HEADLINES
Air Transat Pilots Agree to New Collective Agreement, Avoiding Strike
Air Transat pilots voted overwhelmingly in favor a new five-year collective agreement with the Canadian airline, averting a threatened walkout that would have disrupted travel.
The Airline Pilots Association International said pilots agreed to ratify the agreement with the airline, marking the union's first negotiated deal in over a decade.
Of the roughly 98% of eligible pilots who took part in the vote, 91% favored an agreement, the labor union said. The result came just 12 hours before a potential strike.
Bright Minds Releases Positive Results From Seizure Drug Trial
Bright Minds Biosciences released positive topline results from its phase two trial of a treatment for patients with drug-resistant Absence Seizures and Developmental and Encephalopathic Epilepsies.
The stock soared 20.1% to settle at C$124.95.
The company said the drug, called BMB-101, demonstrated "significant anti-seizure benefit in both cohorts," meeting its primary efficacy endpoints, and showed a favorable safety and tolerability. The trial also showed REM sleep improvement in patients with Absence Seizures.
The company is preparing for global registrational trials in Absence Seizures and DEE. It will also begin a study in Prader Willi Syndrome in the first quarter.
Services PMI Picked Up to 46.5 in December But Remained in Contraction
Activity in Canada's services industry heated up in the final month of 2025, though the sector remained in contraction territory as new business continued to fall and employment levels were again cut, data released Tuesday showed.
The S&P Global Canada services purchasing managers index rose to 46.5 in December. That marked a recovery after steep downturn the month before, with the index sliding to 44.3 in November.
Aside from modest growth recorded in October, the services index was below the critical 50 threshold separating expansion from contraction throughout last year.
Sunoco Plans to Start 50-Day Turnaround in late January at Burnaby Refinery in British Columbia
Sunoco said it will begin a 50-day turnaround in late January at its 55,000-b/d refinery in Burnaby, British Columbia.
The company in a 2026 guidance statement didn't identify which units will be involved in the turnaround.
The refinery is operated by Canada-based Parkland, which Sunoco acquired in November.
Burnaby is one of two refineries on Canada's West Coast. The planned turnaround comes after the facility limited operations in December for maintenance work.
Tourism Spending in Canada Rises
Tensions between Canada and the U.S. may have discouraged Canadians from visiting the neighboring country, but it doesn't look to have held back tourism spending in Canada.
Statistics Canada's latest data shows tourism GDP grew 0.9% in real terms in the third quarter of 2025, matching the pace the quarter before and outpacing economy-wide growth of 0.5%.
Tourism spending in the third quarter was up 0.7%, versus 0.9% growth in the second quarter. Tourism spending in the country by international visitors was up 1.2%, growing across all areas to rebound after a 5.6% slump in the second quarter.
Domestic spending on tourism by Canadians also was up, rising 0.5% with gains in accommodation services, pre-trip expenditure and vehicle rental offsetting a drop in air transport spending.
Monetary Reserves Decreased $8 Million in December
Canada's official international reserves dipped by $8 million last month, driven by negative reserves management funding operations that were largely offset by a net gain on investments, the federal finance department said.
As of Dec. 31, the country's reserves of foreign currencies and other monetary assets totaled $127.79 billion, a decline from $127.8 billion the month before.
The government reported no intervention in the foreign-currency market, and there were no gold holdings at the end of the month.
All reserve figures are reported in U.S. dollars.
Else Nutrition Names Zilberberg CFO
Else Nutrition appointed Natie Zilberberg as its next chief financial officer and corporate secretary, effective Jan. 5.
Zilberberg succeeds Shay Shamir, the food and nutrition company said. Shamir joined the company in 2019.
Zilberberg was most recently CFO of agricultural technology company Tomgrow. He was previously financial controller at financial technology company Salaryo, and has also worked at Lahav Green Mountains and Ernst & Young.
Osisko Metals Names Hussey COO
Osisko Metals named Jeff Hussey chief operating officer, effective immediately.
Hussey has served as director of the Toronto-based company since 2017, and has held multiple management positions. The company said that Hussey was most recentlychief executive officer of Osisko Metals subsidiary Pine Point Mining Limited.
Hussey has resigned as a member of Osisko Metals' board of directors and will continue to support Pine Point Mining Limited, in addition to his role as COO.
