Your World Tonight - Rebuilding after forest fires, butterfly decline, new Canadian baseball star and more

Episode Date: May 19, 2025

Fire season has already started in Canada, with several communities having been given evacuation orders. But in British Columbia, some condo owners are still living with the consequences of a fire that was put out years ago.And: With spring and summer taking hold in Canada, it is normally a time to see butterflies fluttering around. But according to a recent study, the numbers of butterflies are dramatically dropping. And a large part of the butterfly population has vanished. Also: In a league of her own. One of Japan’s top female baseball stars took to the mound for a pro men’s team in Canada. She pitched two shut out innings for the Toronto Maple Leaf Baseball team in her debut. Plus: child obesity, robotic healthcare, being detained at U.S. border and more.

Carly Fortune became the queen of Canadian romance with her breakout hit Every Summer After. On my podcast Bookends, Carly told me all about the life-changing success of that book, and she dished on her newest summer love story. Two young women wait to the end of my signing line once and then said, we have a bone to pick with you. And they said, we need Charlie's happy ending, justice for Charlie. Check out Bookends with Matea Roach to hear the rest of that conversation wherever you get your podcasts.

This is a CBC Podcast. The Antarctic Treaty is under considerable stress and strain, probably entering the worst period it's ever experienced. Antarctica, desolate, ice-covered, magnificent and remote, but no longer beyond the reach of human conflict as a long-held agreement to ensure continental cooperation rather than conquest could be melting away. As the relationship with Russia has deteriorated so badly and then throw into the mix China becoming a more assertive polar actor, it's becoming really hard to find consensus.

Hello, I'm Stephanie Scanderis and welcome to a special long weekend edition of Your World Tonight. Also on the program we'll head to British Columbia where residents who lost their homes to a wildfire are being blocked from rebuilding and feel like they're getting burned in a different way. Disaster strikes, these services are wiped out and there's no repercussions for the utility owner and they can literally walk away leaving us basically stranded without the ability to rebuild. As people across Canada are enjoying the spring weather, the warmer temperatures also

increase the threat of wildfires. There have already been several evacuations this season, but in British Columbia, some condo owners are still living with the consequences of a fire that was extinguished a long time ago. Two years into the effort to rebuild, it's harder than anyone could imagine. Brady Strachan has that story. Right over there in the corner, that back corner was my place. Nestled on a gentle slope above the pristine waters of Okanogan Lake,

a large lot of broken concrete and twisted metal is all that's left of Maria Hart's home. It was a very, very hot fire. Just when I came to look at it after and saw the melted cars, that was incredible, like a war zone. Hart owned a condo in an apartment building on a private resort near Kelowna. Built in the 1970s, Lake Okanagan Resort was a symbol of luxury at the time. But in 2023, most of the buildings, including her home, burned to the ground in a catastrophic wildfire. Hart and her neighbors want to rebuild.

This was a home that wasn't an investment property, it wasn't a rental. It was what we had planned on retiring in. But they can't get building permits until utilities like water and sewer are restored, services the resort company had been supplying in the past. In 2014, Lake Okanagan Resort was purchased by a group of Chinese investors and is owned by a holding company based in Richmond, B.C. The condo owners have been asking the resort to restore utilities, but Heather Ormiston says it stopped responding to their emails and phone calls a few months ago. Extremely frustrating is actually an understatement.

CBC also tried repeatedly to contact the company, but they have not responded to her questions. As the weeks and months drag on, the condo owners feel the BC government should be doing more to help, either by forcing the resort to restore utility services or by transferring ownership of water systems to residents. That leaves residents like us extremely vulnerable in a case like this where disaster strikes, these services are wiped out and there's no repercussions for the utility owner and they can literally walk away leaving us basically stranded without the ability to rebuild. And despite pleas to the provincial government, nothing substantive has been done yet.

No one with the BC government agreed to an interview. In a statement, however, the province says it can't force the resort to restore utilities or transfer them to the condo owners. This is really the first one in British Columbia that's this extreme. Tony Giovento heads the condominium homeowners association. This is the one that says complicated. He says it could take years for this issue to be resolved and it may end up in the courts. Meanwhile condo owners like Hart are still paying mortgages

and other expenses related to their properties. People ask me what are your plans? I don't know. For now, they remain in limbo, caught between the hope for an eventual rebuild and an uncertain road ahead. Brady Strachan, CBC News, near West Kelowna. Antarctica is a continent governed more by the rules of nature and geography than by any country.

Even through the golden ages of exploration and territorial expansion, nations have cooperated to preserve the land and its neutrality. But increasingly, there is less and less cooperating and more competition. Senior International Climate Correspondent Susan Ormiston has that story from onboard a Canadian expedition to Antarctica. Under a brilliant blue sky surrounded by glacier white ice, a Brazilian Navy research ship and Canada's HMCS Margaret Brooke glided into Admiralty Bay, a naval pass in a continent that no country owns, Part of an international treaty forged during the Cold War. The Antarctic Treaty first and foremost is an arms control treaty.

