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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 headlines. Our business reporters come up with the questions, and you can show us what you know.

This week: U.S. President Donald Trump doubled steel and aluminum tariffs and it’s no wonder Canadians are still avoiding trips down south. But which country’s tourism sector is reaping the benefits of the U.S. travel boycott? Take our quiz and find out.


1After a decade in which the federal public service grew and grew, Prime Minister Mark Carney is vowing to make the country’s sprawling bureaucracy more efficient. So what was the net change in the number of federal civil service jobs over the past year?
a. The government added 5,000 new jobs
b. The government shed 5,000 jobs
c. The government added 10,000 new jobs
d. The government shed 10,000 jobs

d. The government shed 10,000 jobs. Believe it or not, the federal civil service is finally shrinking. The net decline of 9,807 positions between 2024 and 2025 reduced the civil service headcount by 2.6 per cent, to about 358,000 people. The decline was the first since 2015.

2We all know that many patriotic Canadians are trying to avoid travel to the United States. The interesting thing is where they’re going instead. Which of these destinations saw its number of Canadian visitors jump nearly 30 per cent in the first few months of this year?
a. Mexico
b. Japan
c. Portugal
d. Australia

b. Japan. Travel by Canadians to Japan soared in the first few months of 2025 compared to a year earlier. The strength of the Canadian dollar versus the yen has helped make the Asian country more affordable for Canadians.

3Remember when the tariff wars were supposed to be subsiding? That was last week. This week, U.S. President Donald Trump was at it again, boosting steel and aluminum tariffs to 50 per cent. What portion of U.S. aluminum imports comes from Canada?
a. 10 per cent
b. About a quarter
c. About half
d. Nearly all of them

c. About half. Ouch. U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs hit Canada hard because we supply about half of all aluminum imports to the United States, as well as nearly a quarter of steel imports.

4Markets are suddenly full of chatter about TACO, and they’re not discussing what to order for lunch. What does TACO stand for?
a. Trump Always Chickens Out
b. Trade Always Causes Outsourcing
c. Trump Always Causes Outrage
d. Tariffs Always Create Opportunities

a. Trump Always Chickens Out, or TACO, is an acronym invented by Financial Times columnist Robert Armstrong to describe the U.S. President’s habit of decreeing sweeping tariffs or other supersized punishments against countries he doesn’t like, then backing down as the problems with his initial assault become evident. It’s an on-again, off-again pattern that has thrown markets into turmoil.

5What did Elon Musk describe as a “disgusting abomination” this week?
a. South Africa’s government
b. Restrictions on executive pay
c. The budget bill going through Congress
d. The New York Times

c. The budget bill going through Congress. Okay, okay, we suspect that Mr. Musk loathes all the things on this list, but the one that is the focus of his current ire is the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act (yes, that’s its actual name). The sweeping tax and spending bill would add trillions to the U.S. debt and Mr. Musk doesn’t like that one bit. His distaste for the not-so-beautiful bill signals the billionaire’s growing distance from Donald Trump.

6Which company signed a 20-year deal to buy nuclear power this week?
a. Meta Platforms
b. Microsoft
c. Shopify
d. OpenAI

a. Meta's long-term deal with Constellation Energy underlines the quiet resurgence in nuclear power. Atomic energy is growing more popular as big technology companies try to lock down reliable sources of non-polluting electricity to drive their artificial intelligence services.

7Toronto-based Brookfield Asset Management announced plans this week to invest up to $10-billion to build a data centre for artificial intelligence. Where will the centre be located?
a. Nova Scotia
b. New Mexico
c. Singapore
d. Sweden

d. Sweden. The increased use of AI and legal requirements to host data within Europe have led to a boom in data centres on the continent. Sweden has become a popular site because of its reliable electricity, connectivity and infrastructure.

8How much does it cost to raise a child in Canada?
a. About $100,000
b. About $200,000
c. About $300,000
d. More than $350,000

d. More than $350,000. The exact answer will vary depending on how much parents earn, but for a medium-income household, the total cost of raising a child from birth to 18 ticks in at about $367,000, according to 2017 data from Statistics Canada, updated for inflation. Note that this figure doesn’t include the cost of university or college. Sigh. No wonder couples aren’t having more kids.

9The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) offered up a revised outlook this week for the global economy. What is its key message?
a. Economic growth is holding up better than expected
b. Economic growth is slowing
c. U.S. growth is accelerating
d. The U.S. budget deficit is starting to shrink

b. Economic growth is slowing. It was not a happy report. Global economic growth is slowing more than expected just a few months ago as the fallout from Donald Trump’s trade war takes a toll on the U.S. economy, according to the OECD.

10Which of these key figures just hit a record high in Canada?
a. The trade deficit
b. Unemployment
c. Loan defaults
d. Housing starts

a. Canada's trade deficit hit a record high of $7.1-billion in April, far exceeding analysts’ expectations. The primary culprit was Washington’s new tariff policy, which slammed Canadian exports to the United States.

11Jamie Dimon, chief executive of giant JPMorgan Chase, gave people a jolt recently when he predicted a “crack” in what?
a. The Chinese communist party
b. The stock market
c. The bond market
d. The European Union

c. The bond market. Mr. Dimon worries that investors may start shunning U.S. government debt as Washington continues to run up huge deficits.

12For the first time in roughly 80 years, Harvard University has revoked the tenure of one of its professors. The highly unusual action – the academic equivalent of firing someone – came after business school prof Francesca Gino was accused of falsifying data. What was Ms. Gino’s field of research?
a. Donald Trump’s business career
b. Honesty
c. People’s faith in institutions
d. Detecting lies in financial statements

b. Honesty. Ms. Gino built her reputation by researching honesty and ethical behaviour. Oops.

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