Your World Tonight - Softwood support, Titan submersible, trouble in Texas, and more

Episode Date: August 5, 2025

Prime Minister Mark Carney says Canada is going to “write its own story”, and that means not letting the U.S. dictate the terms of the relationship. Today, Carney announced about $1billion in support for the hard-hit softwood lumber industry.And: Entirely preventable. That’s the conclusion of a U.S. Coast Guard report on the implosion of the TItan submersible in 2023. It lays the blame squarely at the feet of the company that ran it, and its CEO — one of five people killed in the disaster.Also: Dozens of Texas lawmakers have left the state rather than vote on a measure to redraw election maps. Republicans say the redistricting could result in as many as five seats swinging their way in next year’s mid-term elections.Plus: Meta is wrongly accusing people of sexual exploitation — and locking them out of their accounts, sea star murder mystery, and more.

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This is a CBC podcast. We will be our own best customer by relying more on Canadian lumber, Canadian software, for Canadian projects. A promise from the Prime Minister to cut down Canada's reliance on the United States and build up economic resilience using one of this country's most important. resources, millions of dollars in support to help softwood lumber producers retool and reorient towards the domestic market as Donald Trump takes an axe to the rules of foreign trade. Welcome to your world tonight. I'm Paul Hunter. It's Tuesday, August 5th, just before 6 p.m. Eastern. Also, on the podcast, I would say the Ershund Gates culture was one of the worst from a safety perspective. It was a consolidation of power into one individual, and there really were no checks and balances.

Two years after a deadly deep water dive to the Titanic, a final report points the finger at the company that built and operated the Titan submersible, its CEO, and a lack of regulation that led to five deaths and another tragic wreck on the ocean floor. Facing a head-on trade confrontation with the U.S., Canada is taking more steps tonight to work around it, finding other ways to do business. At home, Prime Minister Mark Carney has a new strategy for the struggling softwood lumber industry, while abroad some of his top ministers met with the President of Mexico. Rafi Bujicanian reports. Canada is a vital supplier to our southern neighbor. The U.S. trade war marking almost every move Mark Carney makes, including the Prime Minister's announcement about softwood lumber in West Colonna, BC. Two-thirds of Canadian lumber production, and nearly 90% of Canadian lumber exports currently go to the United States, leaving us disproportionately exposed to their trade actions. Carney is pledging $1.2 billion for the softwood lumber industry, 700 million of that in loan guarantee.

to help forestry businesses with financing the rest in grants and contributions to help diversify the market and develop new products. Handy, Carney says, as his government looks forward to fulfilling an election campaign promise this fall, getting back into the housing construction business. This combination will create enormous sustained demand for Canadian lumber products. Diversifying our markets, particularly to the Asia-Pacific regions, is important. Kurt Niquidae is the president of the BC Lumber Trade Council. He says Carney's announcement today is important.

With some of the liquidity supports, that's going to help on the urgency side. The industry currently faces a 20% tariff the U.S. accusing Canada of dumping cheap wood into its market, a charge denied by Ottawa. Niquiday says a trade deal is needed with the U.S. to provide real relief. On that front, there are no indications Carney and Trump have spoken since the last escalation. on Friday when higher tariffs kicked in on non-Kuzma-compliant Canadian goods. But two of Carney's top ministers are in Mexico today, including finance minister of Francois-Philippe Champagne.

Canada and Mexico share a lot. We want to diversify market. We want to look at exports. We want to look at how we can do more together. Champagne and Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand met with Mexico's President Claudia Shanebaum. Her country also in trade negotiations with the U.S., though it got a nice. any day exemption on last week's higher tariff rates.

There's a number of issues that could affect the decision that the president made. Pete Hoekstra is the U.S. ambassador to Canada. He would not say exactly why the U.S. treated its two North American neighbors differently last week, though he pointed out Canada, unlike Mexico, had struck the Americans back with counter tariffs during earlier rounds of this trade war. There are a lot more serious issues than those retaliatory tariffs. The retaliatory tariffs are an indication of the elbows-up strategy, engaged with the United States. For now, Canada is not planning further counter duties, officials here hoping to speak to American negotiators this week.