Preserving Antarctica for science and peace. But the treaty is being severely tested says Klaus Dodds, an expert in Antarctica at Royal Holloway University of London. The Antarctic Treaty is under considerable stress and strain, probably entering the worst period it's ever experienced. Decisions have to be agreed to by 29 voting members and with Russia's war in Ukraine and China's ambitions, agreement is breaking down. As the relationship with Russia has deteriorated so badly,

and then throw into the mix China becoming a more assertive polar actor, it's becoming really hard to find consensus. A delegation of the Navy and Canadian scientists went ashore on King George Island, welcomed by pruning penguins. Hi, I'm Terry Shearer and I'm the captain of the Margaret Brook. Their visit to Brazil's scientific research station,

part of Canada's science diplomacy in Antarctica. Canada signed on to the treaty in 1988, but it wants to join the inner circle of voting members. The last three or four years, Canada's claim to be a consultative party has been blocked first and foremost by Russia. Russia wants its ally Belarus to be a voting member and if not, it refuses Canada, according to Dodds. Last year, Russia and China vetoed more marine protected areas here and stalled on fishing quotas, says Linda Goldsworthy at the University of Tasmania. China has made it very clear, as is their right, that they wish to be more influential

within the Antarctic treaty system. Back on King George Island, a Brazilian scientist, Monica Pecci, warns Antarctica needs protection. Our word is praised nowadays. There are two words to define Antarctica. It's peace and science. And I think that with peace and science we can live in a better way. Susan Ormiston, CBC News in Admiralty Bay, Antarctica. we can live in a better way. Susan Ormiston, CBC News in Admiralty Bay, Antarctica.

In warmer parts of the world, such as our own right now, spring is in the air. And you may have already spotted something else fluttering there too. Butterflies. But there's a problem. According to a recent study, numbers of butterflies are dropping dramatically and a large part of the butterfly population has vanished, seemingly into thin air. Science reporter Emily Chung tells us more. Here we go.

Oh, God. Please don't all escape. Erica Henry opens a container of fuzzy spotted caterpillars. They're being moved from the lab into the wild. Their new home is a restored prairie in Washington state. If all goes well, the caterpillars will grow up to be butterflies, called Taylor's checker spots. I have a lot of experience with very local populations

of rare things. Henry works for Washington State's Fish and Wildlife Department. She and other butterfly researchers noticed certain species declining and wondered how widespread that was. They decided to analyze millions of records from butterfly surveys from all over the US,

and when they saw the results... Oh, man, this is bad. Some of her co-authors cried when they saw butterfly populations had dropped 22% in the past 20 years. They're beautiful. And they inspire people. They pollinate flowering plants. They are food for baby birds when they're caterpillars. Even worse, it's a sign this could be happening

to other important insects. Kind of like a canary in the coal mine situation. Michelle Tseng is an assistant professor of biology at the University of British Columbia. She was shocked when she read the study. I thought it was depressing. Tseng says many butterfly species live on both sides of the Canada-US border and face similar threats.

Climate change, habitat removal and pesticides and those three things absolutely are affecting Canadian butterflies, well butterflies living in Canada as well. And so we, I wouldn't be surprised if we saw the same pattern. She asked Canadians to help track butterfly populations here. We love to encourage anybody out there at all to just if you see a butterfly take a quick photo and then put it on to iNaturalist or eButterfly or whatever platform is your favorite. Conservation scientists like Erica Henry are doing their best to help butterflies like the Taylor's Checkerspot.

But she says there are also ways people can help at home. There is a lot of residential pesticide use that people have control over in their own backyards. Researchers say butterflies respond quickly to environmental changes. While that can cause steep declines, it means with the right support, they also have the potential to bounce back quickly. Emily Chung, CBC News, Toronto. Coming right up, doctors say too many of our kids are threatened by the dangers of obesity, and they argue it's time to move beyond advice on diet and exercise.

Later, how doctors and robots are able to treat people by remote control, saving time, travel, money and lives. We'll also have this. We're so excited to see something new, something different, something fresh and to give a woman an opportunity to do something that, you know, women usually don't get a chance to do. So we want to break some barriers down and give her a great opportunity.

How one of the greatest women baseball players of all time has come from Japan to Canada to play in a men's professional league and make history. That's later on Your World Tonight. Experts studying children's obesity say it's time to offer them something different than just advice on eating less and exercising more. They've drawn up a new set of guidelines urging doctors to expand psychological support, weight loss drugs, and even surgery. Alison Northcott has more on the shift.

