Your World Tonight - Ford on Reagan ad, Alberta’s teachers to be legislated back, U.S. biometric scans for visitors, and more

Episode Date: October 27, 2025

Ontario’s premier says he’s not sorry for the ad that the U.S. President is blaming for cancelling trade negotiations with Canada. Donald Trump says he won’t be talking to Prime Minister Mark Carney for a while. But Doug Ford says Trump is mad because the ad worked.And: Alberta to table legislation to order teachers back to work.Also: Say cheese! The U.S. says getting your photo taken for biometric scanning will soon be mandatory at ports of entry and exit.Plus: Jamaica prepares as Hurricane Melissa bears down, Denare Beach, Sask. rebuilds, food bank use doubles since 2019, and more.

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Donate at lovescarbro.cairbo. This is a CBC podcast. Those having the discussions about workers and businesses and communities in our respective countries had been making progress. Those ads came. The president had the reactions which you have seen, and we're in the situation we're in. Followed from a Ronald Reagan anti-tariff ad keeps trickling down. The Prime Minister says,

trade officials were close to a deal before the spot aired. Now with talks broken off, U.S. President Donald Trump says it will be a while before they resume. Welcome to Your World Tonight. I'm Susan Bonner. It is Monday, October 27th, just before

6 p.m. Eastern, also on the podcast. Nothing will really change. There's still going to be students are going to be suffering because they're not going to get those supports they need. Teachers are going to be burning out. Probably some teachers will be leaving the profession if nothing changes. Alberta teachers trying to teach the provincial government a lesson worried they will soon be forced back to work.

Legislation aimed at ending a province-wide teacher strike could have students back in class before the end of the week. Doug Ford says he's sorry, not sorry. The Ontario Premier is defending his anti-terifad and says he has support from other Canadian leaders. The TV commercial was blasted by U.S. President Donald Trump. Tanking trade talks, the Prime Minister admits, were on the right track before Trump changed the channel. Kate McKenna reports. Did we get our money worth? Oh, my goodness. Did we get our money's worth?

Ontario Premier Doug Ford says he has no regrets after his province's anti-tariff ad prompted U.S. President Donald Trump to torpedo trade negotiations and threaten higher tariffs on Canadian goods. Do you know why President Trump's so upset right now? because it was effective. It was working. It woke up the whole country. Ford says he has the support of most of his fellow premiers and claims that Prime Minister Mark Carney and his chief of staff saw the ad before it aired. Carney was in Malaysia today, selling Canada as a reliable trading partner at the ASEAN summit.

He told reporters Ottawa and Washington were close to a deal on steel, aluminum, and energy before this blow up. There were a series of very detailed, very specific, very comprehensive discussions, negotiations, up until the point of those ads running. The now-famous ad was pulled from American airwaves effective today. It includes parts of a 1987 speech by former President Ronald Reagan criticizing trade wars. Market shrink and collapse. Businesses and industry shut down, and millions of people lose their jobs. I don't want to meet with them. I'm not going to be meeting with them for a while.

Trump has called the ad a fraud. and says he's done dealing with Carney for now as punishment for running the ad over the weekend, including during the World Series. They've apologized and they said, we're going to take the end down. Well, they did it, but they did it very late. Ford's tough talking Captain Canada persona

helped him secure a provincial election win earlier this year. He's been unafraid to target the president calling him names as recently as this month. He'd to protect the communities against that tyrant south of the border. Sources familiar with the trade talks say American officials have brought up Ford's rhetoric as an irritant in negotiations for months, and Trump's move didn't come out of nowhere. But today Ford was skeptical of any potential deal, saying if one is coming, it's not likely to include relief for an Ontario sector bleeding jobs, auto manufacturing. Well, let's talk about a so-called imminent deal. I've been hearing this for month after month after month. And if there was, there was no mention about auto. Since his election, Carney has prioritized building relationships with both Ford and Trump.

He's said to text the U.S. President regularly and has spent time having fireside chats at Ford's Muscoca Cottage. The trade war is now putting those ties to the test. Kate McKenna, CBC News, Ottawa. Jobs Minister, Patty Heidu, says trade uncertainty means Canada needs to invest in its own workers. She made the comments while announcing a tax credit for personal support workers and more money for unions to boost training. Heidu says the funding will be in the next budget. I think these are challenging times in terms of the global shift in trade.

