Your World Tonight - Alberta separatists, landmark healthcare project, Holocaust education, and more

Episode Date: January 27, 2026

Separation is under the spotlight in Alberta, as people line up in cities and towns across the province to sign a petition that would force a vote on leaving Canada.Also: A landmark healthcare project is underway in Canada. The goal is to create the country's largest collection of human genomic data. Today part of the project was launched that focused on Black Canadians who are often underrepresented in medical research.And: Learning from history’s grim lessons. How some Canadian schools are teaching students about the crimes of the Holocaust, as people around the world gather to mark the anniversary of one of humanity’s darkest moments.Plus: Carney’s brief chat with Trump, Minneapolis tensions, backlash against a Canadian company, and more.

This ascent isn't for everyone. You need grit to climb this high this often. You've got to be an underdog that always overdelivers. You've got to be 6,500 hospital staff, 1,000 doctors all doing so much with so little. You've got to be Scarborough. Defined by our uphill battle and always striving towards new heights. And you can help us keep climbing. Donate at lovescarbro.cairro.ca.

This is a CBC podcast. I meant what I said in Davos. It was clear. It was a broader set of issues that Canada was the first country to understand the change in U.S. trade policy. And we're responding to that. Prime Minister Mark Carney at odds with the White House over what he said to the U.S. president in private about a speech heard around the world. Differing accounts as Canada tries to find a balance with the United States on trade. Welcome to Your World Tonight. I'm Susan Bonner. It is Tuesday, January 27th, just before 6 p.m. Eastern, also on the podcast. We do not need a government that would take too much taxes. We do not need someone to order emboss us around.

Signing up for a chance to vote on getting out, Alberta separatists heading out across the province looking to gather signatures and momentum in their race to trigger a referendum on Alberta independence. No one disputes the conversation happened. What they can't agree on is what exactly was said and by whom. It's the latest chapter in Mark Carney's relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump, prompting the Prime Minister to provide his side of the story today. Tom Perry has more. The president called me yesterday. We had a very good conversation on a wide range of subjects.

Any conversation with Donald Trump can go any number of ways. But Prime Minister Mark Carney says his call with the president yesterday was positive, a chance to explain the various trade and investment deals Canada has been working on and discuss the Prime Minister's speech last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos. To be absolutely clear, and I said this to the president, I meant what I said in Davos. Carney's speech in Davos made headlines worldwide. Let me be direct. we are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition. The Prime Minister warned of a collapse in the rules-based international order. And while Carney never mentioned Donald Trump, his address was seen as a thinly veiled critique

of the President's chaotic and aggressive policies on trade and international relations. Kennedy gets a lot of freebies from us, by the way. They should be grateful also, but they're not. I watched your Prime Minister yesterday. He wasn't so grateful. Trump spoke in Davos a day after Carney and voiced his displeasure with the prime minister's speech. Trump followed up by rescinding an invitation to Carney to join his so-called Board of Peace while threatening new tariffs against Canada if it got too close to China.

Trump's acolytes, meanwhile, went on the attack. Let's talk about the prime minister or if you prefer governor of Canada. Yesterday on Fox News, Sean Hannity, a chief cheerleader for the administration, spoke with Trump's Treasury Secretary Scott Besson, who had his own view of the president's call with Carney. He spoke to Prime Minister Carney, who was very aggressively walking back some of the unfortunate remarks he made at Davos. It was Besson's remarks that led to today's pushback from Carney. Conservative Foreign Affairs critic Michael Chong isn't sure who to believe. All I know now is that there are two versions of events.

and I also know that in the past, we have not gotten a full account of the conversations between our prime minister and the president. Chong says Carney's office could clear things up by issuing a formal readout of the prime minister's call with the president. The prime minister's office did issue a statement today, saying only that the prime minister regularly engages with other leaders in an informal capacity, in the interest of building and maintaining strong international relationships. Tom Perry, CBC News, Ottawa. The uncertainty weighing on so many Canadians isn't just linked to shifting foreign relations. Domestically, there's also the potential for serious change. In Alberta, organizers of a petition are collecting signatures to gauge interest in the idea of Alberta

separating from the rest of Canada. Julia Wong spoke with some who feel, it's the only option. Inside an Edmonton Hotel, the race is on to get signatures for a petition to trigger a referendum on Alberta leaving Canada. For J.C. Deben, it's a no-brainer. Why are you here today to sign the petition?

