Canada on CUSMA, recession aggression, El Niño warning, and more

Imagine you've been charged with a crime, and the only witness pointing the finger at you isn't even human.

Amen.

I remember thinking

Are you serious?

What is this thing?

Thing.

It's something artificial, created by mysterious canary.

And it's coming.

Life defining

No.

I'm like

Oh my god.

From CBC's Uncover, The Expert Witness, available now on CBC Listen or wherever you get your podcast.

This is a CBC Podcast.

Obviously, um we raise the sectoral tariffs the steel, aluminum, softwood, lum lumber, uh automobile tariffs. We are always looking uh at ways that we can reduce. um some of these trade concerns that the United States raise.

In Washington, Canada officially requests renewal of the North American Trade Pact, just as US President Donald Trump revisits his talk of a fifty-first state. This is your world tonight. I'm Stephanie Skanderis. It's Tuesday, June 2nd, coming up on 6 p.m. Eastern. Also on the podcast.

El Nino conditions will pour fuel on the fire of a warming world. Impacts will eat even harder, travel even further, and cross borders with devastating speed.

The threat from a powerful weather pattern prompts the UN to issue an international warning: brace for impact.

With less than one month left now until the Canada US Mexico trade agreement is up for renegotiation, Canada has formally declared it does want to renew it. The federal minister responsible has gone to Washington. While the US President is, again, trolling this country with social media posts about becoming the fifty first. Tom Perry has more for Mottoa.

Uh yes. So in terms of um the discussions with uh the US, uh there's a

On his way into cabinet, Prime Minister Mark Carney laid out in broad terms where things stand in trade talks between Canada, the US and Mexico.

Uh there's a series of uh issues, uh technical issues that uh uh they have with uh Mexico, they have with us, which is

Kearney says the US has roughly sixty outstanding issues with Mexico and thirty with Canada. He didn't name them, but the US has complained about Canadian provinces refusing to sell US liquor, Canada's supply management system, and other issues.

But for us there's the more fundamental structural issues, as people know.

Kearney says among Canada's main concerns are US sectoral tariffs on Canadian steel, aluminum, lumber, and auto. Dominic Leblanc, Minister responsible for Canada US trade, is in Washington today for talks with US Trade Representative Jameson Greer. LeBlanc wrote to Greer this week to confirm Canada wants to renew Cusma, the trade deal between Canada, the US, and Mexico for another sixteen years.

presented a number of specific proposals to Ambassador Greer.

After that meeting, Leblanc provided few firm details about what was discussed, but tried to sound a positive tone.

I'm eternally optimistic. I think it's in the economic interest of North America uh to commit to that trilateral framework for another sixteen years. Um we took stock of the work that the Americans want to do. uh with Canada and the work that we're prepared to do over the coming weeks.

But with Donald Trump nothing is guaranteed. Among the dozens of social media posts the US president sent out overnight, Trump posted a link to a story on Canada's economy entering a technical recession with the message fifty first state. That was picked up and reposted by Trump's ambassador to Canada. Opposition leader Pierre Polyev today called out the U.S. administration.

I it's ridiculous and it's never going to happen.

The government of Mexico today confirmed it too believes the current North American free trade agreement should be extended for another sixteen years. Tom Perry, CBC News, Ottawa.

You heard in Tom's report there about the technical recession. Well at this point, it's not clear exactly where that leaves Canadians. But it had the Prime Minister on the defensive today acknowledging there is some weakness in Canada's economy and trying to explain why it's not all bad. Kate McKenna has that story.

Mr Prime Minister, you feel do you feel we're in recession?

For the first time since the new numbers came out last week, the Prime Minister defended the government's record in the face of a technical recession.

I'll say this about the economy, which is that uh you know we're in the process this government's been in the process of laying the foundations for a stronger, more resilient, more independent Canadian economy.

Mark Carney, who served as a central banker in two countries, pointed to changes his government has sought to make in fast tracking major resource projects and finding new trade deals and in how the government operates.

You know we see uh some weakness, uh in part because of clear decisions by the government. So uh we have taken back control of immigration. Uh that's meant the population uh growth has uh flattened. In fact it's uh it's slowed or it's been negative uh for the last two quarters. Uh we have reined in government spending.

Canada hasn't been in this situation since twenty twenty. The country's GDP shrunk two quarters in a row. It's not quite a full blown recession, but some economists say it could get there. Sectors hit by US tariffs like Ontario's auto industry are struggling.

Yeah, there's a lot of signs of weakness, right? Th the the and the sectors that we're seeing that weakness in are the ones that are most most trade affected.

Uh Jeremy Cronick is the president and CEO of the C. D. Howe Institute. Its business cycle counsel is the de facto authority on officially declaring recessions. He says the government can act to try to right the ship, but there's no silver bullet.