Rafi Bucanion, CBC News, Ottawa. U.S. authorities have released a final report into a deadly disaster that happened while exploring a tragic piece of history. Five people were killed on the Titan submersible while diving to the wreck of the Titanic. Two years later, the U.S. Coast Guard is saying the incident was entirely preventable and is casting blame on the company involved. Lisa Xing has the details. The sound believed to be the Titan submersible imploding in the North Atlantic. It was a consolidation of power into one individual and there really were no checks and balances. Now, a final report from the U.S. Coast Guard lays much of the blame on Ocean Gate and its CEO,

Stockton Rush. It found the company did not follow protocols for safety, testing, or vessel maintenance. Jason Newbauer headed the investigation and says if Rush was still alive... We would have recommended from the Marine Board that a separate criminal investigation to be open for Stevens vanswater. And that really comes down to his role as the master of the vessel. We feel there was negligence involved there. The more than 300-page document says the tragedy was a result of a critically flawed safety culture at Ocean Gate, in which written safety protocols did not match actual practices. It also cited a toxic workplace culture where employees and contractors feared being fired,

which dissuaded them from speaking out, other factors, inadequate regulations for submersible operations, and an ineffective whistleblower process. David Lockridge is the company's former director of marine operations who was fired after raising concerns about safety. I just knew if they just kept carrying on the way they were going with that deficient equipment, there would be an incident. Two years ago, the Titan Submersible went missing during an expedition to view the Titanic shipwreck.

That prompted an international search and rescue operation off the coast of Newfoundland. All five passengers on board died, including Rush, explorer Paul Henri Najolet, billionaire Hamish Harding, businessman Shazara Dawood and his son Suleiman. Dawood's wife, Christine, posted a message on YouTube, saying the findings offer another piece of closure. It confirms what our hearts already knew,

that arrogance, deception, and hiding the truth can be more dangerous than any store. The report recommends updated regulations for submersibles, echoed by Mark Entre-Procent, former director of investigations at the Canadian Transportation Safety Board. a pivotal point within the submersible industry to state, well, is it now worth for us to have an appropriate oversight of this? The Dawood family released a statement, also calling for accountability and regulatory change, saying if that helps prevent a loss from ever happening again, it will

bring us some measure of peace. Lisa Sching, CBC News, Toronto. concern about the territory's current devastation and questions about future occupation. Also, Ukraine may be at war with Russia. It's also at the forefront of drone technology, and Canada's military is looking for help. Israel's war cabinet wants to chart a new strategy for Gaza. National media there say the plan involves a complete take. of the territory. It comes with pressure mounting on Israel to allow more aid into Gaza and after two years of fighting find a way to end the war. Sasha Petrissik reports.

Life in Gaza started the way it does most mornings, prayers for the dead, tears from their families. From 11-year-old Alma Abu Qatar, whose mother was shot dead trying to get aid. killing and hunger, she says, this is injustice. Others scrounge for food from a tent hit by an Israeli airstrike nearby. Media and Israel report Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to ramp up that military operation

and occupy all of Gaza. A government vote is reportedly planned for Thursday to approve the plan. Speaking to soldiers today, he didn't confirm the report. But he did insist on what he calls completing the defeat of the enemy. That's proven elusive after nearly 22 months of war in a country where the vast majority wants it to end. This war is not a just war. It is against the will of the Israeli people. Almost 600 former military and security officials have signed a letter to Washington, asking the U.S.

to force Israel to stop fighting. Ami Ayelon is among them. He's the former head of Shinbet, Israel's internal security agency. We are responsible to a humanitarian disaster in Gaza. We are killing innocent people. The UN has accused Israeli soldiers and private contractors of shooting more than a thousand Palestinians near aid distribution sites. With a video verified by Reuters, showing troops firing at a crowd trying to get food over the weekend. Israel denies its soldiers aim at civilians near distribution sites. And at the UN Security Council today, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Tsar argued it's going out of its way to allow aid in.

Israel facilitating huge amounts of aid into Gaza. No other country acts this way in war. Israel has allowed Canada and other countries to drop aid into Gaza. A Canadian forces cargo plane delivered almost 10,000 kilos yesterday. But border crossings remain closed to most shipments from UN agencies and NGOs, says UNICEF's spokesman James Elder. It would be a mistake to be full of praise or even hope for this drip, drip, drip of humanitarian aid because we've been here before, and it's almost like a game that is being played.

A crisis say aid groups that risks getting worse if the fighting continues. Sasha Petrissik, CBC News, Toronto. Ukraine's President Vladimir Zelensky says he spoke with U.S. President Trump today about ending the war with Russia and putting pen to paper on a drone deal between the two nations. The $30 billion agreement highlights Ukraine's expertise with, the high-tech tools. And Canada wants in. Our military is turning to Kyiv for help on how to improve drone development. Evan Dyer has the details. The buzz of a drone. This one, a fixed-wing Russian Garand drone, is the soundtrack of the Ukraine

war. Often set to heavy metal music and posted online. Online, videos of the feats and innovation of drone builders on both sides of the war have caught the attention of militaries around the world. For us, it's great to collect information, lessons learned from a theater like Ukraine. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Chris Labay runs a drone development program for the Canadian military. He says Canadians are learning not only from how the Ukrainians use drones, but also how they manufacture them in hundreds of small workshops, some of them in people's garages. So the Ukrainians, of course, have taken that to an extreme level, right, where we're seeing

crowdsourced efforts from the civilian population building drones or parts of drones and sending them to the front line. Tom Barton is with Jane's defense in London. The sheer scale of their production, some of the ways that from from guys in their garages who are actually streamlining 3D printing and turning out quantities of these UOVs you wouldn't have thought it was imaginable. Now the Canadian forces are trying to bring some of that same innovative spirit here putting out challenges to drone makers. Philip Reese is CEO of Canada's Indro Robotics. They are putting out more challenges and they've increased the dollar value that's available to meet those challenges, but we're finding the responses quicker. So you put in your challenge

statement and then they review it much quicker. They come back with some pretty thought-out questions. In one project, the Canadian Navy has adapted. floating targets for marine artillery to mimic the deadly marine drones of Ukraine. There's also a wave of innovation in counter drone. Some of it being tested at a place called the sandbox in Suffield, Alberta, including directed energy weapons that burn a drone in mid-air. And this was used as a target, and this one has suffered damage from a laser energy weapon,

as you can see, not in a flying condition anymore. Indro's CEO, Philip Rees, says Canada is well positioned to become a leader in the drone field. We've got the skills here. We've got the know-how. and we've certainly got the need. We're at that inflection point right now. Canada knows we are. You can see by all of the responses, commercial and government,

that now is the time to move forward. And drones are proving to be a great battlefield equalizer when faced with an enemy that has far more armored vehicles and aircraft lost on nobody is that Canada is a very large country with a small military to defend it. Evan Dyer, CBC News, Ottawa. It's a political showdown in Texas

with national implications, all over plans to redraw the electoral map in favor of Republicans, at stake, control of the House, and the president's agenda ahead of midterm elections set for next year. Peter Armstrong explains how the proposal is leading to arrest warrants and threats of retaliation from other states. There being 94 members present, a quorum is not present. And with the swing of a gavel from the Republican speech, of the Texas legislature, the political standoff in Texas slid further into crisis. Democrats have fled the state, and Speaker Dustin Burroughs is vowing to do whatever is necessary to bring them back.

DPS is actively working to compel their attendance after I signed their civil arrest warrants yesterday. Outside, demonstrators have lined the streets, calling on the Democrats to stand firm. But Texas State House Representative Brian Harrison says he and his fellow Republicans have the law on their side. The Supreme Court of the United States has weighed in and said that it is absolutely permissible to draw maps based on maximizing partisan advantage. All the other Democrat states are doing it, the state of Texas should as well.

And there's no question. These maps are being redrawn to maximize partisan advantage. The state legislature is in charge of the electoral maps that will be used in next year's midterm elections. Just listen to how President Donald Trump framed the issue. We have an opportunity in. Texas to pick up five seats. We have a really good governor. If these new maps are approved, Republicans would likely gain five seats in the U.S. Congress

and potentially alter the outcome of next year's midterms. I got the highest vote in the history of Texas, as you probably know, and we are entitled to five more seats. To prevent that, the Democrats walked out of the state legislature. Democratic Representative John Busey was among a group that fled to other states in order to prevent the Republican-controlled House from establishing a quorum. Look, I didn't run for office to walk out of the Capitol, but I also didn't run for office to stand by while democracy is stolen in broad daylight. Political scientist Kirby Goidal of Texas A&M University says the problem for Democrats is they can only delay for so long.

It seems likely that the new maps are going to be going to be voted on and put in place. And then the question is, what are the courts going to do? Another looming question is what other states will do. High-profile Democratic governors like California's Gavin Newsom have threatened to redistrict their own electoral maps to offset the changes in Texas. California will not sit by idly and watch this democracy waste away. We'll fight fire with fire, we'll assert ourselves, and we'll punch above our weight.

Gerrymandering is certainly not new in the United States. Democrat states have been accused of doing the exact same thing for years. The difference now is just how brazen the changes are and how clearly the new map is tied to Republican efforts to retain control of Congress in next year's midterms. Peter Armstrong, CBC News, Washington. For anyone who works with children, it's a nightmare scenario. A high school teacher in Ontario wrongly accused of sexual exploitation and mistakenly banned from Instagram. The company has apologized for the mistake, which some experts say may not have been human error,

but rather a glitch. with artificial intelligence. Nicole Williams reports. It was pretty defaming, to say the least. Megan Conte says it came out of nowhere, a ban on her Instagram account and a note from parent company Meta accusing her of violating the company's standards

on child sexual exploitation. I was very surprised. I was pretty hurt, actually, especially considering what I do for a living. Conte is a school teacher in Vaughn, Ontario. and says there's nothing on her account that would trigger such a suspension. In fact, she hasn't posted in months, only realizing there was an issue a few weeks ago after a friend told Conte they couldn't see her page.

I had a lot to lose when I lost my Instagram account. I had about 10 to 15 years worth of photos, worth of memories, worth of people that I've met, relationships I've built. She says what followed was a lengthy and difficult process to reach someone at META. weren't even able to help me. They just sent me links. And when they sent me the links, it was almost like I was talking to meta-AI. Conti suspects artificial intelligence is behind the policing of profiles, too. And she isn't the only one. Brittany Watson from Peterborough, Ontario, has started a petition about the issue after she faced a similar ban. She says

meta is wrongfully disabling accounts because of what she sees as an over-reliance of AI tools. So far the petition has more than 34,000 signatures. We're asking for accountability. These platforms need to be more transparent and users deserve a way to appeal that actually works. Neither Conte nor Watson have any proof that AI is behind the blockings, but technology analyst Karmie Levy says it's a likely culprit. It's AI that is deciding to deny those individuals access to those accounts and there is literally no one that they can call to get those decisions reversed. Meta says it uses a combination of people and technology to monitor profiles.

In a statement, a company spokesperson says it takes action on accounts that violate our policies and people can appeal if they think we've made a mistake. Laura Thomas in Winnipeg says she's been wrongfully locked out of her Instagram accounts for weeks now. She's tried to appeal, but... I have been in touch with three different meta agents over the past three weeks. I have emails that have been given to me and I've responded to them. And now we just kind of wait and continue to follow up.

As for Conte, META has since apologized and reinstated her account, but only after CBC reached out for comment. Nicole Williams, CBC News, Ottawa. Climate change is taking a toll on the world's largest living structure. Australia's Great Barrier Reef has suffered its most widespread coral bleaching event on record. Scientists found that unusually high ocean temperatures in 2024 triggered the damage, turning large stretches of the reef's vibrant color, a stark white. This marks the sixth mass bleaching event in the past nine years.

