Your World Tonight - Canadian hockey heroics, Trump loses tariff ruling, Alberta’s looming referendum, and more

Episode Date: February 20, 2026

The U.S. Supreme Court delivers the President a major blow, ruling he overstepped his authority by using emergency presidential powers to impose sweeping tariffs last year. Today, he replied angrily at the court decision taking swipes at Justices, the plaintiffs in the case, and Canada, while announcing a new 10 per cent global tariff using a different piece of legislation.Also: Alberta Premier Danielle Smith lays out plans for a referendum on a series of questions. One is mainly focused on immigration. Smith claims Ottawa’s immigration policies are jeopardizing her province’s finances.And: Canada’s hockey men deliver an Olympic semi-final thriller, setting up a potential gold-medal classic with our American rivals.Plus: What today’s SCOTUS ruling means for Canada, India’s AI Summit, from catching footballs to pushing bobsleds, and more.

For years, I've sounded like a broken record. I do not want kids. I do not ever want to have kids. I don't want to have a kid. Don't want to have a kid. Don't want to have a kid. I'm in my 40s now. The door is almost closed. And suddenly, I'm not so sure. The story has always been, no. I'm just wondering to what degree it's just a story.

From CBC's personally, this is Creation Myth. Available now on CBC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast. Supreme Court's ruling on tariffs is deeply disappointing, and I'm ashamed of certain members of the court for not having the courage to do what's right for our country. A Supreme Court ruling and rare rebuke of Donald Trump's agenda. After the high court strikes down global tariffs,

the U.S. president is already promising to hit trading partners with new ones. Diversifying our trading relationships, Build big in Canada, all of those things become even more important as we head into this further uncertainty. Canadian officials try to make sense of the new reality, with some tariffs struck down, the ones hitting steel, aluminum, and auto sectors remain in place, all with a free trade review on the horizon and Canadian businesses on edge. Welcome to Your World Tonight. I'm Martina Fitzgerald.

It's Friday, February 20th, coming up to 6 p.m. Eastern. also on the podcast. A day after hockey heartbreak for the Canadian women at the Winter Games, the men's team nearly gives the country a heart attack in an Olympic nail-biter. A lot of stressful mornings for everyone back home. We're putting our country through it. In a semi-final showdown, Canada goes down to the dying seconds to keep the hope of hockey gold alive.

But first, the back and fourth contest playing out in Washington, we have full coverage of the Supreme Court decision on Donald Trump's tariffs. what the U.S. President is planning next and what it means for Canada, beginning with the CBC's Katie Nicholson. The Supreme Court's ruling on tariffs is deeply disappointing. U.S. President Donald Trump bitter about the decision and the six judges behind it. And I'm ashamed of certain members of the court, absolutely ashamed for not having the courage to do what's right for our country.

The court decided Trump overstepped his authority when he imposed tariffs last year under a 1977 law for emergency economic powers. And it reinforced that Congress controls taxation, not the White House, essentially wiping those levies off the table. Foreign countries that have been ripping us off for years are ecstatic. They're so happy. And they're dancing in the streets, but they won't be dancing for long. That's because Trump has another barrage of tariffs with different legal mechanisms

at the ready. Today I will sign in order to impose a 10% global tariff under Section 122. Over and above are normal tariffs already being charged. Section 122 allows the president to impose tariffs for 150 days, but ultimately would need the approval of Congress to continue, a tricky ask ahead of the midterms. The administration is also, he said, initiating several investigations into other countries and companies to authorize tariffs in the case of,

reasonable or discriminatory foreign trade practices. In the 6-3 ruling, three conservative justices, including two Trump appointees, sided with the three liberal justices, to render today's decision. A rare move of late, says Shira Shindlin, a former U.S. District Court judge. We're seeing a real bipartisanship in this particular decision, which is encouraging. It means that the Supreme Court maybe is finally standing up and being an independent. independent and third co-equal branch of government. The decision didn't address wants to be done about the estimated $175 billion that's already been collected in these emergency tariffs.

Now we send it back to the lower courts where I sat, the trial court, which has a lot of work to do ahead of it. It has to determine what to do next because there are hundreds of billions that may have to be refunded. The lead plaintiffs are a pair of educational coverage. headed up by CEO Rick Waldenberg, among the many who will be seeking repayment. I expect the government to give me my money back with interest. Trump was frustrated the court gave no guidance on what to do with the money.

