Your World Tonight - A celebrity doctor’s plea to save B.C. ostriches, the prime minister talks trade and security in eastern Europe, new guidelines for smokers, and more

Episode Date: August 25, 2025

Dr. Mehmet Oz, the high-ranking Trump administration official and television personality, is urging the Canadian government to step in, and save a B.C. herd of ostriches from being culled. The farm’s owner lost a legal bid last week to stop the destruction of the birds, following an outbreak of avian influenza. Dr. Oz says the ostriches may hold clues to help control the virus.And: The prime minister continues his trip through eastern and central Europe, deepening international ties. In Poland, Mark Carney announced a new security partnership, and visited Canadian troops stationed there. The visit comes a day after Carney made a surprise stop in Kyiv, and said he was open to sending our soldiers into Ukraine, if the fighting with Russia ended.Also: A Canadian health taskforce delivers new recommendations on how to quit smoking. Spoiler alert — vaping is not recommended.Plus: Threatening wildfires in Nova Scotia lead to new evacuations, deadly strikes on a Gaza hospital, Trump’s ongoing crime crackdown, and more.

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You're going through something that is completely unimaginable. Most people's worst nightmare. I know you're scared and there's so much uncertainty because right now you don't know when you can go home and you don't know what will be there. Unimaginable loss caused by an uncontrollable blaze. Wildfires in Nova Scotia flare up growing in size and ferocity, leaving communities devastated with hot, dry, windy conditions.

Crews are in a desperate fight to keep an evolving disaster from getting worse. Welcome to Your World Tonight. I'm John Northcott. It's Monday, August 25th, coming up at 6 p.m. Eastern, also on the podcast. Someone, I don't think, had envisioned the possibility that these iconic ostriches will be caught in the middle of this. If these birds have weathered H5N1, there's something that we should learn about. An American celebrity pitch amid a heated battle over birds between Ottawa and a BC farm. Just days after a federal appeals court upheld an order to cull a flock of ostriches

stricken last year by avian influenza, Dr. Oz is stepping in, pleading to save the birds because he says they may hold the secret to ending the virus. A fast-moving wildfire in Nova Scotia's Annapolis County is more. More than double the size it was yesterday. Hot, dry, and windy conditions are fanning the flames, making it difficult to contain. More than 1,000 people evacuated and structures damage, as Nicholas Sagan reports, for those evacuees, there are tense days ahead as they wait to find out if they have homes to go back to. I'm going to try to find a place to stay.

I'm living in my truck right now. Tim Donald stands in front of an evacuation center in Nova Scotia's Annapolis County, thinking about the long road ahead. He was evacuated from his home Sunday night as the fast-moving Long Lake Wildfire pushed hundreds more people to flee. The total number of displaced now around 1,000. As officials confirm a number of homes have been destroyed,

Donald's could be one of them. I'd hate to lose all our belongings, our house, our garage, our burn, all our equipment, stuff we've worked so hard to have. Premier Tim Houston says hot and dry conditions have fanned the flames. The wildfire more than doubling in size Monday to close to 78 square kilometers. It's an awful feeling and out of control fire. It's just an awful feeling. Houston's saying more evacuations are possible, speaking directly to homeowners.

You're going through something that is completely unimaginable. Most people's worst nightmare. I know you're scared and there's so much uncertainty. Because right now, you don't know when you can go home and you don't know what will be there. Across the region in New Brunswick and Newfoundland, fires are still burning out of control, but things are looking up. New Brunswick is fighting 18 wildfires down from 39 in weeks past. Three are out of control, but no structures have been lost. New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt says it has been a province-wide effort. Folks who have helicopters, planes, trucks, dozers, you name it, spare beds.

kitchens, New Brunswickers have been stepping up to help. Holt says the province will continue with its burn ban, but lift its woods ban that was restricting activities on Crown lands. In Newfoundland, the Kingston fire that destroyed more than 200 homes in Conception Bay North is still not under control, but it hasn't grown, allowing some residents, like Eugene Howell, to return home. I think a lot of people traumatize when they go back to their homes. Howell was out of his home for two weeks, returning. to a mess of rotten food in his refrigerator and a smoke smell that lingers.

