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Welcome to The Globe and Mail’s business and investing news quiz. Join us each week to test your knowledge of the stories making the headlines. Our business reporters come up with the questions, and you can show us what you know.

This week: The Canada Revenue Agency offered some good news to taxpayers, saying it won’t require individuals with bare trusts to adhere to complex new tax-reporting requirements for the year 2023, except in a few cases. In less good news, the agency said it has fired more than 200 employees south of the border, while shares in Trump Media & Technology Group surged following the company’s debut on the NASDAQ. And speaking of ex-politicians, former Toronto mayor John Tory has a new gig.

Also: There were plenty of warnings about crises.


1Who warned this week of a national productivity crisis?
a. Carolyn Rogers, senior deputy governor of the Bank of Canada
b. BlackRock chief executive Larry Fink
c. Royal Bank of Canada chief executive Dave McKay
d. The Conference Board of Canada

a. Carolyn Rogers, senior deputy governor of the Bank of Canada. “It’s an emergency – it’s time to break the glass” and address Canada’s woeful productivity record, Ms. Rogers said. In 1984, Canada produced about 88 per cent as much as the U.S. per hour of work. In 2022, it produced a mere 71 per cent as much.

2Who warned this week of a widespread retirement crisis?
a. Carolyn Rogers, senior deputy governor of the Bank of Canada
b. BlackRock chief executive Larry Fink
c. Royal Bank of Canada chief executive Dave McKay
d. The Conference Board of Canada

b. BlackRock chief executive Larry Fink. Mr. Fink, chief of giant asset manager BlackRock, said nearly half of Americans don’t have a single dollar saved in personal retirement accounts. His suggested solutions? Work longer – or invest in a new BlackRock product to be introduced next month.

3The Canada Revenue Agency has fired 232 employees for doing what?
a. Running side businesses with the federal government
b. Collecting pandemic benefits they weren’t entitled to
c. Leaking confidential information to tax accountants
d. Refusing to take French courses

b. Collecting pandemic benefits they weren’t entitled to. Canada Revenue Agency fired them for inappropriately collecting the Canada Emergency Response Benefit, which paid $500 a week to people who could not work for reasons related to COVID-19. CRA says it may fire more people as its investigation continues.

4Canada has a rapidly growing population of temporary residents – people here on work permits, as well as asylum seekers and international students. How many of these temporary residents did the country add last year?
a. 100,000 people
b. 250,000 people
c. 500,000 people
d. 800,000 people

d. 800,000 people. Counting the increase of slightly more than 800,000 people last year, Canada is now home to 2.67 million temporary residents. The number of temporary residents has nearly doubled in just two years, putting tremendous pressure on home prices and rents.

5Which widely used commodity has doubled in price since the start of the year?
a. Natural gas
b. Cotton
c. Coffee
d. Cocoa

d. Cocoa. Bad news for chocolate lovers: Cocoa prices have soared to record levels because of poor crops in West Africa. The disappointing outlook for the harvest puts the world on course for a third straight year in which supply of the key chocolate ingredient will fall short of demand.

6Former Toronto mayor John Tory isn’t fading into retirement. This week he rejoined:
a. The leadership council of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party
b. The steering committee for the Canadian Football League
c. The board of Rogers Communications
d. The board of BCE

c. The board of Rogers Communications. Mr. Tory used to be an executive at Rogers and served on the board from 2010 to 2014.

7Researcher and author Daniel Kahneman died this week at the age of 90. He shared the 2002 Nobel memorial prize in economics, but was trained as:
a. A psychologist
b. An engineer
c. A medical doctor
d. A lawyer

a. A psychologist. Mr. Kahneman held a doctorate in psychology and was a pioneer in the field of behavioural economics. His research demonstrated that people often reason using intellectual shortcuts that result in irrational or contradictory behaviour.

8Booyoung Group, a South Korean construction company, is offering employees a US$75,000 bonus for:
a. Donating a kidney
b. Having a baby
c. Giving up meat
d. Informing on tardy co-workers

b. Having a baby. The company is attempting to do its bit to address South Korea’s plunging birth rate. Last year, more prams were sold in the country for pets than for babies.

9Authorities in British Columbia filed an “unexplained wealth order” this week in an attempt to seize more than $250,000 in cash, 45 gold bars and assorted other goodies from:
a. A member of the provincial legislature
b. An infomercial huckster who promoted herbal cures for cancer
c. The co-founder of a defunct cryptocurrency exchange
d. One of Vancouver’s most prominent real estate agents

c. The co-founder of a defunct cryptocurrency exchange. Michael Patryn had held the valuables in a safety deposit box at a Vancouver bank. He was the co-founder of defunct crypto exchange QuadrigaCX, once Canada’s largest virtual currency trading platform.

10You didn’t think markets were rational, did you? Shares in TMTG, the company that owns Donald Trump’s Truth Social network, soared this week after the company’s debut on public markets. As of midday Thursday, the company’s stock market value stood at more than US$8-billion. To put that in context, how much in revenue did the business generate during the first nine months of 2023?
a. About US$3-million
b. About US$30-million
c. About US$300-million
d. About US$3-billion

a. About US$3-million. The company had revenue of just US$3.4-million during those nine months and reported an operating loss of US$10.6-million. For now, though, Trump enthusiasts are driving the stock of the tiny, money-losing company to giddy heights.

11A U.S. court this week sentenced Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of the failed FTX cryptocurrency exchange, to how many years in prison?
a. Six years
b. 10 years
c. 20 years
d. 25 years

d. 25 years. The 25-year sentence fell far short of the 150 years handed out to fraudster Bernie Madoff but was in line with what many observers expected. Defence lawyers had suggested six years would be an appropriate sentence for stealing billions of dollars from FTX. Prosecutors had asked for 40 to 50 years.

12Why are four Canadian school boards suing the companies behind social-media platforms Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat and TikTok?
a. They say the platforms enable cheating on tests
b. They say the platforms malign teachers
c. They say the platforms disrupt learning
d. They say the platforms allow students to harass teachers

c. They say the platforms disrupt learning. The school boards claim compulsive use of the platforms disrupts classroom time and requires mental health programs to deal with the effects of cyberbullying.

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