In waters closer to home, Canadian and U.S. scientists have made a key discovery about a mysterious disease that's been wiping out marine life along the Pacific coast. It's driving at least one species, the sunflower sea star, to the brink of extinction, as Anand Rahm reports, the findings could save the sea stars and help the planet cope with climate change. When they're born, they just have five arms, but they get to up to around 24 arms. One reason they live up to the name Sunflower Sea Stars. The other are their colors, says marine ecologist Alyssa Gaiman at the Hawkeye Institute in British Columbia. Sometimes they're orange or they can do this like beautiful lavender color sometimes or purples.

or greens. Often they're this like kind of model of all of the above. But something has been killing these bike tire-sized creatures by the billions and it's a gruesome death. Their arms kind of twist back on themselves. They start to lose arms and their arms will sort of walk away from their bodies. Soon after they get lesions and dissolve into puddles of goo. And for a decade, the cause of this C-Star wasting disease had escaped scientists. But finally, they think they found what's responsible. apprentice is part of the research team, also with the Hawkeye Institute. The agent is a bacteria. It's called vibriopectinocida. From the same family that causes cholera in humans, finding this killer means now they know what to look for in the wild and perhaps see which sea stars show

signs of resistance to it. And if we can identify those individuals, then we want to bring them into our captive rearing facilities and breed them. And the hopes would be that then when we're reintroducing individuals back into the wild, they're actually able to cope with this disease. Experts say bringing back the critically endangered sea stars would add back much-needed predators to the coastal food chain. Akinoderms, these sea stars might not be as obvious to people that they're playing a very similar role. Amanda Bates is a professor of ocean conservation at the University of Victoria.

She says sea stars feed on grazers like sea urchins, which have exploded in population, mowing down kelp forests. And we know what happens on land when we've got lots of grazers, the same thing happens in our ocean systems. And so what that means is you have a system that has less habitat complexity and then you have less diversity.

And when you bring back the kelp, Prentice says you also get a buffer against storm surges and coastal erosion, both made worse by humanity's greenhouse gases warming the planet. Kelp is incredibly important. It contributes millions of dollars to local economies through tourism and fishing. And it's also an incredibly efficient source of carbon capture.

So it's definitely our ally in the climate crisis. Saving the sea stars then isn't just to help one species, but many, including us. Onondrom, CBC News, Toronto. And finally, tonight, it isn't your typical classic car, meticulously cared for over the years, polished and primed, touched, up, tuned up, looking as good as the day she rolled off the line. But it's no hot rod, not very sporty or luxurious. And that's just how the owner likes it. I bought that car in Halifax, 1990, and it could be, it was second-handed when I got it. Oh, that was a big price. I

paid $2,500 for that car. Andy Campbell of Wise's Corner Nova Scotia, showing off his 1985 Toyota Tersell, four-wheel drive, Brown, and that's about it for bells and whistles. But the car is still on the road. After racking up an astonishing 1,250,000 kilometers, the Tersell may be eligible for antique license plates, but Campbell doesn't treat it like a precious artifact. In fact, it's his daily driver.

If I got to get up in a snowstorm and go to Halifax, or Ellumsdale or whatever it might be, I can go with it. Campbell fixes the car himself, doing all the maintenance over the decades, replacing just about every piece of it. He's not the only fan of the sturdy Japanese subcompact. Other officinados have offered to buy it, but his terselle is not for sale. I'm not exaggerating, but if somebody was offered me

60, 70, 80,000 of that car, know. As well as he takes care of the car, should it ever quit, after more than 40 years and a million kilometers, Campbell does have a contingency plan. Would you like to see my new car? This is my new one, 86. Campbell's new ride, an identical 1986 Toyota Tercell in the garage and ready to go just in case. Thanks for being with us. This has been your world tonight. for Tuesday, August 5th. I'm Paul Hunter. Take care.