World Report - November 25: Tuesday's top stories in 10 minutes

Episode Date: November 25, 2025

CBC News has learned Ottawa and Alberta will sign MOU detailing their support for a potential new oil pipeline to BC's northwest coast. Ukraine says at least 7 people have been killed in overnight Russian strikes on Kyiv. Complaint filed against RCMP officers who arrested woman in St. John's while he was off duty and outside his jurisdiction. Celebrated author Thomas King says he is not Indigenous, as he had believed all his life. A Nova Scotia mother sounding says 14-year-old daughter targeted by online predators on school computer. Experts say vaccine rollouts for RSV in recent years are making a difference to the number of infant hospitalizations.

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This is World Report. Good morning. I'm Marcia Young. Environmentalists and the energy industry are looking ahead to Thursday in Calgary. That is where Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Daniel Smith are expected to sign a memorandum of understanding. Sources tell CBC News the document will detail their support for a potential. new oil pipeline to the B.C. coast. Let's bring in Janice McGregor from our Parliamentary Bureau. And Janice, Alberta and B.C. are diametrically opposed on the issue of pipelines. Is the PM about to pick aside?

Marcia, this MOU risks kicking off a big fight with coastal First Nations by opening the door to exemptions to the ban on oil tanker traffic off British Columbia's sensitive northwest coast. And it would suspend the federal clean electricity regulations, move away from hard caps on carbon emissions from the oil and gas sector, if Alberta signs on to a stronger industrial carbon price system, something that climate activists have long identified as critical. That much was previewed in the budget, but caveats and conditions remain for this new federal support. Here's Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson yesterday, speaking to MPs at committee. We have been clear with the proponents. if they have the support of First Nations and they have support of the jurisdictions,

we will work with them to clear whatever barriers there are. And what the Kearney government hasn't said is what happens if that support does not come. This MOU is not the same as referring, fast-tracking, let alone approving a pipeline, and it doesn't seem to be a commitment to use new powers to ram through a pipeline no matter what. What are the political risks for the federal liberals in BC?

BC's Energy and Climate Minister Adrian Dix yesterday was reminding reporters that Daniel Smith has a party convention coming up this weekend and needs to keep Western separatists at bay. So cue the side-eye about what's really up with this deal. The reason that's an MOU and not project support is there ain't no project. If Carney really is about to risk projects, that his major project's office has already prioritized in BC to support this big ask from the oil industry in his home province of Alberta,

He's probably set for an earful from his own BC caucus too that didn't believe they were elected to do this. Thank you. You're welcome. The CBC's Janice McGregor in Ottawa. Overnight strikes have killed at least seven people in Ukraine. Firefighters guide people down the smoky stairwell of an apartment building in Kiev. Ukraine says Russia launched 22 missiles and 460 drones across the country.

Moscow says at least three people were killed in overnight attacks by Ukraine. As the destruction continues to play out on the ground, diplomats are gathering around tables to try to end the war. U.S. and Russian officials are meeting in Abu Dhabi today after days of discussions about a U.S. peace plan. Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, says Moscow has yet to receive any formal version of the plan, but he says it must respect the understanding reached between U.S. President

Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin during their Alaska summit in August. A complaint has been filed against an RCMP officer in St. John's in relation to the arrest of a woman who has autism and an intellectual delay. As Arianna Calland reports, the arrest happened while the Mountie was off duty and outside his jurisdiction. Her spark is gone. Melanie Burns says the 34-year-old woman she cares for hasn't been the same since an incident with a police officer last winter. The woman who CBC News is not identifying has autism, a seizure disorder and intellectual delay. In late March, the woman and her respite worker visited the Pottle Center, a social space for people with mental health challenges in St. John's.

The woman wouldn't leave the computer she was using and the center was about to close. So a staff member of the Pottle Center called her partner an off-duty police officer. My phone rang again. Melanie, this man is here and he's arresting her. And I said he's arresting her? Like, what's he arresting her for? And she said mischief. Off-duty RCMP constable David Banco physically removed the woman from the facility. But when the police force in that jurisdiction arrived, the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, they declined to lay charges. Instead, they investigated Banco for assault, but closed the case without charges. It could have been approached in a very different way.

