Your World Tonight - National leaders in Tumbler Ridge, Merz warning on new world order, MLB avatars, and more

Episode Date: February 13, 2026

The people of Tumbler Ridge will be joined by local, provincial and federal leaders as they hold a vigil tonight to mourn those lost in Tuesday’s shooting.Also: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz says the U.S. and Europe need to repair and revive trans-Atlantic trust. Merz says a deep rift has opened up, driven by tariffs and U.S. president Donald Trump’s efforts to take over Greenland and to get out of NATO.And: An LA-based company that makes personalized AI avatars has signed a deal with MLB's Players Inc — the business arm of the players' association. They're creating stylized, cartoonish avatars of baseball players that fans will be able to chat with one-on-one.Plus: Federal election annulled in Quebec riding, whether rebates on EVs will make a difference to car buyers, dual citizens of the United Kingdom and Canada are caught up in new travel rules, and more.

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This is a CBC podcast. And there's just nothing, nothing, and no one that can fill that gap is going to be hard. Pain and heartbreak. A shattered community struggling to heal and a nation still grappling for answers in the aftermath of an unimaginable event. One firearm has been seized from the home, this is a shotgun. Our investigation has also been able to determine that the nation has also been able to determine that the The main firearm believed to be used in the mass shooting at the school has also never been seized by the RCMP. The investigation into the Tumblr Ridge shooting reaches a new stage, as hundreds

prepare for an evening vigil and a show of support from the nation's political leaders. This is your world tonight. I'm Stephanie Skandaris. It's Friday, February 13th, coming up on 6 p.m. Eastern. Also on the podcast, Passport, Panic. There's going to be a lot of travelers at the airport that are going to show up and they're going to be told that they can't get on the plane. The UK's new immigration rules threaten travel chaos for thousands of Canadians. A town stunned by grief, a country standing behind them. The people of Tumblr Ridge are opening up a vigil to the public tonight to honor the eight people killed in a mass shooting on Tuesday

and to hold hope for the two victims still fighting for their lives. The Prime Minister and federal leaders are also in Tumblr Ridge where the RCMP gave an update. CBC's Brian Labby is there. Brian, what is the latest on the investigation? Stephanie, the RCMP say they are still analyzing the two scenes from Tuesday's shootings. Tumblr Ridge Secondary School,

where five students and an educator were killed. It's also the location where the shooter, 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootsilar, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. RCMP described the scene as incredibly traumatic. The second scene is Van Rutzel. where police say she shot her 39-year-old mother and her 11-year-old half-brother. Police gave more details about what they encountered when they entered the school.

Here is RCMP Deputy Commissioner Dwayne MacDonald. Our officers arrived on scene, immediately went into the school. As you can imagine, it was chaotic. The fire alarms were going off. There was somebody that either leaned out or shouted out of a window to our officers. The suspect is upstairs. He's upstairs. They entered the school immediately.

went to the stairwell, proceeded to go up the stairwell, and we're met with gunfire. Inside the school. It was a matter of seconds after that there was more gunfire, not, as we know now, having reviewed video directed at any persons, and then ultimately a suspect took their life. McDonald says the moment Van Routzalar encountered police, there were no further injuries to students in the school. Now, police say a number of weapons were seized from Van Routelar's home, including a shotgun. that was used in the deaths of Jennifer Strang and 11-year-old Emmett Jacobs. Okay. Now, Brian, let's turn to the public vigil happening tonight.

The Prime Minister and other party leaders have flown in from Ottawa. What more can you tell us about that? Well, it was the mayor of Tumblr Ridge who invited the Prime Minister to attend this evening's vigil. Mark Carney arrived here around 2.30 local time with the other federal party leaders as well, including conservative leader Pierre Polyev, and the leaders of the NDP, the Block Quebecois and the Green Party, the Governor General Mary Simon, is also expected to be here.

The party leaders gathered inside the town hall for a short time before leaving all together with bouquets of flowers, which they placed at a makeshift memorial not far from the school. And the leaders are expected to speak at the vigil as they join a community in anguish. Stephanie?

The CBC's Brian Lapie and Tumblr Ridge, BC. Thank you so much, Brian, appreciate it. Thank you. Now, the CBC's Julia Wong. is also in Tumblr Ridge. She tells us how parents and the community are coping. We called her tea keith. My teakaroo. Sarah Lampert is reeling from the loss of her daughter, Takaria. It's really hard to breathe right now. The 12-year-old was one of eight people killed Tuesday when police say 18-year-old Jesse Van Rousselaer opened fire in the tiny community of Tumblr Ridge.

