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Your World Tonight
Ford on Reagan ad, Alberta’s teachers to be legislated back, U.S. biometric scans for visitors, and more
00:27:41
<p>Ontario’s premier says he’s not sorry for the ad that the U.S. President is blaming for cancelling trade negotiations with Canada. Donald Trump says he won’t be talking to Prime Minister Mark Carney for a while. But Doug Ford says Trump is mad because the ad worked.</p><p><br></p><p>And: Alberta tables legislation to order teachers back to work.</p><p><br></p><p>Also: Say cheese! The U.S. says getting your photo taken for biometric scanning will soon be mandatory at ports of entry and exit.</p><p><br></p><p>Plus: Jamaica prepares as Hurricane Melissa bears down, Denare Beach, Sask. rebuilds, food bank use doubles since 2019, and more.</p>
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Hey, I'm Sarah Marshall and there's one story from the past that I've been circling around for years now. This eight part series traces the hidden history of the Satanic panic in North America. We'll connect the dots. From Victoria, B.C. to the back roads of Kentucky, Satan was having a moment. The sensationalist heartthrob of our time, the Devil you Know. Available now wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast. Those having the discussions about workers and businesses and communities in our respective countries had been making progress. Those ads came, the president had the reactions which you have seen and we're in the situation we're in. Fallout from a Ronald Reagan anti tariff ad keeps trickling down. The prime minister said says trade officials were close to a deal before the spot aired. Now with talks broken off, US President Donald Trump says it will be a while before they resume. Welcome to youo World Tonight. I'm Susan Bonner. It is Monday, October 27, just before 6pm Eastern. Also on the podcast, nothing will really change. Like there's still gonna be students are gonna be suffering because they're not gonna get those supports they need. Teachers are gonna be burning out. Probably some teachers will be leaving the profession if nothing changes. Alberta teachers trying to teach the provincial government a lesson worried they will soon be forced back to work. Legislation aimed at ending a province wide teacher strike could have students back in class before the end of the week. Doug Ford says he's sorry, not sorry. The Ontario premier is defending his anti tariff ad and says he has support from other Canadian leaders. The TV commercial was blasted by U.S. president Donald Trump tanking trade talks the prime minister admits were on the right track before Trump changed the channel. Kate McKenna reports. Did we get our money worth? Oh my goodness that we get our money. Ontario Premier Doug Ford says he has no regrets after his province's anti tariff ad prompted US President Donald Trump to torpedo trade negotiations and threaten higher tariffs on Canadian goods. You know why President Trump so upset right now? Because it was effective, it was working. It woke up the whole country. Ford says he has the support of most of his fellow premiers and claims that Prime Minister Mark Carney and his chief of staff saw the ad before it aired. Carney was in Malaysia today selling Canada as a reliable trading partner at the ASEAN summit. He told reporters Ottawa and Washington were close to a deal on steel, aluminum and energy. Before this blow up, there were a series of very detailed, very specific, very comprehensive discussions, negotiations up until the point of those ads running. The now famous ad was pulled from American airwaves effective today. It includes parts of a 1987 speech by former President Ronald Reagan criticizing trade wars. Markets shrink and collapse, businesses and industries shut down and millions of people lose their jobs. I don't want to meet with them. I'm not going to be meeting with them for a while. Trump has called the ad a fraud and says he's done dealing with Carney for now as punishment for running the ad over the weekend, including during the World Series. They've apologized and they said we're going to take the ad down. Well, they did it, but they did it very late. Ford's tough talking Captain Canada Persona helped him secure a provincial election win earlier this year. He's been unafraid to target the president, calling him names as recently as this month. Need to protect the communities against that tyrant south of the border. Sources familiar with the trade talks say American officials have brought up Ford's rhetoric as an irritant in negotiations for months. And Trump's move didn't come out of nowhere. But today Ford was skeptical of any potential deal, saying if one is coming, it's not likely to include relief for an Ontario sector bleeding jobs. Auto manufacturing. So let's, let's talk about a so called imminent deal. I've been hearing this for month after month after month and if there was, there was no mention about auto. Since his election, Carney has prioritized building relationships with both Ford and Trump. He's said to text the US President regularly and has spent time having fireside chats at Ford's Muskoka cottage. The trade war is now putting those ties to the test. Kate McKenna, CBC