Your World Tonight - Staff picks: Canada pivots from U.S., kids use AI for counselling, a big glut of donated clothes, and more

Episode Date: October 12, 2026

Canadian businesses find new product innovations to make up for lost U.S. markets. And Ottawa works with Europe on a daring plan to get around the U.S. hold on international payment systems through VISA and Mastercard.And: AI is becoming a companion of choice for a growing number of teens looking for emotional support. It’s worrying experts. But in New Brunswick, an ambitious curriculum change is teaching kids from a young age to be the ones in control of AI tools.Also: The popularity of used clothing shops is rising, but thrift stores are starting to drown under a flood of clothing donations. Much is going to waste now because fast fashion is overwhelming them.Plus: A big expansion of a uranium mine in northern Saskatchewan will make Canada a leading producer. But the Rook 1 mine is already improving the lives of the Indigenous people being hired to work on it. Also, new lockers are popping up in Canadian parks offering free access to sports gear, like soccer balls. And it’s finding a lot of takers.

Albertans are voting on their future in Canada on October 19th. Wondering how we got here, CBC podcast has you covered. Start Referendum Day with front burner host Jamie Poisson. She'll bring you her story from Edmonton about the final pitches from the unity and independence camps. Then tune in to Power and Politics live for their Referendum Day coverage from Calgary. The morning after, West of Center is your destination for a behind-the-scenes look at the initial results and what they mean for Alberta and Canada. Find front burner, power and politics, and west of center, wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast.

It's almost like your brain is never turned off because you have to constantly make sure that you're thinking about 10 steps down the line. Surviving a trade war that's dragging on. Canadian businesses are working hard to replace vanishing sales to the U.S. market, forging new ties with new partners and developing new products. It's the threat of failure, the threat of competitive attack, the threat of loss of markets that is the spur or the driver to innovate. That's as Mark Carney's government looks to partner with Europe to break the U.S. chokehold on international banking and payments, just in case that could be used as further leverage.

Welcome to a special Thanksgiving Day edition of Your World Tonight. I'm Salima Shivji, also on the program. It's not human. It doesn't understand emotions like a clinician would or a parent would or a teacher would. Yet another concern about the world of artificial intelligence. Kids are turning to AI for emotional support. Mark Carney has been on a mission to pivot Canada's economy to shrink this country's dependence on the U.S. market. More and more companies here have been trying the same tack. Kayla Hounsel now on how the trade war is for. forcing Canadian firms to get creative.

At Mali Industries in Dieppe, New Brunswick, they're used to creating products to respond to emergencies. They make ambulances. But now the 80 people who work here are being forced to respond to an emergency of a different kind, the trade war. So there were definitely long days, long hours. Dejiaola is the company's engineering and product development manager. He hasn't had much rest since early.

2025 when the U.S. began threatening tariffs. It's almost like your brain's never turned off because you have to constantly make sure that you're thinking about 10 steps down the line. The company had been doing nearly half of its business in the U.S., but that's dried up almost entirely. Now it's making up for that in less than a year unveiling a brand new vehicle for prospective clients in Quebec and Alberta. In BC, packaging company Cancour says it has also figured out the pivot.

When its cardboard boxes got caught up in the trade war, co-founder Baja Nahami got on the phone, calling up his competitors and ramping up production so Canadian businesses could buy their boxes at home instead of south of the border. That we are prepared to absorb any void that would be felt by stopping corrugated box imports into BC. The thing that both of these companies in two different industries on opposite sides of the country have in common is this. They both got to work immediately.

The question is whether these big ideas are lasting solutions. And it can be done, but it requires a lot of human capital. Ian Lee has been teaching strategy at Carleton University's Sprott School of Business for 35 years. It's the threat of failure, the threat of competitive attack, the threat of loss of markets. that is the spur or the driver to innovate. But Lee cautions patriotism is not a business strategy, and companies can't rely on the bi-Canadian mood of the moment long-term. To truly make these pivots permanent, he says,

they still have to make a better product. All involved, acknowledge, not every industry can pivot this hard, but experts say exactly how much business Canada can bring home might just depend on the innovation of those who can. Kayla Hounsel, CBC News, Halifax. The increasingly erratic trade tactics we've seen from Donald Trump's administration have sparked worries around the world,

including concern about the U.S. dominance over international payment systems. They rely heavily on American companies like Visa and MasterCard. Canada and the EU are looking at a workaround. A leaked memo reveals discussions to set up a set up a situation. separate payment system that would be outside the reach of the United States. Evan Dyer has more. The people who think about the plumbing are very, very few and far between, put it that way. Carl Shimoda is chief market strategist of Corpay, one of the world's biggest payment companies.

Most of the world's large transactions are settled through the SWIFT system, which is based in Belgium, but connects through American banks. That gives the U.S. government a choke point. They realized that not only did they have control of banks within the U.S., but they had secondary control over any bank that touches those banks. We have this amazing weapon that we can use. Canada and Europe should secure our strategic autonomy. Mark Kearney spoke about the issue in his speech to the European Parliament.

AI and compute, energy security, space and payments. We should move towards seamless digital trade in a wide range of services. Fenosler Hampson, co-chair of the Advisory Council on U.S.-Canada Relations, says countries, including Canada, have good reason to fear that American efforts of coercion could escalate from tariffs to measures like sanctions and asset breases. What may happen is that as the tariff lever becomes harder to pull, the president decides to pressure key trading partners, including Canada, by barring U.S. financial institutions from processing Canadian transactions

or attaching conditions on access to dollar clearing. And those financial tools sit squarely within presidential authority. Canada has some protection for its domestic commerce through the Interact System, which performs functions that in many countries are in the hands of Visa and MasterCard, two companies that play a big role in U.S. sanctions enforcement. But Canada's overseas trade is much more vulnerable, and that's where the idea of a Canada European payment system comes in. We're kind of in a new moment where novelty and exceptions are being made and experiments are happening.

Vaspedner of the Canadian Shield Institute says countries around the world are already building new payment systems that avoid both U.S. banks and the U.S. dollar. Canada should also be reducing that digital dependence as much as possible. Linking Canada to Europe through such a system is technically complicated, but perfectly doable, say the experts, and leaving Canada's trade dependent on U.S. goodwill and good faith is asking for trouble. Evan Dyer, CBC News, Ottawa. One glimmer of hope for Canada's economy lies in the ground. Saskatchewan is rich in uranium, critical to a world thirsty for electricity,

and looking more and more at nuclear power generation. A mine in the far north of the province is now being expanded into a $2 billion project. It's on indigenous land and people. their say it's already changing their lives. Helena Mahalek reports. Construction is just beginning for NextGen's mine, but it's already changing lives. The company is offering training in remote indigenous communities to prepare people to work in the mine. Bobby Marsland from Birch Nero's Denay Nation says he jumped on the opportunity to be trained as an electrician. Before this, Marceland was getting by, scaling fish, and working odd jobs to make ends meet.

At 36, he says learning a higher skill and now getting paid for it is a second chance at life for him and his 9-year-old daughter. To buy the things that I couldn't provide with the low-income jobs that I did have before, right? So this created more of a boost in my income and boosting confidence in a way, you know. The Rook 1 site is expected to generate 459 full-time jobs and yield around 30 million pounds of uranium a year. That has the potential to make Canada, the largest exporter of the mineral worldwide. Next-Gen CEO, Lee Courier, says it comes at a time

when the need to generate electricity is high, and the demand for nuclear energy continues to grow. When you consider a number of the world's OECD countries are committing to tripling nuclear energy by 2050, the demand profile for nuclear energy is just incredible. It's being built on Treaty 8 land, the traditional territory of the Dene, Cree, and Métis. people. Those we spoke to in the communities say genuine reconciliation efforts have been made, and that overall they're enthusiastic about the economic potential this project brings. Ronald LeMague owns MR equipment and services in Clearwater River Denne Nation. He hopes the mine will invest in indigenous businesses long term. I call them rent-a-feathers. It's usually just bigger

companies looking at people like me, just stamp their logo and here's a little percentage of what we're making, but I would rather see the established businesses that they can keep people employed in the future, even if these mines move on. As much good as the mine is bringing, community advocates like Nicholas Herman are already bracing for the day when it all comes to an end. In a very short amount of time that they're going to be done, their operations, and they'll be going, right, and that's just part of business. They are a business at the end of the day. NextGen says once construction is complete in 2030, the mine has a lifespan of 24 years. And people in the north wonder how to ensure these changes provide for the community long after the mine is gone.

Helena Mahalik, CBC News, Clearwater River Denay Nation. Coming right up, headline after headline about AI has concentrated on how it could turn on us. But also of concern, the growing tendency of people, particularly children, turning to AI for emotional. emotional support. Also, how schools in New Brunswick are taking a proactive approach, teaching kids how to use AI technology safely. And later, we'll have this story. I'm Sheehan de Taday in Toronto. New equipment lockers are popping up that let people borrow things like soccer balls, footballs, and frisbees for free. The aim to make sports more accessible. If there wasn't a need, we wouldn't see the astronomical numbers that we're seeing, like literally hundreds of thousands of hours of sports. participation because this equipment is now available for free in communities from coast to coast to coast with plans to keep expanding. I'll have that story later on your role tonight.

