The World This Hour - The World This Hour for 2025/04/04 at 16:00 EDT

Episode Date: April 4, 2025

The World This Hour for 2025/04/04 at 16:00 EDT

You know what I'd like to hear people say more often? I'm not sure. Let me think about that. I'm Nala Ayed, host of Ideas, a podcast that brings you deep thought every day. We're a show for listeners who like to slow down, to check their assumptions, and maybe even change their minds. If that's you, find and follow ideas wherever you get your podcasts. From CBC News, the world this hour, I'm Julie-Ann Hazelwood. It's a second day of huge drops on financial markets around the world. American markets are plunging even further than yesterday

after China announced new counter tariffs against the United States. Anis Haidari reports. The market's reaction is delivering a verdict and we should take that seriously. According to Brendan Lacerda, global investors do not like what they see right now. He's a senior economist with Moody's Analytics. So this is sort of a new stage of the tariff war with China being very forceful in their response. Markets around the world started the day with big drops. Today responding to Chinese counter tariffs on anything imported from the U.S.

The New York Stock Exchange, down. NASDAQ, Toronto Stock Exchange, down. Some of these losses, the biggest since 2020. And it's not just market investors facing financial problems. U.S. Federal Reserve Chair, Jerome Powell. It is now becoming clear that tariff increases will be significantly larger than expected. And the same is likely to be true of the economic effects, which will include higher inflation and slower growth.

As for how much inflation, how much of a slowdown, and how long it lasts, Powell says unclear. And he's hit RBCBC News, Calgary. 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 pushes the unemployment rate to 6.7%. Most of the losses were in the wholesale and retail sectors, with Ontario and Alberta being

hit hardest. Federal party leaders are campaigning in vote-rich Quebec. The province is crucial to the Liberals plans for majority government but as Rafi Boczakian tells us the other parties are not giving up. The Quebec people constitute a nation within Canada and I observe that this is also the judgment of Parliament and the proclamation 15 years ago. Liberal leader Mark Carney trying to set the record straight. Last night during a French language interview,

he called the province a distinct society, an outdated term from the 90s. It's one of a few gaffes related to Quebec he has committed during the campaign. So far though, opinion polls put the Liberals ahead of their main competition here, the Bloc Québécois. But leader Yves-François Blanchet says he's not worried. You know what? In 2019 and in 2021, the Bloc Québécois completed the campaign much higher than it had started it.

Blanchet is also dealing with a push from the conservatives, who believe they have a shot at winning a handful of writings. Today, Pierre Palievres is campaigning in Trois-Rivières, a writing the bloc barely held four years ago. Rafi Boudjikan, YonCBC News, Montreal. The conservative leader says if elected he would toughen the laws around intimate partner violence. Pierre-Paul L'Eve says he would create a new criminal offense for domestic violence that would include longer sentences. We will end the senseless practice of downgrading murder of an intimate partner to manslaughter

simply because the murderer claims that it was a crime of passion. A conservative government will make sure that anyone who murders their intimate partner, their child or their partner's child will have a first degree conviction. Palyev says a conservative government would also make detention, not bail, the default in cases of intimate partner violence. Ontario Premier Doug Ford has visited some areas affected by prolonged power outages. More than 100,000 people are still in the dark after an ice storm hit central and northern parts of the province last weekend.

Hydro One says power has been restored to more than 85 percent of nearly a million affected customers. But Ford says there's still work to be done. We still have a long ways to go, making sure that we make it safe to get in there and cut the trees. They're half fallen over. To make sure that we do it safely. That's the number one priority.

Another storm system that moved through parts of Ontario midweek caused more outages and slowed down restoration efforts. And that is your World This Hour. For CBC News, I'm Julianne Hazelwood.