Your World Tonight - Unemployment rate up, Russian oil sanctions suspended, tracking butterfly migration, and more

Episode Date: March 13, 2026

Canada's economy lost nearly 84,000 jobs in February, pushing the unemployment rate up to 6.7%. That’s a setback for the labour market and one of the worst monthly job losses seen in years outside of the pandemic.And: The Trump administration pledges to continue its heavy bombardment of Iran. The war has had a dramatic effect on the movement of oil as Tehran targets the Strait of Hormuz. In an effort to alleviate the pressure on prices, the U.S. has temporarily suspended its sanctions on Russian oil.Also: Millions of monarch butterflies are heading north from the mountains of Mexico, carrying tiny transmitters that scientists hope will reveal the secrets of their journey.Plus: Ontario moves to change Freedom of Information rules, PM Mark Carney in Norway, Hezbollah and Israel, and more.

In the fall of 2023, Romana Diedelow, a woman calling herself the Queen of Canada, drove into Richmond, Saskatchewan with a fleet of RVs and set up her kingdom in an abandoned school. So the town banded together to get the cult out by any means necessary. My name is Rachel Brown, and in this season of Uncover, I explore what happens when a conspiracy theory lands in your backyard, the Cult Queen of Canada, available now on CBC Listen, everywhere you get your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast. Very weak at the start of the year.

We've seen almost no job growth whatsoever in the last 12 months, and that's not a positive for the economy. With a trade war underway at home and a real one raging overseas, pressure on the Canadian economy keeps ratcheting up. Last month, employment numbers took a steep dive. More than 80,000 jobs lost, as the economy tries to find its footing. This is your world tonight.

It's Friday, March 13th, coming up on 6 p.m. Eastern. I'm Stephanie Skandaris, also on the podcast. There's no reason for this government to change these laws other than that they are actually trying to hide from the public. Access denied and outrage in Ontario over a controversial move by the province that will shield the Premier and his cabinet from access to information laws.

And... Hi, I will. price gives Russia a lot of money. How the war in Iran is benefiting Russia and potentially harming Ukraine. An uncertain economy is one thing. A sudden month-to-month drop of more than 80,000 Canadian jobs is another. Unemployment jumped from 6.5% in January to 6.7% in February. Our senior business correspondent Peter Armstrong joins us with more. Peter, just how unexpected is this? Yeah, economists believed we were going to see like a small gain, maybe 10,000 jobs added the month of February. There had been this kind of growing sense that maybe, just maybe, Canada had weathered the worst part of the trade storm.

But man, this report proves that to definitely not be the case. And most of these jobs lost are full-time. How big of a concern is that? Yeah. So all the jobs lost were full-time. Almost all the jobs lost were private sectors. So two things kind of matter here. One is that when someone in your household loses their part-time job, it's not necessarily a catastrophe.

Households can get by. But when someone in your household loses a full-time job, that's probably doing a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of paying rent and paying the bills. So you look at youth unemployment. It's already at like 14%. So those part-time jobs were already going pretty quickly. What we're seeing now is more eating into those full-time jobs. On the other hand, this question around the private sector is frankly equally, concerning. We already knew that too much of the growth in Canada's jobs market was in the

public sector. You need to have a balance between the private and the public sector. This is a pretty big blow to that balance. But I seem to remember Canada adding a pretty healthy number of jobs through the fall. What happened to that momentum? Yeah, you know, all the talk you hear that Canada's facing the lowest effective tariff rate with the United States. That's true, but it doesn't tell the whole story. This has been an incredibly tough time for Canadian businesses. And remember, Stephanie, it's not like Canada's economy was booming when the trade war started. It's been a weak growth environment for years now. So if a business has a chance to reduce costs and maybe eliminate a job or two to protect the bottom line, it's awful.

They don't like to do it, but it's also kind of understandable. You mentioned the trade war and the uncertainty around all of that. We've been dealing with that for a year now. And now we have a whole new wave of uncertainty coming through with this war in Iran. How do we factor that into the forecast? I think out of all of this, that might be the most important part. And it's important to remember all these job losses, they came before the war started. Now you take all these concerns with the price of oil, a whole new supply chain crisis, potential shortages of key components.