News, Ottawa. Jobs Minister Patty Haidu says trade uncertainty means Canada needs to invest in its own workers. She made the comments while announcing a tax credit for personal support workers and more money for unions to bo. Haidu says the funding will be in the next budget. I think these are challenging times in terms of the global shift in trade. We cannot control the decisions that another country will make. But what we can control is how we are going to invest in our country and invest in the capacity of our country to diversify our trade, to build major projects, to train skilled workers and to ensure that people are compensated fairly and stay attached to the workforce. Haidu says the tax credit will be backed by $1.5 billion over five years. The budget will be tabled on November 4. Jobs Minister Patty Haidu says trade uncertainty means Canada needs to invest in its own workers. She made the comments while announcing a tax credit for personal support workers and more money for unions to boost training. Haidu says the funding will be in the next budget. Despite hours of stall tactics by Alberta's opposition ndp, the province is pushing ahead with legislation to end a weeks long teacher strike. The back to work bill forces teachers into a new contract and includes a clause to shield it from a charter challenge. Erin Collins is following this story from Calgary. Erin, what is the province's strategy here? Well they did a lot today, right? They tabled legislation to force teachers back to work to end this strike that's entering its fourth. They also committed to fast tracking that legislation. The premier says she wants to have kids back in school by Wednesday. And perhaps most significantly, Susan, they've said they'll use the notwithstanding clause to defend this back to work legislation. So how did we get here? Before, striking teachers had overwhelmingly rejected a tentative deal that included a 12% pay raise over four years as well as the hiring of thousands of new teachers and teaching assistants. Now teachers said no to that. But with today's legislation it will be that deal that the province imposes on them. And it's a deal and a strategy that Premier Danielle Smith stands by. We know and feel like this is the right bargaining decision. So I would just hope that people would look at their own personal circumstances and just give an honest assessment of whether they think it's fair. Most of the parents I talk to, they think it's fair. Many of the teachers who've contacted us, they think it's fair. And I think most of all it's fair to the students who are the ones who are most impacted. So it may be fair. SUSAN but it is a deal that 90% of teachers reject it. And while the province committed to publicly reporting on class sizes and complexity today, they're not going to institute the kind of hard cap on sizes that teachers were really pushing for. What kind of reaction has there been? AARON well, obviously teachers and their union, they're not happy about this. But it's not just that group that's upset. Other unions in the province say they worry about the use of the notwithstanding clause in this situation. There's even been some of a coordinated response from public sector unions across the province. So obviously the opposition ndp, they were also speaking out about the use of this, the notwithstanding clause in this way. It was NDP leader Naheed Nenshi's first day in the legislature today and he wasn't shy about his feelings about the back to work law. Even if the government was insistent on forcing the teachers back to work, they could have done that without legislation under the existing labour relations Code, they could have done it by enforcing binding arbitration. But if in fact they choose to go forward with the notwithstanding clause, they've taken the nuclear option on something that they could have avoided. So, Susan, if this all sounds a bit familiar, it should. In 2022, the Ontario government tried to stop an education worker strike using the notwithstanding clause. In response, Kewpie workers walked off the job, forcing the closure of hundreds of schools, and Ontario eventually repealed that law entirely. Thank you, Aaron. You bet. The CBC's Aaron Collins in Calgary. Coming right up, a new report on Canada's skyrocketing food bank use, how the trend could get even worse. And a powerful storm closes in on Jamaica. Hurricane Melissa is now the most powerful of 2025. Later, we'll have this story. I'm Halina Mihalik in Da Nair Beach, Saskatchewan, where people are staring down a difficult recovery after an unprecedented wildfire season. The disaster destroyed more than 200 homes in the northern village. Amid the rebuild are the worries about the fires returning and history repeating itself. So we're just trying to figure out as a town, how can we incentivize people to come back here? People are obviously scared about another wildfire happening. I'll have that story later on youn World. Tonight, the rumble of hungry stomachs is growing louder across this country. A new report says more people than ever are using food banks and the rise in demand has doubled from pre pandemic levels. Xian desardins reports. It was a very sensitive emotional experience for me because it was entirely new for