We'll end up being in court for the next five years. The U.S. president resigned to years of litigation on the spoils of his levies, but clearly not giving up on tariffs themselves. Katie Nicholson, CBC News, Washington. Between the U.S. Supreme Court's 170-page ruling and Donald Trump's new 10% global tariff threat, Canadian officials are now scrambling to sort out just what it all means for this country.

Tom Perry has more on that from Ottawa. Car plants coming in from Canada who ripped us off for 30% of our market. Canada once again caught in the blast radius of an angry outburst by Donald Trump. Officials here trying to measure the fallout. ultimately what the American government does, but we remain very serene and very focused on the work we need to do. Dominic LeBlanc, the federal minister responsible for Canada-U.S. trade, says the U.S. Supreme Court,

striking down Trump's tariffs brought in under emergency presidential powers, is, at best, only a partial victory for Canada. What's hurting the Canadian economy are the sectoral tariffs under a different American law. So think of automobile, steel, aluminum. softwood lumber. Those remain in place. The question now is whether those sectoral tariffs will go up, with Trump pledging a new 10% global surcharge on goods entering the U.S. Brian Clow, who worked on Canada-U.S. trade as deputy chief of staff to former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says right now, that's unclear. It could be that those tariffs just went up 10%, but we'll have to see the details. And as we've seen so many times before, this administration often makes an

announcement and then the details just don't match what was said. There are other questions as well, like whether Trump's global levy will apply to the vast bulk of Canadian exports, which are right now exempt from tariffs under the Canada-U-S.-Mexico free trade agreement. What's not up for debate, Klaus says, is Trump's fixation on pursuing his tariff agenda? He's a very proud guy. He doesn't like to lose. And so with the loss he suffered at Supreme Court today, I do expect he'll be harsher in

other areas. Flavio Volpe, head of Canada's automotive parts manufacturers association, says he too is waiting for clarity, though he acknowledges with this particular U.S. President, that can be a tall order. We know that Donald Trump, under pressure, doesn't act more rationally. So we should all be wary of what he does over the next few days. This Supreme Court ruling comes as Canada, the U.S., and Mexico gets set to review their continental free trade agreement. Even before Trump's experience, explosive rant today, he was reportedly considering walking away from the deal or negotiating separate agreements with his North American neighbors. Dominic LeBlanc says Canada remains ready to talk and is prepared to deal with whatever the U.S. decides to do.

Tom Perry, CBC News, Ottawa. Canada's business community was hoping today's ruling would bring clarity. Instead, there's more confusion. Philip Le Schenock has that part of the story. It's taxing on a tax. Jeff Grove owns Railway City hobbies in St. Thomas, Ontario. He caters to model train enthusiasts. Most of his product comes from China, and many of his customers are in the U.S.,

so he gets hit with a tariff coming and going. When I made the shipping label, it would deduct the custom charges immediately. Other ones would actually tack on 10, 15, 20 percent on to my invoice to compensate for the charges that they incurred. tariffs have already derailed his business and he doesn't expect relief from today's ruling. Wait for the dust to settle and there's so much uncertainty, what's the tariff going to be? U.S. President Donald Trump said he would use other statutes to reimpose tariffs the court struck down, including a global 10% tariff effective immediately.

It's a little more complicated. The process takes a little more time, but the end result is going to get us more money. At the end of the day, we were hoping to have some good news. to cheer about. Avery Shenfield is chief economist at CBC. He says it's not clear if this new tariff applies to goods exempt under Kuzma. We were nervous about trade relations with the U.S. before today and we're still nervous about trade relations with the U.S. because the president is emphasizing that he is other tools to impose tariffs and it's not clear that Canada is going to escape those tariffs. Schenfield says Canadian businesses could be in worse shape than before the ruling. Rambaud Bayboudi is an international trade lawyer with Borden Ladner-Jurvey.

The president has at his disposal a great many other instruments to impose tariffs. Some of them are time-limited. Some of them require investigations. And while the president appears to be proceeding with those new instruments quite aggressively, Bebooty says the top court in the country has shown its willing and able to rein him in. And that could help Canada at Kusma talks this year. It's a lot easier to negotiate when from moment to moment you don't expect the other side to say, I'm going to shut down your economy because I can.