We gotta find ways to get more capital and credit into the economy, more ways to start to to move those projects ahead. I mean the major projects office is a start, but it's only for a limited number of projects.

Real people are suffering in a way that they're not suffering in the other G seven countries.

Meanwhile, Conservative Leader Pierre Polyev puts the blame squarely on the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister um uh once again is failing the k the Canadian people by refusing to tell them the truth that he caused a recession. It's the only recession in the G seven, the only recession in North America. And he needs to m to rapidly reverse the the liberal policies that cause

Well, yeah.

Whether his criticism sticks is another matter. Polls suggest Canadians elected Kearney in part because they thought he could manage trying economic times. Now he's still trying to prove that he can. Kate McKenna, CBC News, Ottawa.

The National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations has rebuked Alberta's separation talk. It happened during a meeting with King Charles at Buckingham Palace today. Cindy Woodhouse Nipinak says Canada needs to be reminded that First Nations were partners in the country's creation, and that relationship can't be changed through politics.

Coming right up, a new report says cloud computing in this country is broken. Here's why the authors say it's not an easy fix. Plus, already endangered nesting whooping cranes are now threatened by a wildfire in Canada's largest. National Park. Лейтер волхів.

I'm David Common inside a military bunker in Colorado, where plans are afoot to protect World Cup sites in Toronto and Vancouver.

Our role is really to establish uh if required, establish an air umbrella over the venues uh to deal with the possibility of airborne threat.

Why you may see armed Canadian fighter jets and the no-fly zones they'll be patrolling coming up on your world tonight.

The science is clear. El Nino is arriving on our doorstep in the coming months with 90% certainty. The world must treat it as the urgent climate warning it is.

That's United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres. The UN's weather agency says warm ocean waters are fueling the development of El Nino. Anayat Singh explains what it means for the summer months ahead.

We're looking towards a very serious set of meteorological and climological issues this year with perhaps a super El Nino brewing.

From extreme heat to drought, the impact from El Nino will be wide reaching, and while a super El Nino is not a technical term, the World Meteorological Organization predicts this year's will be strong. And that has Evan Fraser worried. He studies global food and agricultural systems at the University of Guelph.

For South Asia and for the Southern Hemisphere, it's pretty dry and generally food production goes down.

The WMO says El Nino is developing in the warming waters of the Pacific Ocean and its impacts will start within a month. Celeste Saulo is its Secretary General.

We can also expect an increased risk of extreme heat with higher temperatures and shifting precipitation patterns, adding further stress on human health. ecosystems, agriculture and energy systems.

Here in North America, Fraser says El Nino could cause more rainfall on the west coast while causing drier conditions in the prairies. It could also lead to milder winters and less snowpack in northern Canada.

And given that soil moisture in our agricultural regions is often determined by how much snow falls in northern areas, that can mean soil moisture deficits, which to m more most people is just called a drought.

El Nino naturally occurs every two to seven years, but in recent decades it's been adding to human-cause climate change. The last El Nino contributed to twenty twenty four becoming the hottest year on record. Benjamin Selwyn is a professor of international development at the University of Sussex. He says wars in Ukraine and Iran have sent fertilizer and fuel prices soaring and put financial pressure on many governments in Africa and the Caribbean.

In many ways these countries certainly do not have the financial wiggle room to manoeuvre uh as quickly as they must in this situation.

All these factors have a direct effect on food prices. Fraser says that's something that could come back to hurt Canadians at the grocery store.

All the factors that we're talking about here, El Nino trade wars, this closure of the Strait of Hormones, all of these things are putting upward pressure on the price of food.

The WMO said the time to prepare is now to help vulnerable countries stockpile food aid which they will need when the heat and drought hits. Experts say this El Nino could lead to a new hottest year on record, bringing with it dangerous climate disasters around the world. In Ayat Singh, C B C News, Toronto.

The world's last wild migratory whooping cranes are in danger. A massive wildfire in Wood Buffalo National Park is pushing toward their nesting ground, and the future of the species in the wild depends entirely on the safety and survival of this single flock, Kate Kyle reports.

A Parks Canada helicopter heads toward Fire 4, the largest wildfire in Wood Buffalo National Park, roughly 400 square kilometers.

We're trying to limit this fire uh and its impact on the whooping criteria.

Its flames have reached the whooping crane nesting grounds. Greg Walker is the incident commander for Fire 4.

And it's the nest themselves right now that would have eggs in them. that we're focused on. That's what really matters here.

The Aranzus wood buffalo whooping cranes are the only wild migratory flock in the world. Each spring they migrate 4,000 kilometers. Their numbers have rebound to more than 500.

I like to call it the heartland of the whooping cranes.

Diana Christie manages whooping crane conservation programs at the Wilder Institute.

I'm worried about our bird.

