Your World Tonight - Counter tariffs off, famine in Gaza City, CRA phone wait times, and more

Episode Date: August 22, 2025

Canada is taking the tariffs off goods from the United States that are covered by the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement. The prime minister says the move will push forward trade talks with the U.S.; the opposition leader calls it capitulation.And: The world’s leading authority on food insecurity says there is famine in Gaza City. The UN backed IPC estimates a half a million Palestinians face starvation, destitution and death. Israel says — the numbers are wrong and there is no famine.Also: “All of our agents are busy helping other callers.” It’s a phrase people trying to get help from the Canada Revenue Agency are hearing more and more.Plus: There are ten million salmon in the Fraser River this year — three times initial estimates, the FBI raids the home and office of former Trump adviser John Bolton, and more.

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This is a CBC podcast. The president and I had a long conversation yesterday. Yeah, we had a very good call. We see the opportunity to build on where a relationship already is. He's removing his retaliatory tariffs, which I thought was nice. And we're going to have another call soon. Yesterday they spoke on the phone today in public with an olive branch from Mark Carney to Donald Trump, the prime minister says Canada has the best trade deal

with the U.S. right now, and a better one could be on the way if they can restart negotiations. So starting September 1st, Canada is dropping most counter tariffs on U.S. goods. Welcome to your world tonight. I'm Marcia Young. It is Friday, August 22nd, coming up on 6 p.m. Eastern, also on the podcast. The Gaza famine is the world's famine. It is a famine that asks, But what did you do? A famine that will and must haunt us all. The UN says there is no more debate.

A famine exists in Gaza City and the surrounding areas. And it is expected to spread. Food that could help is being stopped at the border by Israel. Israel calls the report an outright lie and says food has been getting through, but is being stolen by militants and criminals. Caught in the middle of the war and the war of words are Palestinians. with little or no access to food or water. There is mixed reaction to the Prime Minister's announcement.

Canada will remove tariffs on goods from the United States that are covered by their current trade agreement. 25% tariffs will remain on steel, aluminum, and auto products. Mark Carney says this will move negotiations forward on a new trade deal. But not everyone agrees. Catherine Tunney reports from Ottawa. And there is a time in a game, in a big game, and this is a big game. When you go hard in the corners, he elbows up. Prime Minister Mark Carney leaned on hockey metaphors today to justify a shift

and how he'll be dealing with the U.S. going forward. There's also a time in a game where you want the puck, you want a stick handle, you want to pass, you want to put the puck in the net. And we're at that time in the game. Come September 1st, Canada will lift retaliatory tariffs on a long list of U.S. product. meaning many U.S. goods will no longer face a 25% tariff when imported into Canada, as long as they're in compliance with the Canada-United States-Mexico agreement, or Kuzma. Sectorial tariffs, like those on U.S. auto, steel, and aluminum, will remain in place.

The removal of most tariffs is a goodwill move, Karni suggested, clearing the way for amicable talks with U.S. President Donald Trump, ahead of Kuzma renegotiations next year. We are working on something. The move appeared to sit well with Trump, the trade war instigator. We want to be very good to Canada. I like Kearney a lot. I think he's a good person. And we had a very good talk yesterday.

Industry reaction in Canada was more mixed as they wait for Trump's next play, suggesting hockey analogies alone aren't enough to bring comfort to businesses struggling under U.S. tariffs. We're still under the gun. Dennis Darby heads the Canadian manufacturers and exporters. Let's hope that this is a precursor to getting out from under those. Conservative leader, Pierre Palliev, says the PM, who campaigned on being a good negotiator, is coming up short.

It has been yet another capitulation and climb down by Mark Carney. His elbows have mysteriously gone missing. When asked how he'd handled Trump's tariffs, he offered this plan. I would have gone to the president respectfully and said, you remove your tariffs, we remove ours. Alberta Premier Daniel Smith says she supports Carney's decision, while Ontario Premier Duckford, a vocal fan of retaliatory tariffs, says Canada needs to hit back if it's a deal.

is instruct soon. And I think what Prime Minister Carney today has done was ensure that Kuzma advantage is held sacrosan. Laura Dawson is executive director of the Future Borders Coalition and a longtime follower of the Canada U.S. file. She says it's all about the big picture, applauding Friday's pivot as necessary to make sure Canada is in a good position to renegotiate Kuzma. Otherwise, Canada loses investment.