me. Nitimeta used the food bank for the first time six months ago. Now she's going regularly. She's an independent contractor with post secondary education struggling to make ends meet. And she's not alone. Every year, food banks across this country are setting new records, records we don't want to set. This year. From coast to coast to coast, food banks recorded close to 2.2 million visits. That's for March alone, says food Bank's Canada CEO Kirsten Beardsley. A new record according to the organization's 2025 National Hunger Count report. And twice as many visitors compared to 2019. This isn't a temporary spike in data. This is a signal of a much deeper problem that everyone in Canada should be extremely alarmed by. This is a signal that something fundamental has shifted in our country. And Beardsley says the government needs to do something about it. One in three households using food banks have children. One in five people have jobs. She says the cost of living is just too high. Incomes aren't keeping up and with the federal budget set to be tabled next week, what I'd like to see is an investment not just in big nation building projects that we're seeing, but in the nation building project of reducing food insecurity and practically looking at ei, especially in the face of a shaky economy, says Neil Hetherington, CEO of Toronto's Daily Bread food bank. It is concerning for us here in in Toronto to have this uncertainty and know that unemployment is starting to rise and yet our demand is already at this unprecedented level, sorting food, packing it up. Hetherington says it's not only immense growth that's a concern, it's the speed at which it's happening. In Canada's largest city, where user numbers are some of the highest, it took 38 years to get to 1 million visits and only 4 years to get to 4 million. This milestone represents the fact that we have grown by 340% since 2019. Ryan Noble, the executive director at North York Harvest, worries that they won't be able to keep up with demand. You don't need to be a social scientist or a statistician to know that there is something dramatically wrong in our community. This is not sustainable. Food banks Canada is calling on Ottawa to set a target. Cut food insecurity in half by 2030. It becomes like a lifesaver. For now, me too. Mehta is thankful the food bank is there. Xi Andi CBC News, Toronto. It is the strongest hurricane of 2025 and could be the most powerful ever to hit Jamaica. Melissa is a Category 5 storm, forcing the island's main airports to close and communities to evacuate. And as residents worry and wait, with landfall just hours away. Paul Hunter has the latest. As Melissa's winds gain strength and ferocity, Jamaicans brace and flee. All residents, all residents evacuate. Everyone needs to get ready. Anyone in low lying areas directed in no small way to run for their lives. Jamaica's Prime Minister Andrew Holness put it bluntly. You have been warned. So it's now up to you to use that information to make the right decisions. I would just say, almighty Father, spare us. Darryl Vaz is Minister of Telecommunications and Transport. I know we have a culture of last minute, but there's no last minute in a hurricane. You need to leave and you need to leave. No. As Jamaicans prepare, forecasts predict a complete horror show. With sustained winds up to 280km an hour, more than a meter of rain, a storm surge up to 4 meters. Melissa is now a Category 5 storm, the strongest there is. Not in the history of hurricane record keeping has such a storm hit Jamaica. How fearsome is Melissa. Already an official US Government plane trying to fly above its clouds to measure its intensity was today forced to turn back the storm too violent. Consider these sobering words from the director of the U.S. national Hurricane Center, Michael Brennan. We're expecting catastrophic wind impacts with total structural failure. We could see complete tree falls in the mountainous areas. Do not venture out of your safe shelter. Catastrophic life threatening flash flooding, numerous landslides are expected today through Tuesday. And it's not just Jamaica facing deep peril in Cuba, which could be hit after Jamaica, along with Turks and Caicos and the Bahamas, preparations are already underway in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Already feeling the brunt of Melissa. At least four are dead from the storm. But for the moment, it's all eyes and fears on Jamaica. Here again, its prime Minister. I know that there are Jamaicans here praying for us, Jamaicans overseas praying for us. But more than that, it would appear that the entire world is praying for Jamaica. With the storm now poised to strike Jamaicans in its path, Paul Hunter, CBC News, Washington. A new policy will see U.S. border officials use more photography to capture people entering and exiting the country. For nearly a decade, the United States, like many countries, has been taking photos of foreigners arriving at international airports. Now the lens is widening, and as Sophia Harris reports, there's no getting around it. There were two gentlemen in officer clothes. One of them had a handheld camera and took a picture of me. Warren Chappell had an unsettling experience this month at Cleveland's international airport. He