I've been overweight thinking all the way back to kindergarten, preschool. It's always sort of been a part of me. Growing up in Toronto, Brendan Goodman tried countless weight loss programs, but nothing worked. He says he was bullied and felt shamed. At 17, he chose to undergo surgery. I myself had made the choice to do it because I had tried all these different methods and they weren't working for me.

Goodman, now 30, was part of a program at Toronto Sick Kids Hospital that also includes interventions like cognitive behavioral therapy and family work. A new Canadian guideline for managing obesity in children and teens says psychological and behavioral work should be the foundation of care. But in some cases, families and health care providers should also consider GLP-1 medications like Ozempic and Wigovie for kids 12 and up, and weight loss surgery for teens 13 and up under certain conditions. This is done in a shared decision-making with the family.

So it's not a one-size-fits-all. Dr. Jill Hamilton is head of androkinology at SickKids and one of more than 50 experts who worked on the new recommendations. It sounds pretty extreme but it's actually not done in a large number of adolescents but those with quite significant health conditions associated with severe obesity. A lot has changed since the guideline was last updated and Hamilton acknowledges there are still a lot of unknowns around the long-term effects of newer weight loss drugs on kids. Obviously more work is needed in this area. About a third of 12 to 17 year olds in Canada are living with obesity or overweight according to Dr. Sanjeev Sakalingam with Obesity Canada.

80% of those are going to go on to live with obesity as adults. So we do need to offer something for individuals right now. He says obesity is a chronic stigmatized disease with a lot of underlying factors and no silver bullet to fix it. So it is a complex chronic disease and like other chronic diseases we need more tools in the toolbox to treat it. But Dr. Tom Warshawski with the Childhood Healthy Living Foundation in Kelowna, BC says there's another crucial thing to consider. I would say though the other risk I would say around these new guidelines, which is which is lacking from the old guidelines, is talking about prevention. I keep up with my friends and all that so that for me it was a choice I would make again a hundred times. Goodman says he thought carefully about his decision to get surgery and says the whole

scope of treatment, including psychological and behavioral changes, have been just as important. Alison Northcott, CBC News, Montreal. Finding medical treatment of any kind is difficult for Canadians who live in remote communities. Air travel is often needed to access doctors, nurses and specialized equipment. But a community in northern Saskatchewan is pioneering a new way to get help, connecting with medical professionals far away by using robots. As Alexander Silberman tells us, it could be a model for use across Canada.

Daniel? Yep. All right. How are you? In Saskatchewan's far north, on the border with the Northwest Territories, Daniel Powder is getting an ultrasound, a screening that typically requires a flight south. So if you want to sit there and get comfy. But today, he can stay right in his community of Stony Rapids. The ultrasound machine is robotic, controlled by a specialist who

is 800 kilometers away in Saskatoon. Technology is going the wrong ways and I figured you know that was really something. This model of remote health care is part of the Virtual Health Hub project. It started as a research center in Saskatoon and is primarily funded by the federal government. It's using technology to let doctors access indigenous and remote communities, developing robotic devices for everything from x-rays to wound care. Getting to Stony Rapids, where powder lives, often requires a two-hour trip from Saskatoon on a small plane. For the nearly 10,000 people that live in this part of the province these

flights are a vital and costly link to health care but robotics are helping to cut back on the need for travel. I think this is going to be a game-changer. Brittany Olson is a nurse who is the in-person link between the patients she helps and doctors in major cities. Being able to provide care within the community, they could have their support system here. And avoiding those long plane rides, Olsen says, helps her patients avoid delays in getting care. You have quicker diagnosing and treating of the patient's conditions. So these are autonomous systems that can move on their own. In Saskatoon, Dr. Ivar Mendez is at a command centre for virtual health care.

He's the director of the virtual health hub and testing new devices like this robot. It can memorize a hospital floor plan and get up close with sensors to gather information on a patient's health. Mendez hopes the remote model will address a disparity in Northern indigenous communities, which have higher rates of mortality, tuberculosis, and high blood pressure.

I really believe that technology can narrow this gap of inequity in the delivery of health care not only in Saskatchewan, in Canada but globally. Mendez expects the model pioneered in the north will soon expand to other provinces, easing staffing shortages in cities and remote areas and saving lives. Alexander Silberman, CBC News, Stony Rapids, Saskatchewan. You are listening to a holiday edition of Your World Tonight from CBC News. I'm Stephanie Scanderis. You can hear your world tonight on the CBC News app or wherever you get your podcasts.

A long weekend often usually means Canadians taking off, many of them traveling south to the United States. But this year is different. Anger and fear about the U.S. government means many are avoiding travel there. So many that airlines have cancelled flights for lack of demand. And the trend is only growing as more stories emerge about problems at the border. Last month, the CBC's Yvette Brand reported on one extreme case. This man just comes out and he goes, Jasmine, can you come with me?