Leah Farrell with the Autism Society of Newfoundland and Labrador says the initial handling of this incident underscores systemic failures. It's important to be able to assess a situation and meet somebody where they're at. The woman has mainly stayed in hospital due to her seizure disorder since this happened. Though there's no evidence, the incident is directly connected to her current condition. Meanwhile, Byrne is waiting to hear the results of the RCMP Civilian Complaint Commission's investigation. Ariana Kelland, CBC News, St. John's. Celebrated author Thomas King says he is not indigenous as he had believed all his life. King wrote books from an indigenous perspective, including green grass running water, the truth about stories, and the inconvenient Indian.

Here he is speaking to CBC in 1993. Simply, I want to talk about that side of native life that is tenacious, that has sort of gotten us through all these years. that sense of humor, that spirit of community. That's what I want to do in my novels. In an essay for the Globe and Mail published yesterday, King describes how he learned of rumors, questioning his Cherokee ancestry, and spoke to a genealogist to get to the bottom of it. The 82-year-old says this revelation is devastating, and he did not purposefully pretend to have indigenous roots.

A Nova Scotia mother is sounding the alarm about what children are accessing on school computer, She came forward after her 14-year-old daughter was targeted by online predators. Blair Rhodes has her story, and a warning. Some of the details are disturbing. It's kind of what initiated the whole blow-up of this, noticing some cuts on her arms, got her on some antidepressants because we believed it was depression-related. But the mother says she quickly discovered it was not depression, but rather her daughter was being groomed by online predators,

who were encouraging her to harm herself. We are concealing the mother's identity to protect her daughter. The mother says she checked the girl's Chromebook computer that had been given to her by the school. What concerned me the most is some of the conversations that were taking place on it. Nothing was flagged or picked up by the school system itself, the language that was used, violence that was discussed,

sexual conversations back and forth. The mother immediately took her daughter out of school and took the computer to the RCMP. The Moundy's Internet Child Exploitation Unit is extracting data from the laptop to see if they can determine who's behind the online communications. Students across Nova Scotia have access to Chromebooks

and school districts insist there are safeguards to block access to dangerous online content. But the girls' school admitted in an email to parents that students are finding workarounds for those safeguards. I went back and forth with myself

like am I, you know, just being overprotective, Am I maybe reading this wrong? Like, is this worth taking to the RCMP? The mother says she no longer has those doubts, and she's now homeschooling her daughter. Blair Rhodes. CBC News, Halifax. Canada is entering another RSV season.

The respiratory illness can be especially dangerous for babies. But as health reporter Lauren Pelley tells us, experts say vaccine rollouts in recent years are making a big difference. When I undid her sleeper, I could tell that she was pulling like in-drawing underneath her ribs. Katrina Belavance's seven-week-old daughter couldn't stop coughing. On that night in 2023, the Calgary mother realized her newborn was also struggling to breathe.

You know, it was so sudden that in that moment we knew we had to get her to the hospital as soon as possible. Bella Vance's daughter was diagnosed with respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. She spent four days on oxygen in the hospital. RSV might not be a household term for many families, but, in pediatrics and in general practice, it is the number one cause of hospitalization year in, year out in children during their first year of life. Pediatrician Dr. Jesse Pappenberg hopes that will change. Data from Quebec showed the province's first immunization program using monoclonal antibody shots

for infants was a success, likely preventing half the usual RSV-associated hospitalizations. Pappenberg says a recent review of real-world data from abroad showed similar results. And what they found was that over 80% effective at reducing the risk of emergency department visits due to RSV, hospitalizations due to RSV. There are also vaccines available to mothers during pregnancy, which can offer protection to infants as well. But access to these new tools varies across the country. Medical experts say more awareness and uptake is needed, since RSV cases, are climbing again in Canada.

Lauren Pelley, CBC News, Toronto. And that is the latest national and international news from World Report. I'm Marcia Young. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca.