Weekly Quiz: Foreign Workers, Fearsome Cyberattacks, and the Fall of Ssense

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const title = "Foreign Workers, Fearsome Cyberattacks, and the Fall of Ssense"; const date = "October 18, 2025"; const data = [ { image: "https://walrus-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/img/WEB_TFWP_OCT25-1536x1024.jpg", title: "How the Right Is Turning Youth Unemployment into Outrage over Foreign Workers", url: "https://thewalrus.ca/a-coder-built-a-job-posting-website-conservatives-turned-it-into-a-weapon-against-foreign-workers/", question: "The Conservative party is pinning Canada’s high levels of youth unemployment on the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP). Party leader Pierre Poilievre claims that Mark Carney and his government have issued 105,000 new TFW permits in the first six months of 2025, but this figure is misleading. What is the actual number of new TFWs approved to enter Canada during that period?", options: [ "15,800", "33,722", "55,000", "88,432", ], answer: "33,722", correct: "On September 3, the Conservative party issued a press release announcing its goal to end the TFWP, blaming the Liberals for sustaining a monster that is devouring the futures of Canada’s young people. “Carney’s government has issued 105,000 new Temporary Foreign Worker permits in the first six months of 2025 alone,” Poilievre claimed in the release. What Poilievre failed to mention was the 105,000 figure also includes permit renewals and new work permits issued to people already in Canada. The actual number of new TFWs approved to enter Canada in the first six months of 2025 was 33,722. Other right-wing leaders have since jumped on Poilievre’s bandwagon while the Liberals play defence—and like the ’94 Ottawa Senators, they’re doing it badly.", incorrect: "On September 3, the Conservative party issued a press release announcing its goal to end the TFWP, blaming the Liberals for sustaining a monster that is devouring the futures of Canada’s young people. “Carney’s government has issued 105,000 new Temporary Foreign Worker permits in the first six months of 2025 alone,” Poilievre claimed in the release. What Poilievre failed to mention was the 105,000 figure also includes permit renewals and new work permits issued to people already in Canada. The actual number of new TFWs approved to enter Canada in the first six months of 2025 was 33,722. Other right-wing leaders have since jumped on Poilievre’s bandwagon while the Liberals play defence—and like the ’94 Ottawa Senators, they’re doing it badly.", }, { title: "It Was Gen Z’s Favourite E-tailer—until It Wasn’t. Inside the Ssense Fiasco", url: "https://thewalrus.ca/inside-the-ssense-fiasco/", question: "Canadian multi-brand e-tailer Ssense built its business courting Gen Z, a strategy that earned them a $4.1 billion valuation in 2021. Four years later, the company was on the verge of filing for bankruptcy protection. What legal action prompted this decision?", options: [ "Employees that had been laid off filed a class-action lawsuit", "Several key investors withdrew their stakes in the company", "A creditor moved to sell the company without its consent", "A supplier dispute froze the company’s assets", ], answer: "A creditor moved to sell the company without its consent", correct: "At the end of August, it was revealed that Ssense was preparing to file for bankruptcy protection after a creditor moved to sell the company without its consent, triggering what the firm described as an “immediate liquidity crisis.” By September, the company was granted a reprieve—the Superior Court of Quebec ruled Ssense could maintain operations while it restructures. This provides some hope for the company—meaning they are able to consider investment opportunities to ensure the future of the site. “We now have the time, resources and structure in place to begin the process of rebuilding a stronger Ssense,” said chief executive officer and founder Rami Atallah in a statement.", incorrect: "At the end of August, it was revealed that Ssense was preparing to file for bankruptcy protection after a creditor moved to sell the company without its consent, triggering what the firm described as an “immediate liquidity crisis.” By September, the company was granted a reprieve—the Superior Court of Quebec ruled Ssense could maintain operations while it restructures. This provides some hope for the company—meaning they are able to consider investment opportunities to ensure the future of the site. “We now have the time, resources and structure in place to begin the process of rebuilding a stronger Ssense,” said chief executive officer and founder Rami Atallah in a statement.", }, { image: "https://walrus-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/img/Chaudary_Ransomware_1800.jpg", title: "The Cyberattack That Stole 280,000 Identities—and Showed How Easily We Can Be Duped", url: "https://thewalrus.ca/the-cyberattack-that-showed-how-easily-we-can-be-duped/", question: "Ransomware has raced ahead in the past five years, turbocharged by pandemic-related security challenges and advances in artificial intelligence. In 2019, mounting an attack took about sixty days. How long does it take today?", options: [ "Four days", "Nine days", "Thirteen days", "Twenty days", ], answer: "Four days", correct: "Today’s malware is smarter, faster, and harder to detect. Ali Ghorbani, director of the Canadian Institute of Cybersecurity at the University of New Brunswick, says AI has given hackers a new edge. They are now able to churn out countless variations of the same attack. It’s also making phishing scams more convincing, with personalized emails, lifelike voice clips, and deepfake videos. In one case, an employee at a British engineering firm was duped into wiring $25 million (US) after a video call with AI-generated “executives.” All of this has rewritten the rules of ransomware. In 2019, mounting an attack took about sixty days. Today, it takes just four. “The attacks have gotten bigger,” says Ghorbani. “And the ransoms have gotten bigger too.”", incorrect: "Today’s malware is smarter, faster, and harder to detect. Ali Ghorbani, director of the Canadian Institute of Cybersecurity at the University of New Brunswick, says AI has given hackers a new edge. They are now able to churn out countless variations of the same attack. It’s also making phishing scams more convincing, with personalized emails, lifelike voice clips, and deepfake videos. In one case, an employee at a British engineering firm was duped into wiring $25 million (US) after a video call with AI-generated “executives.” All of this has rewritten the rules of ransomware. In 2019, mounting an attack took about sixty days. Today, it takes just four. “The attacks have gotten bigger,” says Ghorbani. “And the ransoms have gotten bigger too.”", }, { title: "Churchill Falls Could Make Newfoundland and Labrador Rich—or Break It Again", url: "https://thewalrus.ca/churchill-falls-could-make-newfoundland-rich-or-break-it-again/", question: "As Newfoundland and Labrador debates the future of Churchill Falls, Indigenous communities are voicing serious concerns about how the hydroelectric project is increasing the risk of methylmercury contamination. What is the main reason why methylmercury is considered so dangerous?", options: [ "It evaporates easily into the atmosphere.", "It bioaccumulates up the food chain.", "It is difficult to properly filter out of drinking water.", "It creates harmful acids when it interacts with oxygen.", ], answer: "It bioaccumulates up the food chain.", correct: "North and west of Churchill Falls lies Nunatsiavut, the traditional territory of the Labrador Inuit. The Nunatsiavut government worries about the environmental impacts of more hydroelectric development, and President Johannes Lampe vows to hold the government accountable to protect Inuit rights and lands. The construction of the Churchill Falls project in the 1960s flooded an area of land in central Labrador larger than Prince Edward Island. Scientific studies have found that Labrador Indigenous communities have been affected by methylmercury connected to Churchill Falls since the early 1970s. Contamination can result if naturally occurring mercury in organic matter is converted to highly toxic methylmercury when land is flooded for hydroelectric development. The methylmercury bioaccumulates up the food chain, including in the food sources Indigenous communities depend upon, such as harvested fish.", incorrect: "North and west of Churchill Falls lies Nunatsiavut, the traditional territory of the Labrador Inuit. The Nunatsiavut government worries about the environmental impacts of more hydroelectric development, and President Johannes Lampe vows to hold the government accountable to protect Inuit rights and lands. The construction of the Churchill Falls project in the 1960s flooded an area of land in central Labrador larger than Prince Edward Island. Scientific studies have found that Labrador Indigenous communities have been affected by methylmercury connected to Churchill Falls since the early 1970s. Contamination can result if naturally occurring mercury in organic matter is converted to highly toxic methylmercury when land is flooded for hydroelectric development. The methylmercury bioaccumulates up the food chain, including in the food sources Indigenous communities depend upon, such as harvested fish.", }, ];