And next thing you know, they take my things, they take my luggage, they took my phone. This man just comes out and he goes, Jasmine, can you come with me? And next thing you know, they take my things, they take my luggage, they took my phone. That was the beginning of an 11-day ordeal in detention for Jasmine Mooney. First, she was walked into a cement cell dubbed an ice box. I mean there was girls laying on the ground with this aluminum blanket over their body. It looked like there was a bunch of dead bodies in there. To understand how she ended up there, you have to go back about a year. Mooney, a 35-year-old former actress who had launched bars and restaurants in B.C., was working in California marketing

health products. Last spring, U.S. border officials denied her application for a work visa at a B.C. border crossing. She says the agent told her she was missing letterhead and sent her away. That red flag, that denial really avalanched into a lot of problems down the line for me. On the advice of her lawyer, she went to Mexico to get a visa and it was approved. Last November, she ran into trouble again heading back to California for the second time her visa was revoked. So in March, she tried to do what she'd done before and flew down to Mexico. The worst that I thought that could happen

is I would get denied again. And people are like, why did you go to that border? To be honest, I was comfortable with that border. Len Saunders is her immigration lawyer. I advised her not to do it because it was right after the new administration and I started seeing these cases pop up. Muni's story went viral after she and her friend were able to get her plea out to the media.

Now her tale serves as a warning. One of the recent examples of how US border agents are handling non-citizens applying for visas. What's unusual about these cases in my mind, there's really no immigration violation. You have Jasmine the Canadian who is detained on the southern border because they said she didn't have a proper work permit. That's what she was applying for. Mooney was deported and banned from the US for five years. She wants to go back and plans to appeal. For now she says she'll keep recounting what she saw inside detention centers. That place breaks you into a million pieces. She's telling not just her story but that of hundreds of other women she met in icy cells from all over the world.

One from India was held there for eight months. They're telling their stories and they're just trying to make a better life for their children. Giving up everything for their children. There has to be a better system and that's why. They told Mooney perhaps she went through this for a children. There has to be a better system and that's why. They told Mooney perhaps she went through this for a reason. Yvette Brand, CBC News, Vancouver. She's been a star baseball pitcher for a long time in Japan and a member of several world championship teams.

But Ayami Sato is in Toronto now, pitching to men instead of women. In her debut, Sato pitched two no-hit innings in what was a Canadian pro baseball first. The CBC's Megan Fitzpatrick was there and has the story. A female will be playing professional baseball at the Canadian Base. And finally, can't wait to watch Ayami Sato here today. There was a lot of anticipation in Toronto when pitcher Ayame Sato walked to the mound. And cheers as she made history. The first woman ever to play professional men's baseball in Canada.

Fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball Club chanted her name. She even got a hug from her coach to top off her debut. Sato was a superstar women's league pitcher in Japan and when the Leafs offered to sign her she jumped at the chance. Coach Rob Butler says he was thrilled. We're so excited to see something new, something different, something fresh and to give a woman an opportunity to do something that you know women usually don't get a chance to do. So we want to break some barriers down and give her a great opportunity." The 35-year-old is considered a legend in women's international baseball. She helped lead Japan's national team to six World

Championships and one MVP three times. While the Leafs lost their home opener Sato said through her translator that the game gave her confidence and she appreciated the support of her teammates. My teammates have been really welcoming and they've been really nice to me. At a recent practice CBC attended, the guys were giving her high fives and fist bumps. Very good, very good. You looked awesome. Sato has played against Canadian women before. The best pitcher I ever faced in international competition for sure.

Ashley Stevenson, who was on Canada's national team, is now rooting for her former competition, but wants to see more for women at Sato's level. There's all these female leagues now that are doing so well and they're so successful. And so a part of me you know wishes we had that for baseball too. At a recent girls baseball practice not far from where the Maple Leafs play Danielle Wasserman agrees. It's not fair the women don't have their own league and it's very like strong of her to play in a men's league and I really look up to her."

Sophia Bondert had this message for Sato. You go, show everyone what you're capable of, represent women in sports. You go, we're all proud. Some of those girls were at Sato's history-making game, wearing their own uniforms, cheering her on and asking for autographs. After the game, Sato said seeing young girls in the crowd brought her joy and she felt like she was looking at the future of women's baseball. I'm hoping that my play today was able to encourage them to do more.

Based on their enthusiasm for Sato playing in their city this summer, that's something she's already hitting out of the park. Megan Fitzpatrick, CBC News, Toronto. This has been a special holiday edition of Your World Tonight. I'm Stephanie Scanderis. Thank you for being with us. Good night.