Which Canadian company is offering buyouts to half its work force? Take our business and investing news quiz for the week ending May 1

b. Shell is acquiring ARC, a major oil and gas producer in Alberta and northeast British Columbia. Analysts said the deal underscores the attractiveness of Canadian energy assets. Demand for natural gas, in particular, is surging owing to growing demand for electricity to power data centres for artificial intelligence.

a. Rogers Communications is offering voluntary departure packages to half its employees, excluding Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment. The Toronto-based company did not say if it has a target for the number of people it wants to cut, but it has made no secret of its desire to slash costs. It warned last week that it planned to reduce its 2026 capital expenditures by up to $1.2-billion, or 30 per cent.

d. Meta announced the massive cuts as it strives to ramp up its spending on artificial intelligence. It’s not the only tech giant struggling to figure out how to fund a big bet on AI. On the same day that Meta announced its layoffs, Microsoft said it plans to offer voluntary buyouts to thousands of its U.S. employees.

d. Oh, joy. Ottawa has a sweeping new program. What it doesn’t have is much in the way of details. What we know for now is that the new $25-billion fund will focus on investing in companies and infrastructure projects that are part of the government’s major projects agenda. We also know that Canadians will be invited to invest. Beyond that, though, all is darkness.

c. Michael Green, the chief executive, was paid nearly $900,000 in total compensation in the 2024-25 fiscal year. His pay package consisted of $616,700 in base salary, $215,845 in bonuses and $51,569 in taxable benefits, including RRSP employer contributions, group insurance and a car allowance. Canada Health Infoway’s board dismissed him this week after nearly 11 years on the job, but observers are still asking how an executive in charge of a failed program could earn such large bonuses.

c. In a stinging blow to OPEC, the United Arab Emirates says it is headed for the door. The UAE’s decision to exit the group highlights the discord among Gulf nations as they struggle with the repercussions from the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.

b. Who would have thought that one billionaire would be suing another billionaire for wanting to turn a profit? The long-awaited trial, which started this week, centres on the 2015 birth of OpenAI. Back then, it was a non-profit startup primarily funded by Mr. Musk. The civil lawsuit accuses Mr. Altman and his top lieutenant, Greg Brockman, of double-crossing Mr. Musk by straying from the company’s founding mission to be an altruistic steward of a revolutionary technology. The lawsuit alleges that Mr. Altman and Mr. Brockman shifted into money-making mode behind Mr. Musk’s back. The nerve!

d. Seven lawsuits filed in Northern California against OpenAI allege the tech giant’s negligence pushed the Tumbler Ridge shooter toward violence. The suits allege that the company avoided alerting police about the shooter’s violent interactions with its ChatGPT program because doing so would have forced it to create an internal system for reporting other violent users to the authorities.

a. Surveillance pricing refers to a practice in which consumers are charged individualized prices based on personal data collected by companies. Critics argue that rideshare, airline and grocery companies, among others, may be using this data to figure out the highest amount a consumer will pay, then setting the price accordingly.

c. Bad news for Canada’s capital markets: Barrick has picked the United States over Canada as the site of the primary stock listing for the coming spinoff of a stake in Barrick’s North American mines. Barrick says the new standalone unit, North American Barrick, is expected to have its primary listing in New York, with a secondary listing in Toronto.

a. Mr. Powell said he plans to remain on the board of the Federal Reserve after his term as chair ends in May “for an undetermined period of time.” He said the Trump administration’s “unprecedented” legal attacks on him and the Fed have put the independence of the nation’s central bank at risk. Mr. Powell’s decision to stay – the first time a Fed chair will remain on the board as a governor since 1948 – denies Mr. Trump a chance to fill a seat on the central bank’s seven-member governing board with his own appointee.

b. Canada has been selected as the host nation for a new multilateral defence bank involving 19 founding countries. The Defence, Security and Resilience Bank is intended to provide long-term, low-cost financing for defence projects undertaken by participating countries.