Her death, devastating not only to her mother, but the seven siblings, she leaves behind. And there's just nothing, nothing and no one that can fill that gap. Simple things like going and getting in the van and turning around and not having a full head count is going to be hard. It has also been a nightmare for Desiree Pizarsky, the mother of Kylie Smith. She too was just 12 years old, also killed during the rampage inside Tumblr Ridge secondary school. The Sarski, who lives on Vancouver Island, last spoke to her daughter over the holidays. You know, told me that she loved me and I told her I'd talk to her again, and then that was the last time I talked her. She wants her daughter to be remembered for how she lived, not how she died. She was just so full of

happiness and love, and she just cared for everybody, and she just wanted the best for everybody. Among the injured, RCMPs say a 19-year-old woman was airlifted to hospital. So it was 12-year-old Maya Gabala, where she remains in critical condition after being shot several times. Maya's father, David Gabala. Her moving her hand or moving her leg, like, that's an incredible improvement over the last couple days. And these last couple days have been painful, to say the least. Maya's mother, Sia Edmund, says her daughter's outcome is unclear right now.

They said the best case scenario is that she's going to. to be tube fed and hospitalized for the rest of her life if you continue to try to let her live. And I just kept telling them that there's no way I can feel it in my heart that she's coming back. The last few days have also brought complicated feelings for Edmonds. She used to babysit Van Rousselaer and says Van Rousselaer's mother, Jennifer, who was also killed in a separate shooting at the family's home that day, tried to get her child help. She did everything she could to try to help him, right? And you can say, you know, maybe if this or that,

And hindsight is, you know, it's always so clear, right? But it's not in the moment. I know that she's struggled. A call for compassion as a small community wrestles over how to move forward from unthinkable tragedy. Julia Wong, CBC News, Tumblr Ridge, British Columbia. Coming up, out of order, world leaders gather in Munich to discuss hard truths about old alliances and a future without U.S. military support. Also, EVs take center stage at the nation's biggest office.

as the industry and Ottawa bet on electric to recharge a sputtering market. Later, we'll have this story. Okay, you've got the trading cards, the video game, the ticket stubs. What else does a sports fan need? How about an AI companion? Major League Baseball gets chatbots. If you want to build a relationship with AI, you need to be able to see it, you need to be able to touch it, you need to be able to do stuff with it.

I'm Nora Young in Toronto. Later on, Your World Tonight are MLB Chatbots a home run or a swing and a miss. Dual citizens of the United Kingdom and Canada are being caught up in new travel rules to the UK. Starting next week, they can only enter that country using a valid British or Irish passport. But many have let their British passports lapse, and that could lead to a lot of confusion. Alexander Silberman has the details. I've gone at least every year or twice. Sarah Byron travels to her home country of England regularly.

She's a dual British Canadian citizen, who emiggen, graded in the 1970s. But now she's shocked to learn her Canadian passport will be useless to enter the UK. We're horrified. People didn't believe me. Biron let her British passport expire and under new UK rules starting February 25th, all citizens must use their UK or Irish passports to enter. It's going to be, I've got a nightmare in March when people are trying to travel and didn't know about this. The alternatives to a passport, a certificate of entitlement, proving the right to live in the UK with a fee of more than $1,000, or renouncing citizenship, a costly and complicated process.

Clearly, it is a significant change. Rob Tinline is the British High Commissioner to Canada. He says the change is part of a transition to a digital immigration system. Most foreign visitors now need an ETA or electronic travel authorization, and UK and Irish citizens are not eligible. citizens to come to the UK. We want Canadians to come to the UK. We don't want to get in the way of that. But this is about us modernising our border. While it's unclear just how many people are impacted, more than 460,000 residents of Canada were born in the UK. And many with upcoming trips are

just learning of the change and caught off guard. People aren't prepared. Serena Bowles is a travel advisor in Burlington, Ontario, with the firm, the travel agent next door. Almost everyone I'm talking to hasn't heard about this new change yet. Bulls says she's helping her clients prepare, including one in his 80s, who now needs a British passport. She expects chaos when the change takes effect. There's going to be a lot of travelers at the airport that are going to show up and they're going to be told that they can't get on the plane. For Byron, getting a new UK passport is proving to be especially complicated. We are unable to issue a passport until the names are.

are aligned. Since her expired British passport has her middle name, but her official Canadian documents do not. I'm going to wait until the dust settles. The sudden change, leaving Byron frustrated and feeling unwelcome by her home country. Alexander Silberman, CBC News, Montreal. Security, sovereignty, and trade. U.S. President Donald Trump has challenged them all this year, straining relationships and driving long-time allies away. As world leaders gather for a major security summit in Munich, Trump's global disruption is dominating the agenda. Abukh Gdh Dossin reports.

