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An Apple logo at the company’s store in Paris, France.Abdul Saboor/Reuters
Welcome to The Globe and Mail’s business and investing news quiz. Join us each week to test your knowledge of the stories making headlines. Our business reporters come up with the questions, and you can show us what you know.
This week: More than 4,000 WestJet flight attendants voted overwhelmingly in favour of a strike, the Bank of Canada announced that it will keep its benchmark interest rate steady and shares of Canadian battery-maker Electrovaya soared by more than 50 per cent. Take our quiz and find out what happened in business.
1This was the week that Canadians seethed about Washington’s high-handed approach to cross-border deals. The latest outrage happened after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to block the opening of the new Gordie Howe Bridge linking Windsor, Ont., and Detroit. To get the bridge up and running later this month, Ottawa was forced to agree to a revised pact that will send half of toll profits to the U.S. for the next:
a. Five years
b. 10 years
c. 15 years
d. 20 years
c. Canada agreed to split toll profits with the U.S. for the next 15 years. This was not the way it was supposed to be: Based on a 2012 agreement with the state of Michigan, Canada had financed the entire $6.4-billion cost of building the bridge and was planning to recoup its investment over decades by collecting the entirety of the tolls. Now it will have split the toll profits with a U.S. economic development fund until 2041.
2Why did shares of Canadian battery-maker Electrovaya soar by more than 50 per cent this week?
a. It signed a deal with Amazon
b. It signed a deal with Tesla
c. It signed a deal with Apple
d. It signed a deal with Microsoft
a. Shares of Electrovaya soared after the Mississauga-based maker of lithium-ion batteries said it had struck a deal with Amazon.com Inc. that could see the U.S. tech giant eventually own more than 20 per cent of its stock. Electrovaya’s stock has more than quadrupled in value since the start of 2025.
3This week, a Canadian business became the first publicly listed company in the area of:
a. Interplanetary tourism
b. Nuclear fusion
c. Surgical AI
d. Quantum computing
b. General Fusion Group Ltd., based in Richmond, B.C., now trades on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol GFUZ. It is the first publicly listed company focused on nuclear fusion, a still experimental approach to generating energy by fusing atoms together. Efforts to develop fusion power into a commercially viable form of electricity production are in the early stages, but companies in the sector raised US$2.6-billion in 2025.
4To absolutely no one’s surprise, the Bank of Canada announced this week that it will keep its benchmark interest rate steady at 2.25 per cent. How long has it been at that level?
a. Since January, 2025
b. Since July, 2025
c. Since October, 2025
d. Since January, 2026
c. The central bank cut its benchmark interest rates to 2.25 per cent in October, 2025, and has kept it there for six consecutive rate announcements. Observers aren’t betting on a change any time soon.
5Which U.S. tech giant just saw its share price plummet by 25 per cent in one day?
a. Oracle
b. Microsoft
c. Tesla
d. IBM
d. IBM’s shares tanked 25 per cent on Tuesday, its worst single-day crash on record, after the company warned that its earnings and revenue were going to fall short of expectations this quarter. Other software stocks also fell as investors fled the sector. That included Canadian stocks CGI Group, OpenText and Constellation Software, all of which suffered losses of more than 4 per cent.
6China enjoys a massive trade surplus and dominant positions in key areas such as batteries, electric vehicles and rare earths. How fast is its economy growing?
a. It is growing at its fastest rate since the depths of the pandemic
b. It is growing at its fastest rate since the financial crisis of 2008
c. It is growing at its slowest rate since the depths of the pandemic
d. It is shrinking
c. In the second quarter of this year, the Chinese economy grew 4.3 per cent from a year earlier, according to figures published this week. While that would be considered great in North America, it is abysmal for China. In fact, it is one of the country’s slowest rates in decades and its lowest since the low point of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2022. While China’s exports are surging and its trade surplus is booming, the country’s consumers are still struggling to emerge from the aftermath of a property-market crash.
7Chipotle Mexican Grill, the U.S. burrito giant, is looking for new customers in international markets. This week it opened its first store in:
a. China
b. Nigeria
c. France
d. Mexico
d. Despite having “Mexican” in its name, Chipotle has never operated a restaurant in Mexico. Until now, that is. The company opened an outlet in the northeastern Mexican state of Nuevo León, near the Texas border, this week. It is partnering with Mexico’s top restaurant franchisee, Alsea, and hopes to add additional outlets in the country.
8Which company did Apple just sue for allegedly stealing trade secrets?
a. OpenAI
b. Tesla
c. Anthropic
d. Alphabet
a. Watch this heavyweight tussle! It could have major implications for the AI sector. Apple has filed a lawsuit against ChatGPT parent OpenAI and two former employees, alleging misappropriation of the iPhone maker’s trade secrets. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges a co-ordinated effort to steal Apple’s confidential information.
9More than 4,000 WestJet flight attendants have voted overwhelmingly in favour of a strike that could delay or ground flights during the peak summer travel season. What is the key issue?
a. Shift scheduling
b. Ground pay
c. Seniority rights
d. Job security
b. Flight attendants voted in favour of a strike after months of negotiations with the airline failed to yield any significant movement on the key issue of ground pay. As things now stand, WestJet flight attendants get compensated only for time when the plane is in the air; they do not get paid for work they do in the airport or on the plane before it departs. They also do not get paid for work done after the plane lands.
10SpaceX promised many revolutionary feats when it went public last month in an enormous initial public offering. What not-so-revolutionary feat did it accomplish this week?
a. It fired its chief executive
b. It saw its share price slide below the IPO price
c. It announced a setback to its rocket program
d. It was sued for patent infringement
b. SpaceX shares slid below their IPO price only weeks after Elon Musk’s sprawling space-and-AI empire went public on June 12. The company was initially priced at US$135 a share. It opened at US$150 and soared above US$200, but then started falling. This week, it fell below US$135, suggesting that some investors are worried about what will happen to the share price as more shares become available for trading in the weeks ahead.
11It has been a wild ride for Canadian factories. How are the country’s manufacturing sales faring these days?
a. They are at record highs
b. They are holding steady
c. They are slumping, but only marginally
d. They are plummeting
a. Statistics Canada says manufacturing sales rose for a fourth consecutive month to hit a record high in May, helped by gains in the auto sector. The agency says manufacturing sales rose 1.3 per cent to $78.1-billion in May.
12Ottawa, Alberta and a group of major oil producers announced a non-binding agreement this week to push forward the Pathways project. What does the project aim to do?
a. Build a northern pipeline for natural gas
b. Ensure First Nations participation in the energy sector
c. Control forest fires in northern Alberta
d. Reduce carbon emissions
d. Pathways is a carbon capture project. It includes a 400-kilometre pipeline that would transport carbon trapped at oil sands facilities to an underground hub near Cold Lake, Alta. Under the new agreement, Pathways will be built in stages, but is expected to be in service by Jan. 1, 2032, and fully completed by Jan. 1, 2035.
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