It becomes a lot less of an important place to trade and to do business. Carney signals his team is already preparing for that monumental renegotiation where the stakes are even higher. Catherine Tunney, CBC News, Ottawa. It is a word that is rarely used and carries a heavy weight. Today, the world's leading authority on food and security reports that there is famine in Gaza City. The UN-backed IPC estimates half a million Palestinians face starvation, destitution, and death. It says that number is expected to grow. CBC's senior international correspondent, Margaret Evans,

is in Jerusalem with more on the report and Israel's response. There is no famine in Gaza, according to Israel. Even his mothers, like Mudalawas, sit watching their children slipping from their grasp, like her daughter, Mariam in a Gaza city hospital, the nine-year-old looking too frail or brittle to touch. I'm very sick, she says. I was in grade one.

I used to go to school. The UN says the IPC's extremely rare confirmation of famine just for others this century is irrefutable. Watched over by drones and the most advanced military technology in history. Tom Fletcher is the UN's Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency. relief. It is a famine openly promoted by some Israeli leaders as a weapon of war. It is a famine on all of our watch. Israel has dismissed the IPC report as a smear, a mass propaganda. Prime Minister

Benjamin Netanyahu's office issued a statement saying, Israel does not have a policy of starvation and that the report ignores Israel's humanitarian efforts. Israel reimposed an aid blockade on Gaza in March. It started allowing some aid in again, but not enough, according to NGOs. Famine isn't just a headline, it's a daily reality. We are seeing our nutrition clinics packed with young children showing severe symptoms of malnutrition. Dan Stewart is. with Save the Children on the ground in Gaza,

not Gaza City, but Daryl Bala to the south, identified by the IPC as one of the next likely areas to face famine, according to current predictions. You would expect in a packed health clinic there to be children crying, you would expect it to be noisy, but it's almost silent because so many of the children coming in are too weak even to cry. Back in the Gaza City,

hospital, young patients being treated for malnutrition fear more than hunger. They're also afraid of the war. There is no safety in the Gaza Strip, says Ahmed Ali, a painfully thin 17-year-old. We're scared of death, he says, of malnutrition, of bombings. He has an existing medical condition made worse by malnutrition. I'm in a lot of pain for my son, says his mother, Fayyaz al-Batniji. I'm scared to lose him because he's very sick. The IPC report comes as Israel prepares for a full-scale ground invasion of Gaza City, expected to begin in earnest in September. The Israeli military says the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians still in Gaza City will be told to move south. Margaret Evans, CBC News, Jerusalem.

Coming right up, the salmon have been returning to the Fraser River, and no one is sure why. Also, calling Canada revenue can be a taxing experience, especially when you try to reach a real person, a situation the union for the CRA employees says is only going to get worse. And CBC News visited the bed of a Canadian severely injured by a Russian attack while fighting alongside Ukrainians. People were out in boats on a stretch of BC's Fraser River

to do something that has not been allowed for years, fish for sockeye salmon. Recreational fishing is back until September 1st. An unexpected bounty of sockeye is making it possible. Fish are back in numbers not seen since 1997. Lindsay Duncom reports. Don McDonald pulls a squirming sock eye from his net and tosses it into a nearby bin.

They'll look really nice this year. McDonald runs a test fishery for the Pacific Salmon Commission. His job is to catch and count salmon on the Fraser River. Between catches like his and sonar technology, it's estimated there will be 10 million sock eye on the river this year, three times greater than the official estimates. Well, it's excellent, yeah. There's still hope for the future kind of thing. No one is exactly sure why it's happening. It could be because of favorable ocean conditions,

cleared passages after a landslide a few years ago, or the closure of commercial fish farms. And I believe this is a very, very significant contributor to the abundance of wild salmon this year. Bob Chamberlain is the chair of the First Nation Wild Salmon Alliance. Well, I've been hearing from First Nation leadership from across the province. and how absolutely happy they are to be able to access food fish for their communities. He's asked people to email pictures of themselves with their harvest to the Federal Fisheries Minister to encourage the government to consider investing in salmon fishing as a national building project in light of the trade war with the U.S.

