The World This Hour - The World This Hour for 2025/04/04 at 11:00 EDT

Episode Date: April 4, 2025

The World This Hour for 2025/04/04 at 11:00 EDT

When Eric and Lyle Menendez murdered their parents in 1989, most people assumed they did it for the money. But over the course of their trials, the Menendez brothers told a very different story. Now, after spending most of their lives behind bars, new developments in the case could lead to the brothers getting out. This week on Crime Story, I speak with Robert Rand, the journalist who's covered this story longer than anyone else. Find Crime Story wherever you get your podcasts. From CBC News, it's the world this hour.

I'm Joe Cummings. The latest employment numbers are showing Canada's job market took a major hit last month. Statistics Canada says the economy lost 33,000 jobs in March. It's the biggest one-month drop-off since the worst of the COVID pandemic three years ago and it's pushing the unemployment rate up to 6.7 percent. Now to the NATO foreign ministers meeting underway in Brussels and while the war in Ukraine is of course at the very top of the agenda, running a close second is the Trump administration's tariff campaign.

Here is Canada's foreign minister, Melanie Jolie. The only people on earth that will be able to really have President Trump change course are the Americans themselves. And the Americans now understand that tariffs are a tax on them. And we need to make sure, and Europeans need to make sure, that they take that message to the American people in order to influence the U.S. administration. Jolie says the counter tariffs imposed yesterday by Prime Minister Mark Carney are the first step toward writing a new trade agreement with the United States.

And she's pointing out as well that a new agreement on security will also be required. Meanwhile, China has now formally responded to the tariffs imposed this week by the Trump administration. Beijing is putting a 34% levy on all US products effective April 10th. It's also issuing trade sanctions and export controls on 27 individual U.S. companies. The party leaders are often running today on the campaign trail with new Democrat leader Jagmeet Singh saying an NDP government will take steps to keep Canadian money from ending up in offshore tax havens.

We've got large corporations in Canada that purposely continue to avoid paying their fair share by using tax havens and other loopholes. It is wrong. We're losing billions of dollars a year. That Singh campaigning this morning in Montreal, he's promising to launch a review of all tax loopholes currently being exploited by big corporations. And he'll require all businesses to publicly justify the use of offshore accounts. Mark Carney is also in Montreal and he's promising to increase and stabilize the funding of CBC Radio Canada.

We will modernize the mandate of our public broadcaster. We will give it the resources it needs to fulfill its renewed mission and ensure that its future is guided by all Canadians and not subject to the whims of a small group of people led by ideology. HOFFMAN Carney says a Liberal government will give the public broadcaster an immediate $150 million funding boost, and he will ensure long-term stable funding by enshrining it in law. Carney also says a Liberal government will develop new governance plans for CBC Radio Canada to improve and streamline accountability.

As for Conservative leader Pierre Polyev, he's in Trois-Rivières today. Bloc leader Yves-Francois Blachette is in the Montreal area, and so too is Green Party leader Jonathan Pedneau. A legal challenge has been mounted to a new American border regulation that is forcing Canadians with plans to stay in the U.S. for a month or longer to formally register with the U.S. government. Sophia Harris has the details. We're like 60 to 80 years old. What are we going to do wrong in the United States? David Fine is perplexed by the Trump administration's upcoming registration requirement for travelers.

It affects Canadian snowbirds like Fine, who's wintering in Texas. Starting April 11th, certain foreign nationals staying in the U.S. for 30 days or longer will have to fill out a lengthy registration form online. Those who don't comply could be fined, even imprisoned. Several U.S. immigration advocacy groups are suing the Trump administration to try to quash the registration requirement. We feel strongly that this rule was issued in an improper and illegal way. Michelle LaPoint is legal director at the American Immigration Council. She says the administration failed to seek the required public input on a rule that will

affect millions of people. On Tuesday, the plaintiffs will ask the court to block the registration rule before its April 11th rollout. Sophia Harris, CBC News, Vancouver. And that is The World This Hour. For CBC News, I'm Joe Cummings.