I just don't like the way the country's going. Deben says he wants Alberta's interests to be better represented. And this seems like the clearest path to it. Is there anything that Ottawa or the federal government could do to change how you feel? Work with the province to get our resources to market, that sort of thing. It seems like they're always hindering it.

Resources and the economy are also what motivated search Chamberlain to sign. I'm kind of tired to see the Easterner basically having the pleasure of shedding on Alberta, blocking everything that we want to do, economy and everything, and think it's all right. Across Alberta, events are being held as organizers try and collect close to 178,000 signatures over the next few months. The movement has peaked interest South Africa. the border. They have great resources. The Albertans are very independent people. With U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently chiming in. People want sovereignty. They want what the U.S. has got.

University of Calgary political science professor Lisa Young says historically, Canadians would have expected allies like the U.S. to sit this one out, or signal Canada should remain intact. But these aren't normal times, she says. We have an administration that is invested in weakening Canada, it seems, and that sees Alberta as potentially an object for expansion. And so I think there's a lot of room for potential mischief here that really do raise the stakes of this referendum. While there have been lineups at some petition signing events,

young stresses support for Alberta staying in Canada far outweighs support for separatism. If we look at public opinion data, what it shows us is that somewhere between 20% to, at the very highest, 30% of people answering a survey in Alberta will respond that, yes, they think that Alberta would be better off if it was separate from the rest of Canada. Despite that, organizers say they feel confident.

Jeffrey Rath is a lawyer for the Stay Free Alberta Signature Project. We're well on our way to the Million Signature Goals. that we've set for this campaign. And that's going to set a really, really strong message to the politicians in Alberta so that they understand that this is a real movement. Organizers have until the beginning of May to gather enough signatures for the petition to succeed, with a referendum potentially happening as early as this year. Julia Wong, CBC News, Edmonton.

Coming right up, a leadership shuffle in Minneapolis as Washington tries to get immigration protests and political damage under control. And the BC Green Party wants to stop a Canadian billionaire from selling a warehouse in rural Virginia. Later, we'll have this story. I'm Jennifer Lagrasa in Toronto. For decades, experts say black Canadians have been left behind when it comes to medical advances because of gaps in health care data. But now, some Canadian researchers are looking to change that. We really do need data so that we can ensure that when new treatments are being developed,

that those treatments are as relevant to non-black populations as they are to black populations. I'll have more on this new project later on your world tonight. In Minneapolis, a changing of the guard as the White House tries to calm resistance and mounting anger in the city. The Trump administration's borders are is stepping in to relieve the official

in charge of an immigration crackdown. It comes after two American citizens were shot dead by federal agents. Katie Nicholson has the latest. A send-off of sorts outside a Minneapolis hotel last night for Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, who protesters believed to be inside, packing his bags to head home to California.

Leave the area of peace voids. Local and state police eventually moved in and made dozens of arrests. This is America! What is we doing? With Bovino out, today the federal immigration crackdown in Minnesota has a new face. Borders are Tom Holman. On Fox News, U.S. President Donald Trump signaled Homan is

trying to chart a new path forward. You know, we have Tom Homan there now. We put him in there. He's great. And they met with the governor, the mayor, everybody else, and we're going to de-escalate a little bit. This change in tone and tactics after two Minnesotans, Alex Preti and Renee Good,

were shot and killed within weeks of each other during interactions with federal agents. There's also been speculation Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noem may be pushed out after a two-hour meeting at the White House Monday evening and calls from some Democrats for her impeachment after she labeled Preti a domestic terrorist. Trump said Noam isn't going anywhere. Who closed up the border? She did with Tom Holman. Senate Democrats plan to force a partial government shutdown later this week by refusing to fund the Department of Homeland Security unless it implements new guardrails on immigration enforcement. It may not have much of an effect just last year. Trump's so-called big beautiful bill gave Homeland Security a whopping $45 billion.