But Canadian businesses like Groves' Railway City hobbies are stalled. Going forward, I don't have a lot of plans on what product I'm bringing in and there's so much uncertainty. For them, that certainty, security and predictability when trading with the United States is no closer after today's ruling. Volta-Shanock, CBC News, Toronto. Coming right up, Alberta's Premier wants people in the province to have their say. Danielle Smith is proposing a referendum this fall on questions, including immigration. Also, global leaders and tech CEOs gather in India for the world's largest conference on AI. And, at the Winter Olympics, a Canadian comeback for the ages in men's hockey,

as this country's bobsled team tries to compete against the world's best. I'm Colin Butler in London, Ontario. Canada's bobsled team can't outspend the world's best, so it's trying to outpower them. Bob slay is high-performance sport, right? There's no room for mistakes, no room for error, just like football. With former Canadian football players switching sports and leading the push, they're trying to close a technology gap on the ice, racing on older German sleds. Can Canadian muscle make up the difference at the Olympics? That story coming up later on your world tonight.

Albertus Premier wants to change how her province supports. some immigrants. Daniel Smith says she wants to stop paying for health and education for non-permanent residents. The province is facing a deficit in its coming budget, and the Premier says the move would save money. As Erin Collins reports, that's just one proposal that the government will put to voters in a referendum this fall. At the end of the day, Alberta and our taxpayers shouldn't be expected to foot the bill for federal experiments in open borders. Daniel Smith doubling down. Alberta's Premier pitching her plan to curb supports offered to some newcomers, arguing that non-permanent residents are a drain on provincial coffers, Smith, looking to stop paying for their health care and education.

This is what we're talking about is making sure the services are prioritized to the people who've registered a permanent stake in our country and our province. That's Canadian citizens and permanent residents. And temporary individuals should be treated as that, temporary and tourists. The Premier says she wants to put her plan to the people in a referendum in October, and she says that vote could also include a question on Alberta's sovereignty. If they get the requisite number of signatures, our intention would be to put those on the ballot at the same time. The official opposition not waiting to share their opinion. What a load of absolute bullshit.

Rocky Pancholi is the deputy leader of the Alberta NDP, Pancholi pushing the government to call an election. Daniel Smith and the UCP did not keep. campaign on nine new referendum questions. They don't have a mandate from Albertans for this. Not on separatism, not on pulling out of the CPP, not on breaching the charter rights of thousands of Albertans, not on coal mining in the eastern slopes, and not on two-tier health care. All of this comes as the government prepares to release its budget next week. One political scientist Lori Williams says will likely be written in red ink. I have to assume the deficit is going to be very large because this looks like an attempt to deflect responsibility for the deficit in Alberta.

William says the biggest cause of Alberta's battered bottom line remains low oil prices, not high immigration levels. A revenue problem that energy analyst Rory Johnston doesn't think will change much in the coming year. The balance of risk to the oil price from where we are right now above $70 a barrel is still to the downside. My bet is probably somewhere mid to low 60s for the year on average. That reality means that no matter how Albertan's vote in October's referendum, rocky financial waters are likely to remain a part of the province's future. Erin Collins, CBC News, Calgary. Afternoon, your royal highness, how do you feel about your brother's arrest?

No reply from Britain's Princess Anne as she dodges reporters. Her brother, the former Prince Andrew is accused of giving away state information to Jeffrey Epstein. Police are searching Andrew's previous home near Windsor Castle. They're also reaching out to his former security guards. Police want any information related to their investigation or, regarding allegations, Andrew sexually abused women trafficked to the UK by Epstein. Andrew has denied any wrongdoing. India is trying to brand itself as the real deal when it comes to artificial intelligence,

With the technology booming, Indian officials are hosting the world's largest AI summit, welcoming world leaders and the biggest names in tech. Salima Shivji has more on India's ambition and its challenges. At the long-awaited global AI summit in India's capital Delhi, exhibitors show off their latest gadgets. Stopped vehicle detected by radar. This week's AI summit is the first to take place in a developing country. and India is trying to position itself as a central player for the technology's growth. Prime Minister Narendra Modi taking the stage. India is not scared, he says. We see fortune and a future in AI.

His IT minister, Ashwini Vashnav, spelled out what that could mean in cold, hard business terms. In the coming two years, we should be seeing more than $200 billion worth investment across the five layers of AI stack. Previous editions of the Global Summit were centered on risk. Fears over privacy eroding or the spread of deepfakes if governments don't coordinate their AI action plans. But this year's summit was hyper-focused on opportunity. Welcome to His Excellency, Emmanuel Macron. Some 15 heads of state and big tech leaders showed up. Their VIP convoys shut down the streets of Delhi snarling traffic. Those attending the summit had to walk for hours with little direction. What is going on?

