Plus, your big ideas for jump-starting Canada’s economy June 30, 2025 Sign Up | View online Hi! A quick programming note: we’re taking next week off for Canada Day! We’ll be back on July 14. We’d love it if, over the holiday, you’d send us your most pressing money question. You can leave a voicemail for us at 226-444-2833 or email a voice memo to tldrpodcast@wealthsimple.com. Take care! IN THIS ISSUE 8 min read 💕 A decline in dating 🌴 A well-earned retirement 🍊 Another tariff threat from you-know-who What if taxes didn’t feel this complicated? That’s just one of the ideas for improving Canada’s economy that you, our readers, shared with us below. | Paramount Pictures THE WEEK IN MARKETS The incredible bulletproof bull market One sure sign we’re in the midst of a historically resilient market rally: all-time highs have become so routine that traders have coined an acronym for them — ATHs — so they don’t have to keep typing out all those words. And sure enough, we hit another round of ATHs last week, pushing the TSX, S&P, and Nasdaq to +6%, +7%, and +8% on the year, respectively. The markets hit new ATHs despite Trump’s attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, the latest in a string of global calamities that were supposed to stop the markets cold but instead got turned into roadkill. Consider all that we’ve shrugged off just in the first half of 2025: AI Panic, Part 1: It's going to take everyone's jobs! AI Panic, Part 2: It's overhyped and Big Tech is a big bubble! Trump declares Liberation Day from Canada, etc.! AI Panic, Part 3: Wait — now China and DeepSeek are winning the AI race! The U.S. dollar’s run as the reserve currency is over! War between Iran and Israel will send oil prices soaring! So what’s the lesson here? The rally’s going to keep on rolling? Maybe! Or is it that narratives move much faster in the TikTok age than actual economics? Maybe! Or … perhaps investors just keep blowing through warning signs and danger lies ahead. THE CHART OF THE WEEK WHAT HAPPENED LAST WEEK IMPORTANT A cautionary tale about the private-mortgage industry. Bloomberg published a sad but gripping story about a scammy mortgage broker who got murdered by one of his alleged victims. (Here’s a non-paywalled summary.) The gist: in 2022, a Toronto couple borrowed $1.38 million against their paid-off home to invest in private mortgages, but, according to police, the broker stole their money instead. As home prices skyrocket, private mortgages have soared in popularity because they offer a way around banks’ strict lending qualifications. In Ontario, private mortgages account for nearly 17% of the market now, up from less than 8% a decade ago. The trade-off is more risk and weak oversight. Trump flips the table again. Canada and the U.S. had set an informal deadline of July 21 to hammer out a new trade agreement, but on Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that he was terminating all negotiations and would instead be ratcheting up tariffs on Canada sometime this week. What set him off? Canada’s digital services tax, which, yes, has been law for a year but takes effect today. Or it was supposed to: late Sunday, the Liberal government said it would cancel the tax. We’ll see if that changes anything. At any rate, tariffs are already on track to cost Americans more than US$300 billion this year, three to six times more than an average year. INTERESTING Bumble tells a third of its staff: it’s not you, it’s us. The dating app’s fortunes have plummeted since its boffo IPO four years ago. Its stock is down 91% from its peak, and last week the company announced it’s laying off 240 workers worldwide. Shares in Match Group, meanwhile, which owns Tinder, Hinge, and OKCupid, have tanked too, falling by more than 68% over the same period. Dating apps, Peloton, and other virtual platforms surged in value during the pandemic when Wall Street seemed to think humans would exclusively communicate on their phones forever. Now Zoomers are back in the wild, meeting through run clubs and speed-dating events, and investors’ world-ruling app fantasy has died out like most of those 2020 sourdough starters. Enjoy your fiscally responsible retirement, Rob! Rob Carrick, The Globe and Mail’s personal-finance columnist, is retiring after 27 years. If you haven’t read his writing, it’s worth starting with his recap of some of his biggest money lessons. Maybe someday he can enlighten us about how to stay in the same job for nearly three decades! —Sarah Rieger FROM OUR SPONSOR THE FOMO INDEX by Stacey Woods IMPORTANT 🚕 The first Tesla Robotaxis are already driving the wrong way down Austin streets. Just trying to keep Austin weird! Source 💲 Career Builder + Monster file for bankruptcy. Surely finding work for their own bankruptcy lawyers was never the plan. Source 🇨🇦 Study finds Canada ranks as one of the lowest countries in AI literacy, which must mean it’s one of the highest in actual literacy. Source 🏖️ Canada’s first beach-cleaning robot hits Ontario shores this summer. Sexy pool boy robot still in development. Source CRASH & BURN TO THE MOON 👋 “Big Balls” has resigned from Doge. Whoever replaces him will have some pretty big balls to fill. Source 🚀 Scientists are sending cannabis seeds into space to see what happens. They already got the cat stoned, so… Source 👟 Startup to design shoes in space to make AI and blockchain cheaper. Another one of those shoes-in-space-to-make-AI-and-blockchain-cheaper pipe dreams! Source 📱 People annoyed at Apple Wallet for sending a push notification about the new Brad Pitt movie. It could have been worse: another U2 album. Source WHO CARES THE