Your World Tonight - B.C. flooding, immigration museum CEO quits, orcas cooperating with dolphins, and more

Episode Date: December 11, 2025

Evacuation orders expanded in B.C.'s Fraser Valley. Floodwaters and landslides cut off the Lower Mainland from the Interior. Residents are bracing themselves – similar weather devastated the region in 2021, killing farm animals, and causing billions of dollars in damage.And: The CEO of one of Canada's national museums is retiring one day after a damning report accused her of mistreating staff over the course of a decade. The report says she used inappropriate language, including calling a senior leadership team 'sluts.'Also: Canadian researchers have captured rare video of killer whales and dolphins foraging salmon together off the B.C. coast. And scientists say these interactions aren’t just chance encounters.Plus: Venezuela denounces the seizure of an oil tanker by the U.S. as international piracy, passengers stranded on VIA Rail for 12 hours, Toronto police connect three cold case murders to one man, and more.

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Donate at lovescarbro.cairbo. This is a CBC podcast. There is some major trauma still, and I mean, I carry it, my team carries it, my community carries it, our neighbors carry it as well. But when the roads start closing and both rivers start rising at the same time, it's, is this going to be another repeat? People in BC's Fraser Valley have lived through this before, an atmosphere. River dropping an incredible amount of rain in a very short time, swelling rivers, threatening communities. It happened four years ago, causing millions in damage.

Now hundreds of people have again been forced from their homes and hundreds more have been told to get ready to leave. Welcome to Your World Tonight. I'm Susan Bonner. It is Thursday, December 11th, just before 6 p.m. Eastern, also on the podcast. These women were never forgotten. and it is because of the commitment of so many that we are able to give their loved ones

at least one crucial answer today. That answer, the identity of the man, police in Ontario say killed three women in cases reaching back as far as 1982. Kenneth Smith, he died in 2019. Were he alive, police say they would be charging him with the murders of Christine Prince, Graceland Greenridge, and Claire Sampson.

And police say there could be more victims. Rising river waters have people in British Columbia holding their breath. Threats of heavy flooding have already forced people out of their homes and farms with hundreds of sudden evacuation orders and alerts last night and more people told to leave the Abbotsford area today. Tanya Fletcher has the latest. rushing flood waters continue to rise despite finally a break in the rain. Flood sirens rang out late Wednesday from neighboring Washington State to Abbotsford.

By nightfall, most major highways leading out of the lower mainland were shut down. And at midnight, a dramatic rescue in the dark. Search crews used two helicopters to rescue five people and four dogs, all stranded on an island in the middle of the rapidly rising. Chilliwack River. I know it was a sleepless night for many people. BC emergency management minister Kelly Green warns it's not over yet. We are not through this emergency. We are anticipating continued flow and rising water levels and are prepared for difficult days and nights ahead.

The incessant rains and the flooding they've triggered have more than 400 properties under evacuation order and another 1800 on alert. Some of the highways leading to the BC Interior have since reopened, but passenger train service to the south is paralyzed. Amtrak has suspended its route between Seattle and Vancouver until at least the weekend. The focus point has been predominantly through Washington State, but we do find that BC has kind of been along the northern border of the heaviest rain. Dave Campbell with the BC River Forecast Center says some areas of the Fraser Valley have been swamped by 150 millimeters of rain since Tuesday.

And even this fellow here, as you can see, he's built his house up higher, specifically for an event like this. In Abbotsford, Rob Atchison surveys the Sumas Prairie where he lives. It's an agricultural bed in the heart of the Fraser Valley. The same area hit hardest during historic flooding here four years ago.

The swath of farmland is again at the heart of the evacuation zone this time, but... Definitely people won't be leaving, especially some of my farmer neighbors, because they've got cows and chickens and things that they have to look after. And the last time we were evacuated for five days, which is definitely

a bit of a problem, you know, when you've got livestock. The 2021 floods amounted to BC's costliest natural disaster ever. Both then and now, the main source of flooding has been the Nooksack River in Washington State. Chiloac Mayor Ken Popov says not enough was done by officials on either side of the border to make sure there wasn't a repeat of 2021. There were talks, and that's all they were we're in catch-up mode still. We have to be preventative, not reactionary. For now, as this flood warning continues, evacuees living the same nightmare all over again are left to wait, wary of the damage that will only be revealed once the waters recede. Tanya Fletcher, CBC News, Vancouver.