The nesting grounds are a matrix of tea and blue colored ponds, black spruce trees, willows, and bog. Christie is using trail cameras and other equipment to better understand how wildfires impact nesting cranes.

Do know last week there was a fire a couple of kilometers away from a nest. And those cranes were still there at the nest. They seem to still be actively incubating. We don't know if a crane family would really be able to lo relocate very far once the chick is born if a fire is coming near.

Conservationists in the United States are watching too. Anne Lacey is the Vice President of North America Programs at the International Crane Foundation. The organization releases captive whooping cranes into the wild.

This Orancis wood buffalo population genetically still incredibly valuable because we really need r are relying on this population to increase that genetic diversity.

Back in the Northwest Territories, Ronnie Schaefer has been observing whooping cranes for decades.

Anytime a crane calls, you'll be amazed at how they call, what they look like. Like that's the tallest bird in the world.

He's a member of the Salt River First Nation in Fort Smith Northwest.

I don't wanna see anything burn up. They'll move away.

But he says the birds are resilient.

How many of them are far spread in the park?

Parks Canada won't know the extent of the wildfire damage to the network. Until its next survey later in July. Kate Kyle, CBC News.

The cloud, that massive network of servers, has become essential to how we live and work. But a new report shows Canada's cloud computing market is a monopoly, dominated by three US tech giants, and that dependency is a risk. As Anise Haidari explains, homegrown alternatives may not be the solution.

Once you sign in and start building your business or building your operations with a provider, it can become very difficult to lead.

Eighty-five percent of cloud computing in Canada is through U.S. tech giants, according to researchers. It's not something Curtis McCord thinks is positive. He's a policy analyst with the Canadian Anti Monopoly Project and just released a report calling the market broken in this country.

This kind of reliance and dependency is problematic.

Cloud computing is critical to almost any business, government, or consumer that uses the internet in some way these days. But for the anti-monopoly project, the issue isn't just dominance from Google, Microsoft, or Amazon. It's also hard to switch between them or to smaller competitors once you've signed up. Fixing that is more critical than creating Canadian alternatives, says McCormick.

If we don't pursue interoperability, Canadian providers would just replicate the same problems of dependency and lock-in that we have now. And it doesn't leave the government or businesses in any way better off.

So to the anti monopoly project, Canadian alternatives would just be smaller versions of the big guys. They call it maple washed dependence. And it might cost more too.

Wha what we want to achieve is not to lock in or out users from certain technologies, but to give them the freedom of choice.

Guillaume Jilbert is with the Canadian subsidiary of French cloud provider OVH Cloud. His company competes with the big tech players called hyperscalers. So for OVH Cloud, having standards usable by any company is critical.

This is the gateway to uh interoperability, to portability, uh to reversibility uh between different cloud providers is really to push those uh those open source uh solutions.

I'm completely sympathetic to the other.

Yeah. But there could be technological barriers to this. University of Waterloo economist Joel Blit researches innovation.

Different hyperscalers might provide different AI models. And as soon as they provide different AI models, if you're using that one that's not on the other provider, well, you can't just switch.

Sometimes neither public nor private sectors choose well.

If you impose a standard too early, when the technology itself is still changing and there's more innovation coming, you could lock in a you know, you could lock in VHS instead of beta. which, you know, everyone says was a better video format.

While data centers and cloud computing in Europe are facing tighter regulations, there's less happening in Canada around standards and interoperability. For their part, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon all say they offer credits or waive certain fees if customers want to leave for the competition.

Ukraine's president is warning Russia may launch another massive airstrike tonight. That's after at least 22 people were killed and more than a hundred injured in an aerial attack overnight, one of the largest of the war. Senior international correspondent Margaret Evans reports.

Keep overnight. Sirens and then the explosions. Fear delivered courtesy of Russia. Hardly new after four years of war, but the scale of Moscow's recent attacks is. More than 650 drones and 73 missiles targeted Ukrainian cities overnight, driving thousands in the capital underground to the subways in search of safety and comfort. People spread out on blankets and yoga mats and folding chairs, hoping for sleep.

Думаю, дуже страшно.

It's really scary to stay at home, said Valeria Navichinko. I only dream the war will end soon, she says, but I've lost all hope. No de Vasco, it's difficult both mentally and physically, said Anna Kershbenska, holding her cat in her arms, because you'd like to wake up peacefully in the morning. Have a cup of coffee, she said. But mornings are for the aftermath and the counting of the dead. At least twenty-two people killed in the latest wave, most in Dnipro. Muted grief heavy in the air.

Вы видите, вы видите, что...

Кремль споксман Дмитрий Песков седі стрикін. Or a systematic response to what he said was a deliberate attack by Kyiv on a school dorm in occupied East Ukraine last month, a claim Ukraine denies. The massive nature of the Russian barrage echoes two similar attacks last month, and comes as analysts say, Moscow is on the back foot compared to a year ago, at least on the ground.

