisis to rescue strategically important companies. Most lost taxpayers money, e.g. GM, Trans Mountain, de Havilland. Cohere isn't in crisis, which makes this feel like a new policy direction, not a rescue.
$1.6B in Cohere. A $500M tech fund built to take equity in tech companies. A $1.75B government VC plan. A proposed sovereign wealth fund. Canada Growth Fund. On top of EDC and BDC and our pension funds which have a mandate to invest public dollars.
Ottawa is becoming the owner, the funder, the customer and the regulator of the same companies. That trend towards state-led capitalism is hard to reverse and Canadians should be asking questions abut the long term implications of that direction on our economic competitiveness.
Big picture: Canada wins when markets reward builders, not when ministers pick them.
The better path we might consider is focusing on making Canada the best place in the world to build and scale. Competitive taxes. Faster approvals. Real AI adoption.
We should be focusing on ensuring our most successful companies won't need a federal cheque to stay.
Ottawa is taking an equity stake of up to $1.6B in Cohere, a company with no shortage of private investors.
It follows a $1.75B venture capital plan that entrepreneur groups applauded.
When our entrepreneurs cheer for handouts, 🇨🇦 has a problem
Latest charleslammam.substack.com/p…
.@cohere's raise isn't just the largest private financing round in Canadian history. 🍁
It's nearly as large as the rest of the top 10 combined. 🙌
.@cohere's Series E also ties them for the seventh largest raise globally of 2026! 🏆
If you ride VIA Rail a few times a year, odds are, you've been late. Maybe even *really* late.
Only a third of VIA trains arrive within 15 minutes of schedule. On the Windsor-Quebec corridor, 12% of trains end up so late that they require VIA Rail to pay out compensation.
VIA, Exo, GO, Rocky Mountaineer, & Agawa Canyon Tour Train all operate lines that share track with CN.
Where VIA owns just 3% of the track it operates on, Alto will operate on dedicated track.
Switching to HSR also comes with inherent speed advantages. 🚅
Last year, before Alto was announced, @stewartlyons wrote Build Here, Not There: Winning the Transportation Race.
Revisit his memo at buildcanada.com/memos/transp… 📖
Build Canada retweeted
"Cohere is a Canadian success story being written before our eyes" - Prime Minister @MarkJCarney
Last week, the federal government released a draft of its new stablecoin rules.
Issuers can pay rewards for using a coin, but not yield for holding one.
Last year, @SomSeif shared why the Bank of Canada should regulate stablecoins and set reserve and redemption rules.
Read his memo at buildcanada.com/memos/stable…
