Sun or strike

Good morning. A woman in the U.K. named Carol suffered a psychotic episode and was hospitalized after she saw an ad on her smart fridge for the Apple TV show, Pluribus. The ad read: “We’re sorry we upset you, Carol,” a reference to the show that she (sort of understandably) interpreted as a message directly to her.

We didn’t need another reason to hate the idea of our fridge advertising to us, but we’ll certainly add this anecdote to the list.

Today’s reading time is 5½ minutes.

Earnings to watch this week: Roots reports earnings on Wednesday, while grocery conglomerate Empire reports on Thursday, along with Dollarama and Lululemon. In tech, Oracle, Adobe, and Broadcom all report this week. And for dessert, the Magnum Ice Cream Company — a spin-off of Unilever — goes public today.

Just three months after the last Canadian airline strike brought travel plans to a halt, we’re on the verge of an untimely sequel. 

What happened: Montreal-based Air Transat will start suspending its flights today and gradually shut down its operations over the next two days ahead of a looming pilot strike. 

Why it matters: We’re in the thick of one of the busiest travel periods of the year, especially for the sunshine destinations Air Transat primarily flies to. Even a brief pilot strike would scramble Canadians’ holiday vacation plans.

Zoom out: The potential strike is yet another problem Air Transat really doesn’t need right now. The airline is already struggling to pay off a $334 million government loan from the pandemic, and management is battling an activist investor for control of the company. Something tells us there will be no ‘coasting until the new year’ at Air Transat HQ.—LA

Netflix CEO ran Warner Bros. buyout by Trump personally. Co-CEO Ted Sarandos reportedly visited the president at the White House in November to discuss, among other things, the bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery. Trump expressed support for the studio being sold to the “highest bidder,” which turned out to be Netflix. The ~US$82 billion mega deal is still expected to face antitrust scrutiny.

Saint John pilots private security plan. New Brunswick’s largest city will trial a two-year pilot program to deploy private security guards to the city’s most crime-affected areas 24/7. The idea behind the program is to de-escalate non-emergency situations without involving police. 

Meta has reportedly delayed its new mixed reality glasses until 2027. The device will reportedly be a competitor to the Apple Vision Pro, which hasn’t exactly flown off the shelves.

Hong Kong residents voted in elections for the city’s Legislative Council. Turnout was up slightly from 2021, but it wasn’t much of a contest: only candidates approved by Beijing were allowed to run.

Tensions escalated between China and Japan after a Chinese fighter jet locked its radar onto Japanese aircraft over international waters.

A water leak at the Louvre damaged hundreds of Egyptian artifacts. Between their plumbing issues and the Italian Job-style jewel heist, the museum has had a pretty rough year. 

Toronto opened its first new transit line since 2002.

Katy Perry and Justin Trudeau are Instagram official.

🏦 Bank of Canada rate decision. Canada’s central bank will make its last interest rate decision of the year on Wednesday, and they’re expected to keep the overnight rate at 2.25%. Without a major shock, that pattern will likely hold for the next several meetings after last week’s upward GDP revisions and surprisingly strong jobs numbers. 

🇺🇸 Federal Reserve expected to cut rates. The U.S. central bank is likely to cut its policy rate by 25 bps on Wednesday. U.S. jobs numbers have been worse than expected lately, though much of the data that would usually inform this call has been delayed or cancelled because of the lengthy government shutdown. 

New ChatGPT model set to drop. OpenAI is reportedly planning to release a new version of its ChatGPT model this week, which sources told The Verge will match the capabilities of Google’s Gemini 3. On Polymarket, the odds that OpenAI would have the best model for coding by the end of 2025 surged over the weekend, suggesting that someone knows something, or gamblers are overreacting to OpenAI’s PR.

What else is on our radar: Sam Altman will appear on Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show tonight, right-wing candidate José Antonio Kast is expected to win Chile’s presidential election, Australia’s social media ban for under-16s comes into effect.

A record number of Canadian taxpayers are having to correct the CRA’s work. 

What happened: The number of objections to assessments made by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has nearly doubled since before the pandemic, according to data reported by The Globe & Mail. 

Why it’s happening: The federal government has upped the CRA’s budget to battle tax avoidance in recent years. That’s leading to more audits and, as a result, more objections.

Why it matters: 63% of objections were either fully or partially successful in the past year, indicating that more often than not the CRA got it at least partially wrong. That sort of error rate doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in the agency’s auditing chops.

Zoom out: The CRA’s headcount has fallen from more than 59,000 staff at its peak in 2023 to around 52,499 in 2025 — the union representing CRA workers says that shrinkage is to blame for performance problems at the agency, including the fact that it’s been virtually impossible to get someone on the phone.

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Pour yourself something warm and settle in with today’s mini-crossword!