We cannot control the decisions that another country will make. But what we can control is how we're going to invest in our country and invest in the capacity of our country to diversify our trade, to build major projects, to train skilled workers, and to ensure that people are compensated fairly and stay attached to the workforce. says the tax credit will be backed by $1.5 billion over five years. The budget will be tabled on November 4th. Jobs Minister Patty Heidu says trade uncertainty means Canada needs to invest in its own workers. She made the comments while announcing a tax credit for personal support workers and more

money for unions to boost training. Heidu says the funding will be in the next budget. Alberta is pushing ahead with its goal to end a province-wide teacher's strike. The government today has tabled a back-to-work bill. It forces educators into a new contract and a plan to shield the legislation from a charter challenge. Aaron Collins is following the story from Calgary. Aaron, what is the province's strategy here? Well, as you mentioned, Susan, this has been dragging on for a while. So we know a fair bid. We know the province plans to table legislation to force teachers back to work. So that'll mark the beginning of the end of this strike that's now entering its fourth week. They've also committed to fast-tracking that legislation, so limiting debate so that they can push the back-to-work law through the legislature quickly.

The Premier's been clear. She wants to have kids back in school this week. And so far, as we wait for that bill to be introduced, the teacher's strike has really dominated the afternoon session in the legislature so far. So how did we get here, right? Before striking, teachers had overwhelmingly rejected a tentative deal that included a 12% pay raise over four years, as well as the hiring of thousands of new teachers and teaching assistants. They'd argued that it just wasn't enough and they needed even more new teachers and hard caps on class sizes to address their concerns. And Premier Daniel Smith says she understands those concerns. We know that class sizes are a problem.

That's why today that we have announced that we are going to. be establishing a complexity and class-sized task force with members of trustees, superintendents, also teachers, education assistants, and others who can help us go through and find the classes that are oversized and overly complex so that we can develop targeted solutions in order to be able to address it. So targeted solutions, Susan, but despite that acknowledgement that there's a problem, today's legislation not likely to include any hard caps on class sizes. And what's been the reaction? Look, not surprisingly, teachers in their unions, they're not going to be happy with this.

And they're especially concerned about some rumblings out there that the notwithstanding clause could be included in this legislation. A worry for other unions in the province, too, say that if that notwithstanding clause is included in the back-to-work legislation to essentially force teachers to take this deal and go back to work, it would be bad news for all of the unions in the province. There's even been some talk amongst those unions about a coordinated response from public sector unions across the province if that were to happen. The opposition NDP also speaking out about the potential use of that clause in this way too. It was NDP leader Nehadenchi's first day in the legislature and just before entering, he wasn't shy about his feelings about that back-to-work law. Even if the government was insistent on forcing the teachers back to work, they could have done that without. legislation under the existing Labor Relations Code. They could have done it by enforcing binding arbitration,

but if in fact they choose to go forward with the notwithstanding clause, they've taken the nuclear option on something that they could have avoided. So, Susan, the nuclear option will have to wait and see if that's actually deployed today in the legislature. Thank you, Aaron. You bet. The CBC's Aaron Collins in Calgary. Coming right up, a new report on Canada's skyrocketing food bank use, how the trend could get even worse.

And a powerful storm closes in on Jamaica. Hurricane Melissa is now the most powerful of 2025. Later, we'll have this story. I'm Helena Mahalik in Deneer Beach, Saskatchewan, where people are staring down a difficult recovery after an unprecedented wildfire season. The disaster destroyed more than 200 homes in the northern village. Amid the rebuild are the worries about the fires returning and history repeating itself.

So we're just trying to figure out as a town, how can we incentivize people to come back here? People are obviously scared about another wildfire happening. I'll have that story later on your world tonight. The rumble of hungry stomachs is grubes. growing louder across this country. A new report says more people than ever are using food banks and the rise in demand has doubled from pre-pandemic levels. She and Desardin reports.

It was a very sensitive emotional experience for me because it was entirely new for me. Niti Meta used the food bank for the first time six months ago. Now she's going regularly. She's an independent contractor with post-secondary education struggling to make ends meet. And she's not alone. Every year food banks across this country are setting new records, records we don't want to set.

