The World This Hour - The World This Hour for 2025/03/20 at 20:00 EDT

Episode Date: March 21, 2025

The World This Hour for 2025/03/20 at 20:00 EDT

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. Do need at lovescarborough.ca. From CBC News, the world this hour, I'm Mike Miles. The government needs a strong and clear mandate. CBC News has confirmed Mark Carney will seek that mandate by calling a federal election Sunday.

And it may be held as soon as April 28th. Carney declined to give details during a trip to Edmonton. The Prime Minister was there announcing help for Canadians trying to buy their first home. My new government will eliminate the GST for first-time home buyers on all new and substantially renovated homes under a million dollars. Now, this is a big deal. This can provide up to $50,000 in savings for families entering the housing market.

Ben Wattenberg That proposal takes a page straight out of the Conservatives' playbook. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith presented demands to Carney during their first meeting this morning. Some of them included guaranteeing Alberta for full access to unfettered oil and gas corridors to the north-east and west, and ending the prohibition on single-use plastics. Marnarily Anshan reports. In a public statement, Smith says she brought forward concerns about wildfire management and oil sales.

She says, I made it clear that Albertans will no longer tolerate the way we've been treated by the federal liberals over the past 10 years. Carney also addressed the list of demands Smith brought to him. It's about building out the energy infrastructure more broadly here in Alberta, which I would add would include projects such as the pathways. It's about building energy corridors and trade corridors, including potentially up from here through to Nunavut. So we have additional deep water ports and opportunities there.

Rinali Unchian, CBC News, Edmonton. The Conservative government will bring forward Canada First shovel-ready zones. Conservative leader Pierre Polyev is promising to speed up approvals for projects like mines and LNG plants. He says the government would identify locations, do all environmental assessments, negotiate with any First Nations in the area as required by law, then issue approvals. We will offer pre-permitting before we even get applications so the permits can be published online with a required checklist of actions that businesses must take to comply in protecting people and the environment.

Poliev did not say why the timeline would be shorter if all the same checks and negotiations are carried out. The governor of the Bank of Canada's warning the economy is headed for choppy waters. of the Bank of Canada's warning the economy is headed for choppy waters. Tiff Macklem calls uncertainty caused by the Trump administration harmful, but adds our economy's in good shape going into the trade war. We've had inflation around 2% since last summer. Growth in the Canadian economy picked up pretty smartly in the second half of last year. We started the year in good shape and we've lowered our policy interest rates substantially. This is going to be difficult but we do think we are well positioned.

McClem says the key going forward for the bank and the economy is being flexible. U.S. President Donald Trump is taking the first step to dismantle the Department of Education, signing an executive order earlier today, but getting rid of it entirely would require an act of Congress. And as Richard Madden tells us, not all lawmakers are happy with the move. In his latest move to dramatically reduce the size of government, President Donald Trump has authorized the gutting of the federal Department of Education and moving that responsibility to the state level. We're going to be returning education very simply back to the states where it belongs

and this is a very popular thing to do but much more importantly it's a common sense thing to do. The agency was established by former president Jimmy Carter back in the 70s, designed to help low income and disabled students and provide school lunch programs. Critics warn those programs are now at risk, but Trump insists they'll be protected. Still, the White House may have miscalculated. Closing federal agencies needs congressional approval with 60 yes votes in the Senate. So the slim Republican majority would need Democrats onside, which appears

unlikely. Richard Madden, CBC News, Washington. And that is your World This Hour. For CBC News, I'm Mike Miles.