A lot of people my age and older, I think it's going to be hurt on them. A lot of people have medical problems. He says he worries for his community, but he's happy to be back looking out at a familiar view. Though conditions are turning in some parts of Atlantic Canada, bringing hope after weeks of anguish, Nova Scotia is still battling the worst of it. And though some rain is falling, officials warn it won't bring much risk. relief. Nicholas Sagan, CBC News, Halifax.

At any moment, federal officials could come and euthanize hundreds of ostriches at a BC farm. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency ordered a cull after an avian flu outbreak. But the farmers and their prominent backers argue the birds should be kept alive and studied. Yasmin Renea has more. I think we have an opportunity to do something helpful for Canada, for the United States, and the global community in general. Mehmet Oz, the U.S. administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services, thinks saving hundreds of ostriches could lead to medical breakthroughs.

He wants Canadian officials to spare the birds potentially living on borrowed time. They were ordered killed after an avian flu outbreak. Oz, along with the owners of the farm located in the BC Interior, claim that the birds have survived for months since the outbreak and now have antibodies. That has huge scientific value to the global community to find out what it is it that allowed these birds to tolerate this often deadly illness, recover fully, have no recurrent infections within the flock.

The farm owners have big money backers as they try to save the birds. American billionaire John Katzimittis is financially supporting their legal battle. We're all concerned about these iconic ancient animals that may have antibodies that could have positive implications for humanity. The CFIA ordered the call after dozens of ostriches died in late 2024 and early 2025. Two birds tested positive for avian flu. The agency says the call is necessary to protect animal and human health.

But the farmers say the roughly 400 surviving birds are, healthy and should be tested. Katie Pissini's parents own the farm. We have had no illness and no deaths on our farms for 223 days. They are thriving. Oz says if the CFIA doesn't want to test the birds, that he would try to bring them to the U.S. He says researching the ostriches could potentially help the egg and poultry industry, which has suffered financially on both sides of the border due to avian flu. Scott Weiss, an infectious disease veterinarian, not involved in the case, says the birds most likely don't pose a large risk right now, given that they've survived for months, but that

keeping them alive could have serious consequences. Our worst case scenario is you get an infection in a bird and that virus changes so that it's much more transmissible between people. Canada's health ministry, responsible for the CFIA, has declined to comment on Oz's proposal, but says it implements disease control measures necessary to protect public health and minimize the economic impact on Canada's poultry industry. Yasmin Ranea, CBC News, Vancouver. Coming right up, Prime Minister Carney travels to Europe to strengthen trading relationships.

Israel's military strikes a hospital in Gaza, killing civilians and journalists. And we'll also have this. Quitting smoking is one of the best things you can do for your health. But it's also so much easier set than done. There are a dizzying array of options out there to help people stop smoking. What's been proven to help you quit for good? And what hasn't? I'm health reporter Jennifer Yoon.

Later on your role tonight, I'll tell you about new guidelines meant to help Canadians kick the habit for good. Prime Minister Mark Carney is in Europe this week working to deepen ties with several EU nations. Today was in Warsaw. where he struck a new strategic partnership on defense and trade. Poland has Europe's fastest growing economy and military. The kinds of expansion, Carney seems eager to emulate. CBC's Murray Brewster is traveling with the Prime Minister. We are good friends, but in fact, it's your first visit here too, also, as a Prime Minister.

Yeah, exactly. One of the last times Mark Carney saw Donald Tusk was during Brexit, when Carney was the governor of the Bank of England. Today's meeting in Warsaw was about the past as much as it was about the present and the future. We learned much from the Prime Minister, from his government, including the importance of pulling our full weight in NATO. An off-script, off-the-cuff, telling remark about the difference between Poland and Canada when it comes to defense spending. And it will take us a few years to reach Polish levels of commitment, but is possible. And we have made that commitment.

quadruple, quadruple, our spending on defense between now and the end of the decade. A few years may be an understatement. Warsaw surpassed the old NATO spending benchmark of 2% of GDP in 2022. Ottawa hopes to get there by the end of this fiscal year. Poland is projected to spend 4.7% of GDP on defense this year, making it NATO's top spender with a defense budget equivalent to $45 billion Canadian dollars. It's also going through a massive rearmament program, buying billions of dollars of new tanks, artillery guns, and warplanes from South Korea,

while also building up its armament industry. Poland is also in the process of building up one of the largest armies in Europe, all of it, fueling a rapidly growing economy. Poland's point of departure is already very, very different for Mars. Catherine Godin is Canada's ambassador to Poland, who says it's been easier to build up that country's defense industry, because unlike Canada, much of it is state-owned or operated. And Poland, because it borders Russia, has made a conscious political choice.

