Your World Tonight - Snowbirds jets grounded, potentially deadly mosquitoes, new advances on cancer, and more

Episode Date: July 1, 2026

The Snowbirds, Canada’s iconic acrobatic flying team, is headed for its final landing. Its jets are so old there are no spare parts and they’re becoming unsafe. Ottawa says new planes are being ordered, but it’s suspending operations in the meantime. Some say that long pause could make it impossible to start up again.Also: More and more mosquitoes are exposing Canadians to deadly diseases. Thank the warming climate for that. Some experts say there may be a case for trying to wipe out the entire species.And: The good news about cancer is that two new drugs are making inroads on prevention and treatment. One of them is familiar; it’s GLP-1, also known as Ozempic.Plus: Fire breaks are usually chunks of forest chopped down to stop wildfires from threatening populated areas. But in the Northwest Territories, people are experimenting with using them for things like garden patches and skating rinks.

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Personally, discount Dave and the Fix. Available now on CBC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast. I inherited a situation where the planes literally had come to the end of their lives. They were unique in many respects. They didn't have the parts and other things to safely fly. They are the snowbirds, Canada's iconic, acrobatic jets. And this will be their final Canada Day performance after more than 50 years.

years in the air, touring the country and much of the world. The suspension is meant to be temporary, but those in the know have doubts about the promised comeback. You cannot put this operational expertise on a shelf and then take it back in two or three years. This is a special edition of Your World Tonight. I'm Stephanie Skandaris. Also on the program?

Mosquitoes are the deadliest animals in the world. Mosquitoes, not just annoying, but increasingly. dangerous carriers of exotic diseases. Illnesses that kill hundreds of thousands of people abroad now posing a threat in this country. The question is how far do we go in the war against them? I wouldn't normally be an advocate for elimination of any species. I think there perhaps is a case here. Also on the program, some good news. Coral reefs returning to life and new drugs making inroads against cancer. For the last 50-plus years. Canada's National Air Squadron has been a symbol of national pride. But time has finally caught up to the snowbirds.

The jets are just too old to continue and will be grounded in the fall. As Ashley Burke tells us, Ottawa says the move is temporary, but many fear the snowbirds will never fly again. It's an iconic site in the summer. Canada's snowbirds soaring over Parliament Hill. The squadron performing role loops and other choreography in the sky, all over Canada and the U.S. But after more than half a century, the show won't go on for years. This is a significant moment, and it is an emotional one. The commander of the Air Force, Lieutenant General Jamie Spizer Blanchette, says it wasn't an easy choice. The snowbirds will be temporarily stood down following the conclusion of the 2006 show season.

In 2021, the government announced $30 million to modernize the snowbirds' aging planes to keep them in the sky until 2030. Spizer Blanchet says that work was underway, but the plan changed. Feasibility studies were done, and there are some engineering challenges because of the age of the aircraft that have changed that situation, and this is why it will be retiring in 2007 instead of 2030. Instead, the government is grounding the planes originally built in the 1960s, and says it's aiming to replace them in the early 2030s and bring back the snowbirds show. And that's why we're so proud to be here today to announce that we're acquiring a new fleet. Defense Minister David McGinty and Moosejah, Saskatchewan, the home of the snowbirds,

to announce the government selected Swiss-made turboprop planes as the replacement, but didn't say exactly when. This is not a long three or four or five-year process of procurement. We know what aircraft we're going to be procuring. We're moving quickly to do so. and we'll obtain them as quickly as we can. Retired Lieutenant Colonel Maurice Carmichael used to fly and later command the snowbirds. You cannot put this operational expertise on a shelf and then take it back in two or three years.

The Prime Minister calls the snowbirds a point of Canadian pride, but says they should have been replaced long ago. I inherited a situation where the planes literally had come to the end of their lives. They were unique in many respects. They didn't have the parts and other things to safely fly. But conservative MP Fraser told me, And Moose Jaw calls it a logical to ground the shows. While we're being challenged with our national identity and our sovereignty, this is not the time to be sacrificing those kind of iconic symbols that mean so much to our country.

Defense expert Dave Perry says the move shows what a difficult spot the Air Force is in during a shortage of personnel. I think we're in a situation where even reallocating single number, single digits worth of pilots from one activity to another. It could be really meaningful, given the shortages we're faced. and how long it's going to take to get them fully corrected. The snowbirds last show this season is scheduled in the U.S. in October. The Air Force says they're working to change that, so it happens on Canadian soil. Ashley Burke, CBC News, Ottawa. Another sound of the summer season, the dreaded buzz of the mosquito.

In Canada, they're mostly just annoying. But varieties from other parts of the world can spread serious diseases. diseases. And increasingly, because of climate change, some of those dangerous mosquitoes are showing up here. That has bug control experts working hard on boosting our defenses. Karen Paul's has the story. There are already a couple landing on me. Professor Steve Wyard has his hand inside a screen cage in his biological sciences lab at the University of Manitoba. All those little black dots are the eggs. He's growing a lab-bred colony of yellow fever mosquito. feeding them pellets of what he describes as RNA cocktails. We can turn down the genes involved in sperm production in the males to make them sterile.

And we can turn down genes that are involved in female development so that we prevent the female larvae from becoming adults. Only female mosquitoes bite. Let's try to prevent them from spreading disease. These mosquitoes are not endemic to Canada, so there's not much risk of yellow fever. West Nile virus is the most common mosquito-borne disease here. But climate change means mosquitoes are roaming further.

The Asian tiger mosquito has been located in southern Ontario. It can also carry yellow and dengue fever, Zika and West Nile virus, and chicken guinea. Typically, major point of the tropical region, but I think it's not really safe to say that anymore. Hillary Ranson is a professor of medical entomology at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in England. Mosquitoes are the deadliest animals in the world. Responsible for somewhere around about 800,000 deaths each year. Ranssen says mosquitoes account for 17% of all infectious diseases. There are roughly 3,500 species, but just 5% of them are responsible for 95% of human infections.

Whilst, I mean, I wouldn't normally be an advocate for elimination of any species. I think there perhaps is a case here. In China, research. Researchers have developed a portable laser that can zap mosquitoes six meters away. But most scientists are working to either sterilize them or genetically modify them so they can't transmit disease. Ransom says there are ethical problems with both approaches. It's very hard to take it back once you've released it. So it is a bit of a political, regulatory, ethical minefield.

Much of this is still just theory. And there's not much of a business case in places like Canada. says David Wade, the city of Winnipeg's superintendent of insect control. Our main nuisance mosquito doesn't carry any disease to humans, so there's no urgency to control it. Winnipeg has the largest municipal mosquito control program in Canada and for now sprays larvae side on standing water, killing mosquitoes before they hatch.

Karen Paul's CBC News, Winnipeg. It's rare for there to be good news to report. on the world's coral reefs. But researchers are excited to see that ocean corals, delicate and colorful as they are, can be a lot tougher than first thought. They've seen some species survive and thrive, despite the constant stress of battering seas and warming waters.

Anand Ram has that story. You and I hear a diver breathing underwater, but the diver in this coral reef in the Maldives is hearing something we can't. There's all this crackling and snapping and life, and it's this eccentric ecosystem underwater. Scientist Emily Darling is Director of Coral Reef Conservation at the Wildlife Conservation Society. She knows what an underwater metropolis a reef can be. The fish are expanding from a colony and then shrinking back in as you get closer, almost breathing in their movements.

But for the last two years, many reefs around the world, like this one off the coast of Thailand, have been ghost towns. Extreme ocean heat has led to years of mass bleaching, making coral vulnerable. Now, that's not always a death sentence for all corals, but it can lead to the crumbling or loss of structure. And that's the focus of her new research, finding resilience in many reefs against this marine heat. We've identified climate resilient reefs across 71 countries and 100 territories, including previously under-recognized areas in the Caribbean, Pacific, and Indian Ocean. Some areas avoid the heat through natural currents bringing cold water. Some get hot and resist bleaching. Some even seem to die off.

And then... They were able to bounce back. Stacey Jupiter is a co-author and executive director at the Wildlife Conservation Society. After Cyclone Winston hit Fiji in 2016, nearby reefs were pummeled and destroyed. But... When we did surveys four years later, we saw baby corals that were all about the same size. And so the reefs were rebounding in terms of their coral cover. Even in places where we do see the extreme conditions,

we see corals that are perfectly healthy through these things. Craig Dahlgren is with the Perry Institute for Marine Science. He's seen reef resilience up close in the Bahamas. One coral, bleached white, it's virtually identical neighbor still colorful. This research, he says, provides hope and direction for communities that depend on their reefs. This really can help shape our priorities moving forward for the next five to ten years, even as far as where we're going to invest our conservation dollars in reefs,

where it's going to have the biggest bang for the buck. A so-called super el-Nino weather. A possibility of a super el-Nino. But with El Nino warming the Pacific, right now, scientists are worried. We all know there are ecological limits to adaptation, and that nature needs time to adapt. You would think that the ones that survive through the heat once, they're going to be the ones that can survive again, but not when they just get hit over and over again like this. In other words, getting hit over and over with extreme heat, including from oceans absorbing the excess heat humans are emitting,

could mean these survivors may soon be on life support. On the Ram, CBC News, Toronto. Coming right up, you may know it as OZMPIC, or as GLP-1, the drug used to treat diabetes and obesity. Researchers are now saying it may also help prevent breast cancer. We'll also tell you about a completely different drug that's already a proven winner in treating pancreatic cancer. Later, we take you to the Northwest Territories,

where some new thinking is going into creating firebreaks, those big tracks of forests that are clear to stop the advance of wildfires. I think a lot of folks think that firebreaks are just empty spaces, but they can actually be so many different things. There can be recreation spaces, they can be a place to grow food. Traditional food garden in summer, maybe an outdoor skating rink in winter. That's later on your world tonight.

Scientists continue to discover new possible uses for GLP1 drugs. Their effectiveness in treating diabetes and obesity is well known. But now there's growing evidence they are also effective in preventing certain diseases. One is breast cancer. But there are still a lot of questions to answer. Jennifer Lagrasa has more. It's very exciting to see. the field move forward. Another promising finding, this one led by Dr. Elizabeth McDonald at the

University of Pennsylvania, adds to growing evidence that suggests GLP1 drugs, commonly known by brand name OZMPIC, may help prevent cancer. These drugs appear to be having an effect in observational studies in both obesity-related and non-obesity-related cancers. McDonald's study looked at health records for more than 111,000 women. women aged 45 to 80 years old who were overweight. Some were taking a GLP1 and others were not. Findings showed those on the medication were 30% less likely to get breast cancer. And while there are other drugs on the market that help lower the risk, they have side effects that are really hard for women. Those can include other types of cancer or blood clots, whereas GLP1s carry

generally milder side effects like nausea or constipation. The GLP1 agonist decrease the inflammation in your body. Dr. Majola Omole is a breast surgical oncologist at Scarborough Health Network in Toronto. One theory on how the drugs work to keep cancer at bay is that they reduce inflammation in the body. And we know that increased inflammation your body can cause a host of problems, whether it's your heart, your lungs, your kidney, and also, increase the

cancer rates. Weight loss also lowers cancer risk and GLP-1s are known to help people shed the pounds. But some think there's more at play. We don't know yet, but I suspect it's not just the weight loss and the diabetes. Dr. Lillian Sue is a clinician

scientist at the University Health Network's Princess Margaret Cancer Center in Toronto. She's looking to research whether GLP-1s can prevent cancer relapse. This is still a fairly new class of drug, and obviously we cannot just prescribe it for off-label use without actually having clinical evidence. But how it works and at what dose and in whom are all questions experts say need clinical trials to answer.

We have in the past seen similar potential signals and other things like metformin. That's another popular diabetes drug that McDonald is using as a cautionary tale. Metformin also held promise, but clinical, studies found it doesn't lower breast cancer risk, which means people shouldn't be running out to take GLP-1s to stave off cancer, at least not yet. So I would say caution here, stay tuned. But she does remain hopeful. Jennifer Lagrasa, CBC News, Windsor, Ontario.

Another drug bringing new hope is one targeting pancreatic cancer. The medication isn't a cure, but an important clinical trial shows it does extend the of patients who have it. Cancer specialists say Diraxon Rassib looks like a game changer. Lauren Pelly has more on that. A standing ovation for an experimental cancer pill at the American Society of Clinical Oncology's annual meeting. Pancreatic cancer has long been deemed a death sentence. This new drug doubles survival time. It is the biggest breakthrough for pancreas cancer ever. Oncologist Dr. Jennifer Knox is with the Princess Mark at hospital in Toronto. She spoke to CBC News from the Oncology Conference in Chicago.

We haven't seen an improvement like this with any other treatments. There's been a lot of really exciting breakthroughs across oncology. None of them worked in pancreas cancer. And so this is, this is the game changer. A phase three trial pitted Diraxon Razib against standard chemotherapy in 500 pancreatic cancer patients. All of them had already gone through a round of unsuccessful chemo treatment. It's not a cure. but the pill did increase survival time from less than seven months to more than 13. The drug also stopped or reversed tumor growth better than chemotherapy. This is a new medicine that blocks a really critical part of how pancreatic cancer grows.

Dr. Brian Wolpin of Harvard's Dana-Farber Cancer Institute was the trial's principal investigator. The drug works by targeting a protein that acts like an on-off switch for cells. A mutation can lock it in the on position, causing unchecked tumor growth. More than nine in 10 pancreatic cancer cases are driven by that mutation. Knox says it's been studied for decades. And it was thought to be undruggable. You could not find a way to get at that drug.

And then really scientific breakthroughs in the last few years have found ways to do this. Lung cancer, colorectal cancer, and others are also caused in part by this mutation. Wolpin is hopeful this early research could pave the way for broader treatments. Now the floodgates open, right? And pancreas cancer may be the first for this drug, but there will then be others, I think, that may also benefit. More than 6,000 Canadians die of pancreatic cancer each year.

It's not yet clear when Diraxan Razib could be available here, but some American patients can already get treatment through an early access program. I knew my diagnosis was bad, so what have I got to lose? In Spencer, Massachusetts, 69-year-old Debbie Orcutt is taking the drug for her stage four pancreatic cancer. I just feel like God's given me another chance. You better make the most of it.

Since Orcut started the treatment in January 2025, the tumor on her pancreas has shrunk by roughly 80%. Lauren Pelley, 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. This is becoming a familiar sound of protest in Canada.

Large groups of people saying they don't want giant tech companies building enormous data centers near them. It's already a widespread backlash to the growing AI boom and the heavy demands it places on land, electricity, and water. This group was in Saskatchewan, but similar protests have erupted in Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta. One study calculates that applications are in the works for more than 90 new data centers. Nonetheless, the federal government recently gave the green light to two new data facilities in Vancouver.

The Carney government says they're important to establishing what it calls digital sovereignty. That means cutting our dependence on other countries, especially the U.S., to develop and store much of our data abroad. Ottawa insists new data infrastructure is necessary for Canadian. and independence. Kyle Bax reports. It's the infrastructure that Canada needs to compete in the age of AI. The Federal Minister of Artificial Intelligence, Evan Solomon in Vancouver, announcing a trio of new data centers in BC. It's part of a push by the federal government for more data centers domestically

to keep Canadian data within the country. To build the economy of the future at a time when the political realignment is happening as fast as the technological acceleration. Ottawa is partnering with TELUS. Company chief executive Darren Entwistle describes the projects, which are the first to be selected by Ottawa. Right here, right now, Canada takes its place amongst the global leaders in sovereign, sustainable AI infrastructure.

The federal government received 160 proposals for new data centers after putting out a call for projects that meet certain criteria, including an economic and sovereign benefit and also environmental considerations and overall cost. There is more work ahead before a potential deal is struck between Ottawa and TELUS. Solomon says it's imperative to keep more data within Canadian borders. So we have to build it. You can't run a sovereign AI strategy on someone else's servers,

governed by someone else's rules, and in someone else's jurisdiction. This is probably going to be one of the single biggest tech issues that we are going to deal with as a country. Ritesh Kotak is a lawyer and technology advisor. He points to a recent example when the U.S. Department of Homeland Security allegedly asked Google for the private information of a Canadian who had criticized the Trump administration on social media. It's not the first time, nor will it be the last time,

where foreign governments have requested data on Canadian citizens. And there is demand for more data centers. A facility opened by TELUS in Quebec in September last year is at capacity having to turn potential new customers away, says Enwistle. This, without a doubt, empirically, clearly validates the strong market demand for sovereign AI infrastructure and compute capabilities. Tell us aims to have one of its new data centers up and running by the end of this year and the other two by 2029. Kyle Backs, CBC News, Vancouver. Wildfires have become so common in Canada that a lot of communities have been urged to create firebreaks.

clearing large swaths of forest around towns and villages to stop the flames from closing in. In the Northwest Territories, residents are starting to dream big about how to transform the clearings to give them a whole new purpose. The CBC's Sarah St. Pierre visited the tiny community of Kekisa. People in Fort Smith are reimagining what the town's firebreaks could look like. For resident Lauren Howes, the best idea is to flood part of them in the winter. and then we could make a multi-kilometer kind of skating loop, I think would be super cool. Carla Johnston is a PhD student at Wilfred Laurier University.

She's working with communities to turn our firebreaks into something more. I think a lot of folks think that fire breaks are just empty spaces, but they can actually be so many different things. There can be recreation spaces. They can be a place to grow food. She says the main rule is no hard infrastructure. And there's already a successful example. In Kikisa, the territory is so.

smallest community. Kaget 2 First Nation, Chief Lloyd Chico, says the community chose to grow a firebreak berry patch because of its history. When they moved to our own of traditional places, these are herb berries, wild potatoes, onions and that kind of thing. And then they wanted to recreate some of the community. Wildfires decimated local berries in 2014. Now, cranberries, strawberries, and Saskatoon's are growing back in the patch. Tending to the plants has been a nice change of pace for Julian Canadian. I'm enjoying what I do. I used to be a firefighter,

so I used to watch things burn, so now I'm growing things. So it's a learning experience for me. The project's been so successful. Others are now wondering what they could do with their firebreaks. Sarah St. Pierre, CBC News, Kikisa. That's it for this special holiday edition

of Your World Tonight for Wednesday, July 1st. Canada Day, 2026. Thank you for being with us. I'm Stephanie Scandaris. Good night. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca.ca slash podcasts.