In a morning session on the second day of the Ottawa event, Dooly CEO Kris Hartvigsen said news of layoffs is, however, less of a surprise now than when his company cut around 10 per cent of its headcount back in August. (The Logic)

Talking point: The wave of layoffs sweeping Canadian tech this year—they’ve affected the likes of Shopify, Wealthsimple and Hootsuite, among others—has reversed what had been a hiring boom. In a panel discussion hosted by my colleague Murad, Hartvigsen and Thinkific COO Miranda Lievers discussed practical ways to approach layoffs with care and mitigate their impact on employees. Some of the things Thinkific has tried: creating a Slack channel to let those who were leaving say goodbye and pass off meetings to colleagues that stayed, and an alumni page to help connect them with recruiters. It’s important for founders to showcase “values and, frankly, take responsibility” for their failures, said Lievers.