says just before boarding his flight home to Toronto, a border officer snapped his photo, offering no explanation. Well, I was surprised. I was aghast. I was. I felt ambushed because it happened so quickly. The United States is ramping up its facial biometrics program, photographing international travelers and using facial comparison technology to confirm their identities. All of our arrival systems are now utilizing facial comparison. Close to a decade ago, the US Rolled out the technology at airports for international arrivals. Canada did the same. Now the US Plans to photograph travelers entering and leaving the country by all modes of transport. Full implementation could take several years, but technology that photographs passengers inside vehicles and is expected to be in place at land borders in 2026. U.S. immigration lawyer Len Saunders worries it could cause delays doing this at the land ports of entry. The logistics are going to be very difficult, especially when you have a carload of, you know, kids. Meanwhile, the US has already started snapping photos at dozens of airports at international departures, something Chappelle discovered unwittingly. I was not alerted that this might happen and I was not given a choice to have the picture taken. In Canada, all travelers can choose not to be photographed. U.S. customs and Border Protection or CBP, says Canadians also have that right in the U.S. but not for long. On Dec. 26, a new rule is set to take effect, making it mandatory for non US citizens to take part. At cbp, our priority mission is the security of our borders. In a recently posted CBP video on social media, a border officer outlines the agency's motives by using advanced technology like facial biometrics. We not only add an extra layer of security, but we also streamline the inspection process at entry. But lawyer Saunders says the program's expansion could serve as a deterrent for Canadians traveling to the US which is already in steep decline. It's definitely not helping encourage foreigners come to the United States, and I just was taken aback. After his experience, Chappelle says he's reconsidering further travel to the country. Sophia Harris, CBC News, Toronto Hamas has handed over the body of another hostage. It is the 16th body to be returned to Israel. Hamas agreed to return 28 bodies as part of the ceasefire. Israel has pledged to return 15 Palestinian bodies for every hostage. Israel says Hamas knows where all the remains are and has allowed an Egyptian technical team in to help excavate them. This is yous World Tonight from CBC News. If you want to make sure you stay up to date and never miss one of our episodes, follow us on Spotify, Apple, wherever you get your podcasts, just find the follow button and lock us in. Canada is on the verge of hitting a milestone that illustrates how serious its measles problem has become. The country could soon lose its measles free status. An outbreak of the disease began a year ago, spreading in pockets across the country, infecting thousands and killing two small children. As Jennifer Yoon tells us, doctors are calling for more tools to boost vaccination rates. She says it hurts. In a van outfitted to be a mobile health clinic in southern Ontario, Catalina Friesen sits next to her mom and daughter, translating their Low German to English as they describe their symptoms to a nurse. They won't come see us if they don't trust us. It's now been a year since a record shattering measles outbreak started in Canada. It's hit Mennonite communities in Ontario hard, but building trust with the healthcare system has been slow going. I don't think they're worried about specifically the measles vaccine. I think they're just worried about being told what to do when they don't want to do it. About 5,000 people have been infected and two babies have died with measles, part of an ongoing outbreak that has burned through pockets of under vaccinated communities across the country. Vaccination rates have been dropping for years for a wide range of reasons, and vaccine hesitancy, which drove the past year's outbreak, remains an unsolved problem across Canada, say experts. It's a real challenge. Dr. Lenora Sachsinger, an infectious diseases doctor at the University of Alberta, estimates half a million people are not protected against measles in Alberta. That's a lot of susceptible people left in a setting where we're seeing measles introductions occurring more frequently. Measles cases are going up globally, according to the World Health Organization. It's only a matter of time until there's another outbreak, says immunologist Dawn Bowdish. Because there's more measles in the rest of the world to come back to Canada. There's more measles in our near neighbors, the Americans, where we travel a lot. One thing that could help, Bowdish says a national vaccine registry, a centralized database which compiles data from every province and territory, would help public health officials detect patterns more easily and respond better. It's a no brainer. Infectious disease specialist Dr. Isaac Bogosh agrees. A registry would help guide public health responses tailored for underprotected communities, using age, language and culturally appropriate messaging to ensure that people have