TALKING POINT
Speak Loudly and Carry a Big Stick-Trump's Approach to the Americas
By David Luhnow, Juan Forero and Vera Bergengruen
The U.S. may have decided it no longer wants to be the world's policeman, but the military operation that captured Venezuela's autocratic president shows it is far more willing now to be the enforcer in its own hemisphere.
President Trump's audacious decision to seize Nicolás Maduro from his Caracas, Venezuela, compound and whisk him off to a New York court to stand trial on drugs and weapons charges heralds a new geopolitical strategy: The U.S. and the U.S. only will dominate the Western Hemisphere.
For the Trump administration, that is Washington's core interest, a vision laid out recently in its national-security strategy. In the wake of Maduro's arrest, Trump has warned Colombia's leftist president that he could be next, said Cuba's regime was likely to fall soon of its own accord, and again raised the idea that the U.S. should control Greenland.
"American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again," Trump told reporters Monday. Hours later, the State Department used its X account to put out a picture of Trump emblazoned with the headline: "This is OUR hemisphere," echoing Trump's hard-edged rhetoric in an unusually blunt tone for the country's diplomatic agency.
Call it the return of the "Big Stick" school of hemispheric relations, a throwback to U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt.
The policy is pushing some Latin American governments to toe the U.S. line. But it could result in pushback from Latin Americans who don't want to see a return of U.S. interventions in the region. It could also anger longtime U.S. allies. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said any move by the U.S. on Greenland would mark the end of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization security alliance, a comment quickly backed up by the U.K. government.
In 1904, frustrated with growing instability in Latin America, Roosevelt said he would modify the 1823 Monroe Doctrine that set out to claim American pre-eminence over the hemisphere and protect it from European meddling. Roosevelt went a step further: The U.S. also reserved the right to intervene in the region's internal affairs to make sure countries behaved responsibly and aligned with U.S. interests-"an international police power."
The policy led to yearslong occupations in Haiti, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and Cuba, bringing American customs like baseball but sparking a wave of anti-American feeling in many Latin American countries that resented the interference. It was replaced in the early 1930s by Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "Good Neighbor" policy, but its influence lingered.
Trump's policy has since been dubbed by his allies as the "Donroe Doctrine." The aim isn't the Europeans, but any nonhemispheric actor, especially China and Russia. It also adopts Roosevelt's arguments about the U.S.'s right to defend its interests.
As if to underscore the point, the military operation against Maduro happened only hours after a Chinese delegation led by Qiu Xiaoqi, the country's special representative on Latin American affairs, met with him at the Miraflores presidential palace.
"China is deeply shocked and strongly condemns the U.S.'s blatant use of force against a sovereign state," Beijing's Foreign Ministry said in an unusually strong tone.
The new U.S. policy marks a shift after decades of largely benign neglect of its own hemisphere-the main focus was the drug war and economic cooperation-while Washington's diplomatic and military might focused on far-off places such as Iraq and Afghanistan. During that time, China built up a huge presence in the region, becoming the top trading partner for countries like Brazil and a strategic ally for Venezuela-it helped bankroll the regime by buying its oil as Russia sold Caracas weaponry.
Under Trump's second term, Latin America has suddenly shifted from strategic backwater to center stage.
Write to David Luhnow at [david.luhnow@wsj.com], Juan Forero at [juan.forero@wsj.com] and Vera Bergengruen at [vera.bergengruen@wsj.com]
Expected Major Events for Wednesday
00:30/JPN: Dec Japan Services PMI
07:00/GER: Nov Retail Trade
07:45/FRA: Dec Consumer confidence survey
08:55/GER: Dec Labour market statistics (incl unemployment)
09:00/ITA: 3Q General Government Quarterly Accounts
09:00/GER: Dec Bavaria CPI
09:00/GER: Dec Baden-Wuerttemberg CPI
09:30/UK: Dec S&P Global UK Construction PMI
10:00/ITA: Dec Provisional CPI
10:00/ITA: Dec Cities CPI
12:00/US: 01/02 MBA Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey
12:00/US: MBA Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey
13:15/US: Dec ADP National Employment Report
15:00/US: Oct Manufacturers' Shipments, Inventories & Orders (M3)
(MORE TO FOLLOW) Dow Jones Newswires
January 06, 2026 16:30 ET (21:30 GMT)
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