Health and education comes second to security and defense. Something that we cannot fathom in our country, it would be a very different conversation. So learned from them, certainly they put this at the top of their priority. We would need to have a Canadian consensus to be able to do it in the same way. Defense Minister David McGinty is accompanying the Prime Minister on every leg of this trip, something that would have been unfathomable even a year ago before the re-election of Donald Trump as U.S. President.

I think what it indicates is that the landscape has changed. I think Canadians know that the landscape has changed, that the geopolitics are changing, that the threat landscape has changed. The Prime Minister is now in Germany, where he'll meet with Chancellor Friedrich Murs and tour a German shipyard where they build submarines. Murray Brewster, CBC News. Berlin. A series of airstrikes on a hospital in southern Gaza is provoking international condemnation

tonight. Local hospital officials say at least 20 people are dead, including medical workers and journalists. Israel's prime minister called it, quote, a tragic mishap, saying the military is investigating. Sasha Petrissik has more on what happened and the reaction to today's deaths. It was morning when Nassar Hospital was hit, targeted, says Israel, by its tanks because soldiers saw a camera pointed at them and reportedly thought they were being tracked. Then as emergency crews took the injured down an outside staircase and Palestinian journalist ran to cover the damage, the hospital was struck again, a so-called double-tapped strike. Killing at least 20 people, according to Gaza health officials, including medical staff,

and five journalists. Reporter Hatem Omar was among the injured. All the journalists were there for the explosion, he says, from his stretcher. Broken cameras litter the ground. Reporter's bodies lay in the dirt. Please take my picture with him. I have no photo of us together, yells one man, the brother of my. Mouaz Abu Taha, one of the dead journalists.

They worked for major outlets like Reuters and Al Jazeera. It's the second time in two weeks that Israel has killed groups of Palestinian reporters, more than 10 altogether, in a war that's seen some 200 die, says Jody Ginsburg, head of the Committee to Protect Journalists. We're in this endless loop because Israel has not been held accountable for any of these killings. This is the deadliest conflict for journalists that CPJ has ever documented. The Secretary of General strongly condemns the killings of Palestinians today in Israeli strikes. UN spokesman Stefan de Jurek says journalists and medical staff have to be able to work without intimidation.

In a statement, Global Affairs Canada says it is horrified by the Israeli strike. Elsewhere, French President Emmanuel Macron calls the civilian killings, intolerable. Turkish president, Recep Taip Erdogan, calls them villainous. And U.S. President Donald Trump says he doesn't want to see that happen. So it's a nasty situation. As for Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calls it a mishap. The IDF does not intentionally target civilians. Military spokesman Effie DeFrin says hospitals have been hit because Hamas fighters are known to hide there. We regret any harm to uninvolved individuals and are committed to continue fighting Hamas

while taking all the necessary precautions. The IDF has promised to investigate today's death. Meanwhile, Nassar Hospital is struggling to keep operating. It's the last major health facility in the crowded south of Gaza after repeated Israeli strikes on hospitals throughout the strip since the start of the war. Sasha Petrusik, CBC News, Toronto. The U.S. President says there could be consequences if the leaders of Ukraine and Russia don't meet soon. Donald Trump has been trying to broker a peace deal between the two countries.

He says the conflict has been tougher to resolve than he thought, blaming the hostility between Vladimir Zelensky and Vladimir Putin. Zelenskyy met with Trump's special envoy in Kiev today. The Ukrainian leader says Russia must make real concessions to reach peace. Putin's demands have included a territorial. grab and for Ukraine to end its NATO ambitions. A new executive order by U.S. President Donald Trump looks to expand the military's role in local law enforcement.

It's part of his increased focus on law and order. It's been two weeks since he declared a crime emergency in Washington, D.C. The National Guard has been called in, and as Ashley Burke reports, Trump continues to threaten to do the same to other cities. National Guard troops now out patrolling the Capitol. armed. Some units seem carrying handguns and rifles on the boardwalk of Washington's wharf. It's Donald Trump's latest escalation of what he calls a crackdown on crime. I think it's dangerous. Some Washington residents told CBC News it's intimidating while others aren't phased.