That's going to have an impact, right? The price of diesel gasoline in Canada is now, on average, $2 a liter. That means the cost of shipping just about everything, from food to clothing, industrial inputs. It's all rising. And that impact, Stephanie, is. only just starting. Okay, Peter, thank you. You bet. Senior business correspondent Peter Armstrong. The Ontario government is facing sharp criticism for a plan to block the public's ability to scrutinize some of its most powerful figures. Doug Ford's progressive conservatives want the power

to turn down requests made under freedom of information laws. The new legislation would exempt the premier, his cabinet, and many members of his caucus. Philip LeShenock reports. This government has probably been of the most transparent governments in the history of Ontario. Despite that claim, Stephen Crawford, the minister in charge of how government does business, says laws around what records the public can access need to be changed. He says decades-old freedom of information laws written before cell phones, cloud storage, and cyber attacks need to be modernized. Plus, anyone with questions can just ask Premier Doug Ford.

Our Premier, as many of you know, has been probably the most accessible political leader in the history of this country. in fact, maybe even the world. Under current freedom of information laws, opposition parties, journalists, and any member of the public can request records on cabinet deliberations. Documents include emails, phone records, and memos. Crawford says the new law would keep a lot of those deliberations secret. So any interactions of the executive council members amongst themselves will be confidential.

And I think that's in the best interest of the people so that we can have candid conversations, important discussions, without any potential blowback. No government changes the FOI rules unless they are trying to hide corruption. NDP leader Merritt Stiles called it outrageous and unjustified. Everything that we do and say should be subject to freedom of information laws.

The people of Ontario have a right to know what their government is doing and how decisions are being made. Stiles says it was through FOI requests that Ontario's Greenbelt land development scandal came to light. Green Party leader Mark Shriners said if passed, it will become easier to hide the truth. More secrecy is a recipe for more waste, corruption, and abuse of power. Duff Conacher of the Advocacy Group Democracy Watch

disputed the province's rationale that it was simply bringing information laws in line with other provinces and the federal government. The excessive secrecy of other governments is not a justifiable excuse for increasing the level of secrecy in the Ontario government. James Turk is director of the Center for Free Expression, a Toronto Metropolitan University. He says there are already too many loopholes allowing the government to hold information back.

I mean, if anything, the exemptions already are probably too robust, and that's unhealthy in a democracy. Premier Ford uses his personal mobile phone for government work and is appealing a court ruling that ordered him to release the call logs. Under the proposed law, which would be retroactive, those would not be made public. Philip Lich-Shannock, CBC News, Toronto. Coming right up, six more American casualties in the Middle East,

as the U.S. keeps hitting Iran, and Donald Trump dismisses the war's economic toll. Also, in Norway, for NATO military exercises, Prime Minister Mark Carney vows to maintain sanctions on Russian oil, as the United States temporarily eases them. Later, we'll have this story. I'm Jorge Barrera in the Edel Sadio Butterfly Sanctuary in Mexico, where a new high-tech device is being used in hopes of unlocking the secrets of the monarch butterfly's epic migratory journey all the way from Canada.

This is new and this is big, but it's really important. And this new technology is using crowdsourced data, bounced from iPhones to give the most detailed view to date of the path of the butterflies. That's coming up on your world tonight. In Washington, the administration's rhetoric remains upbeat and undaunted. But on the ground and in the air above the Middle East, the cost of the war in Iran is mounting. The U.S. confirming today six more of its troops have been killed, though not by enemy fire. Paul Hunter has more.

On the streets of Tehran, thousands of government-sponsored demonstrators as billowing smoke after some sort of explosion filled the sky in the near distance. In another part of the city, misery after what was. was said to be yet another air strike by U.S. or Israeli forces. Meanwhile, at the Pentagon, U.S. chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dan Cain, with word six more U.S. forces are among the latest casualties. It was not the result of hostile or friendly fire. Killed after an apparent mid-air incident involving a U.S. refueling jet. As Defense Secretary Pete Hankseth put it, war is hell, war is chaos. And as we saw yesterday with the tragic crash of our KC-135 tanker, bad things can happen.

Hegsteth also spoke to increasing concerns over spiking oil prices with key shipping lanes through the Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Iran, now all but paralyzed because of the war. On that, Hegsteth blames Iran. The only thing prohibiting transit in the streets right now is Iran shooting at shipping. It is open for transit should Iran not do this. And on reports Iran is now laying explosive mines in the strait, said Hegsteth, the U.S. has seen no evidence of that. Bottom line, on the strait of Hormuz, he said, in effect, not to worry. Something we're dealing with. We have been dealing with it and don't need to worry about it.