Democratic Senator Rafael Warnock of Georgia. ICE is now larger in funding that all of the other federal law enforcement agencies combined. That includes the FBI. The Minnesota resistance to the two-month-long ice surge not quite as well-funded, but organized. This store was full of donations so much so that we couldn't reach the shelves. At the smitten kitten, Anne Layman hauls out baby diapers, the sex store has morphed into a distribution center for those afraid to venture out of their home or to work because of ice. If you have $300 to drop on a sex toy, you have $300 to drop on somebody's groceries that you don't know. The store's owner, J.P. Pritchett, describes what it's been like living through the last few weeks.

I think white-hot rage. What do you even say about this? We have the United States government behind badges and little vests that say police are murdering people in the streets and then lying about it. A searing anger that will remain long after Gregory Bovino has gone in which his replacement will now have to confront. Katie Nicholson, CBC News, Washington. Far from Minneapolis, the focus is on a warehouse in rural Virginia, owned by a Canadian billion. A potential sale and a plan to turn the site into an immigration facility is facing pushback on both sides of the border. Business reporter Kyle Bax has that. Not only are the actions of ICE controversial with many inside and outside the U.S., but experts say anyone associated with a federal agency too. In rural Virginia, ICE plans to develop a new processing facility.

The location is a giant warehouse owned by a Canadian company, BC-based, Jim Patterson developments. There have already been protests on the street in front of it. Nearby resident Michael Burdahn says many in the county opposed the proposed deal. The federal agency wants to buy the warehouse in support of ICE operations. Plans include construction of a guard shack and installing security equipment. From the concerns about ICE enforcement and human rights abuses that are happening and being publicized to the effect on local property values, certainly.

Jim Patterson developments bought the. land about three years ago and then built the warehouse. Property records show it's worth nearly $70 million. It's abhorrent and it moved me to action. BC Green Party leader Emily Lohen is urging a boycott of businesses connected with billionaire Jim Patterson. There are dozens from grocery stores and car dealerships to resorts and agriculture. I am expecting a response from Patterson to either justify this deal with ice or to break the deal. BC Deputy Premier Nikki Sharma says she watches the actions of ICE with horror. And I think that calls upon business leaders across this province,

including the whole country, to think about their role in what is unfolding there. Canadian companies have done business with ICE before, including BC tech firm Hootsweet, Ontario Armored Vehicle Manufacturer Rochelle, and information giant Thompson Reuters. It's all legal, of course. but in the opinion of employees and customers, it could be in bad taste. We have to ask ourselves, is it just about the money? David Silver is an American who lives in Vancouver and teaches business ethics at the University of British Columbia.

He says companies have to consider the possible risk and reward. One thing you want to think about is what's going to happen to me if I do this or us if we do this and what's going to happen to us if we don't. Jim Patterson developments did not respond to requests for comments. The local county in Virginia will hold a meeting on Wednesday to discuss the proposed deal, although it's not clear if those officials can do anything to stop it. Kyle Backs, CBC News, Calgary. A somber ceremony in Poland today to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

It has been 81 years since the liberation of the Auschwitz-Burkenau death camp. More than a million people, mostly Jews, died there during World War II at the hands of German Nazis. 20 survivors and their families joined dignitaries to pay tribute to the victims and say never again. In all between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany killed 6 million Jews across occupied Europe. Here in Canada, marking that history is happening along with warnings about the present, rising anti-Semitism here and around the world. As Deanna Sumanak Johnson reports, some Canadian schools are trying to make make their teaching more relevant by taking Holocaust education out of the classroom.