A video showing various world leaders and global conflicts opened the 60-second Munich Security Conference with the words, let's talk about the elephant in the room. That elephant being, what to do about? strained transatlantic ties. German Chancellor Friedrich Mertz spoke first. He says a deep divide has opened up between Europe and the United States. That rift has widened during U.S. President Donald Trump's second term. He's pushed tariffs and threatened NATO itself with his demand for Greenland in recent weeks.

This has pushed leaders on the continent to truly recognize the U.S. is no longer a reliable partner. Merritt said it's their own. fault. That they were not forced into this excessive dependence on Washington, a fact that was known but caused little concern throughout the post-war period until now, given the U.S. is participating in what this year's conference report calls wrecking ball politics. We actually want partnerships that are based on dignity, where we actually listen to the other party. EU foreign policy chief Kayakhalis repeated her belief that it's a mutually beneficial relationship.

Russia goes to war. alone because they don't have allies. When America goes to wars, then a lot of us go with you. So that means that you also need us. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio may not say those exact words when he takes the main stage on Saturday. But Western allies don't want to be criticized like they were by Vice President J.D. Vance last year when he took aim at European democracy. Natalie Tochi is a professor of practice at Johns Hopkins School of International Advanced in Italy. One thing is I disengage, maybe even abandon, quite another is to betray.

Where betrayal may next come into play, peace talks to end Russia's war in Ukraine if it's at Keeves' expense. NATO Secretary General Mark Ruta says he doesn't expect attacks from Rubio in southern Germany. Western allies may not be expecting full cooperation, but they're hoping to avoid confrontation. Abi Kualdassen, for six. I'm very relieved today, Democracy won. The federal election will be replayed in one Canadian riding. The Supreme Court has annulled the result of the vote in the Montreal area riding of Therbonne. Last spring, a liberal was declared the winner by one vote over the bloc-Quebecois candidate.

The citizens of Terbonne at the end will get to decide who sits and who represents them. And that's what was decided today. The will of the people is the most important. And the Therbonian-Therbonian should have the... the total decision, the final decision on who sits and who represents them. So I'm happy that the Therbonian and Tarbonian will get that chance. A woman in the riding said she had mailed in a vote for the block, but it wasn't counted because of an error on the pre-printed envelope.

There will now be a by-election. The date has not been set. The Canadian Climate Institute says the country is not on track to meet any of its emissions reduction targets. That includes a 2026 target, the 2030 Paris Agreement commitment and a long-term goal of net zero emissions by 2050. The Independent Non-profit Group says the federal government

has loosened its climate policies over the past year. It cites the elimination of the federal consumer carbon pricing and the cancellation of an oil and gas emissions cap. The federal government is hoping electric vehicle rebates will give EV sales a jolt in Canada, but even with rebates, they are still more expensive than their internal combustion counterparts. And those in the market to buy still have their worries.

Nisha Patel has more. I'm just here to see all the cars and all the different manufacturers. At the Toronto International Auto Show, the future of driving is on display. Automakers show off their newest models, many of them electric vehicles, though many buyers at the show weren't sure they could commit to EVs.

You're going to give me five grand to buy this car, but the cost of these EVs are way more. than gas. I'm just afraid to end up in the middle of nowhere with low battery. That's my biggest concern. I get it's probably going to be the future at some point, but not my future. Canadians aren't shifting to electric as quickly as predicted. They still have serious doubts about the driving range and charging infrastructure of battery-powered cars. J.D. Nye tracks the industry for market research firm J.D. Power. He says more buyers are turning to plug-in hybrids. But I think a lot of Canadians view that plug in EV as kind of like the, as a stopgap.

It allows them to drive, frankly, do most of their daily driving in all electric mode while still maintaining the kind of a safety net of that gas powered engine. For both hybrid and battery electric models, price is at top concern. Last year, consumers paid an average of $60,000 per vehicle. They all tend to kind of sit at the upper price range. And so when we start to start to. see some more affordable electric vehicles hit the market. I think that'll be a big catalyst for sales growth.

The federal government has cut tariffs on EVs made in China, potentially lowering costs for importers like Volvo and Tesla. Chinese automakers like BYD could show up here too if they pass safety regulations. It could mean more competition for Stalantas Canada, but CEO Trevor Longley says his company is still betting on EVs. The question for us is, How long is it going to take to get to the levels that I think we all want to?

We see EV as the future of the business. We're 100% committed to the electrification of our power trains. Starting next week, a federal rebate of up to $5,000 will be available to buy or lease a new electric vehicle valued at less than $50,000. Longley approves of the rebates. If we're looking to sell EVs, it works. And so we've already seen an increase in demand, especially on that Fiat 500E in Quebec, just with the word getting out that this is coming. And so interest in the products is high.