Canada has added new groups to its list of terrorist entities. The additions include the violent online network 764. It's known for preying on young people. Catherine Tunney has more. They're probably the most persistent in advance threat against youth online today. Matthew Criner is talking with the online network known as 764. As executive director of the Institute for Countering Digital Extremism, he's studied the shadowy cult, described as sadistic and heinous.

This week, they picked up a new label in Canada, terrorists. 764 members do social media and gaming platforms to lure, groom, and extort victims, often young girls to commit disturbing acts, goading them into maiming animals, branding themselves, and even suicide. Their goals are to cause chaos and to cause harm to others so they can gain clout and power for themselves within their ecosystem online. So it's a very nihilistic outlook. This week, Canada became the first country to officially name 764 as a terrorist entity under the Criminal Code. Ottawa also listed the maniac murder cult, a group associated with 764, and the Terrogram Collective, for promoting violent white supremacy ideology.

I think most parents are worried. Public safety minister, Gary Nandis Angry. When we do a listing, it does indicate that there is a sense of alertness that Kennedy and law enforcement have and concerns that they have. I don't ever want to watch another child suffer the way that my child suffered. Earlier this year, CBC's The Fifth Estate spoke to this red dear Alberta mom, whose teen daughter was caught up in the chilling web of 764 and later urged to live stream her own suicide before ultimately getting help.

If then they were convincing kids to do mass shooting, my kid would have done that. And that is terrifying to think. The mom went to the RCMP, but said initially it was a struggle to get them to take her daughter's case seriously. That could change going forward. The move out of Ottawa this week gives police additional powers. They can now freeze or seize property. And helping these groups is now considered a crime.

Terrorist designations, they have teeth. Evan Belgord is the executive director of the community. anti-hate network. I hope that it would be a wake-up moment for some of them seeing that there are such serious consequences and that nobody is truly anonymous online. There's already some potential movement. This morning, the matter of a Halifax teen accused of being involved in 764 was before the court.

The Crown says it's assessing whether the terrorism designation will impact the case going forward. Catherine Tunney, CBC News, Ottawa. For decades, they were three unsolved cases. with no leads and no closure. Now police say the murders of at least three women were committed by a serial killer. Lisa Xing has more on the breakthrough

that led investigators to one man. Together, we are announcing a significant development in three long-standing homicide investigations. Toronto Police's deputy chief, Robert Johnson, providing answers decades in the making. Kenneth Smith died in 2019 at the age of 72 years old in Windsor, Ontario. His death means he will never be held to account in a court of law.

In a press conference today, Toronto Police and Ontario Provincial Police say Smith was responsible for the murder of Christine Price, a Welsh woman working as a nanny in Toronto, killed in 1982 after a night out. A year later, Claire Sampson was found dead, last seen getting into a car with an older man, Ontario Provincial Police's chief superintendent, Karen Gano. Claire Sampson's parents are now deceased, so they met with siblings who recognized now that the parents will never know this good news that the person has been identified who is responsible. In 1997, Graceland Greenidge, a nursing assistant, was beaten to death in her apartment, found by her friend and colleague Enid Adams, who spoke with CBC at the time. I couldn't believe what I saw. I've known her for 20 years. She was more like a sister to me. Why would somebody do this to Grace of all people? Grace is a nice going person. She's soft-spoken.

She's very kind. We have his DNA. So all we need from you is his name. Nothing more. There were rewards and public pleas like this one in 2018. But for decades, the murders went unsolved and never connected. All the while, a killer walked free. Smith was known to police, had a history of sexual assault.

He was even jailed for other. crimes. The break came from DNA evidence from the crime scenes that eventually was linked to Smith's close relatives. But it was a challenge, says Steve Smith, a detective sergeant with Toronto police's cold case unit. That's one of the biggest problems with DNA right now is having a mixture of the offender DNA with the victim's DNA. So that's why it took us so long. This is remarkable. Criminologist Michael Arndfield says this investigation is a classic example of police using new techniques to solve complicated old cases. But this is a process that takes time.