Systems gone rogue, hacking into major websites, even collaborating with other agents. All actions recently attributed to artificial intelligence. It's raising fears that AI is outpacing human efforts to control it. That is only added to concern that a growing number of kids now turn to an AI bot for emotional support. As Megan Fitzpatrick reports, they're doing so because real humans aren't available. Getting good grades, getting a good job, getting into university, but we're also dealing with, well, the world around us. 17-year-old Annie Vital Ramos says teenagers have a lot on their minds,

and they don't always feel like they have somewhere to turn for support. Young people need a place to talk to, and it should be accessible. and convenient to them. For some young Canadians, that accessible and convenient source is an AI chatbot. A new study found that students are not only using AI for help with their homework, but for emotional support too. Researchers surveyed nearly 40,000 students in grades 4 to 12 in Ontario. 21% responded they had used the technology to seek advice on how to cope with their feelings, friends, family, or others in their lives. The study also showed that of the students using AI for advice, they were twice as likely to have clinical emotional problems.

The study does not say there's a causation between using AI and the emotional problems, but rather that the results should be viewed as a warning sign that these youth need help. Author Tracy Vyingkor says it's understandable why some teens are turning to AI. They have nobody to turn to in their family. They feel like they don't have anybody to turn to at school. There might not be a lot of mental health support within their community. It's good there at least seeking advice, says Viancourt, but she's concerned about what that advice is.

In her view, AI is not a good substitute for a professional trained to work with youth. It's not human. It doesn't understand emotions like a clinician would or a parent would or a teacher would. So there's some issues about them going to AI chatbots that can make them a little bit more vulnerable. Dr. Peter Selby, senior scientist at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, says AI has potential to be helpful, but... The downside of it is it's the Wild West. Selby says the guardrails aren't yet good enough to ensure AI can be used safely,

especially for youth with very serious medical conditions such as psychosis. He advises parents to be on the lookout for signs their child is struggling. Annie Vital Ramos has a simple message for parents. Ask your kids how they're doing. Because a lot of things could be hiding behind a smile. Ramos says AI can be a good starting point to get. help, but she hopes her peers will still reach out for support offline too. Megan Fitzpatrick, CBC News, Toronto.

Another major concern about AI tools is how kids are using them to do their homework and write their assignments. Educators in New Brunswick are trying something new. Rather than banning AI helpers, they're incorporating them into the school curriculum from an early age. As Deanna Sumanak Johnson tells us, some believe it could provide a model to schools in the rest of the country. Your blukets, your school AI, our Ozobots, we're going to continue that. These grade seven students in New Brunswick are getting their assignment in what sounds like a whole new language, the language of AI.

The province is the first in Canada to incorporate AI in the curriculum from kindergarten to grade 12. For the youngest kids, it starts as simple as awareness of technology and examining how it makes them feel what's it like to have a book read to them through an app rather than by a teacher. As they go up in grades, more technology and AI gets introduced, says Jordan Smith. In high school, for example. She's a former classroom teacher who is now the AI lead for Anglophone East School District in Moncton. My stepson came home yesterday and told me he had used Microsoft co-pilot to choose his independent reading book this term. So he had fed in some

information about what he's interested in. And that brought back examples of different books. he could read. New Brunswick's province-wide approach contrasts with the rest of Canada, where AI policy is more piecemeal left up to individual school boards or, in some cases, individual teachers. It's something other provinces could learn from, says Andre Cote. He's the executive director of the dais at Toronto Metropolitan University. The public policy think tank focuses on technology, AI education, and democracy. You know, provincial education ministries and school boards, districts, divisions have frankly not moved with the urgency that they need, given the extent to which this

kind of tsunami of AI use has washed into schools. And so I think this move to look at adapting digital literacy curriculum to embed AI is a great starting point. Still, there's pushback, especially at a time when leaders in AI are asking for a slowdown in development, some even issuing dire warnings about the risk AI poses to humanity. Some parents across Canada feel school should not be the testing ground for it. Dad Ben Humphreys is the co-founder of Vancouver-based Paces, parents for AI caution in schools. When students use these tools, they give up more easily, they don't remember as much, they don't learn as much, they become relying on their tools. Experts say schools will have to strike a balance, acknowledging the importance of AI while protecting critical thinking as they prepare kids for this new.

frontier of learning. Deanna Somenike Johnson, CBC News, Toronto. As the price of everything continues to climb, thrift stores dealing in used goods are flourishing. But they also face a serious problem. They're getting so many donations of used clothing that they can't handle the glut. So much of it is going to waste. As Terran Grant reports from Halifax, they blame the fast fashion trend. With a gentle thud, a mound of clothes lands in the dumpster. behind a thrift store in suburban Halifax. Clothes really shouldn't go in the dumpster, but there's just so many clothes being generated now with fast fashion.

