The World This Hour - The World This Hour for 2025/02/17 at 21:00 EST

Episode Date: February 18, 2025

The World This Hour for 2025/02/17 at 21:00 EST

It's the epitome of classical ballet, beloved the world over. The National Ballet of Canada invites you to experience Swan Lake, revel in Tchaikovsky's glorious score, and an unforgettable production directed and staged by Karen Kane, whose vision emphasizes the love story at the heart of the ballet. Presented by Nicola Wealth Management, on stage March 8th to 22nd, tickets are selling fast. Secure your seat now at national.ballet.ca. From CBC News, the world this hour. I'm Neal Herland.

A plane crashed and flipped on its back at Toronto's Pearson Airport this afternoon. 18 passengers were injured. A total of 80 were on board. Everyone survived. The CBC's Thomas Dagla is at the airport tonight. Well there are several jets parked here on the tarmac at Pearson Airport as arrivals and departures are ramping up again.

Some big gusts of winds blowing the snow that fell the past couple days here. This crash happened just as the Bombardier CRJ 900 was landing here. It's now flat on its back covered in snow. Cell phone video taken right after the crash shows damage to the back of the plane on its underside. Passengers are seen walking away on their own wearing sweaters and whatever else they had on for the flight. Clearly they were not expecting to have to get out in a hurry. Delta Airlines says there were 80 people on board, that's 76 passengers and four crew. All of them have made it out alive, which is extraordinary.

Canada's Transportation Safety Board says it's sending a team here to investigate what went wrong and their U.S. counterparts say they'll also be joining the investigation since a U.S. airline was involved. Thomas Jagg, CBC News, Mississauga, Ontario. And we are learning more tonight about the rescue operation on the runway. Todd Aitken is the fire chief at Toronto's Pearson Airport. Upon arrival, my team conducted fire suppression. Self-evacuation was already taking place.

This is an active investigation. It's very early on. It's really important that we do not speculate. What we can say is the runway was dry and there was no crosswind conditions. This is the fourth major aviation mishap in North America in the past month. the deadliest disaster happened in Washington on January 29th when a commercial jetliner and a U.S. Army helicopter collided, killing 67 people. The leaders of Ontario's main political parties faced off in an election debate tonight.

One of the testiest moments was this exchange between Ontario Liberal leader Bonnie Crombie and progressive conservative leader Doug Ford. Doug, I have one question for you and one question only. After seven years of lies, why should anyone trust a word you say? Well, first of all, action speaks louder than words. And people have seen us spend over $200 billion on infrastructure,

no matter it's 50 billion dollars worth of hospitals or 28 billion dollars in building roads and highways or 70 billion in building transit. How does any one government spend 100 billion dollars? Ontario NDP leader Marit Stiles and Green Party leader Mike Schreiner also took part in the debate. Ontario votes on February 27th. A potential peace plan for Ukraine is forcing Europe to rethink continental security. The President of France brought together leaders from Britain and the EU today, after the United States agreed to speak with Russia tomorrow about ending its war. Meetings that don't

include Europe or Ukraine, Cameron McIntosh reports. On the steps of the Lize presidential palace, French President Emmanuel Macron greeting his guests. An emergency meeting of Europe's leaders, trying not to be sidelined on what role Europe may have in securing peace in Ukraine. It comes as U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio prepares to meet with Russia's foreign minister in Saudi Arabia. A meeting framed by Rubio is re-establishing relations to set up negotiations on Ukraine. We're just not there yet. We really aren't. But hopefully we will be because we'd all like to see this war end. Tomorrow's meeting follows last week's call between Donald Trump and Vladimir

Putin. Absent from these talks, Ukraine. Ukraine will never accept deals made behind our backs without our involvement. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky saying at the very least Ukraine needs security guarantees. Cameron McIntosh, CBC News, Washington. And that is your World This Hour. For CBC News, I'm Neil Herland.