Still, it's not yet clear if those incentives will be enough to recharge the market. Nisha Patel, CBC News, Toronto. You're listening to Your World Tonight from CBC News. And if you want to make sure you 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. Ukrainian skeleton athlete Vladislav Harriskev has lost an appeal of a ban on competing at the Olympics. The International Olympic Committee banned him from racing because he wanted to wear a helmet with images of athletes killed in Russia's war on Ukraine.

The IOC has rules against political messages during competition. The Court of Arbitration for Sport dismissed his appeal. Secretary General Mathieu Reeves as the arbitrator understood why he wanted to wear the helmet, but the rules of the IOC are clear. The sole arbitrator for this matter heard today's arguments and is bound by the rules of the IUC Athlete Expression Guidelines. She stated that she is fully sympathetic

to Mr. Geraskevich's commemoration and to his attempt to raise awareness for the grief and devastation suffered by the Ukrainian people and Ukrainian athletes because of the war. Harris Kovitch would have been allowed to display the helmet before or after the race, but not during. He said he has no regrets about insisting on being able to wear it. Baseball's spring training is getting underway.

For most fans, the closest they'll get to their favorite baseball player is the bleachers. A one-on-one conversation? Unlikely. Well, that is about to change through AI technology. CBC's senior technology reporter, Nora Young, explains. If you want to build a relationship with AI, you need to be able to see it, you need to be able to touch it, you need to be able to do stuff with it. Akash Nigham is CEO and founder of Genies. The LA-based company makes personalized AI avatars that can live in apps, games, and as chatbots.

Now they've signed a deal with MLB's Players Inc, the business wing of the Players Association. They're creating stylized, cartoony avatars of Major League Baseball players that fans will be able to chat with one-on-one. Lindsay Bernas is a clinical psychologist who researches the psychology of fandom. For most people who are good at keeping their boundaries and understand that it is a non-reciprocal one-sifference. relationship, there are a lot of benefit. They use them as kind of a role model in developing their identity. Of course, we already have video games with avatars of your favorite players in action. But what happens when you can talk to players and they talk back? Nigham says they're focused on limited conversation, at least for now.

We invested an equal amount of time into the safety, the moderation, the security, the trust to make sure that we can stick to a plot and a script. So these are very, you know, these are conservative to start. And then if a player personally wants to lean in and then make it expansive based on their own prerogative, they can do that. Still, there have been concerns about people developing problematic relationships with interactive AI chatbots and of overinvesting in relationships with celebrities. I think the risk is less because it's a less realistic depiction. And the more realistic that is the greater, I think, the risk of sliding boundaries. I still think there is some risk, though. This is a blanket agreement, so all Major League Baseball players are included. It's a bit of

uncharted territory from a sports law perspective, says lawyer Dave Stern. MLB Players, Inc., for the most part, is the entity to negotiate on behalf of the players as a collective. But you can obviously imagine that there will be some superstars or even players of certain notoriety levels that will look to insert certain approvals or maybe even opt out of this process entirely. With AI weaving its way into more and more of our interactions, it's hard to imagine baseball being the last sport to take on AI. Mark, Edmund turns and shoots, he's stars.

Marri Young, CBC News, Toronto. We end tonight with a first for a Canadian basketball superstar that's been a long time coming. Remember, heaves are not counted. Murray's going to let it rip. He does. They'll have a count if it goes. Jamal Murray, the kid from Kitchener. Point guard for the NBA.

Denver Nuggets, drafted in 2016, and lighting up opponents and scoreboards everywhere ever since. Playoff MVP, world champion, and a future Hall of Famer. Murray's resume boasts a lot of titles, except one, an NBA All-Star invitation. Until now. On Sunday in Los Angeles, the 28-year-old will suit up in his first all-star appearance. The honor, Murray says, won't be taken for granted. I'm down to play one-on-one. I don't care. I'm down to some

competitor, right? So I just, I want to be one of those guys that's known as somebody who's going to play hard every time he's up on the court. Murray's having a career season, but his road has not been easy, plagued with injuries and setbacks. Through it all, Murray always credits

his roots for his resolve, never forgetting a shout-out to his hometown. And Kitchener sure hasn't forgotten him. I think it's pretty cool because me and my friends probably went to the same gyms that he, like, practiced at. And it's pretty cool that someone from Kitchener is in the All-Star game. These young hoopsters honing their skills on a Kitchener area hard court, trying to mimic Murray's moves and excited to see their idol this weekend

join the NBA's elite. It does show that wherever you're from, wherever, like, You were born, you could still complete your dreams. You just have to be really good at it. For Murray, Sunday is just the next step in a historic career. Back in Kitchener, a whole new generation will be watching, waiting for the next chance to lace up knowing the dream is real. This has been your world tonight for Friday, February 13th.

I'm Stephanie Skendaris. Thank you for being with us. Good night. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca slash podcasts.