Your World Tonight - Budget day, China tourism in Canada, AI music hit, and more

Episode Date: November 4, 2025

Mark Carney’s government -- now has a blueprint. An economic plan -- focused on capital upgrades to infrastructure, industry, housing and defence. It includes a 78-billion dollar deficit. And a political price -- still being calculated. Canada is back on the list of approved countries for Chinese group tourism. Beijing banned group tourism to many places during the pandemic. It has been slow to open up to some – including Canada. The change comes less than a week after Prime Minister Mark Carney met President Xi Jinping, and the two pledged to tackle “irritants” in the countries’ relationship. Also: It looks like a human – sings like one – and has garnered enough radio play to make a Billboard chart. But this is AI. We’ll look at the success of Xania Monet, and what it means for the future of music. Plus: The death of one of the most consequential vice presidents in U.S. history - Dick Cheney, voters reflect one year after Trump’s win, and more.

Hey, I'm Sarah Marshall, and there's one story from the past that I've been circling around for years now. This eight-part series traces the hidden history of the satanic panic in North America. We'll connect the dots from Victoria, BC, to the backroads of Kentucky. Satan was having a moment, the sensationalist heartthrob of our time. The Devil You Know, available now wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast. The world is undergoing a series of fundamental shifts at a speed, scale, and scope not seen since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Bold and swift action is what is needed. With ambitions to build big, the Mark Carney government now has a blueprint, An economic plan focused on capital upgrades to infrastructure, industry, housing and defense coming at a cost of $78 billion in deficit, with a political price still being calculated. We must get the size of our public service back to a sustainable level that is keeping with best practices. As Ottawa tries to accelerate major projects, it wants to pump the brakes on spending $60 billion in cuts, scaling back the federal workforce by tens of thousands of jobs in a budget balancing act

happening on shaky economic ground. Welcome to Your World Tonight. I'm Susan Bonner on Parliament Hill. It is Tuesday, November 4th, just before 6 p.m. Eastern, also on the podcast. Powerful and polarizing, former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney has died. And for the first time since the start of the pandemic, China allows tourist groups to come to Canada. But we begin here in Ottawa with a federal budget that has big promises, a big deficit, and some big unknowns. Karina Roman has our top story.

This is how we win. This is how we keep winning, Mr. Speaker. Finance Minister Francois Philippe Champagne says today's budget will make life more affordable, create new career opportunities and ensure every generation can get ahead because he says the budget meets the moment. The world is undergoing a series of fundamental shifts at a speed, scale and scope not seen since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Leading up to today, the government promoted the budget as transformational. It certainly is a shift from years of budgets that created or expanded social programs

to one focused on building things. We'll build here at home, stronger industries, nation building infrastructures, and millions of more homes for Canadians. The budget includes $141 billion over five years in new spending and a $78 billion deficit this year. The biggest chunk of new spending is on defense, almost $82 billion over five years, and on infrastructure, more than $32 billion over five years. There are new or amped up tax and investment incentives for businesses to buy machinery and equipment, to scale up, to export to new markets. The finance minister told reporters, in essence it's to compete with the U.S. in the industries being hardest hit by the trade war.

If you're a worker in Osceau or in Windsor, or even in my own community of Latzuk in the softwood lumber, or if you're a canola producer out west, you've been disproportionately impacted. The budget also includes $60 billion over five years in savings, including cuts to the public service and government programs, although existing social programs such as child care and dental care survive, and pharmacare won't be expanded beyond the provinces that currently have deals. The industrial carbon price will not be nixed, but instead retooled.

And if it and other climate measures work as hoped, the emissions cap would be eliminated. Conservative leader Pierre Pauliev says, None of this is what Canadians want. And on behalf of all the Canadians who can no longer afford to eat, heat, or house themselves because of liberal inflation, we conservatives cannot support this costly liberal budget. Blockhequeville leader E. Francois Blachet is equally unimpressed. I hardly see how after having met with our caucus tonight, we could vote in favor of this budget.

But NDP interim leader Don Davies says his party has not yet. yet decided. The government needs three MPs from other parties to either vote in favor or abstain in order for the budget to pass. Karina Roman, CBC News, Ottawa. One of the government's main selling points

for this budget was, spend less and invest more. And it attempts to do that by making cuts to federal programs and jobs. But those reductions are far outweighed by major investments in housing, infrastructure, and the military.