Всім партнерам разом, усім

All partners, including Europe, must continue working to ensure Ukraine receives air defense missiles, he said. The necessary systems and intelligence and other resources. to help save lives. In the meantime, he urged Ukrainians to keep heeding the air raid sirens. Margaret Evans, CBC News, London.

The World Health Organization says hundreds of suspected cases in Central Africa's Ebola outbreak have been ruled out. There are now about three hundred and forty confirmed cases in Congo and 116 suspected cases. That's down from about nine hundred suspected cases last Friday. WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeyer says it's not unusual for those numbers to change.

Suspected cases is anybody who gets picked up by surveillance or who presents themselves at a health facility with any symptoms that could be Ebola like. And then they get tested and then ruled out in many cases.

At least fifty people have died in the outbreak.

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.

Security preparations are being finalized for the FIFA World Cup, and that could lead to some peculiar sight. A large mobile radar facility is being set up in Grimsby, Ontario, and next week C F eighteens will practice forcing another plane to land over the skies of Toronto. Much of it will be coordinated at NORAD, where the Canadian and American militaries monitor and defend North American airspace. David Common went inside the NORAD bunker to see the work firsthand.

Right now it's about

Carved out from the inside of a Colorado mountain behind blast doors resistant to a nuclear explosion, sits NORAD's Joint Operations Center. From both Canada and the US watch for threats that may come from sky, space or sea.

We have a l a lot of feeder information coming into us from Transport Canada, NAV Canada, from the FAA, from the R C M P.

Canadian Colonel Matt Snyder acts as NORAD's chief of air operations, his team watching for threats across the continent's congested airspace.

We'd bring senior leaders all the way down to tactical controllers, the people on the radars that uh could tell our uh our response like determine our response.

How quickly does that happen?

Less than a minute.

And now a new task. Areas over World Cup sites in Canada and the US will be declared no fly zones during competition.

Our role is really to establish uh if required, establish an air um umbrella over the venues uh to deal with the possibility of airborne threats.

Lieutenant General Ian Huddleston is NORAD's deputy commander and the highest ranking Canadian here.

That would translate into probably airborne uh caps, combat air patrols, uh during the time of the uh of the games.

And would those be primarily Canadian aircraft that we'd be doing?

Oh yeah, yeah. Our plan is uh to uh To use Canadian aircraft.

That means fighter jets over top during competition and other major World Cup events. Closer to the ground, NORAD and police will monitor for drones with the capacity to take them down if necessary.

If we get to the point where we need to intercept them, we do that on a routine basis.

Steve Armstrong has been at NORAD since before even nine eleven. He says it's not surprising to have small planes show up where they shouldn't be. What is surprising is how many pilots look away when intercepted by an armed fighter jet shooting down, the very last resort, so Air Force responders sometimes need to get creative in the sky.

We can actually do what's referred to as a headbutt maneuver. We fly hard in front of them and turn very quickly in front of them to try and influence the direction that they're gonna go.

All done in coordination with civilian air traffic controllers to ensure safe skies, especially in the midst of the world's biggest sporting event. David Coleman C B C News inside the Cheyenne Mountain Space Force Base in Colorado.

Finally, when's the last time you put pen to paper? Sent a handwritten letter, doodled on a notepad. For many of us, those once everyday actions are increasingly rare. But some people are hoping to change that. They're part of a growing movement that's embracing analog communication, using ink and paper to write and create. And on the weekend, hundreds of them came out to the Scriven Show in Montreal.

My friend and I actually flew in from Edmonton because it's one of the few events that occurs in Canada that's for fountain pen and ink enthusiasts. Honestly, it is so much fun.

That's Anne Timmer. Yes, her love of ink surpasses ball points. Like many at the fair, she's into fountain pens. Toronto pen seller Salman Katak is known as a nibmeister. He says writing the old-fashioned way is good for the brain.

We are grinding nibs

Thank you.

uh to modify the writing experience, writing notes by hand makes a much bigger difference in retention compared to taking notes on or asking your AI friend to write no uh you know take the notes for you.

Thank you.

Amateur artist Russell Frelick says that's true of drawing as well as writing.

We're just uh members of the Urban Sketchers Montreal. It forces you to look at things in a different way. It forces you to pay attention.

Penn enthusiasts, also known as stelophiles, say a new generation is joining their ranks. That includes these two attendees at the Montreal show.

And digital you can erase, you can like la lasso tool and like make everything smaller. But like pen and paper, it's like you have to be very confident with it.

I feel like unfortunately younger people are becoming less and less interested in it. But I mean, I think people like us we like to keep it alive a little.

This has been Your World Tonight for Tuesday, June 2nd. I'm Stephanie Skanderis. Thank you for being with us. Good night.

For more CBC podcasts, go to CBC.ca slash.

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