But that's not the only message the federal government is getting. Because the public says, look at all those fish went up the river. And we say, we should have been harvested in half of the river. commercial fisherman Mike Forrest was able to harvest Sokai with the quota for the first time in years this week. But he says the Department of Fisheries and Oceans was too slow to open the fishery and needs to adapt seasonal management plans far more quickly. The frustration is excessive. It gets into expletives that you can't speak.

People that are desperate to try to make some kind of sense out of this and they haven't got anybody in DFO they can even talk to. In a statement, the Department of... The Department of Fisheries and Oceans said that fishing opportunities remain limited because not all kinds of sockeye are experiencing the same kind of abundance. And there's another unknown. The Fraser River is between one and three degrees warmer than usual, and that could mean fewer of the sockeye returning will spawn, according to Fiona Martins.

She's the director of fisheries management with the Pacific Salmon Commission. All these fish are experiencing very warm water conditions, So we won't really know what the real return for the 2025 season is, probably until sometime in the winter. But for now, fish aren't the only abundant thing on the river. For the first time, in a long time, there's hope. Lindsay Duncombe, CBC News, near Maple Ridge, British Columbia. Getting through to a real person at the Canadian Revenue Agency is hard.

wait times and no guarantee that the waiting will actually pay off. The union for CRA employees says those wait times are going to get longer thanks to job cuts. Sophia Harris reports on Canadians growing frustration with the CRA. All of our agents are busy helping other callers. Stay on the line to use our automated service. For weeks, every time Krista Tucker Patrick from North Bay, Ontario, calls the Canada Revenue Agency, she's greeted with an automated recording. It's becoming traumatic.

Despite calling multiple times each day, Tucker Patrick has yet to get through to address a tax issue involving her late stepmother's estate. I have a fiduciary duty to three other beneficiaries of this estate. Until I can get this done, I cannot distribute the remainder of the estate. So it's exceptionally frustrating. Tucker Patrick has company. Social media is flooded with complaints from both taxpayers and tax professionals.

We spend so much time just hitting redow trying to even just get into the queue. Regina bookkeeper Erin Rudd says she started having problems reaching the CRA back in May. So staff at her company take turns, spending the entire day calling the agency to address urgent client matters. Rudd says they're rarely successful in getting through.

Some days we wish we had a screaming room in the office because we literally want to scream. The union representing CRA workers is also sounding the alarm. It launched a social media campaign this week, claiming less than 5% of callers reach an agent due to nearly 3,300 CRA call center job cuts since May 24. We're advocating for them to stop the bleeding. Mark Brear is president of the Union of Taxation Employees.

He estimates between 3,500 and 4,000 call center employees. remain and warns more cuts are coming due to Ottawa's plan to significantly reduce public sector spending over the next several years. This is absolutely unsustainable. It's not acceptable. It's not the level of service that our members want to give. In an email to CBC News, the CRA says the agency's workforce can fluctuate due to seasonal hires. But it adds that budget constraints in recent years have impacted staffing levels. However, the agency says serving Canadians is a priority, and they can often get their needs addressed using enhanced CRA digital tools. Try our new AI-powered chatbot.

But several CRA callers, like TechHer Patrick say, they need to speak with a human to address their problem. It's government service. Well, I'm not getting any service. She and others hope that someone in the government is listening. Sophia Harris, CBC News, Toronto. Hall of Fame Jockey Ron Turcott has died. Born in New Brunswick, Turcotte, was at one point the highest grossing athlete in Canada. He cemented his place in history when he rode Secretariat to the Triple Crown in 1973, logging the fastest time ever.

There in the stretch, Secretariat has opened a 22-length lead. He is going to be the Triple Crown winner. Here comes Secretary to the wire. An unbelievable, an amazing performance. He hits the finish, 25 lengths in front. The achievement drew accolades from around the world. Turcotte's riding career spanned 18 years and more than 3,000 wins. It ended in 1978 when he fell from his horse during a race in Belmont Park.

