The World This Hour - The World This Hour for 2025/05/15 at 12:00 EDT

Episode Date: May 15, 2025

The World This Hour for 2025/05/15 at 12:00 EDT

What's because news, eh? What's because news, bros? It's Canada's funniest news quiz. It's on every week. You can get it on Spotify. Yes, we need them. Follow us! If they're not chickenses. Wow, you're really putting threats in there. Stupid news quiz. Okay, thanks. That was all me. Ha ha ha. Just kidding. It was real Gollum. From CBC News, it's the world this hour.

I'm Joe Cummings. We go first to the Manitoba wildfire emergency. The news of this loss of life changes what was an emergency into a tragedy. That is Premier Wab Kanu commenting on the death of two people who are believed to have been killed this week in a wildfire burning northeast of Winnipeg. The RCMP say it will take days to confirm their identities, but it's believed to be a man and a woman. Meanwhile, all flags at the provincial legislature are at half-mast. The fire outside Waitschel Provincial Park is one of 21 currently burning in the province.

More than 1,200 people are currently under evacuation orders. The Bloc Québécois is launching a legal challenge to the election results in the Montreal area riding of Terban. The Bloc Québécois candidate lost the riding by just one vote. Here's party leader Yves-Francois Blanchet. We have to bring this situation in front of a judge in a court in order to get, in order to do the election all over again. One voter has come forward saying her mail-in ballot was sent back to her uncounted, and she says she voted for the bloc.

As it stands now, Elections Canada says the results will stand, with the Liberal candidate declared the winner. Prime Minister Mark Carney will fly to Rome tomorrow for Pope Leo's Inaugural Mass. Sunday's ceremony at St. Peter's Square marks the official start of a Pope's term. While in Rome, the Prime Minister's office says Carney will be meeting with other international leaders to discuss deepening trade and cultural ties. Under the shadow of the Trump tariff campaign, today is Budget Day for the Ontario government. It's the first Ontario budget since the start of the trade war and the first for the progressive conservatives since Premier Doug Ford's re-election victory in February.

Jamie Strachan has more. Let's not rely on President Trump any longer. Ontario Premier Doug Ford says reducing reliance on American trade and becoming more self-reliant will be priorities in today's budget. There's been a flurry of pre-budget spending already. Billions of dollars to speed up housing growth, retrain workers and reduce tolls. Also a plan to defer billions in taxes. Ontario Finance Minister Peter Bethenfalse.

That is what the budget is going to be about. Boosting our economic prosperity, thinking big and championing nation-building projects. All of this will come at a cost. Ontario's relatively small $1.5 billion deficit could swell. And Shelf plans to balance the books by next year, says the province's former chief economist Brian Lewis. We are seeing slower economic growth, so that's going to affect government revenue projections. Beyond Trump, Lewis says healthcare is a priority.

Things like addressing hospital wait times, also much needed money for the provinces, universities and colleges. Jamie Strash in CBC News, Toronto. And Bridge has agreed to sell a minority stake in its west coast natural gas pipeline to a group of First Nations in BC. The sale is worth more than $700 million and gives the First Nations group a 12% share. The pipeline runs close to 3,000 kilometers from Fort Nelson all the way south to the Canada-U.S. border.

The federal government is supporting the deal with a $400 million loan guarantee. It was hoped that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky would take part in peace talks today in Turkey with Russian President Vladimir Putin. But while Zelensky is there, Putin isn't, with Moscow instead sending a delegation of low-level officials. Which comes as no surprise to US President Donald Trump. Nothing's going to happen until Putin and I get together, okay?

And obviously he wasn't going to go. He was going to go, but he thought I was going to go. He wasn't going if I wasn't there. As Trump's speaking today in the Middle East, Zlonsky has indicated that he'll be sending a group of Ukrainian officials to meet with the Russian delegation, but he insists that this is Putin's war and only Putin can end it. And that is The World This Hour.

For CBC News, I'm Joe Cummings.