These grade six students were brought to an event at Toronto District School Board headquarters to bring what happened during the Holocaust to life. I don't know how to describe it, but you're like you kind of understand it more, and it feels a lot more like it's actually happened. The event was focused on the book to Hope and Back, which details the journey of the MS. St. Louis. carrying European Jews escaping the nascent Nazi regime in 1939. It was turned away by a number of countries, including Canada. The students also got to meet the daughter and granddaughter of Lisa Avedon,

a passenger on that ship. Madeline Avedan says it's her duty to keep her mother's story alive. It's really about real people, and we need more stories like that today. And unfortunately, a lot of Holocaust survivors are no longer around. They're not with us. Great six teachers Sharon Alexander says it's just not the kind of education they can get in class. I think one thing over my tenure of teaching, we're getting further and further away from these events, and yet they're closer and closer and closer to what's happening in the world. Holocaust denial or minimization has also become a symptom of something more malicious,

rising anti-Semitism. A survey released this summer in commission by the federal government looked at the experiences of anti-Semitism reported by Jewish students in Ontario schools. 40% of the incidents reported involved Nazi salutes, assertions that Hitler should have finished the job and similar. That rise in hate, one of the reasons Prime Minister Mark Carney said it was so important to acknowledge the Holocaust. Again and again, you have chosen to bring those darkest memories to light

so that what happened will not fade into silence. Marilyn Sinclair is the founder of Liberation 75, a non-for-profit Holocaust education organization, and was present for the TDSB event. Juan Kid asked, is this story real? What was your reaction when you heard that? I thought, wow, it really reflects the sign of the times. In our study, we found that 42% of students learn about the Holocaust from social media. So you can see that at least with that particular student, they are questioning whether something is real, credible, and can, be trusted and we really want our students to think that way. A start of thinking critically and feeling empathy the effect the event had on this grade 6 student.

I just like, it was very interesting to see Lisa's family and like all the artifacts. An emotional connection that can be a powerful antidote to anti-Semitic rhetoric online or in real life. Deanna Sumanack Johnson, CBC News, Toronto. The former head of the Manitoba Inuit Association is facing new allegations to. Tonight, Nastanya Mullen is accused of sexually assaulting multiple women.

At least one case dates back decades. The claims are part of an online campaign dubbed Inuit Me Too. Karen Paul's reports. Thank you for coming out. Marching through the streets of Akaluit, carrying a sign saying, no more violence to commemorate the 1989 a coal polytechnique massacre of 14 young women. And lighting the traditional Inuit oil lounge.

Just like these flames connect. As we connect, we are stronger and brighter. Alexia Cousin says she found her voice. It's an empowering kind of feeling with knowing that you're not alone. Cousin says she's filed a sexual assault complaint with the Akeloid RCP against Nistania Mullen, the former head of the Manitobah Inuit Association. There was two instances I realize now of sexual abuse where I was coerced or, where I feel like I couldn't say no. Cousin says she was 15 and Mullen was one to two years older

when she says their mostly consensual relationship resulted in a pregnancy. Cousin says she and Mullen unofficially shared custody of their daughter for a few years, but cousin says Mullen's role in the young woman's life has been minimal. They haven't spoken in seven years. She cut him off when she was 13. Despite repeated attempts, CBC News has been unable to. to reach Mullen for a comment. I'm sorry, this person is not available.