appropriate information at their fingertips so they can make smart decisions for themselves. That's the kind of work Catalina Friesen's been doing as a personal support worker, helping nurses and doctors get medical information out. It's done quite a bit, I think. Ontario's outbreak is now over, but measles cases continue to simmer across Canada. Jennifer Yoon, CBC News, Toronto. There is a big reconstruction effort underway in a small community in northern Saskatchewan. A devastating wildfire season destroyed dozens of homes, and now residents are trying to rebuild their lives and protect their future if the fires return. Halina Mihalik explains construction crews are hard at work trying to lay the foundation for new homes before the snow flies in the northern community of Da Nair Beach, Saskatchewan, where over 200 homes were lost in this year's unprecedented wildfire season. It just looks like a lot of sand, but for us that's every single person is someone that we knew. Brooke Kindle watches as concrete pours in the spot where her home once stood. She was pregnant when the village was evacuated. Now a family of five, everyone is squeezed into a temporary one bedroom cabin. So I don't have Internet or a hot water heater consistently, but it's better than it's honestly a really big upgrade from living in the camper where we're happy, we're cozy. It was nearly five months ago that parts of this town were leveled a wasteland of ash and debris. Now, after a community effort to clear the rubble, some families are ready to move on. Others are worried about what next summer could bring. So we're just trying to figure out as a town how can we incentivize people to come back here. People are obviously scared about another wildfire happening on a reserve on the south side of Da Nair Beach. 1 of 8 Peter Ballantyne Cremation communities Chief Peter Beatty oversees the crews that are hard at work and future wildfire seasons are being kept in mind with some of the building materials used. It's not fully concrete, but it's composite concrete. It's lighter than concrete, but it's fire resistant. So we're building a few of those this year on different reserves. Chief Beatty says the community needs more firefighting resources to ensure history doesn't repeat. I'm hoping at some point that each of our communities is fully equipped to fight a forest fire if it's threatens the community like we need the equipment. Residents of Da Nair beach say at the height of the fires, the Sask government never sent additional crews, leaving volunteer firefighters alone to tackle the flames. But the provincial government has provided a shared 30 million to Denaire beach and other towns where homes were destroyed. They are also supplying some with temporary housing, others living in their own own trailers or with friends and family who have taken them in. Dustin Tremblay and his fiance Joanne Churchill are waiting for their ready to move home to arrive. The couple's wedding was cancelled due to the evacuation. How can you celebrate any sort of happiness whenever your friends and family and your community is burnt? Despite the grief and the loss, Trombley is hopeful for the future. But it will be home again. The more cleanup gets done and we will be all way tougher and way more close knit. People here in Da Nair beach are rebuilding but want reassurance this won't happen again. They're calling on the government of Saskatchewan to invest in more fire mitigation resources. Halina Mihalik, CBC News D Nair Beach, Saskatchewan Whether it's on piano or organ, in studio or on stage, Michael Baguski has been performing with Canadian Rock Legends Blue Rodeo since 2009. Now with the band in the middle of its 40th anniversary tour, he's breaking off for solo shows, a side hustle that comes from the heart. If Blue Rodeo's coming to your town, just know I'll be trying my best to book something at your local community shelter. So maybe we'll see you down the road. Maguski calls it a tour within a tour. As the band hits Canadian cities, Maguski's reaching out to local shelters, food banks and outreach centres to offer free concerts. Last week he performed at Thunder Bay's Grace Place. Gary Maximchuck is a pastor there. He actually contacted us and asked if he could come and do a one hour concert to the people that couldn't afford a Blue Rodeo ticket. So we're blessed today with his presence. Maxim Chuck says many people are struggling with the high cost of food and housing and the concert helps helped boost spirits. Robert Escuega has been coming to Grace Place for about two years. I ended up in a bad circumstance, so this doesn't cure it, but it helps. This guy, this Blue Rodeo guy or whatever, his, whatever he was the first one he did this piano stuff was actually making me wanna. Yeah, nice. I like it. I just think music offers people a reprieve and I just don't think that that should be limited to people who can pay $100 a ticket. You know, if this is just a small token to bring the healing joy of music to people who need it, then I'm all in. Thanks for joining us. This has been youn World Tonight for Monday, October 27th. I'm Susan Bonner. Talk to you again. Julie is painting summer skies. Julie is painting. For more CBC Podcasts, go to CBC CA Podcasts.