He became a paraplegic. He continued to make appearances at racetracks and was an ambassador for a fund for jockeys with disabilities. He died today at his home in Drummond, New Brunswick. Turcotte was 84. The FBI has rated the home of a former Trump appointee, John Bolton. Bolton once served under Donald Trump. That relationship soured quickly. Since then, he has been more of a thorn in Trump's side, writing a tell-all book

and calling his former boss unfit for office and ill-informed. Cameron McIntosh has the details from Washington. Early this morning, clearly marked by their jackets, FBI agents carried empty boxes, searching for documents, into former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton's Maryland home. They also raided his DC office. Trump doesn't really understand how our nuclear navy works. Bolton is a vocal critic of the president, a fixture on cable news.

You can't understand Trump's behavior. in policy terms. Recently speaking about Trump's summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. I think Putin is beginning to work as magic, and that will change Trump's view. A court now authorizing an FBI search for classified documents. President Trump insisting he knows nothing about it. I saw it on television this morning. I'm not a fan of John Bolton.

He's a real set of a low life. In 2018, Trump introduced Bolton as his third national security advisor. You are going to do a fantastic job. 17 months later, Trump fired him by tweet. Bolton quickly published a tell-all memoir of his time in the Trump White House. Trump accused him then of releasing classified information. I will consider every conversation with me as president highly classified. So that would mean that if he wrote a book and if the book gets out, he's broken the law.

Bolton, who was investigated but never charged, continued his critiques of Trump's interest in foreign policy. I briefed him on strategic nuclear weapons negotiations while we were both watching a FIFA soccer championship match on his TV. As agents swept through Bolton's home, FBI director Cash Patel posted, No One is Above the Law, FBI agents on mission. That was reposted by the Attorney General. The vice president blurring the independence of the investigation with this. We're investigating Ambassador Bolton, but if they ultimately bring a case,

it will be because they determine that he has broken, the law. While insisting, we don't think that we should throw people, even if they disagree with us politically, maybe especially if they disagree with us politically, you shouldn't throw people willy-nilly in prison. The raid comes amid other accusations that Trump administration is targeting critics and political opponents. Democratic representative, Jamie Raskin. Please count me in the camp of the suspicious of what's going on right now, but this is why we all have to stand by the independence of the judiciary. Bad blood between Trump and Bolton runs the deep. His first day back in office, Trump canceled Bolton's security detail despite death threats

from Iran. Today, Trump didn't hold back. He's a, uh, not a smart guy, but he could be a very unpatriatic guy. I mean, we're going to find out. Bolton has not been arrested or charged. Cameron McIntosh, CBC News, Washington. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky met with the head of NATO today to discuss security. The U.S. has tried to start negotiations to reach a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. So far, there is no real progress and no slowing of Russian attacks. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers have been killed and wounded during Russia's invasion of Ukraine, including foreign fighters.

Breyer Stewart has the story of one from Calgary. Inside a rehabilitation facility in Kiev, Mack Hughes braces himself on crutches and tries to take a step. The 23-year-old from Calgary is learning to walk again. He spent the past two months in hospital after being wounded in a drone attack in southeastern Ukraine on Canada Day. Moments still, very fresh in his mind. Big explosion, trapped under a vehicle, burnt legs, and my teammates pulling me out of the fire.

Mack points to the third-degree burns which cover his legs from his knees down. Up to here. His thighs are red and wrong. from where skin was taken for graphs. Mack came to Ukraine in 2022 and volunteered alongside his father, Paul. They set up hugs, a humanitarian group based in Harkiv. Kind of just fell in love with the country and the work and people were helping. It felt really good.

But Mack wanted to do more, and he enlisted with the Ukrainian military. In July, when he was in the Zaporizia region, his vehicle was hit by a Shahed drone. I got a call at about 4.20 in the morning. His father's phone rang in the middle of the night. And somebody's calling me from an unknowing number, you just have that hits you in the gut right away. Paul raced down to see his son in the hospital and has barely left his side since,

encouraging him after the rehab has left him exhausted. He's proud of you, son. He's probably at least cheering you on. And it's not just the physical pain Mac is dealing with. As he lay in his hospital bed in Kiev in July, the sounds of the record breaking drone strikes on that city gave him flashbacks of when he came under attack. It was probably one of the scariest sounds you'll ever hear. It still to this day, it brings through my head sometimes, and it's hard. While he has months of recovery ahead of him,

Mack feels lucky because he will be able to walk on his own again. And his cherished tattoo is still very much intact. It's a red maple leaf alongside the colors of Ukraine, blue and yellow. I thought that my arm, the tattoo was going to be burnt, but they took the bandage off. And I was like, the first thing I said is Ukraine always survived. Mack hopes to one day resume at least some of his military duties in Ukraine. But for now, he's focused on being able to take those first small steps.