This year, from coast to coast to coast, food banks recorded close to 2.2 million visits. That's for Marshall Loan, says Food Bank's Canada CEO, Kristen Beardsley, a new record according to the organization's 2025 National Hunger Count Report and twice as many visitors compared to 2019. This isn't a temporary spike in data. This is a signal of a much deeper problem that everyone in can. Canada should be extremely alarmed by. This is a signal that something fundamental has shifted in our country. And Beardley says the government needs to do something about it. One in three households using food banks have children. One in five people have jobs.

She says the cost of living is just too high. Incomes aren't keeping up. And with the federal budget set to be tabled next week. What I'd like to see is an investment not just in big nation building projects that we're seeing, but in the nation building project of reducing food insecurity. and practically looking at E.I. Especially in the face of a shaky economy, says Neil Hetherington, CEO of Toronto's Daily Bread Food Bank.

It is concerning for us here in Toronto to have this uncertainty and know that unemployment is starting to rise and yet our demand is already at this unprecedented level. Sorting food, packing it up. Heatherington says it's not only immense growth that's a concern, it's the speed at which it's happening in Canada's largest city where user numbers are some of the highest. It took 38 years to get to 1 million visits

and only 4 years to get to 4 million. This milestone represents the fact that we have grown by 340% since 2019. Ryan Noble, the executive director at North York Harvest, worries that they won't be able to keep up with demand. You don't need to be a social scientist or a statistician to know that there is something dramatically wrong in our community. This is not sustainable. Food Bank's Canada is calling on Ottawa to set a target,

cut food insecurity in half by 2030. It becomes like a lifesaver. For now, Nitu Mehta is thankful the Food Bank is there. Shian de Chalding, CBC News, Toronto. It is the strongest hurricane of 2025 and could be the most powerful. ever to hit Jamaica. Melissa is a Category 5 storm forcing the island's main airports to close and communities to evacuate. And as residents worry and wait with landfall just hours away, Paul Hunter has the latest.

As Melissa's winds gain strength and ferocity, Jamaicans brace and flee. Everyone needs to get ready. Anyone in low-lying areas directed in no small way to run for their lives. Jamaica's Prime Minister Andrew Holness put it bluntly. You have been warned. So it's now up to you to use that information to make the right decisions. I would just say, Almighty Father, spare us. Daryl Vaz is Minister of Telecommunications and Transport.

I know we have a culture of last minute, but there's no last minute. last minute in a hurricane. You need to leave and you need to leave. No. As Jamaicans prepare, forecasts predict a complete horror show with sustained winds up to 280 kilometers an hour, more than a meter of rain, a storm surge up to four meters. Melissa is now a category five storm, the strongest there is. Not in the history of hurricane record keeping has such a storm hit Jamaica. How fearsome is Melissa already? An official U.S. government plane trying to fly above its clouds

to measure its intensity was today forced to turn back. The storm too violent. Consider these sobering words from the director of the U.S. National Hurricane Center, Michael Brennan. We're expecting catastrophic wind impacts with total structural failure. You can see complete tree falls in the mouth. mountainous areas. Do not venture out of your safe shelter. Catastrophic, life-threatening, flash flooding, numerous landslides are expected today through Tuesday. And it's not just Jamaica facing deep peril. In Cuba, which could be hit after Jamaica, along with

Turks and Caicos and the Bahamas, preparations are already underway. In Haiti and the Dominican Republic, already feeling the brunt of Melissa, at least four are dead. from the storm. But for the moment, it's all eyes and fears on Jamaica. Here again, it's Prime Minister. I know that there are Jamaicans here praying for us. Jamaicans overseas praying for us. But more than that, it would appear that the entire world is praying for Jamaica.

With the storm now poised to strike, Jamaicans in its path await. Paul Hunter, CBC News, Washington. A new policy will see U.S. border officials use more photography to capture people entering and exiting the country. For nearly a decade, the United States, like many countries, has been taking photos of foreigners arriving at international airports. Now the lens is widening, and as Sophia Harris reports, there's no getting around it. There were two gentlemen in officer clothes. One of them had a handheld camera and took a picture of me. Orange Chappelle had an unsettling experience this month at Cleveland's International Airport.