As for Iran's new supreme leader, who has yet to be seen publicly, said Hegsteth. We know the new so-called not-so-s supreme leader is wounded and likely disfigured. But as the war rolls on, concerns it will further intensify grew today on reporting the U.S. is moving a marine expeditionary unit to the region by design capable of land assault. While back home, a great number of Americans continue to fret over the rising price of gasoline, fallout from those paralyzed oil shipping lanes. U.S. President Donald Trump, in a telephone interview that aired this morning on Fox News, gave his view of the U.S. economy's, ability to withstand whatever impact comes from the war, and his latest take on the timing of its endgame. We have the greatest economy in history.

We do. We still do. Oh, this will bounce right back. When it's over, and I don't think it's going to be long, when it's over, this is going to bounce right back so fast. When are you going to know when it's over? When I feel it. Okay.

I feel it up my bones. Trump did not elaborate. Paul Hunter, CBC News, Washington. Canada is contributing to the effort. to stabilize global oil prices. The Federal Energy Minister announced today Canadian suppliers will release more than 23 million barrels of oil. Earlier this week, the International Energy Agency

announced the release of more than 400 million barrels from the strategic reserves of member countries. The organization says the war in the Middle East is creating the biggest oil disruption in history. It's also driving up the price of Russia's heavily sanctioned crude. And experts say that could potentially, potentially wipe out months of Moscow's sanction-driven losses in a matter of weeks. Breyer Stewart has that story.

Ships in the Strait of Hormuz under attack and under-continued threat, all part of Iran's campaign to choke off a key energy route through the Persian Gulf. It's causing oil prices to skyrocket and Russian officials to pipe up, offering it sanctioned oil as an alternative. This week, Vladimir Putin's special envoy met with his U.S. counterparts in Florida and said the global energy crisis came up. We see that an increasing number of countries, including the United States, are coming to understand the key role of Russian energy and ensuring stability in global markets, said Kareel Dmitriev.

And U.S. officials seem to agree, Washington has temporarily lifted sanctions on Russian oil already on tankers at sea. The Middle East crisis has already driven up the price of oil. Russian media are reporting that between February 27th and March 10th, Russian crude went up about $18. It normally sells to places like China and India at a steep discount because of Western sanctions, but that price gap has nearly disappeared, which means that Russia is raking in more energy revenue, which it could use to keep funding its war on Ukraine. Higher oil price gives Russia a lot of money. is a senior fellow with the Center for European Policy Analysis

and says Russian officials clearly see an opportunity in this crisis. Also, we saw some easing of the sanctions on Russian oil from the American side, and I wouldn't exclude that the Americans would ease sanctions even more. So that definitely gives Putin a diplomatic edge. Moscow signed a strategic partnership with Tehran last year. It's not legally required to help Iran military. but there are reports in US media that it's providing intelligence and sharing advice on the use of Shahed drones.

US officials say Moscow has denied claims it's passing on intelligence about US targets. But Hannah Notté says there's inevitably some defense cooperation going on. She is with the James Martin Center for Non-Proliferation Studies and is an expert in Russia's relations with Iran. You know, Russia is doing certain things for Iran, which the Americans don't like. but Putin is also interested in staying on Trump's good terms. And so my hunch is that Russia will not overdo its support for Iran.

She says Russia also doesn't want to upset its relations with other nations in the Gulf, including its key ally, the United Arab Emirates. She says Russia will be unwilling to share too much, given that it's still waging its war in Ukraine, which has now been pushed further from the headlines, given the crisis in the Middle East. Breyer Stewart, CBC News, London. Canada will maintain sanctions on Russian oil, even though the U.S. has paused them.