Tom Perry breaks down the numbers. I think overall is there's a balance there between... At first glance, Robert Aslan thinks this new budget hits at least some of the right notes. Aslan is CEO of U15, the Association of Canada's Top 15 Research Universities. He's read through the budget and looked at some of the cuts the government plans on making to federal programs and the federal bureaucracy. I think they are fairly reasonable given that we're starting from a point where 7% growth was achieved every year of the public service for 10 years.

So you're not talking about something that is, in my view, over the board, you know. The budget projects a loss of 40,000 jobs in the Federal Civil Service by 2029, a reduction of 10% that will take the federal workforce down to roughly 330,000 members. The staff cuts are part of a plan to reduce federal spending by $60 billion over five years and slow the growth in program spending from just over 8,000. percent a year to less than one percent. Some specific cuts laid out in the budget include reducing foreign aid to pre-pandemic levels and winding down a program launched under the previous liberal government that aimed to plant two billion trees. But while the government is looking

to scrimp and save in some areas in others, it's taking the exact opposite approach, Canada's military being a case in point. So there's a lot of money. David Perry is president and CEO of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. He says this budget, with its promise of nearly $82 billion over five years for the Canadian Armed Forces, far exceeds any military spending pledges in recent history. $82 billion almost in a five-year basis is a very, very big injection of money in the near term. One we haven't really seen, I don't think, probably the biggest five-year commitment since the Korean War. According to the budget, this new spending will go toward recruiting, pay raises for military members, defense infrastructure and training, and other

priorities. Perry says he'd like more detail about how the money will be spent, but he sees this as a refocusing of government priorities with a much sharper focus on national security. The military isn't the only winner in this budget. The government is also boosting support for housing, infrastructure, and measures aimed at bolstering productivity and competitiveness, all of which it's been signaling for months. In a budget, the finance minister promised would contain no surprises. Tom Perry, CBC News, Ottawa. Some other items to note from the budget, the government plans to spend $1.7 billion over the next 13 years to attract more foreign researchers to Canada and get rid of a 1% tax on vacant or underused homes that has been in effect since 2022. It is also scrapping a luxury tax on

high-end aircraft and boats saying it was too costly to administer. Another pledge, $150 million in extra funding for CBC Radio Canada in the next fiscal year. And the budget says the government will also explore the possibility of Canadian participation in the Eurovision song contest. Well, with me here on Parliament Hill for our budget coverage. Catherine Cullen, the host of CBC Radio's The House. Catherine, there's already been big political drama over this budget. A conservative MP has left caucus. What happened? Nova Scotia's Chris Dantramal has, Susan, left the conservative caucus earlier today.

He told news website Politico he was considering crossing the floor, supporting this budget. Now, the liberals need three votes or perhaps just three abstentions to get this budget passed. That would avoid them sending the country into an election. Yes, it's possible Dantrema could well be won. But the block says they don't intend to vote for this budget. the conservatives say they won't support this budget. Also, they are clearly irked by losing an MP. The NDP has seven members, so the votes could be there.

Right now, the party is saying they need time to study what's in this budget. The liberals need two or three votes if everyone shows up. That's it. And these abstentions, if people just stayed home, that could be a way forward, but still got a few days, a couple weeks to figure this out. The budget itself, Catherine, is it the generational shift as promised? Economists I have talked to about the budget aren't convinced. It is certainly a change.

On defense alone, one analyst said this is the largest amount of money provided to national defense in generations. There's a big shift to an emphasis on industry, growing the economy, a move away from the Trudeau era of new social programs and benefits. But at the same time, there's not actually a ton of new ideas in this budget. Susan, many of the big pieces, housing, defense, those were already announced. and the deficit, while it is big at $78 billion, is actually on the lower range of what some economists were projecting while the cuts to government add at 40,000 positions, also less than some expected.

Really big areas where we were hoping to get some information. The environment and immigration, let's start with immigration. In their last year, you'll recall that the Trudeau government dramatically cut back their immigration targets as the politics of immigration started to heat up. Now, when it comes to permanent immigration, those targets, they're staying intact in this budget, but the Carney government is cutting the targets for temporary migrants. So we're talking about people like international students, temporary foreign workers.