He says just before boarding his flight home to Toronto, a border officer snapped his photo, offering no explanation. Well, I was surprised. I was aghast. I felt ambushed because it happened so quickly. The United States is ramping up its facial biometrics program, photographing international travelers and using facial comparison technology to confirm their identities. All of our arrival systems are now utilizing facial comparison. Close to a decade ago, the U.S. rolled out the technology at airports for international arrivals. Canada did the same.

Now, the U.S. plans to photograph travelers entering and leaving the country by all modes of transport. Full implementation could take several years, but technology that photographs passengers inside vehicles is expected to be in place at land borders in 2006. U.S. immigration lawyer Len Saunders worries it could cause delays. Doing this at the land ports of entry, the logistics are going to be very difficult, especially when you have a carload of kids. Meanwhile, the U.S. has already started snapping photos at dozens of airports at international departures, something Chappelle discovered unwittingly.

I was not alerted that this might happen, and I was not given a choice to have the picture taken. In Canada, all travelers can choose not to be photographed. U.S. Customs and Border Protection, or CBP, says Canadians also have that right in the U.S. But not for long. On December 26, a new rule is set to take effect, making it mandatory for non-U.S. citizens to take part. At CBP, our priority mission is the security of our borders. In a recently posted CBP video on social media, a border officer outlines the agency's motives. By using advanced technology like facial biometrics, we not only add an extra layer of security, but we also streamline the inspection process at entry.

But lawyer Saunders says the program's expansion could serve as a deterrent for Canadians traveling to the U.S., which is already in steep decline. It's definitely not helping encourage foreigners come to the United States. And I just was taken aback. After his experience, Chappelle says he's reconsidering further travel to the country. Sophia Harris, CBC News, Toronto. Hamas has handed over the body of another hostage.

it is the 16th body to be returned to Israel. Hamas agreed to return 28 bodies as part of the ceasefire. Israel has pledged to return 15 Palestinian bodies for every hostage. Israel says Hamas knows where all the remains are and has allowed an Egyptian technical team in to help excavate them. 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. Canada is on the verge of hitting a milestone that illustrates how serious its measles problem has become. The country could soon lose its measles-free status. An outbreak of the disease began a year ago, spreading in pockets across the country, infecting thousands and killing two small children. As Jennifer Yun tells us, doctors are calling for more tools to boost vaccination rates. In a van outfitted to be a mobile health clinic in southern Ontario, Catalina Friesen sits next to a mom and daughter, translating their low German to English as they describe their symptoms to a nurse.

They won't come see us if they don't trust us. It's now been a year since a record-shattering measles outbreak started in Canada. It's hit Mennonite communities in Ontario hard, but building trust with the health care system has been slow going. I don't think they're worried about specifically the measles vaccine. I think they're just worried about being told what to do when they don't want to do it. About 5,000 people have been infected and two babies have died with measles, part of an ongoing outbreak that has burned through pockets of under-vaccinated communities across the country. vaccination rates have been dropping for years for a wide range of reasons.

And vaccine hesitancy, which drove the past year's outbreak, remains an unsolved problem across Canada, say experts. It's a real challenge. Dr. Lenora Sachsinger, an infectious diseases doctor at the University of Alberta, estimates half a million people are not protected against measles in Alberta. That's a lot of susceptible people left in a setting where we're seeing measles introductions occurring more frequently. Measles cases are going up globally, according to the World Health Organization. It's only a matter of time until there's another outbreak, says immunologist Don Boutish. Because there's more measles in the rest of the world.

To come back to Canada, there's more measles in our near neighbors, the Americans, where we travel a lot. One thing that could help Boutish says, a national vaccine registry. A centralized database, which compiles data from every province and territory, would help public health officials detect patterns more easily and respond better. It's a no-brainer. Infectious disease specialist, Dr. Isaac Bogosh, agrees. A registry would help guide public health responses tailored for underprotected communities. Using age, language and culturally appropriate messaging to ensure that people have appropriate information at their fingertips so they can make smart decisions for themselves.

