Good morning. Owing to an extremely severe bout of sniffles, we’re a day behind on our lookahead. But we figure it’s better late than never. Today, we’re tracking Donald Trump’s standoff with Tehran, Jamie Dimon’s latest warnings, and a fresh read on Canada’s labour market.

Robbery in Rosedale: Amid rising fears over a spate of recent home invasions, residents of one of Canada’s most desirable neighbourhoods have invested in nightly private security patrols and are considering establishing “virtual gated communities” to keep criminals at bay.

Trade: Beijing is pushing Ottawa to back its bid to join a major free-trade agreement between Indo-Pacific nations, including Canada, Japan and Australia.

Procurement: Alberta’s Justice Minister imposed new limits upon the province’s election regulator when his friend and relative, Sam Mraiche, was under investigation.

The Iran war reaches a pivotal moment: U.S. President Donald Trump is threatening to have Iran “taken out” through a barrage of attacks unless the country opens up the Strait of Hormuz by 8 p.m. ET tonight.

But Tehran is showing no signs of blinking, even as Trump widens his threats to include Iran’s power plants, bridges and populace. Iran rejected a 45-day ceasefire proposal made yesterday by Egyptian, Pakistani and Turkish mediators, saying it wants a permanent end to the war.

Trump said he was “not at all” concerned about accusations of war crimes if the U.S. follows through on his threats. Iranian citizens are “willing to suffer ... in order to have freedom,” he said.

Yesterday, about two weeks after Israel agreed to stop attacking Iran’s South Pars gas field – following earlier strikes that prompted retaliation from Iran and a spike in global energy prices – the country struck a vital petrochemical plant in the gas field.

The conflict has widened into a multifront war, with Israeli strikes and Iranian missiles hitting cities, military‑linked sites and energy infrastructure from Haifa to Tehran, while Gulf states activate air defences and Lebanon absorbs the spillover. Five weeks into the war, Doug Saunders writes, the United Arab Emirates remains the Arab country most heavily targeted by Iran.

The market moves on: U.S. crude futures ended yesterday above $112 a barrel – nearly 70 per cent higher than before the war began in late February. Brent crude, the international benchmark, was trading slightly lower. That’s kind of weird! Typically, investors pay a premium for Brent because it is more exposed to geopolitical flareups in the Middle East. But with oil supplies tight, investors are focused on securing barrels now – and West Texas Intermediate can be delivered sooner.

U.S. and Canadian stocks ended higher yesterday as investors sensed both sides “inching, hopefully, closer to some type of resolution,” said Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist at Carson Group in Omaha, Neb.

“The day-to-day volatility and headlines can ⁠be rather nauseating,” Detrick said. “But there’s a sense of optimism in the air with this upcoming earnings season, ​which starts very soon, that corporate America once again will show solid, solid performance and likely justifying what we still think is a bull market.”

Dimonizing: Jamie Dimon, bearish about the wider economy but bullish about his nearly US$800‑billion bank, said economic strength and national security are inseparable – and that governments alone cannot manage the risks now reshaping trade, energy and supply chains.

In his annual letter to shareholders – now something closer to a state‑of‑the‑world address – the JPMorgan chief executive dwells on geopolitics and national security, unveiling a US$1.5‑trillion, 10‑year push that would embed the bank more deeply in the financing of defence, energy resilience and the rebuilding of strategic supply chains.

In his wide-ranging correspondence, published yesterday, Dimon returns to familiar concerns – risk, resilience, security and discipline – likening interest rates to gravity, warning of straws piling onto “the poor camel’s back,” and describing global pressures as tectonic plates “always moving and periodically causing earthquakes and volcanoes.”

Competition is cast as trench warfare, cycles as unavoidable, and confidence as something that can evaporate quickly once conditions shift. It is not the language of imminent crisis, but neither is it the language of a CEO expecting smooth sailing.

Or smelling.

“The skunk at the party – and it could happen in 2026 – would be inflation slowly going up, as opposed to slowly going down.”

For hire (Please?) After two consecutive months of job losses, economists are looking for signs of stabilization in Friday’s Canadian Labour Force Survey. Recent job losses have fallen heavily on young workers, pushing youth unemployment higher even as the core of the labour market has held up, RBC economists wrote in a client note.

Weak hiring sentiment in Canada could persist as long as uncertainty exists over tariffs and geopolitical conflict, the economists wrote. Still, recent gross domestic product figures suggest the economy has held up better than feared, buoyed by steady consumer and government spending.

On auto: BlackBerry reports quarterly results Thursday morning as its shares bounce off a one-year low. The security software provider is expected to show tepid topline growth and improved profitability, Amber Kanwar writes.

“We believe the company can meet – and potentially beat – its conservative guidance again,” CIBC Capital Markets analyst Todd Coupland wrote. BlackBerry’s automotive software has been growing faster than the overall business despite a slowdown in auto production. But seemingly underwhelmed investors have sent the stock down 31 per cent from its September peak.