They're going from about $675,000 this year to cutting that almost in half in the following years, talking about trying to restore control, clarity, and consistency to Canada's immigration system. Environment? Mark Carney is setting the stage for dropping the oil and gas. emissions cap in exchange for strengthening other measures on climate. So there's a laundry list in this budget of what needs to be improved, more effective carbon markets. We're talking about the industrial price on carbon there. Better methane regulations, technology like carbon capture and storage. They're creating a path away from this emissions cap, although they're not saying

they're going ahead with it yet. An interesting moment because, of course, a lot of people associate Mark Carney with his work on trying to improve the environment, address climate change, questions about whether or not he's backing away from that now. Thank you, Catherine. Thank you. The host of CBC Radio's The House, Catherine Cullen, here with me on Parliament Hill. Coming right up for the first time since the start of the pandemic, China will allow tourists groups to come to Canada. The polarizing legacy of one of the most powerful vice presidents in U.S. history, Dick Cheney left his imprint on the country. And later, we'll have this story. How do American voters feel, one year after Donald Trump's election win.

Since Donald Trump has become president, we haven't seen the same type of situations. We don't see illegal crossings. I'm Katie Simpson in the border community of Star County, Texas. And coming up on your world tonight, why the president's supporters in this largely Hispanic community are excited about some of the hardline immigration changes. A different kind of economic.

goal to tell you about on this budget day, China has put Canada back on its list of places approved for group travel. It's been years since Beijing considered Canada a green light destination. And the change comes just days after both countries' leaders met face-to-face in South Korea. Lisa Singh has more. We are so excited to hear this news. Amy Kwong has been a booking consultant with Aurora Dream Tours in Yellowknife for about a decade. She says the news that Chinese tour groups are allowed to travel to Canada again will make a big difference. Chinese tour groups accounted for 60% of their business.

Basically, after Meng Wanzhou, the hallway CFO got arrested in Canada, like since then, and there was a huge, huge drop. Relations between China and Canada have been frosty since 2018, after tech giant Huawei's chief financial officer Meng Weng was arrested in Vancouver on a U.S. extradition warrant. Days after, China detained Canadians Michael Kovrick and Michael Spavore on spying and other charges. Then when China loosened group travel restrictions imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2023, Canada was left off the approved travel list. Before those restrictions, Canada saw more than 700,000 visitors from China in 2019. This year, visits are down.

to less than 60% of pre-pandemic levels, according to the Tourism Industry Association of Canada. But now, signs of a thaw. China's Foreign Ministry announcing on Monday the government is allowing group tour operators to travel to Canada again, saying it will further people-to-people exchanges between the two countries. Foreign Affairs Minister, Anita Anno. There has been work over the last number of months and weeks to recalibrate the relationship. And that work is ongoing. Anand recently traveled to China

and in another effort to repair the relationship, Prime Minister Mark Carney met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea last week. We agreed this meeting marked a turning point in our bilateral relationship. I was actually expecting to see some kind of warming signs

and I know the lower hanging fruit, one of those is tourism. Zhao Wang, senior fellow at the China Institute at the University of Alberta, says, As U.S. President Donald Trump continues to wage his global trade war, Ottawa has little choice but to try and re-establish ties with Beijing. It's a significant country. It has a large economy, but increasingly it's also helping to shape the international system.

So we have to engage. Which means there could continue to be signs of warmer relations between the two countries. Lisa Xing, CBC News, Toronto. Yukon has a new government. and a new premier. Tonight, Yukonters chose to move on from the status quo. Yukoners chose a strong majority Yukon Party government. Curry Dixon will be Yukon's 12th Premier

and the first person born in the territory to win the job. Dixon's Yukon Party captured last night's election, ending nearly a decade of liberal rule. The NDP won six seats to become the official opposition. The Liberals dropped to third with just one seat, they lose party status. He was controversial, influential, and arguably the most powerful vice president in modern U.S. history. Dick Cheney died yesterday from complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease.