That's the kind of work Catalina Friesen's been doing as a personal support worker, helping nurses and doctors get medical information out. It's done quite a bit, I think. Ontario's outbreak is now over, but measles cases continue to simmer across Canada. Jennifer Yun, CBC News, Toronto. There is a big reconstruction effort underway in a small community in northern Saskatchewan. A devastating wildfire season destroyed dozens of homes, and now residents are trying to rebuild their lives and protect their future if the fires return.

Helena Mahalek explains. construction crews are hard at work, trying to lay the foundation for new homes before the snowflies in the northern community of Deneer Beach, Saskatchewan, where over 200 homes were lost in this year's unprecedented wildfire season. It just looks like a lot of sand, but for us that's every single person is someone that we knew. Brook Kindle watches as concrete pores in the spot where her home once stood. She was pregnant when the village was evacuated. Now a family of five, everyone is squeezed into a temporary one-bedroom cabin. So I don't have internet or a hot water heater consistently, but it's better than, it's honestly a really big upgrade from living in the camper.

We're happy, we're cozy. It was nearly five months ago that parts of this town were leveled, a wasteland of ash and debris. Now, after a community effort to clear the rubble, some families are ready to move. on. Others are worried about what next summer could bring. So we're just trying to figure out as a town, how can we incentivize people to come back here? People are obviously scared about another wildfire happening. On a reserve on the south side of Deneer Beach, one of eight Peter Ballantine Cremation communities, Chief Peter Beattie oversees the crews that are hard at work. And future wildfire seasons are being kept in mind with some of the building materials

used. It's not fully concrete, but it's a composite concrete. It's lighter than concrete, but it's fire resistant, so we're building a few of those this year on different reserves. Chief Beattie says the community needs more firefighting resources to ensure history doesn't repeat. I'm hoping at some point that each of our communities is fully equipped to fight a forest fire if it threatens the community. Like we need the equipment. Residents of Deneer Beach say at the height of the fires, the Saskatch government never sent additional crews, leaving volunteer firefighters alone to tackle the flames. But the provincial government has provided a shared 30 million to De Nair Beach

and other towns where homes were destroyed. They are also supplying some with temporary housing. Others living in their own trailers or with friends and family who have taken them in. Dustin Trombley and his fiancée Joanne Churchill are waiting for they're ready to move home to arrive. The couple's wedding was cancelled due to the end. evacuation. How can you celebrate any sort of happiness when every your friends and family and your community is burnt? Despite the grief and the loss, Trombly is hopeful for the future. But it will be

home again. The more cleanup gets done and we will be all way tougher and way more close-knit. People here in Deneer Beach are rebuilding, but want reassurance this won't happen again. They're calling on the government of Saskatchewan to invest in more fire mitigation resources. Helena Mahalik, CBC News, Deneer Beach, Saskatchewan. Whether it's on piano or organ, in studio or on stage, Michael Baguoski has been performing with Canadian rock legend's Blue Rodeo, since 2009.

Now, with the band in the middle of its 40th anniversary tour, he's breaking off for solo shows, a side hustle that comes from the heart. If the rodeo's coming to your town, just know I'll be trying my best to book something like your local community shelter, so maybe we'll see you down the road. Maguski calls it a tour within a tour.

As the band hits Canadian cities, Baguski's reaching out to local shelters, food banks, and outreach centers to offer free concerts. Last week, he performed at Thunder Bay's Grace Place. Gary Maximchuk is a pastor there. He actually contacted us and asked if he could come and do a one-hour concert to the people that couldn't afford a blue rodeo ticket, so we're blessed today with his presence.

Maxim Chuck says many people are struggling with the high cost of food and housing, and the concert helped boost spirits. Robert Esquega has been coming to Grace Place for about two years. I ended up in a bad circumstance, so this doesn't cure it, but it helps. This guy, this blue rodeo guy, whatever, his, the first one he did, this piano stuff

was actually making me want to... Nice, I like it. I just think music offers people a reprieve, and I just don't think that that should be limited to people who can pay off. hundred dollars to take it. This is just a small token that I can do to bring the healing joy of music to people who need it, then I'm all in. Thanks for joining us. This has been your world tonight for Monday, October 27th. I'm Susan Bonner. Talk to you again.

Julie is painting summer sky For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.a slash podcasts.