How much oil does Venezuela have? Take our business and investing news quiz for the week ending Jan. 9

d. It was more than double. Break out the champagne! Bay Street bounced back big-time in 2025. According to LSEG Data & Analytics, Canadian public companies issued a combined $31.4-billion in new shares in 2025, more than double the $15.5-billion worth of stock they issued in 2024.

b. Minto Apartment, a sizable owner of rental accommodation across Canada, is going private in a deal valued at $2.3-billion, including debt. Its move comes after several years of dismal performance by apartment REITS, which are now grappling with both falling demand from declining immigration and growing competition from a flood of newly built condos.

c. A unionization drive at the Halifax office. In a statement, Ubisoft said the move had nothing to do with a union drive that resulted in 60 employees joining the Canadian branch of the Communications Workers of America last month. Well, of course not. Who could possibly think that?

b. Crown Royal rye whisky. Ontario Premier Doug Ford took the opportunity this week to renew his vow to take Crown Royal off the province’s liquor-store shelves next month if Diageo PLC, the global booze giant that makes the whisky, follows through on plans to close a Windsor-area bottling plant and put about 200 people out of work.

a. The capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. A mystery bettor on Polymarket, a crypto-powered prediction market, made nearly half a million dollars with a suspiciously well-timed wager on the capture of Mr. Maduro. The big win underlines questions about whether some people are using prediction markets to unfairly benefit from inside knowledge of supposedly secretive decisions. In October, Polymarket saw a wave of bets on Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado winning the Nobel Peace Prize a few hours before she was officially named as the recipient of the award.

c. 17 per cent. Venezuela claims to own about 17 per cent of the world’s oil reserves. However, that is a self-reported figure and many experts doubt it reflects reality. Most of the country’s oil is heavy crude, which is difficult to extract and to refine.

A and B. Advising Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and running the Rhodes Trust (but don’t rule out C and D.) Ms. Freeland is going to be busy. As of July 1, she will be chief executive officer of the Rhodes Trust the Oxford-based organization that administers one of the world’s oldest and most prestigious scholarships. The former Financial Times journalist will also be acting as an economic adviser to Mr. Zelensky.

d. They fell to their lowest level in more than two decades. Andrew Lis, chief economist and vice-president of data analytics for Greater Vancouver Realtors, called 2025 a year “for the history books,” as total residential sales fell 10.4 per cent from 2024 and 9.3 per cent from 2023.

a. Anthropic is planning an IPO that could take place as early as 2026, and a separate multibillion-dollar fundraise that would value the Claude chatbot maker ‍at US$350-billion, according to sources. This is nearly double what the company was valued at four months ‍ago. Did someone say AI bubble?

d. He was stripped of his professional licence. You might think that engineers would be able to figure out how to make the wheels of justice move more quickly, but apparently not. Quebec’s engineering order ruled this week that Mr. Lamarre will lose his professional licence and must pay $75,000 in fines after being found guilty of several transgressions related to SNC-Lavalin’s business dealings in Libya and political financing activities in Montreal. The judgment is a stinging verdict on what took place at the company (now known as AtkinsRéalis Group Inc.). However, it will have little practical effect since Mr. Lamarre is 82 and retired, and many of the transgressions are more than two decades old.

c. Proxy advisory firms such as Glass Lewis and ISS have been a powerful voice on Wall Street for years. These advisers review shareholder proposals and issue ‌voting recommendations ‍to institutional investors ahead of annual shareholder meetings. Recently, though, the advisers have aroused the ire of U.S. President Donald Trump, who accuses them of advancing a woke agenda. According to an internal memo obtained by the Wall Street Journal, JPMorgan Chase is planning to dump the advisory firms and rely instead on an AI-powered platform.

a. More than five hours per day, according to a survey commissioned by Rogers Communications. This week, Rogers said it will invest $50-million over five years to address excessive screen time among teens and tweens. The issue is gaining momentum: In December, Australia implemented a law that bans users under the age of 16 from popular social-media platforms. Some have called on countries including Canada to take similar measures.