BIG IMPORTANT STORY ECONOMY We Asked to Hear Your Big Ideas for Canada. You Delivered. Last week, we published a special edition of this newsletter featuring big ideas on how to supercharge the economy from influential Canadians — CEOs, academics, union leaders. You, our readers, shared lots of feedback with us about those ideas, some of it complimentary and some of it … less so. One comment particularly resonated with us: “I’d prefer ideas from real, everyday Canadians.” Which seemed like a good idea to us. So this week, we’re sharing the best of the reader-submitted ideas we received. Same rules apply as with the A-list originals (our readers are A-listers too, but you know what we mean): we don’t necessarily endorse any of the suggestions — we’re reporters, not opiners — but we love that people are thinking hard about Canada’s future. Make a choice: more funding or less taxes? “By my count, 11 of the 18 Big Ideas involved the government providing more funding. A couple of the ideas referenced the fact that taxes are too high. We cannot have it both ways. We need a national conversation about what we expect governments to do and how we expect them to fund that work.” —L Drill (more), baby, drill. “Canada is blessed with an abundance of natural resources. The real money that’s created when we pull stuff out of the ground and sell it to other countries can be used to pay for all the things we’d like to have, such as more affordable housing and daycare. It’s better to generate revenue from these resources than to raise taxes or borrow money.” —J Conscientious renters should be auto-approved for mortgages. “If you can show that you’ve paid rent for one year and that you haven’t been late, you should automatically be approved for a mortgage that’s equal to or lower than your monthly rent.” —S No more money parking for the wealthy. “We should cap stagnant wealth. For example, any wealth you have above $50 million you have to put back into the economy instead of letting it sit in low-yielding accounts. Businesses need cash to grow, so let’s free some up and stop letting idle money constipate the whole system.” —N Let’s revive small towns. “We should implement policies that encourage immigrants to live outside large metropolitan areas for a number of years before moving to cities. Housing and general affordability tend to be better in small towns, and we need doctors, teachers, and workers in general to keep these communities thriving.” —H [Editor’s note: the government is already piloting such a program.] Consider Trump’s proposal. “Join the USA and become the 51st state. As simple as that.” —D Maybe do a little bit more socialism? “The ideas proposed by the experts are good, but they all suffer from the same limitation: they are Band-Aids on a flawed systemic structure. Solutions like universal basic income come closer but would still fall short of foundational transformation. I would begin with a national bank that invests deposits into public infrastructure and social programs in exchange for no income tax; then I would use that to build localized infrastructure to make communities self-sufficient.” —G Make it easier to file income tax returns. “Simplify the tax code. Most people should only need one page. The tax code should be very short and simple. All income (capital gains, dividends, salary, etc.) should be treated and taxed the same.” —H Comments were lightly edited for length and clarity. OTHER VERY GOOD READS 🎸 The Death of the Middle-Class Musician It’s easier than ever to make music but harder to make a living. | The Walrus 🌡️ From Ontario Heat to Manitoba Smoke What this summer’s weather means for your health. | The Narwhal 💰 The Scheme That Broke the Texas Lottery The mysterious group that gamed a $95 million lotto win. | The New Yorker* *Article is paywalled, which, yeah, is kind of annoying. But we think good journalism is worth paying for. THE WISDOM OF SOCIAL The name is Gangé — Jean-Andre-Flex Briolange-Gangé. THOUGHTS ON TODAY’S ISSUE? Love it Good So so This week’s newsletter contributors: Ben Mathis-Lilley (writer), Devin Gordon (writer), Stacey Woods (writer), Sarah Rieger (news writer), Ambrose Martos (fact checker), Ciara Rickard (copy editor), Maude Campbell (copy editor), Sara Black McCulloch (fact checker), Mohini Tailor (lifecycle marketing manager), Eva Grace Clement Cruz (editorial producer), Matthew Karasz (markets editor) Jared Sullivan (senior editor), Peter Martin (senior editor), and Devin Friedman (editor-in-chief). Disclosures: Contributors to this newsletter own shares in Google and Amazon. Wealthsimple Media Inc. 80 Spadina Ave Suite 400 Toronto, ON, M5V 2J4 VIEW IN BROWSER PRIVACY POLICY UNSUBSCRIBE TLDR is offered by Wealthsimple Media Inc. and is for informational purposes only. Any views expressed are those of the individual author and/or of Wealthsimple Media Inc., not of Wealthsimple Financial Corp or any of its other subsidiaries or affiliates. The content in TLDR is not investment advice, a recommendation to buy or sell assets or securities, nor any other kind of professional advice. TLDR is not a research report and should not serve as the basis for making investment decisions. Wealthsimple Media Inc. does not endorse any third-party views referenced in this content. When you invest, your money is at risk and it is possible that you may lose some or all of your investment. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Historical returns, hypothetical returns, expected returns and images included in this content are for illustrative purposes only. Always research before investing. © 2025 Wealthsimple Media Inc.