Citing the need to support new forms of agriculture, the Quebec government will announce Wednesday the introduction of a new tax credit aimed to help rage farmers maintain and grow their businesses.

The tax credit, which will be worth up to 30% of eligible labour expenses, was welcomed by the National Online Rage Farmers Union of Canada (NORFUC), which had lobbied hard for it the past few months.

“Artificial intelligence has been a double-edged sword for us,” said NORFUC national president Avril Wrasse. “It’s made generating images and stories easier and faster, but the increased competition from unregulated overseas rage farmers has significantly eaten into our profit margins. Facebook and Instagram are being flooded with nonsensical posts stealing attention from high-quality Canadian rage bait.”

The tax credit goes into effect starting in the 2026-27 tax year, and illegal immigrants who commit crimes will get double credit if they’re transgender.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission on Wednesday announced it would streamline more than a dozen proceedings involving disputes between Canada’s largest telecom companies by ordering them to settle their disputes with a series of Rock Paper Scissors games.

“Our existing processes, which include final offer arbitration, tariff sheets, forbearance, disaggregated wholesale access and a bunch of other terms only you policy nerds really understand, has become too cumbersome due to the large number of complaints and proceedings started by these big four companies,” the CRTC wrote in its decision implementing the order.

Bilateral disagreements over things like TV channel carriage, access to utility poles, third-party internet access and telephone interconnection will be settled by a best-of-three Rock Paper Scissors tournament between the two organizations’ regulatory affairs directors, the CRTC said. (The commission received 148 interventions commenting on the number of games that would have to be played, with Bell arguing for one and others arguing for more.)

Disagreements involving three parties would be solved using the three-player variant of Rock Paper Scissors.

“The Commission has determined this would free up its resources to focus on more OLMC consultations and other pressing matters,” it said.

Bell has reportedly already hired an RPS consultant to train its vice-president of regulatory affairs on best techniques.

Canada’s National Research Council has voted to rename itself the Carney National Research Council, hoping it might help the organization restore some funding the federal government cut in its latest budget.

“We’ve studied this extensively — half our staff is just experts in grant writing and government funding — and some compelling research out of the United States shows the best way to protect federal funding is to name yourself after the head of government,” said CNRC chair John Dory Krasavik.

The CNRC is waiting to hear back from the federal government, but is already making future plans to ensure its relevance well into the future. “We’ve prepared a new wave of Pierre Poilievre National Research Grants that are waiting to be deployed if needed,” Krasavik said.

A local radio host says she has given serious thought to starting a podcast after listeners flooded her inbox with increasingly desperate pleas for more ways to hear her chat about her personal life and feelings about relationships.

“I was hesitant at first,” says weekend announcer Ebrel Cobia. “But there’s a market need out there, and if no one else is willing to fill it, who better than me?”

Though nothing is confirmed yet, Cobia said she was thinking her podcast would focus on relationships — her dating and family life, and “just the kind of hilarious things that we think of when we chat with our pals in real life, but now you can listen in and join the fun.”

Listeners were absolutely ecstatic when they heard about the potential podcast, with one saying she gets bored for about 36 minutes every Thursday afternoon and she thinks this would be the perfect way to fill that.

“Now I just need to find something similar for my husband, who would love it if someone started a podcast where he gave his thoughts about the Montreal Canadiens,” she said.

Corus Entertainment says court approval for a debt-for-equity restructuring plan means it will not proceed with a planned entry into Squid Game, an underground South Korean winner-take-all competition.

The troubled Canadian broadcaster lost a significant source of funding when Shaw, owned by the same family, was sold to Rogers, and got another blow when Rogers also acquired the Canadian rights to Warner Bros. Discovery brands HGTV and Food Network in Canada. It has more than a billion dollars in debt and said it could go bankrupt if a solution wasn’t found.

Plan A was the restructuring, which will see existing shareholders’ equity in the company reduced by 99% in exchange for cancelling $500 million of that debt.

Plan B was to compete in Squid Game, which has a grand prize of 45.6 billion won (about $42 million). “That wouldn’t have been enough to fix everything, but it would have given us more of a runway,” said Corus financial consultant Ray Qasawi. “I had some concerns about the rules of the game, as we weren’t able to speak to previous contestants, but we were getting pretty desperate.”

Corus had reportedly considered competing anyway, but changed its mind after learning Rogers had acquired the broadcasting rights to that as well.

Saying it wants to better tailor its offerings to Gen Z clients, Telus’s discount Koodo brand begins offering a new phone plan starting today that blocks all incoming telephone calls.

With an ad campaign promising an end to “callxiety”, the Just Text Me Plan is being offered at $35/month, comes with 20 GB of data and accepts only outgoing calls. Anyone attempting to phone the plan holder hears a recorded message that says “Please just text me. Thank you.”

Koodo says it hasn’t received any calls about the new plan, but 10,000 people have subscribed to it.

Facing salary cap pressure, Montreal’s TSN 690 announced late Tuesday it is trading afternoon host Mitch Gallo to Calgary’s Sportsnet 960 in exchange for morning host Matt Rose and a second-round pick in the 2027 sports radio host entry draft.

Gallo, who punched me in the face when I asked for his height and weight, has been at TSN 690 for just under 20 years now, and has become a key part of the schedule.

“It sucks to see him go like this,” said Sean Campbell, Gallo’s linemate. “He’s been a really strong presence in the dressing room. I know he’ll do great in Calgary.”

Gallo said the news came as a shock, but there were three takeaways from the trade brought to you by Snap Bar Sportif in Rigaud, the best place off the island to speculate about the future of on-air personalities.

TSN general manager Shad Prill said the trade is a win for both sides and he thinks Rose has a lot of potential with a change of scenery.

“I’m not sure about the draft pick yet,” he said. “Does Bob McKenzie have any other kids?”

La Voix, the TVA singing competition show that is currently in its 11th season, says it is making preliminary plans to institute a mandatory draft for its next season after the talent pool of undiscovered Quebec singers reached critically low levels.

The series has had more than 120 artists get past its blind audition stage, and “we’re concerned there just aren’t that many more undiscovered superstars-in-waiting left in the province,” said host Charles Lafortune. “So we need the government and the Union des Artistes to step in and require mandatory participation in La Voix for all singers who haven’t yet competed for it.”

The move is being supported by TVA, the Dix-30’s Théâtre Manuvie and Salle Pauline-Julien, who need C-level artists to fill their venues.

The CJAD Traffic Centre building in downtown Laval

CJAD is saying goodbye to its iconic traffic centre megacomplex, moving the hundreds of employees who work there into a new campus in Laval.

The decision was mainly for real estate reasons, CJAD Vice-President of Traffic Services Marlin Awirilikalo told me. “The building is almost 50 years old, and it was showing its age. We’ve just finished construction on the new campus, so we’ll begin the process of moving the traffic centre there over the coming 15 months.”

The move will start with the Eastern Montreal traffic department, followed by Bridges, Transit, West Island and finally the critical Decarie and Met departments. “We want to make sure everything is running smoothly before we touch those critical areas,” Awirilikalo said. “People rely on this massive team for accurate traffic reports every 15 minutes.”

The CJAD Traffic Centre is responsible for an estimated 6% of Montreal’s GDP. Once the teams have vacated the Dormez-Vous Memorial Pavillion, the building will be taken over by developers who will tear it down to create a 30,000-unit condo complex with space left over for a nature park.