Tokyo is the most populous city in the world, and is growing just as quickly as Canada's largest cities. Yet unlike Canadian cities, Tokyo's housing is still (shockingly) affordable, its transit is fast and reliable, and it's teeming with small businesses and entrepreneurs trying their hand at restaurants, cafes, book stores, and all variety of niche services. So how did they do it? And what lessons can we learn about our own cities from Tokyo's experience? Joe McReynolds, co-author of Emergent Tokyo: Designing the Spontaneous City, joins us on this episode to explain.-----Links: Emergent Tokyo: https://oroeditions.com/product/emergent-tokyo Follow Joe: @McReynoldsJoe More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

BMO Capital Markets Chief Investment Strategist Brian Belski feels pretty good about where the stock market is headed this year. He joins us on this episode of Free Lunch to explain why he's bullish, the sectors and stocks he likes right now, and why he thinks turning off the news is one of the best things you can do for your portfolio. -----Links: BMO 2024 Market Outlook: https://nesbittburns.bmo.com/delegate/services/file/530281/content More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

Adam Seaborn from Playmaker Capital joins us to talk about recently announced plans by Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. to launch a sports streaming bundle, what it means for the sports media business, and who wins and who loses when streaming takes over the sports world. Plus: What makes the NFL such a great television product?-----Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

New year, new supply chain disruptions. Between conflicts in the Middle East impacting shipping in the Red Sea, drought paralyzing the Panama Canal, or the ongoing war in Ukraine, we are not done with supply chain disruptions just because the pandemic is behind us. Polly Mitchell-Guthrie is with Kinaxis, a Canada-based supply-chain management platform, to share with us how businesses are responding to the latest wave of supply chain disruptions. 3:38 - Overview of the big disruptions impacting supply chains today 6:26 - What happens inside a company when their supply chain breaks 10:40 - How long it takes before consumers start feeling the impact of supply chain disruptions 12:33 - How companies are changing to make their supply chains more resilient 17:40 - How much do companies actually know about suppliers in their supply chain 23:00 - Is friendshoring actually going to happen? 30:08 - Is there still room for supply chain normalization to reduce inflation? 37:11 - Tech innovation happening in supply chain management 42:21 - Risks to supply chains to watch for this year -----Links: SiteNews More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

One of the big factors driving our housing affordability crisis is that it's become much more expensive to build new housing than it used to be. But why? To get an overview of what's driving growth in housing costs, we're joined by Russell Hixson, the editor of SiteNews, a trade outlet covering Canada's construction sector. 2:12 - What it costs to build housing in different cities now, and why it's increased so much. 5:53 - Where builders are seeing their costs grow the most. 7:59 - What's happening with lumber prices. 10:06 - How builders have responded to higher costs. 14:14 - How costs break down between materials and labour. 19:56 - How a shortage of construction labour is driving up costs. 23:33 - Potential technological solutions that could lower costs in the near term. 28:57 - What policy changes could be made by governments to lower costs. -----Links: SiteNews More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

There are a lot of exciting developments happening in the neurotechnology space that could dramatically improve how we detect, prevent, and treat cognitive decline and conditions like dementia and diseases like Alzheimer's. On this episode, one of the world's foremost neuroscientists, Dr. Allison Sekuler, joins us to talk about her work in this field, some of the innovations she's most excited about, how innovations in AI and AR/VR will be applied to brain health, and what it's going to mean for how we age. Also: We get her advice on how to keep our brains working well into our old age. 🧠 6:45 - How cognitive health changes as we age 9:22 - What are the most important factors impacting brain health, and how people can prevent cognitive decline 12:49 - Innovations in treatments of cognitive decline 15:58 - How new tech is making it possible to detect dementia and Alzheimer's earlier than ever 20:30 - Is brain health among Canadians getting better or worse, overall? 27:19 - Some of the most promising technological innovations in the space, and the companies working on them 31:07 - Applications of AR/VR for brain health 35:18 - How large language models and the human brain differ, and whether AI will ever get good enough to be indistinguishable from human cognition 39:46 - Applications of AI for brain health 42:21 - Is technology making our brains less healthy? -----Links: Cogniciti brain health test: https://cogniciti.com/ Centre for Aging + Brain Health Innovation: https://www.cabhi.com/ Free hearing test: https://www.baycrest.org/Hearing-Services/Audiology-(Hearing-Services)-(1) More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

This time last year, not many people were predicting the economy would look like it does today. Many big name economists predicted that we would need to endure years of high unemployment to get inflation back down to a more manageable level. So why were those forecasts so off? And what lessons should we draw from what happened last year to inform our predictions for the economy this year? Roger Aliaga-Díaz is Vanguard's Global Head of Portfolio Construction and Chief Economist for the Americas. He joins us on this episode to talk about his outlook for the economy in the year ahead and how the last cycle is shaping his thinking. 1:57 - What's the outlook for Canada's economy this year. 3:04 - Why rates are likely to stay elevated for years to come. 7:11 - How government spending pushes rates higher. 9:08 - Why so many economists got inflation wrong and what lessons we can learn. 16:52 - What are the factors keeping inflation above the 2% target. 19:25 - How should ordinary investors think about allocating their investments this year. -----Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

And we're back for 2024. On this episode, Daniel Foch, real estate investor and co-host of the Canadian Real Estate Investor Podcast, joins us to break down the state of Canada's housing market heading into 2024 and his bets for the year to come. 5:46 - The three possible scenarios ahead of us 8:26 - What a soft landing in the economy means for housing 10:48 - The looming "renewal wall" in mortgages and what it means 13:21 - Why Canada is turning into a renters economy 14:58 - Why purpose-built rentals are becoming popular again 19:12 - Why the government doesn't actually know much about who owns what real estate 23:52 - What's happening with rents 27:04 - The impact of international students on the rental market 36:27 - Do rental builds still pencil if population growth slows? 42:04 - The impact of recent zoning changes on supply 53:00 - Dan's bets as an investor for 2024 -----Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

The Free Lunch gang and Brett Chang from The Peak Daily podcast see how their forecasts from last year fared and make some new calls for the year to come.Thanks for listening, and see you back in the new year.Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

Adin Wener is one of the owners and founders of Henderson Brewing Company, one of the largest craft breweries in Toronto, and he joins us today to explain the ins-and-outs of the craft beer business, from supply to chains to hardware innovation to product development. 3:10 - What is Henderson Brewing and how did it grow? 7:11 - Why craft beer boomed, and where it's at today. 9:13 - The basics of the craft brewery business model. 11:29 - How bars and restaurants choose what beer to serve. 14:10 - The margins on brewing beer vs. hospitality and events. 18:55 - How Henderson develops new beers. 25:06 - Why some beers flop. 27:59 - Are young people drinking less than in the past? 31:36 - Why non-alcoholic beer is getting better. 36:58 - What sort of innovations have there been in brewing? 42:33 - Big trends in beer and alcohol. —Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe