The World This Hour - The World This Hour for 2025/02/19 at 19:00 EST

Episode Date: February 20, 2025

The World This Hour for 2025/02/19 at 19:00 EST

In Scarborough, there's this fire behind our eyes. A passion in our bellies. It's in the hearts of our neighbors. The eyes of our nurses. And the hands of our doctors. It's what makes Scarborough, Scarborough. In our hospitals, we do more than anyone thought possible. We've less than anyone could imagine.

But it's time to imagine what we can do with more. Join Scarborough Health Network and together, we can turn grit into greatness. Donate at lovescarborough.ca. From CBC News, the world is ours. I'm Tom Harrington. A high-speed rail corridor between Toronto and Quebec City is one step closer to reality.

The Prime Minister laid out the plans for the project today in Montreal. Justin Trudeau says the rail line would be a game-changer for Canadians. It could get passengers from Montreal to Toronto in three hours. A high-speed rail network between Quebec City and Toronto with stops in Trois-Rivières, Laval, Montreal, Ottawa and Peterborough. It'll span a thousand kilometers with a hundred percent electric trains that will reach speeds of 300 kilometers an hour. This initial design phase is expected to take four to five years and will cost an estimated three point nine billion dollars. Trudeau says the rail service will be known as Alto. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says

she's taking seriously allegations made about Alberta's health services. The former CEO claims she was being pressured to sign or extend contracts with private clinics, despite the fact they would lead to higher costs. Smith says her government will support an auditor general investigation, but adds AHS has been resisting changes

brought by her government. AHS leadership has always shown us resistance and it is clear that they would rather keep all surgeries in hospitals only operated by Alberta Health Services, which would have resulted in 62,000 fewer surgeries for Albertans last year. Athana Mentholopoulos, the former CEO, filed a $1.7 million wrongful dismissal suit last week. BC is making major changes to its safer supply anti-addiction program. The province says it's being done to prevent drugs from being diverted away from the people they're intended for.

Michelle Gussoub reports. BC is introducing sweeping changes to its controversial safe supply program. People being prescribed opioids will no longer be able to take them home. Effective immediately, those drugs will need to be ingested in front of a healthcare worker. Josie Osborne is BC's Minister of Health. We've heard concerns about these medications being diverted and ending up in the wrong hands. The safe supply program has been under attack by the BC Conservatives and the announcement

comes about two weeks after the release of a leaked Ministry of Health briefing that said a significant portion of opioids prescribed in BC were being diverted. There is a robust market in very realistic looking but counterfeit medication that is laced with toxic drugs. The province will also investigate around 60 pharmacies it alleges are contributing to diversion. Michelle Gasoob, CBC News, Vancouver. The RCMP say they have arrested a man and a boy in the shooting deaths of four people on a First Nation in southern Saskatchewan.

Two men and two women were found dead last week in a home on Kerry the Kettle, Nakoda Nation, east of Regina. The Mounties say 18-year-old Darius Racette faces four counts of first-degree murder. The boy is to be charged later today. Police have said the home was targeted. President Donald Trump is calling Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, a dictator. The post on his platform Truth Social comes a day after he suggested it was Ukraine who started the war with Russia. Anna Cunningham has the latest from London. This is a scathing post by the US President Donald Trump calling the Ukrainian President

Vladimir Zelensky a dictator without elections. Trump said Zelensky better move fast or he is not going to have a country left. The post follows comments Zelensky made this morning saying Trump was living in a disinformation bubble after the US President on Tuesday seemingly blamed Ukraine for starting the war, saying Ukraine could have done a deal to prevent it, a line well used by the Kremlin. President Putin praising the outcome of Tuesday's talks in Saudi Arabia and saying no one is excluding Ukraine. Trump also writes that Europe has failed to secure peace.

That will not go unnoticed by EU and Western leaders, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who joined a meeting virtually in Paris to discuss Ukraine's future and Europe's security. Anna Cunningham, CBC News, London. And that is your World This Hour. For CBC News, I'm Tom Harrington. Thanks for listening.