There's a reason to have a gun. It's to shoot people. So if you're using it to intimidate people, all you need is one thing to go wrong. I mean, if they're off the rise to carry weapons, that's fine. But you don't want it to be a battle out on the streets of D.C. It's going to make certain people feel safe. It's going to make some people have fear. But me, being born and raised here, it really don't have an impact to me. Well, thank you very much. In the Oval Office, the clearest sign yet, Trump is planning to expand his model in Washington to other American cities too.

Seriously, is that a good signature? The president's signing an executive order to create specialized units of National Guard troops trained to handle public order issues. Our military is full, so we can go anywhere on less than 24 hours on us. Trump already warning he could target Chicago, New York, and Baltimore, all run locally by Democrats with policies he wants to get rid of. Cashless bail. We're ending it, but we're starting by ending it in D.C. Trump's signing another executive order to try and end policies that don't require criminal defendants to post bail if they face lesser charges and penalize people who burn the American flag. You burn a flag, you get one year in jail. Vita Johnson is a professor with Georgetown University law.

She says she's concerned this is all just a move to deflect attention away from other Trump administration failings and to exert power. I do worry that people are viewing what's happening in the district. without truly understanding that D.C. is a safe place. It's safer than many cities in red states that aren't seeing this type of invasion. Trump has power in D.C. to take over local police for 30 days, but any attempt to do this in other cities could face legal battles. Ashley Burke, CBC News, Washington. You aren't going to use pets, dogs, or cats to experiment on any longer. Ontario Premier Doug Ford says he will ban medical testing on dogs.

and cats because he says they're part of people's families. Ford also had this warning. Now I'm going to start looking for everyone else. If there's anyone else out there that's doing this to animals, come clean, because we're going to catch you. Two whistleblowers came forward to the Animal Rights Organization Animal Justice earlier this year. They had concerns about dogs undergoing tests for cardiac research at the Lawson Research Institute at St. Joseph's Healthcare in London. That led to a recently published article that found the dogs, mostly puppies, were you. used for tests. The hospital says the experiments were conducted under current

regulations, but after speaking with the province, the lab decided to stop all research on dogs. Stocking up the pantry can be a difficult task for shoppers looking to buy Canadian. Can goods may contain Canadian food, but odds are, that can is American

made, and hence faces hefty tariffs on steel and aluminum. A Quebec company is trying to change that. It wants to bring the entire supply chain home, but as Philip de Montenier explains this fresh business strategy has its challenges. Ideal can is the only manufacturer of food cans in the country. And since steel tariffs between Canada and the U.S. came into effect, business is booming.

The company has seen its sales more than double. After the tariff, the phone winning, we receive call every day. CEO Eric Vachan says his manufacturing plant near Quebec City is running at full capacity, as Canadian food companies scramble to avoid these extra costs. Sprague Foods, which sells canned soups, beans and vegetables, is one of many to make the switch. Before I deal canned, there were no Canadian can manufacturers, so we were left with having to source from the United States.

Vice President Kenan Sprague says American can prices soared, even before trade tensions with the Trump administration. We would have been left with passing those terror. us off to our customers. The CEO of Ideal Cannes is now looking to expand to Ontario, planning to open a new plant near Windsor in January, which could produce around 1.2 billion cans a year by 28 and could create up to 100 jobs. It's something that we could really use. A welcome addition in a region that has one of the highest unemployment rates in Canada at more than 10%. There used to be like a lot of blue collar jobs in this in the city. It just simply is

isn't anymore. Next year, the company also plans to open a cutting and coding facility in Hamilton near its steel supplier. That part of the production is still only done south of the border. And they ship them back up. No, no, no. That's stopping. Ontario Premier Doug Ford is on board with the ideal can expansion. Because we're going to bring a tin manufacturer to produce approximately 1.3 billion tins. They'll be manufactured here. But experts say shifting the entire supply chain, is not necessarily economical. Francois de Marais is a vice president at the Canadian Steel Producers Association.

For producers to bring back production in Canada, it will have to be competitive. And return on investment could take a while. Jean-Charles Cashon is a business professor at Laurentian University in Sudbury. You know, building a plant is always a challenge because you have to know what will be the payback period for your investment.

