The World This Hour - The World This Hour for 2025/09/25 at 00:00 EDT

Episode Date: September 25, 2025

The World This Hour for 2025/09/25 at 00:00 EDT

Too many students are packed into overcrowded classrooms in Ontario schools, and it's hurting their ability to learn. But instead of helping our kids, the Ford government is playing politics, taking over school boards and silencing local voices. It shouldn't be this way. Tell the Ford government to get serious about tackling overcrowded classrooms because smaller classes would make a big difference for our kids.

Go to Building Better Schools.ca. A message from the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario. From CBC News, the world this hour, I'm Neil Hurland. 400 ostriches on a British Columbia farm have been given at least one more week to live. The Supreme Court of Canada has granted a temporary stay on plans to cull the birds following an avian flu outbreak last year. Georgie Smyth has reaction. They're not the government's animals, there are animals.

Fresh out of police custody, Katie Percitney, is back at her mother's ostrich farm in the West Kootenies. The pair was arrested for obstructing agents from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency from performing their duty, says the RCMP. The CFIA is on the farm to kill 400 ostriches. It's how the agency is trying to contain an outbreak of avian flu there, which was confirmed on the property by lab tests late last year. That outbreak killed 69 of the farm's birds, but the rest of the herd is healthy, says per Sydney. The CFIA says they have to be killed to make sure the virus doesn't spread or mutate. With the Supreme Court of Canada granting a temporary stay on their application to stop the cvail, the CFIA will retain custody of the ostriches for now.

The court order states the CFIA has until next Friday to respond. Georgie Smyth, CBC News, Vancouver. Ontario Premier Doug Ford is expected to announce Thursday that he'll get rid of speed cameras in the province. The automated machines catch speeders and then generate a fine to the vehicle owner. Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow says she's disappointed. Speed kills. Trontonians, especially those most vulnerable, like children, need to be safe. And we know speed camera works.

The plan to scrap speed cameras in Ontario was first reported by the Toronto Star. NASA is gearing up for a historic mission around the moon next year, the first of its kind in half a century. It will also mark a first for this country with a Canadian astronaut on board. Paul Hunter reports from mission control in Houston. Jammed with space experts and space stuff at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, it's Media Day. One last chance for NASA to talk up and show off its long-awaited historic mission

sending astronauts around the moon and back to Earth for the first time in more than 50 years. The Artemis II mission set for early next year for a crew going further from Earth than any human has ever gone before. But the real focus is the four astronauts who'll make the trip, including, of course, the first Canadian who will ever leave Earth's orbit, Jeremy Hansen. And to my fellow Canadians, you should also be extraordinarily proud that we are represented in the Artemis Prohibit. and it wasn't a gift. You earned it. The mission itself is a testing ground for Artemis 3, aimed at landing up there for Hanson and crew. Looping around the moon and then home safely is a giant leap toward that.

Paul Hunter, CBC News, Houston. Canada's population growth is slowing. As Nicola Segan reports, new data shows cuts to immigration is the main reason. Keeping Canada populated, keeping the economic and tax base healthy is a challenge. Immigration lawyer Andreas Pelliner says an aging population, decreasing birth rate, and cuts to immigration are impacting Canada's population growth. This is apparent in new stats can numbers, which show this year the country experienced its second lowest population growth rate in a second quarter since 1946. The report says this can be linked to cuts to non-permanent residents,

following Ottawa's announcement late last year to reduce temporary residents to 5% of the population by 2026. Pelliner says stresses on housing, health care, and infrastructure prompted the policy change. These reductions in immigration levels are a rebalancing act. Statscan says from last October to this June, there was a net loss of more than 120,000 non-permanent residents. Nicholas Sagan, CBC News, Halifax. And that is your world this hour. For CBC News, I'm Neil Hurland.