Pain at the pump

Good morning. Researchers at the NASA-funded SETI Institute have found that turbulent weather conditions in space could be the reason we haven’t made contact with aliens yet. Apparently, the rough space weather is likely to scramble any radio messages that are theoretically being sent to or from our extraterrestrial friends. 

These poor aliens think we’re just leaving them on read. If they ever come to invade Earth, we know why. 

P.S. If you didn’t catch our special Peak Weekend edition on Saturday, you can read all about our new Peak Premium subscription here. Thank you to everyone who has already subscribed (and is enjoying today’s edition ad-free!).

Today’s reading time is 5½ minutes.

Earnings to watch: Oracle will hold its earnings call after the bell on Tuesday, while Canadian steel producer Algoma Steel — which has received $500 million in government loans to weather U.S. tariffs — will report its results on Wednesday.

Now might be a good time to fill up the tank because there’s a good chance gas prices are headed even higher this week. 

What happened: The nationwide average price of gas at the pump passed $1.50 per litre, around 15% higher than a week ago, as the war in the Middle East pushes up the price of crude — and prices are likely to rise more this week.

Why it’s happening: While Iran itself isn’t a major producer of oil (accounting for roughly 5% of the world’s supply), it has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow shipping channel through which around 20% of the world’s oil supply passes. 

Why it matters: Beyond just making it more expensive to fill up at the pumps, higher oil and gas prices act as a drag on economic growth and drive up prices by making it more expensive to produce pretty much everything. In other words, bad news all around.

What’s next: Goldman Sachs warned the price of oil could rise to US$150 per barrel by the end of the month unless the war is de-escalated to allow oil production and shipping to get back to normal.—TS

Carney calls byelections with a Liberal majority in sight. Voters will head to the polls on April 13 for byelections in two Toronto ridings (both of which the Liberals won by 30-40 point margins), as well as the crucial Quebec riding of Terrebonne. If the Liberals can win all three byelections, they will secure a razor-thin majority government. Polling aggregator website 338Canada gives the Liberals a 32% chance of winning Terrebonne. (CBC News)

Iran names Khamenei’s son as the new supreme leader. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, was named Iran’s new supreme leader. Meanwhile, Donald Trump says the U.S. is now considering deploying special forces to Iran to seize the country’s uranium stockpile, a significant escalation of the war to include ground operations. (Bloomberg)

OpenAI’s head of hardware resigned over its controversial Pentagon deal. Caitlin Kalinowski, the company’s head of hardware and robotics, is departing OpenAI over its deal to supply the Pentagon with its AI models without usage limits. Kalinowski wrote, “Surveillance of Americans without judicial oversight and lethal autonomy without human authorization are lines that deserved more deliberation than they got.” (TechCrunch)

📡 What else is on our radar: 

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📊 New jobs numbers. Employment data for February arrives on Friday and is expected to show the labour market softening. RBC is forecasting a rise in unemployment from 6.5% to 6.7%; Scotiabank predicts 6.6%. Layoffs by the federal government are likely to start showing up in the data, but slowing population growth from immigration caps should limit the impact on the overall unemployment rate. Also on the data front, the latest U.S. inflation report will be released on Wednesday.

🇨🇳 China’s top political meeting concludes. The “Two Sessions” gathering of top Chinese Communist Party officials and other national leaders ends this week, and will officially approve the country’s next Five-Year Plan. China is targeting a GDP growth rate between 4.5% and 5% per year — the lowest growth goal since the early 1990s — over the next five years, and committed spending on scientific research and in high-tech sectors, including AI and quantum computing. 

🎬 The 98th annual Academy Awards. Conan O’Brien will host the Oscars this Sunday. The race for Best Picture has come down to Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” and Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners.” In the Best Actor category, Michael B. Jordan and Timothée Chalamet are both strong contenders to take home the prize, according to Polymarket, while Jessie Buckley is heavily favoured to win Best Actress for her performance in “Hamnet.”

Everyone’s cutting down on booze, which is great for our collective sleep and less great for the neighbourhood restaurant banking on us buying $20 martinis.

Driving the news: New Statistics Canada data shows Canadians' alcohol consumption hit the lowest level on record last year, driven by cost-of-living pressures and young people partially or fully cutting out booze. A recent survey found that 41% of Canadians have cut their alcohol consumption in the past year. 

Why it matters: Canadians drinking less is objectively a positive trend healthwise, but for many restaurants, the pullback from booze is an existential threat to their business model. Food might be what gets people in the door, but a restaurant's profit lives and dies on alcohol sales. 

What’s next: The high cost of drinking at restaurants will always be a deterrent for some, but the health and wellness part of this equation could fade. As Toronto restaurateur Jen Agg told The Peak, “I suspect there will be a bit of pushback against all this wellness, as there always is with trends. And with the world as it is, maybe a drink isn't such a radically bad idea!”—LA

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🎥 1,200. Jobs that the film and TV industry in Northern Ontario generates, a number that’s expected to nearly double by 2028. Tax breaks, scenic landscapes, and Hallmark-y small towns have made the region an unlikely hub for Hollywood productions. Bryan Cranston’s new movie was just shot in North Bay, while Frankenstein was partially shot in Lake Nipissing.

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Back to your regularly scheduled morning puzzles: We’ve got today’s mini-crossword, the daily sudoku and Codebreaker.