Kathy Broussard is the director of hand-in-hand thrift store. It generates money for a registered charity, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. Broussard says she used to be able to sell her stores excess clothing to other charities. They would sell some to for-profit stores, like Value Village, and some might be exported to other countries. But six months ago, the charities stopped buying because there's just too much. It's a treadmill. It doesn't end. It keeps coming and going and being sorted.

Roussard says dumpster pickups have gone up 50 percent, and every pickup costs money, eating into her charity's bottom line. Used clothing expert Charlotte Genge says the same problem is hitting charity thrift stores across Canada. The system that we have created, I think it's worked really well for many, many years. the real problem is just that we need to turn off the tap, ultimately. The National Diabetes Trust collects used clothing to sell wholesale. It uses donation bins, and until recently, it would also buy from charity thrift stores. But it stopped doing that in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, and Nova Scotia,

citing changing market conditions and higher donation volumes. Another big player, Value Village, is shifting away from, from buying from charities. The Thrift Giant would not do an interview. But in its annual reports, it says around three quarters of its stock now comes from direct donations, up from about half in 2019. This isn't just a Canadian problem. It's a global problem.

Stephen Bethel's company, Bank and Vogue, exports used clothing to 32 countries. He says pressure is mounting on the international marketplace. And under pressure also in a really thin margin. and it's a low-value commodity. Bethel says inflation and global unrest have driven up the costs of exporting used clothes. Plus, some countries are adding taxes to try to slow the stream. Gengh says the only real solution is policy. It almost needs to get worse before it's going to get better because it's been so out of sight, out of mind for so long.

She'd like to see more textile recycling and for manufacturers of new clothes to face the burden of disposal. Teran Grant. CBC News, Halifax. If you were out at a local park over Thanksgiving, this might sound familiar. Standing near the grass or fenced court, a boxy thing, looking like it ought to be selling drinks or snacks. But what's inside is sports equipment, a ball, maybe a frisbee, or table tennis paddles. And all that stuff is available free for you to use. There are now a lot of these lending lockers, and they're catching on so well, expect to see a lot more of them. She and Desjardin has that story.

It may seem like a really simple idea, but the impact we know will be significant. By making sports more accessible, says Kitchener Ontario Mayor Barry Vibanovick, unveiling a new sports locker at a local park. Unlocked, there we go. It sort of looks like a vending machine. Select the shelf of which equipment you would like to use. A soccer ball, football, and a frisbee stacked inside that anyone can borrow for free using an app on your phone. For many families, the cost of it. of sporting equipment can be a barrier to participation.

There are now 30 of these lockers in Kitchener alone. In the two weeks leading up to its official launch this summer, data show they were open more than 800 times. That tells us that we are, A, meeting an unmet need by providing free equipment to kids, but B, we have our work cut out for us. Canadian Tire Jump Start charities partnered with Equip Sport for the initiative. Jumpstar President Marco DiBuano says the very very. very first locker opened in Surrey, BC back in 2025.

Now, hundreds are sprinkled across British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario, with more expansions underway. If there wasn't a need, we wouldn't see the astronomical numbers that we're seeing, like literally hundreds of thousands of hours of sport participation because this equipment is now available for free. The items in the lockers are geared to the communities they serve. So some have basketballs, there's volleyball, and basketballs. ping pong paddles too. And Canada's Secretary of State for Sport, Adam Vancouverden, is a big fan.

It's having a tremendous impact. The federal government is also investing in sport accessibility. This summer announcing millions for upgrades of the Olympic skating oval in Calgary, ski racing and snowboard facilities in Quebec, Yukon, Alberta, NBC, and to help build community soccer pitches across the country. I think physical activity is essential. Investing in swimming lessons today might be, you know, in 12 or 15 years, that might be an Olympic athlete. You never know. But sport marketing professor Sherry Bradish says even if initiatives like free sport lockers don't lead to medals down the road.

It creates opportunities that weren't there that are important for youth at this time. I'm hoping that's going to go in a penalty. At a park in Brampton, Ontario, the walkers appear to be catching on. It's a good idea. I like it. Yeah, we might probably be using it yet. The Akkad Wahid is here kicking a ball around with a, son, and 11-year-old Daniel is sold, saying he'll be back for more soccer soon. Shia and Ijane, CBC News, Toronto.

That's it for this special holiday edition of Your World tonight for Monday, October 12th. Thanks for being with us. I'm Salima Shivji. Good night. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca slash podcasts.