This is not as simple as an offender who cuts themselves on a window, sterile surface breaking into a home or business. This takes a lot of lab expertise. Even though these three murders are solved, the investigation is still ongoing. Police say there could be other victims linked to this killer. Lisa Xing, CBC News, Toronto. Coming right up, the head of Pier 21 in Halifax is stepping down, following a report saying she mistreated staff at the museum for years.

Also, via rail passengers on their way from Toronto to Ottawa had to spend the night on the train. After what the company calls a mechanical failure turned a five-hour trip into a marathon. And the United States seizes a Venezuelan oil tanker, the U.S. says it plans to keep the oil, making the rift between the two countries even wider. Later, we'll have this story. I'm Yasmil Renea in Vancouver. Researchers say they have observed some strange animal behavior off the B.C. coast. We were hearing the dolphins echolocating.

And as we started to compare things, we were noticing that the killer was going quiet. What they saw was an unlikely hunting party that could help both whales and dolphins survive. I'll bring you that story later on your world tonight. The CEO of one of Canada's national museums is leaving her job after the Public Integrity Commissioner reported on her behavior. Marie Chapman was head of the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 in Halifax for more than a decade. The investigation found she terrified and belittled her staff.

Berk reports. The CEO created an environment of fear. The report by the integrity commissioner is damning. It accuses Marie Chapman of mistreating her staff to the point where some reported they contemplated self-harm. This was not a one-time lapse in judgment, but a repeated problem that persisted over a decade. In a video statement, Commissioner Harriet Salloway says the CEO of the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 committed serious Code of Conduct breaches. This sort of breach poses a serious threat to confidence in the integrity of the public sector and specifically the museum. Her office launched an investigation two years ago and interviewed 19 witnesses, almost a third of the museum's staff, and Chapman, who disagrees with

the report's findings. The misconduct was characterized by the following, using inappropriate and offensive language, raising her voice and yelling, instilling fear and intimidation. the commissioner said staff told her they were terrified, had panic attacks, and feared speaking up. The inappropriate language, she alleges, included Chapman calling staff sluts. She said it happened on multiple occasions in front of members of the public and a delegation from another country. The CEO referred to her senior leadership team, or SLT, using a term that is often used to degrade women. In response to the report, Chapman refuted many of the findings. and says she never threatened anyone's job or fostered a climate of fear.

But she did admit to calling senior leadership sluts, but said she considered herself part of the group. It's entirely unacceptable. Canadian culture and identity minister Mark Miller this morning called the report alarming. His government reappointed Chapman in 2021 with a salary of up to $220,000 a year. But he says her term ended in October and the minimum. museum contracted Chapman to stay on until January. I think if anything in that report is indeed accurate, it certainly grounds for the board to take action. Hours later, the museum's board of trustees chairperson issued a letter to staff

saying Chapman is retiring effective immediately and that it will act on the recommendation to bring in an external expert to assess employees' wellness. But the board hasn't said yet why it decided to keep chapping on as CEO amid an investigation like this. Ashley Burke, CBC News, Ottawa. Parliament has risen for the winter break. The House is now adjourned until January 26th. MPs leave Ottawa without passing some key pieces of legislation,

most notably the Government's Budget Implementation Act. It wasn't supposed to be an overnight trip, but dozens of via-rail passengers spent last night on the train after a mechanical problem left them stranded between Toronto and Ottawa. It's not the first time it's happened, and there are calls for VIA to do better. Philip Lee Shanock has more. My journey really was plane trains and automobiles, like literally. Isabel Leduc is a Canadian living in London, England.

She's back for the holidays visiting friends and family. After landing in Montreal, her train trip took longer than her international flight. Total 36 hours from the time I left my house in London, England, to the time I got to Toronto Union Station. Her train broke down near Brockville, Ontario, stranding Toronto-bound travelers, but also blocking two other trains heading eastbound for Ottawa. La Duke says passengers in her car were understanding,

even as time were on. I think everybody took it in stride. Nobody was like bitching, yelling. There was none of that. Actually, people were like, hey, you know, we're here, we have wine. On her Ottawa-bound train, Tyler Gannon says her experience was different. Oh my God, it was like 14 hours. It was long, exhausting.