In fact, the Prime Minister and the leaders of Germany and Norway say they were surprised to hear about the American decision. Mark Carney is in Norway to observe NATO training exercises. The CBC's Murray Brewster is there too. Canada's Mark Carney, Germany's Friedrich Murs and Norway's Jonas Storr were driven onto a snowy mock battlefield in the the back of an armored personnel carrier. They're here in northern Norway to witness NATO's massive cold response exercise. Let me wish you heartily welcome to the high north. The fighting words, however, were reserved for the Trump administration, which caught all three of them off guard by easing sanctions on Russia's shadow fleet of oil tankers already at sea. Friedrich Mertz says

G7 leaders discussed the issue on Wednesday. And six out of seven were clearly the opinion that we should not release the sanctions against Russia. And we were a little bit surprised that we heard this morning that the American government decided differently. The U.S. Treasury Secretary insists the temporary waiver was aimed at promoting stability in global energy markets, instability that has been brought on by the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran. Scott Besant says this short-term measure would not provide significant financial benefit to the Russian government. Mark Carney doesn't see it that way. Canada's position is to maintain sanctions on Russia, maintain sanctions,

including on the shadow fleet, which is moving this oil. You know, there has been very tight cooperation between Russia and Iran at great cost to the people of Ukraine and a great threat to peace and security in Europe. The display of combat power the leaders witnessed today was heavily influenced by the war in Ukraine. Norwegian defense officials have played up the fact that this iteration of the longstanding war game, which practices reinforcing Norway in the event of a major crisis, includes several hundred civilians playing various roles. War happens among people, and that has to be factored into in the realistic assessment of how a war is going to progress.

Kier Giles is with the UK-based Chatham House. In Ukraine, it's been clear what the... impact on civilian populations is, and that of course needs to be modeled in any country that actually wants to protect its civilians against conflict. The NATO exercise involving more than 30,000 troops continues into next week. Murray Brewster, CBC News, Barnifice, Norway. As Israeli strikes in Lebanon continue, so are evacuation orders, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee and deepening an already desperate humanitarian situation.

The IDF says it's targeting Hezbollah, the Iran-backed group firing rockets into northern Israel. But Lebanon's health ministry says hundreds of people have been killed. Susan Ormiston is in Beirut with more. Their faith endures in spite of another intractable war. On the last Friday of Ramadan, prayers for an end to a fight that's only escalating. Fahud Maksuma, a member of Lebanon's parliament, blames a lack of leadership. We have a government that doesn't have the political will. The world gave us 15 months to disarm Husbalah.

We decided not to do it. The Israeli military is widening its theater of war, striking more areas, taking out weapons storage and launchers, it says, and killing 380 combatants. Yet missiles and rockets fired from Iran and Hezbollah are still. still hitting northern Israel. An Iranian strike left a crater near Nimran Griffith's home in Zarzir.

Fifteen citizens go to the hospitals. Panic attack. It was huge. It was big fire. The kids was sleep. Today, Israel dropped leaflets into Beirut warning Lebanese to disarm Hezbollah or face punishing consequences. Air strikes in San Francisco.

central Beirut, come daily, choking smoke still billowing from the multi-story building hit yesterday. The Israeli military claims Hezbollah was hiding millions of dollars in cash and gold underneath. The blast was terrorizing, says Nabil Shakir, who lives in the next street. For all his 58 years, he says, he's lived with war. Even if now, it will calm down. Even if they have a treaty or negotiate. it will come back, he says. Many believe Lebanon is that its most dangerous precipice since the civil war ended in 1990.

Tonight, Hezbollah's leader, Naim Qasam, commanded a primetime TV audience. Saying, we've prepared ourselves for a long confrontation. God willing, they'll be surprised on the battlefield. Over 800,000 people are now out of their homes in Lebanon, restless and frustrated. No one, not the government nor the United Nations, no one is helping, says this man.

To counter that, the UN Secretary General touchdown in Beirut, appealing for over $300 million in humanitarian aid. Solidarity in words must be matched by solidarity in action. But aid alone won't bring on a ceasefire. Susan Ormston, CBC News, Beirut. U.S. officials have identified the suspect who rammed a car into a synagogue near Detroit. He's a 41-year-old man from Lebanon who became a U.S. citizen in 2016. The mayor of his Michigan city says several members of his family were killed by an Israeli

attack on their home in Lebanon. The man was fatally shot by security. The FBI is investigating the attack as a targeted act of violence against the Jewish community. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Yesterday's attack was anti-Semitism. It was hate. Plain, and simple. We will fight this ancient and rampant evil. We will stand together as we do it, and we will call it out. We must lower the rhetoric in this state and in this country. None of the synagogue's staff, teachers, or the 140 children at its early childhood center were injured. Ontario's Premier is also denouncing Thursday's attack in Michigan, citing that and recent shootings at three Toronto area synagogues,

Doug Ford says he wants to cancel tomorrow's Al-Quds Day rally in Canada's biggest city. I've instructed my Attorney General Doug Downey to pursue an injunction that would stop this hateful demonstration. If we don't act now, if we don't act decisively, the hatred won't stop. Al-Cud's Day is marked annually around the world. The event is in support of Palestinians, an opposition of Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories. Toronto police say they'll have an increased presence at Saturday's March. Organizers maintain their rally will be peaceful.