He was 84 years old. Paul Hunter looks at how his legacy reverberates far beyond the United States. So help me God. Congratulations. By the time he was sworn in as U.S. vice president to George W. Bush in 2001, Dick Cheney had already been a long-standing force in Washington. I picked him because he's strong, he's steady, and he gets the job done. A White House staffer under Richard Nixon, Chief of Staff to Gerald Ford,

10 years a lawmaker on Capitol Hill, and Secretary of Defense to George H.W. Bush, it was as vice president that Cheney became as divisive as he was consequential. The enemy has shown a capacity to inflict a great damage on the United States. And we have to assume there will be more attacks. After 9-11, Cheney cemented the widely held view it was his hand that guided the Bush presidency. The Chinese legacy is fundamentally complicated. Garrett Martin, professor at American University School of International Service, says Cheney will be forever seen as promoting the most controversial U.S. policies of those years,

including pushing the false notion, Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Enhanced interrogations or torture, essentially, the Patriot Act or surveillance, also domestic spying on Americans, and of course his most hawkish line on the war in Iraq and being largely unapologetic about it. What we did in Iraq was exactly the right thing to do. If I had it to recommend all over again, I would recommend exactly the right same course of action. Harshly criticized for all of that. In 2006, Cheney accidentally shot a friend while Quail Hunt. hunting, though another Cheney friend described it as a peppering. Late-night comedians had a field day.

Peppering is what you do to a seizure salad. He shot that dude. George W. Bush today called Cheney a decent, honorable man. His death, a loss to the nation. USA! But the current president is a big-time Cheney critic. As a Republican lawmaker, Cheney's daughter Liz, supported Donald Trump's impeachment. Here's Trump in 2022.

The Cheney's are die-hard, globalists and warmongers who have been plunging us into new conflicts for decades. Just last year, Dick Cheney took on Trump directly with a campaign ad for daughter Liz. There has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump. Cheney, a lifelong Republican, said he'd vote for Democrat Kamala Harris. Today, Trump's White House lowered the flag to half-mast for Cheney, underlining U.S. law requires it to do so. Paul Hunter, CBC News, Washington. It has been a year since American voters chose Donald Trump to be their president. And even though it's his second time around, in some places, 2024 was the first time voters took a chance on Trump.

One example? A border community in Texas facing tough economic times. And that's where Katie Simpson traveled to ask people how they're feeling about that decision. Border Patrol agents zoom along the Rio Grande River in an airboat. It's a quiet run, which is now typical, according to Jamie Escobar. He's the mayor of the small city of Roma, a border community with deep Hispanic roots located in Star County, Texas. Since Donald Trump has become president, we haven't seen the same type of situations. We don't see illegal crossings. They could be happening.

They just don't happen here like we used to see them. The number of people apprehended along the southern U.S. border is at a 55-year low, according to Customs and Border Patrol. Escobar credits President Donald Trump's hardline immigration agenda, and it's part of the reason why he voted for Trump. We're families of immigrants, and we're proud to say that, but we also believe that we have to have law in order. Trump became the first Republican presidential nominee

to Winstar County in 132 years. One year later, we found Trump voters remained supportive of the president, though there is a lingering frustration about the high cost of living, while backers of Democratic nominee Kamala Harris have not warmed at all to Trump. Can I say to my word,

own words? He's a piece of shit. Tell me why you feel like that? Because poor people are suffering. Old people like me, I'm 80 years. years old, our suffering. Ludovina Garcia voted for Harris. We met her at a family barbecue competition along the banks of the Rio Grande River.

Hope you like it. Star County is one of the poorest places in the U.S. The average median household income is around $38,000 a year. One year later, you know, what do you think about your vote? I'm satisfied. Did you make those rips? Yes, ma'am. The cookout is also where we met Beto Garza, who remains a proud Trump voter with concerns about the

cost of living. Something about the economy? They could do something better. Since Trump returned to office, some prices including gas have come down or stabilized, while others, for example, groceries are still unpredictable. Oh my God. The prices on things

go up and down, up and down every minute of the day. Becky Garza runs a small restaurant called the Texas Cafe. While she does not want to talk politics, she says life as a small business owner remains tough and that grocery prices are still too high. Right now we're looking at cutting hours again.