Everyone was just talking about the lack of communication, how frustrating it was. Carl Hulu is a spokesperson for Montreal-based via rail. He says it was impossible to move all the passengers. Unfortunately, this night there were no buses available through the whole region. Our priority is the safety of our passengers. passengers. So we prefer to keep them on a train where there was heat, where they received food, beverages, blankets. He says the Crown Corporation has apologized and offered about 300 impacted passengers full refunds. Via will conduct a full review of what happened. Transportation

Minister Steve McKinnon says Via needs to do better. We understand it's a Canadian winter and things happen. However, the response is critical and we want via rail. to continue to improve. Last year near Montreal, another breakdown blocked passenger service for 10 hours. William Klumpenhauer is a Calgary-based railway expert. He says it shows the vulnerabilities of the system. There's sort of a single point of failure and things can go wrong. We're operating kind of on a sort of shoestring type network.

He says ideally a more robust network would have more track options for trains to be able to pass each other when there's a problem. But those kinds of upgrades would require major investments. Philip Lyshanock, CBC News, Toronto. Quebec has reached a tentative agreement with its family doctors over a law changing the way they are paid. Doctors were angry that part of their pay was going to be tied to performance targets. Some even threatened to leave the province.

Quebec's health minister says the government always knew the bill needed adjustments and it's pushed the implementation of the law to the end of February. There are no details about what changes are in the new agreement. The doctor's union says it will present the deal to its members tomorrow. Washington will send a representative to Europe this weekend to talk about Ukraine, but only if there's a chance of a deal. deal. The White House says U.S. President Trump is frustrated with both Russia and Ukraine and the lack of a peace deal. Kiev has been pushing back on a U.S. plan saying it's favorable

to Moscow. A day after the U.S. seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, questions are swirling about next moves. What happens to the ship, to its oil, and how will those decisions impact the ongoing tension between the two countries? All this, says the the U.S. helped smuggle Venezuela's opposition leader out of the country. Katie Nicholson has the latest. White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt pressed on whether the U.S. might seize any more oil tankers. I won't broadcast any future actions from the administration. But she said it is executing its sanction policies.

And we're not going to stand by and watch sanctioned vessels sail the seas with black market oil, the proceeds of which will fuel narco-terrorism. In a video released by the U.S. Department of Justice, members of an elite Coast Guard security team repel down ropes on a helicopter, land on the deck, and take command of the sanctioned tanker, alleged to have smuggled oil to Iran and other countries. The vessel will go to a U.S. port,

and the United States does intend to seize the oil. Venezuela called it an act of international piracy. Under siege, President Nicholas Maduro today decided to phone a friend, or at least have a video conference with one. Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, reaffirmed his support from Maduro and Venezuela's sovereignty. The two countries tied together by oil interests and historically anti-U.S. sentiment. Maduro has repeatedly accused the U.S. of trying to force regime change. U.S. President Donald Trump this week said this.

His days are numbered. Waiting in the wings. Popular opposition leader Maria Karina Machado just smuggled out of Venezuela with US help to Oslo where she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Very talented experience and honest professionals within Venezuela and abroad are working together and we have the plans and teams ready to take control on day one. The Trump administration has launched more than 20 strikes on alleged drugboats in Venezuelan waters

and is building up troops and conducting military maneuvers in the region. Machado had careful praise. I believe that President Trump's actions have been decisive to reach the point where we are right now, in which the regime is weaker than ever. But what happens next? A concern reverberating through the halls of the Capitol. I hope it's a briefing for the whole Senate, and I hope we make it public. Democratic Senator Dick Durbin demanding answers on what exactly the president has planned.

We are edging toward war with Venezuela. The American people have a right to know what's going on. One clue, perhaps. The U.S. added six more crude oil tankers to its sanctions list this afternoon. Katie Nicholson, CBC News, Washington. A winter storm is complicating an already dire humanitarian situation in Gaza. rain has flooded hundreds of tents, housing people displaced by two years of war. Local health officials say an infant died of exposure after water inundated her family's tent. Municipal officials say they've been unable to cope with the winter storm because of fuel shortages and damage to equipment during the war. A ceasefire began in October, but hundreds of thousands of people

are still without homes and basic services. 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. Out in the wild, most species compete with each other for food, especially when they like to eat the same things.