Imagine this. An electronic device, so small, it can be carried by a butterfly. It's not sci-fi, it's reality, and it's coming soon, literally. Millions of monarch butterflies are heading north from the mountains of Mexico, and some will be carrying this tiny transmitter that scientists hope will reveal the secrets of their journey. Jorge Berrera is in Mexico with that story. This is the sound of thousands of monarch butterflies

swirling like orange leaves in pools of sun. It's beautiful because you see a ranch with a cluster and then all is starting to fly in. Adriana Avalila Ruiz Marquez works for Mexico's monarch butterfly biosphere reserve. Sometimes there are branches that fall because of the way. The reserve includes six butterfly sanctuaries in the state of Michoacan, the wintering grounds of the vast majority of the monarch population east of the rocky mountains. Nobody teach them how to arrive here.

Nobody showed them the journey. They just know where to arrive and they arrive always in the same forest. They arrive here in Mexico after an epic migratory. journey of between 4,000 to 5,000 kilometers from Canada and parts of the Midwestern and northeastern U.S. states. It's the second longest of any insect, but mystery still shrouds the monarch, like how they navigate urban spaces and how they react to changing weather. That has scientists trying a new high-tech tool they hope will unlock the monarch's secrets. This is the first time when we are going to see how the monarchs, some of them, move precisely

during the spring migration. Eduardo Rendon Salinas is with the World Wildlife Fund in Mexico. It helped fund a project that's tagged 160 Monarchs with a new type of tiny transmitter, one that's glued just behind the head of the butterfly. This is new and this is big, but it's really important. The device is powered by a solar panel, the size of a grain of rice,

and sends a signal that connects with any iPhone with its Bluetooth turned on. to receive. The idea is to crowdsource the Monarch's flight path so it can be tracked in detail with an app. Anyone can download. Literally they're flying over roads and people are driving down the road and it's giving us a location. David La Pluma is the vice president for New Jersey based cellular tracking technologies. The developers of the device, it was used to tag 400 butterflies from Canada, the US and Cuba last fall.

It's the first continent-wide deployment. One day I think we will have a transmitter that can go on a monarch, talk about altitude of flight, all sorts of really cool other data. All the data that we have with this project is very important for us. Luis Matquez says this new data will provide the clearest picture to date on how climate change has altered migration patterns, a key piece in figuring out how to better protect the monarch butterfly. Jorge Brera, CBC News at Rosario, Mexico.

Finally tonight, if you've ever tried surfing, you know it's a challenging sport to learn. You can really take a beating early on, wipeouts, paddling through the break. The first few times can be exhausting. But this introduction to surfing was truly gnarly. Hello! What are you doing? In the waters off Nusa Dua Beach in Bali, Indonesia last Friday. morning. Local fishermen, Agus Putra Johanna, spotted a surfboard drifting far from shore.

He wasn't catching any fish, so he decided to steer his boat over to the board and bring it home to his kids. But as he got closer, he noticed someone was in the water. Hey. Hey. I'm tired. Was all Yuri Orlov could say, clinging to his surfboard. I'm tired. Was all Yuri Orlov could say, clinging to his surfboard. As the boat approached, he was scooped out of the water somehow with a smile on his face. Orlov's surf session had begun the previous afternoon. He rented some beginner boards with two friends to try out surfing for the first time. But the 64-year-old got caught in a strong current and was pulled out to sea. So strong, Orlov couldn't paddle back in and he spent the night out there.

A TikTok video posted by the fisherman shows Orlov gulov gulping down some water. water on the way back to shore. He was dehydrated, but local paramedics say he suffered just minor injuries. You know, one of the most important rules of surfing is never lose your board. That's mostly for safety and big waves. In this case, it was a big help and likely saved his life by keeping him afloat during his first and maybe last surfing experience. This has been your world tonight for Friday, March 13th. Thank you for riding these waves. with us. I'm Stephanie Skanderas. Good night. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca.ca slash podcasts.