And so usually payback people. periods or at least eight to ten years. And untangling contracts and supply chains for much more integrated sectors like auto manufacturing is no easy task. Philippe de Montseries, CBC News, Toronto. Well, if you're one of the millions of kids, Canadians who smoke and want to quit, there are some new national guidelines out today to help.

They list which tobacco cessation methods are proven to work and which are just blowing smoke. Advice meant to prevent the roughly 48,000 smoking-related deaths every year in this country, more than alcohol, opioids, suicide, murder, and traffic accidents combined. Jennifer Ewan reports. I've tried to quit many times. Mark Rich first picked up a cigarette at the age of 15, but over 15. 50 years and countless attempts to quit later, he's still not able to stop. He's read all the books, tried to follow the instructions.

My dad bought me acupuncture once. Now there are new guidelines, telling Canadians what's been proven to help them stop smoking and what hasn't. There are a dizzying array of options out there to help people stop smoking. Dr. Eddie Lang is an emergency room doctor in Calgary, and one of the co-authors of the guidelines published today in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. Why would you choose something that doesn't have good evidence supporting it when there are other approaches that have been supported by multiple well-done studies that show that they work?

Some methods, not supported by a lot of evidence according to the guidelines. Use acupuncture to quit smoking. Acupuncture. Many hypnosis session for quitting smoking. Hypnotherapy and St. John's Wart. We had a really hard look at the evidence on vaping. And Lank says, smokers should not use vapes and e-cigarettes to quit smoking unless they've tried everything else and failed.

When we weighed the overall totality of the benefits and the harms of using e-cigarettes, we voted generally against. And that's because we lack long-term data on the safety of that intervention. So what has been proven to work, according to the guidelines? Well, nicotine replacement in general is something we make a strong recommendation in favor of, Lange says nicotine patches, gum, lozenges, or inhalers have been proven to help, as have behavioral therapies like counseling in person or over the phone or advice from a family doctor.

Another choice with lots of evidence. One thing that came as a bit of a surprise, there's a health supplement called cytosine. Also been shown in studies to be very effective in curbing the urge to smoke and can help people stop smoking. The menu options that they have for those practitioners, that may want to leverage one or more options. Dr. Hassanmere is a heart specialist at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute. He says it's crucial that doctors, nurses, or pharmacists

keep checking in with the patient as they try to kick the habit. Ensuring that there's at least a sufficient amount of outpatient follow-up lasting at least a month because the evidence previously has demonstrated that increases your likelihood of success. Because as hard as it is to quit smoking, it is possible, even if it takes several. tries. Jennifer Yun, CBC News, Toronto. A gray wolf had walked in front of me as I was crossed in the Arctic Circle, and we both stopped and looked at each other for a while. Not everyone's idea of a summer road trip involves wolves, grizzly bear threats, rough roads, oh yes, and skinny dipping in the Arctic

ocean. But this is Canada, after all, and that's what motorcyclist Dave Hartwick did for 20 days on a 15,000-kilometer round trip. From his home in Kitchener, Ontario, across the country, the north that took to Arctic, a country he can attest that it is beautiful and way bigger than he thought. One particular stretch of road, the 740-kilometer Dempster Highway was pretty rough and left him with an indelible impression. Danger. There's no guardrails. This is basically a trucking road that is not a highway by any means of standard pavement. It's gravel, it's chunky rock, it's exposed rock. There's sand, clay, any moisture, makes it slimy, and you can go off the edge, and nobody would ever know you were there.

When he reached his goal, the Arctic Ocean, despite the seven-degree temperature, he went for a dip. I walked out in this long point on the sand, and in fact, I'll just go down to my underwear. When I got to the very end, I thought, oh, I have long underwear on today. So there was no one around. I just went for a quick swim and dressed back up. The people he met were friendly. Many fellow motorcyclists out for their own taste of two-wheeled cross-country adventure and we're always willing to lend a hand. So now that he's safely back home, what's next? My daughter brought it up.

She says, Dad, do anything you haven't been to is Labrador now. So I think I'm going to do a motorcycle next year from Kitchener through Labrador and back down, take the ferry and then come back through the Maritimes. When he does that, Road Warrior Dave Hartwick, will have truly traveled this country from coast to coast to coast with a lesson for all of us, perhaps, whether you go across the country or across the street this summer. Why not get out and see some of this great big,

beautiful country. Thanks for being with us. This has been your world tonight for Monday, August 25th. I'm John Northcott.