The entire road is closed. So water, then power, of course. But for Arpita Kanjilal, a researcher with the Delhi-based non-profit Digital Empowerment Foundation, the summit was lacking in other ways. There was little mention of the potential environmental impact of the boom in India's AI data centers. Google, Microsoft and Amazon are all pouring billions of dollars into building new or expanding their existing data centers in India.

which house physical equipment holding massive amounts of data. The problem is they need lots of water and energy to keep the servers cool. Kanjilal has been speaking to people in communities beside proposed data centers, and they have questions. First, whose land is being taken, by whom, at what price. Second, of course, is we need a lot of water for data cooling. It's a risk in a water scarce country with little free land, and electricity demands for its own.

citizens that aren't always met. India also has no national regulations to force AI companies to be transparent about how much water or energy they need and how they'll get it, even as the country barrels forward jostling for a prime spot in the future of AI development. Salima Shivji, CBC News, Delhi. As the Winter Olympics wind down, there are big races this weekend on the bobsled track. One of the favorites is Germany. The country's program has a budget others can only dream of, investing in top-of-the-line sleds and technology. Without the money or the equipment, Canada bets on muscle. And for its men's team, that means recruiting football players.

Colin Butler reports. Canada's bobsled team is working on a previous generation German sled. Not tuning a new one, setting up an eight-year-old team Germany hand-me-down the best equipment Canada can afford. On this team, people, not machines, are their edge. Bob Slay's high-performance sport, right? There's no room for mistakes, no room for error, just like football. Eight months ago, Lucas Stoikos was chasing a CFL contract. Now, he's pushing a bobsled for Team Canada in the Olympics. If the switch sounds jarring, the ride itself is even more so. It was diabolical. Like the feelings and feeling the forces of

gravity on your body and just the experience of that, it's like being in a bathtub, put in the dryer and just going on a spin cycle down a ski hill. It's wild experience. Five of eight athletes on the Canadian men's team this year come from football, and that's by design. I trained for bobsled my whole life. I just didn't know. The strategy was shaped by former CFLer and champion bobsleder Jesse Lumsden. With no Little League, bobsledges where it can. We don't have junior bobsledding, so we look for athletes that have the physical attributes, the team characteristics that you look forward to make great teams. and then when we bring them into our program, we turn them into bobsleders.

That approach extends to the women's team, where Olympic track cycling champion Kelsey Mitchell is now competing in bobsled. As strategies go, it's a good one, says Daniel Kear. He studies how athletes turn strength into speed and power at Western University. He says football players are built for this kind of power. So they will have a large composition of what we call fast-twitch muscle fibers. So these are big, thick muscle fibers that contract very, very, quickly and with a lot of force. And they're very good for allowing people to cover a distance

in a short amount of time while opposing a load. But even the brawnyest athletes can only do so much. Germany pairs power with cutting-edge sleds while Canada with far less funding is still fixing Germany's old ones. That's the gap. And people are how Canada hopes to close it. Colin Butler, CBC News, London, Ontario. Finally, it was another dramatic day of hockey that had Canadians on the edge of their seats until they were jumping out of them. The men's team up against Finland in the semifinal at the Winter Olympics, heavily favored but burdened by the weight of a hockey nation on their shoulders. Canada was down two to nothing for much of the game and desperately trying to claw their way back. The first Canadian goal came late in the second period, then another in the third,

a tie game now with people across the country watching live from their couches and their classrooms. That's why I'm once again directing that the Ontario schools make all reasonable efforts to help students watch the game while in school. With the game beginning before lunchtime, Ontario Premier Doug Ford added Olympic hockey to the curriculum. He gave the same directive yesterday for the women's gold medal game. That one ended with an overtime loss for Canada. And today, just when it looked like the men could also be heading into overtime? The game winning goal with just 35 seconds left to play gives Canada a 3 to 2 win

and a ticket to the gold medal game. Afterward, Connor McDavid said he understands the national anxiety. We're putting our country through it. A lot of stressful mornings for everyone back home, but it's best on best tournament. I keep on saying that we're playing the best teams in the world, the best players in the world, and they're going at it, and the margins are razor, razor thin,

and you've seen that all the way through. McDavid is the temporary team captain in place of the injured Sidney Crosby, who may be available to play for the gold medal. Canada's opponent, same as the women. They're up against the United States on Sunday. It's another morning game, but at least it's not a school day.

Thanks for being with us. This has been your world tonight for Friday, February 20th. I'm Martina Fitzgerald. Good night. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca slash podcasts.