Ryers-Stewart, CBC News, Kyiv. There are just a few more days left of the Canada Summer Games in Newfoundland, Labrador. Huge crowds are watching the country's best and brightest young athletes compete. While on the rock, many people are enjoying a 50-year-old tradition, but not all the locals think it's worth screeching about. Peter Cowan has the details. It's 3 o'clock in the afternoon, but Christian's pub is full with people from around the world. Josh from Alberta.

Josh. Lewis from England. They've all come here for one reason. They hopefully be coming right. proper honorary Newfoundlanders. Brian Day owns the bar and performs the screeching as Skipper Lucie, a paddle in his hand and a black Southwester on his head. Well, there's four main ingredients.

Okay, you got a piece of bologna, you got a cotfish, a shot of rum, and learn a say. That's pretty much the core ingredients. Everything else is just dress up. I've been a bartender for 32 years. I'm great at small talk. I know a bunch of useless trivial facts. The tradition started 50 years ago, thought up by a bar that wanted to bring in tourists on a slow night and sell screech, which is really just Jamaican rum.

It's become big business. This bar charges more than $40 a person and screeches in more than 100 people a day. But the ceremony makes some Newfoundlanders cringe. I think it's the bottom of the barrel. Sean McCann was an ambassador for Newfoundland culture in the group Great Big Sea. It frustrates him to see bars play up the same Newfoundland stereotypes that he fought against for years. What makes me sad about it is we are capable of better. We have better.

So why settle for this? We're better than this. He's not alone. Back in the early 1990s, then-Premier Clyde Wells had the government issued screeching certificates torn up. He thought it was too much like a hazing. They find it demeaning, and I think it serves to make our tourist promotion more difficult. Crystal Bray understands the criticism. She's a folklorist who studied the tradition.

There are good screechins and there are bad screechins. I think a good screeching is welcoming, which is. it's supposed to be. Like, it is a right of pass, tongue-in-cheek, right of passers. Back at the pub, Dave Barely from New Brunswick loved the experience. My expectation was a little scarier, but, yeah, it was a really enjoyable drink, for sure. Day is just happy to give the tourists something they'll remember. Their reactions and their claps, and they all want to get their picture taken with me. They'll never forget it.

And as long as they keep coming, he'll have a frozen cod behind the bar, just waiting to be kissed. Peter Cowan, CBC News, St. John. And finally, a good Samaritan who sort of knows how to fold a fitted sheet, Kingston, Australia resident Verity Wendell, put out some laundry on a line to dry. She went out to run some errands, a storm hit, she came home. And then I drove in, and there was no washing on the line, and I went, did I hang it out?

I did hang it out. Am I going mad? A quick search, and the laundry was on a covered bench. folded, but who? How? On her home security footage, she saw a bearded man in a uniform taking her laundry off the line. I just thought, he is just the kindest man. That is a beautiful thing for somebody to do. But he kind of rolled it and then laid it onto the bench there. The way a male would fold bed sheets here, definitely. Wandel wanted to know who this kind mailman was, so she posted the video online and asked for help. After more than a million

views and a little crowdsourced help, he turned out to be Jerpreet Singh. He doesn't know what all the fuss is about. Yeah, first of all, like, it's not that big thing I reckon. First reaction was that I've done something wrong. Singh and Wandel even met up this week. She hugged him and wanted him and other people to know that all acts of kindness count no matter how small. You are famous. You do, thanks. Yeah, thank you. I would say this man deserves a race. People need to know that there are good humans in this world.

Maybe we all need that reminder. Thanks for being with us. This has been your world tonight. For Friday, August 22nd, I'm Marcia Young. Good night and take care. CBC Podcasts, go to cBC.ca slash podcasts.