He is the subject of other accusations, stemming from a grassroots hashtag Inuit Me Too campaign on social media. I was a young teenager and I was so confused and totally caught off guard. CBC News has spoken to two other women who have also filed complaints with the RCMP and Ottawa Police Service. None of the allegations have been proven in court and Mullen has not been. charged. Nunavut RCP Sergeant George Henry writing in an email, as the matter is still under investigation, I do not have any information to share at this time. So we had a period of awareness

and shock and now this is a part of the journey. Tara Tutu Fotheringham is president of the Amati Nunavut Inuit Women's Association. She says advocacy groups like hers are fundraising to provide legal fees, culturally appropriate counseling and victim services support. That's what shifted is that more women are speaking not only with each other, but they're now speaking on larger platforms without that fear that people aren't going to believe them. The Manituanneuxa-Nobo-Nussociation terminated Mullen last November. It appointed a new CEO earlier this month. Some advocates and survivors say that's a good start, but they still want to see him face

charges in court. Karen Paul's, CBC News, Winnipeg. This is Your World Tonight from CBC News. If you want to make sure you stay up to date and never miss one of our episodes, follow us on Spotify, Apple, wherever you get your podcasts. Just find the follow button and lock us in. A landmark healthcare project is underway in Canada, the goal to create the country's largest collection of human genomic data

for more than 100,000 people. Today, one part of the project was launched, focused on black Canadians, who are often underrepresented in medical research. Jennifer Lagrasa has more. We're really, really thrilled that this is happening. At Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto, Dr. Upton Allen is excited to launch a unique initiative.

Today is first and foremost about a shared commitment to improving health and well-being of black peoples across Canada. and other researchers in Quebec and Nova Scotia are leading the creation of a DNA bank, made up entirely of samples from Black Canadians. Within Black communities in Canada, there are some disorders that are disproportionately represented. For example, research shows Black Canadians are about 1.3 times more likely to get type 2 diabetes than white Canadians. To understand these differences, the researchers are looking to collect an animal. more than 10,000 blood samples from Canadians of African and Caribbean descent who have a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes, triple negative breast cancer, or high blood pressure.

They're also looking for samples from people with no underlying medical conditions. It provides black communities with a chance to benefit from advances in health care by a more precise way of thinking about what causes. diseases, how they're diagnosed, how they're prevented, and how they're treated. But Allen knows getting samples sounds easier than it will be. Systemic racism and discrimination that some Black Canadians have experienced with the health care system has created a lot of mistrust. Historically, the Black community has not participated. Cheryl Prescott, head of Black Creek Community Health Center in Toronto,

sees the hesitation firsthand and saw it most recently with COVID-19. vaccination. And there was lots and lots of talk around, you know, why should we trust the system? Will that research be used to further discriminate against me rather than help me? I want to make sure that conversations happen. Victor Adarquah is the Health Center's research coordinator. He'll work with the team at sick kids to encourage people in the community to take part. If they see me and they understand and appreciate that I'm not coming to extract, I'm coming to have a conversation, the floor always opens.

They make me feel proud and they make me feel that they care. Alfred Lugg is pre-diabetic and receives care at Black Creek. He says he wants to take part in the research. You will know what's going on with your culture. Researchers are aiming to start collecting samples in Ontario as of next week and expand to eastern Canada in the coming months. Jennifer Lagrasa, CBC News, Toronto. He has never shied away from using his musical platform.

for political activism. Neil Young is once again targeting the Trump administration and extending a special offer for residents of a very particular part of the world. From protest songs to farm aid and environmentalism, the legendary Canadian rocker has long been aligned with progressive politics. He's also been a frequent critic of Donald Trump. Now Young is responding to the U.S. President's recent pressure on Greenland by allowing residents of the Danish territory to stream his music for free.

In a post on his website, Young calls it a gesture of kindness and something to ease the stress. Young's full catalog is only available through a website he manages. Subscription plans can cost as much as $100, but for the next year, Greenlanders can crank it up for free. Young turned 80 last year. He lives in the U.S. and has dual citizenship. The Greenland offer was just his latest statement against Trump. In November, Young pulled his music from Amazon over the company's ties to the administration. And back in 2020, Young sued the Trump campaign for using this song at rallies. Thank you for joining us on this edition of Your World Tonight for Tuesday, January 27th. I'm Susan Bonner. Talk to you again. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca.ca slash podcasts.