It's really been slow. The economy itself is just not helping us any at all. We found it difficult to get people to talk about President Trump. He remains a polarizing figure in Star County. A sign the tensions of the 2024 election remain raw. Katie Simpson, CBC News, Roma, Texas. The typhoon Cal McGee has slammed into the Central Philippines. The powerful storm lashed the region with high winds and dumped a month's worth of rain in just 24 hours.

Entire towns are flooded. More than 40 people are dead. Hundreds of thousands more are displaced. Kalmagee is expected to reach Vietnam in the coming days. 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. Toronto's new WNBA franchise has chosen its first head coach, Sandy

Brondello. She's a former all-star player herself. In 2024, she led the New York Liberty to win the championship, and she's represented Australia at the Olympics as both a player and a coach. Today, the Welcome to Brandello to Toronto. This is the place I wanted to be and to build a team from the ground up that really excited me. It really truly is a great honor for me. Just like the Raptors in the NBA,

the Toronto Tempo is Canada's only women's NBA team. Tip off for their inaugural season is next May. It looks like a human, sings like one, and has garnered enough radio play to make a billboard chart, a first for one. what Billboard is calling an AI artist.

Magda Gabra Salase explains what's behind the music and the ethical questions being raised. Well, if you didn't know, this is Zanaya Monet. Hi, you guys. It's AI generated, has a record deal reportedly worth up to $3 million and has made headlines for popping up on social media, streaming services, and music charts. Now Monet is the first of its kind to land. on a billboard radio chart for this song, How Was I Supposed to Know?

It sounds like a great southern R&B artist. But radio personality, Tristan Douglas or Tris on Flo 98.7 in Toronto, says no way is Monet going to get any play from him at his station. There's a ton of real artists here in the city, let alone across the world, that are just waiting to be discovered and heard. So, you know, let's put our time and effort into that. Monet has real musicians fired up, too. Joey Lenovo de Francesco is with United Musicians

and Allied Workers, an advocacy group in the U.S. Artists were already so mad that they're already seeing next to nothing from their work online and their work in digital music spaces. and they're saying this is another slap in the face. He says currently there's hardly anything when it comes to AI protections for musicians. My organization is, in fact, pushing a piece of legislation

in the U.S. called the Living Wage for Musicians Act that would create a new type of streaming royalty payments and it would specifically only go to human creators. But reportedly, there's a human behind Monet. According to Billboard, a poet named Talisha Nikki Jones created the AI using software and her own lyrics. So she turned her poetry to song. But Jones hasn't done any interviews.

Romel Murphy in Chicago, who says he's Monet's manager, spoke to CNN. He says it's not their goal to have AI replace artists. Music is the great connector, and we were able to use that to reach the world. But it's clear not everyone is willing to tune in to what this AI is putting out. Magda Gepra Salasas, CBC News, Toronto. And finally, Come on, I know what you need.

Come, come now, follow my lead. Mm-hmm. When your glycogen is all through, because you need your proteins too. It might sound like open mic night, but this is what a university lecture is like if you take a class with Derek McLaughlin. McLaughlin is a biochemistry professor

at Ontario's Western University. He turned to Ed Sheeran's Shape of View into a lesson about ketone bodies. McLaughlin says he was inspired years ago by a colleague who wrote a song about DNA set to the Flintstone's theme song. He performed it himself for a number of years before he realized the music was too out of date,

so he decided to write a few himself, set to more recent tunes, including a Taylor Swift parody about the Molecule ATP, McLaughlin says the music keeps students engaged while they're learning complex concepts. Most students expect class to be pretty dry and boring. And anytime you can even throw a few jokes in there or even do something a little more up there than like this, it's sort of, you know, students appreciate the effort, I guess. They seem to.

Students gave them a round of applause at the end and one posted a video of the musical lecture to TikTok. It racked up millions of views in a few days. You don't really expect it to attract as much attention as this video has. And so that was something of a surprise. You'd like to see that people are enjoying something you've done. No word on whether Shearin or Swift have heard his work. Oh, and maybe whether they might want to do a duet with him the next time they're in town. Thank you for joining us.

This has been your world tonight for Tuesday, November 4th, from Ottawa. I'm Susan Bonner. Talk to you again.