But Canadian researchers have discovered something unexpected off the coast of B.C., orca whales and dolphins going for lunch together. Yasmin Renea has more. Underwater video shows a northern resident killer whale swimming behind a pod of Pacific white-sided dolphins off the B.C. coast all on a quest to find Chinook salmon. It's really unique in the animal world to see dolphins and killer whales foraging together. Scientist and drone pilot Keith Holmes first spotted the unusual behavior by accident while doing field work off Vancouver Island. To be honest, at first I was a little bit annoyed because the whole point in the story of our research had nothing to do with dolphins.

But then you start seeing them doing foraging dives together. Researchers with the University of British Columbia, Halifax's Dalhousie University, and other groups then began tracking the marine mammals. Study co-author Andrew Trite says suction cup tags were temporarily. attached to some whales so that researchers could watch and listen to the whale's interactions with dolphins. We were hearing the dolphins echolocating and as we started to compare things we were noticing that the killer whale was going quiet. Turns out, Fiorka was listening to the dolphins who were diving deep into the ocean to search for large Chinook salmon. Pray that dolphins would

like to eat but can't catch on their own and that are too big for them to consume whole. Researchers saw the orca make the kill and share with its pod, and the dolphins got the scraps. So it works out for both parties. Everyone's happy at the end of a successful fishing trip. Everybody gets to eat. And it's no fluke. Researchers saw dolphins swim near whales more than 250 times in one summer. Janie Ray, founder of the non-profit BC whales who wasn't involved in the study, says orcas have had to adapt to changing ecosystems and less salmon. It's not surprising that they would learn that in order to survive, especially in this day and age when food may not be as accessible as it once, was that they really do need to work together. That teamwork could be critical in helping marine mammals deal with noisy ship traffic, says Dalhousie marine biologist Sarah Fortune. It could be that it becomes more challenging for resident killer whales to find their prey because of acoustic masking.

So potentially it could be advantageous to have. cooperative foraging with other animals. Researchers also wonder if southern resident killer whales considered endangered in Canada partly because of the lack of salmon could also benefit from working with other kinds of marine mammals to find their food. Yasmil Ganea, CBC News, Vancouver. Finally, tonight, looking for the perfect gift can be stressful, but some people just nail it.

I was looking for something really special for Steve because we were, coming up on 10 years together, and I wanted a gift for the man who has everything. That's Sudbury's Allison Waters, adding to her challenge, was finding a gift that matched the story of how she and her husband, Steve, met, both on vacation in Cuba, but complete strangers. Steve explains. I was down with my kids on a March break vacation, and my daughter, we sit down for dinner, and my daughter immediately says, we've got to find you a girlfriend at. and she literally points across the room and says,

what about her and points at Allison? It took him a few days and some tequila to actually approach her, but they hit it off, started a romance, and on Christmas Day, he asked her to marry him. So back to the gift. Allison had recently retired as a teacher. One of her students was musician Tessa Ballez, who writes with her husband, Peter.

They sat down for coffee, and Tessa says, One detail inspired, a new song. And then on Christmas he proposed and he said, will you be my Christmas morning forever? And I was like, honestly, she just needs a melody writer because you're giving me all the lyrics here, which is really, really great. It's kind of amazing, this husband and wife doing this for another husband and wife.

It was very dreamy to be able to work with you and to connect with you again. Allison also made sure the presentation was special. On vacation with Steve, she handed him a card with lyrics while a song played in the background. And then as I get about two minutes or a minute into the song, I realize that what I'm reading is the song. Oh my gosh, she wrote me a song and these people are actually singing us. This is my song.

We played it over and over that night and we danced to it in our hotel room and we cried together and we, it was just beautiful. Okay, good luck topping that gift. And here's the song written by Tessa and Peter Ballas. Christmas morning forever. On that note, that's your world tonight for December 11th. Thanks for joining us. I'm Susan Bonner.

Talk to you again. All we have I see when I know I finally found my home For more CBC Podcasts, go to cBC.