Toronto gun-for-hire plot, no more NHL on CBC, hot mics at G7, and more

Hi, Steve Patterson here, host of the Debaters, Canada's comedy competition, judged by live audience applause by audience members such as you. This week we're asking, should everything in life be enjoyed in moderation? We have two comedians who are ready to self-control with the punches. I probably should have kept that one to myself. Anyway, you can find this week's episode of The Debaters wherever you get your podcasts. And don't be afraid to binge listen because we are good for you.

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Through encrypted messaging apps, young people are hired to carry out attacks against various targets. And in order to get paid, they're required to film their attacks.

Toronto's police chief on investigations linking multiple shootings including at synagogues and the U.S. Consulate to gun for hire networks. This is your world tonight. I'm I'm An Dram. It is Tuesday, June 16th, coming up on six PM Eastern. Also on the podcast.

So it really should come as no surprise that they wanna bring uh the entire thing under the tent.

The buzzer is about to sound for NHL hockey on the CBC after almost three-quarters of a century. What the end of the partnership with SportsNet means for fans, and what some of them may have to pay for now.

Toronto police say they have uncovered a criminal network linked to multiple recent synagogue shootings and the shooting at the U.S. Consulate. They say young people are being hired and paid to carry out the attack. But as Lisa Shing reports, while investigators know who is pulling the triggers, they still don't know who's pulling the strings.

What we are dealing with in this case is a recurring and similar modus operandi. And that is criminals for hire.

At a press conference, Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkew linking twenty seven Toronto area shootings, including incidents at synagogues and the U.S. consulate in March.

Young people are hired to carry out attacks against various targets. And in order to get paid, they're required to film their attacks.

There are multiple networks operating like this, say police. They're working with the RCMP and FBI to figure out who is hiring the shooters, all young, all recruited through encrypted apps like Signal, Telegram, and WhatsApp. Chief Superintendent Joe Matthews.

Multiple people are recruiting multiple youth in each cell. We're aware of that. We just do not know the scope of it.

While investigating the shootings, Toronto police constable Mark Pinazzotto was shot and killed during an early morning raid on an apartment building last week. Three people have since been arrested, two in connection with the consulate shooting, one of them unconscious in hospital facing first degree murder charges in Pinazado's death. A fourth person is still at large. Linda Pinazzotto is the officer's mother.

Our family is gonna make a plea to the general public, please support our police.

Police will have to access the messaging apps and use wiretaps in their investigation or get the suspects they've arrested to flip, says Ian Scott, former director of the Ontario Special Investigations Unit.

Flip the ones at the bottom of the food chain. We want them to give us the information who's hiring these individuals, what's the connection?

Last month the FBI arrested Iraqi Iranian national Mohammed al Sadi. A senior member of US designated terrorist organization Katab Hezbollah and Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, he's allegedly tied to nearly twenty attacks and attempted attacks internationally. In the indictment, Al Saudi is accused of planning, coordinating, and claiming responsibility for those attacks, including two in Canada, one believed to be the consulate shooting, criminologist Michael Arnfield.

You may have a transnational group or some kind of organized entity. that has really a bottomless well of potential contractors. They've arrested some. Uh there'll be others out there. So the the key is to break up the network before more shooters can be recruited.

While Toronto police won't confirm whether there's a connection with Al Sadi, they're confident these criminal networks extend beyond Toronto with a goal of creating fear in our communities. Lisa Shing, C B C News Toronto.

The FBI says it stopped a violent plot targeting the recent UFC event at the White House, and multiple people have already been arrested. Authorities say the suspects allegedly plan to use explosive drones and gunmen to attack people in attendance, including many government officials. Sasha Petrasik has more from Washington.

Goal coming.

Sunday's UFC event brought professional mixed martial arts. To the White House lawn for the first time. A glitzy event hosted by U.S. President Donald Trump and attended by more than 4,000, mostly his supporters. But says the FBI, it also drew the ire of his detractors, including a group who planned a violent attack that evening.

Look.

Thwarted just days before, says Secret Service Deputy Director Matt Quinn.

Was an active plot, yes, involving purported claim to be plan to use drones.

Yeah.

Snipers, etc.

Police say the plan was to hit nearby buildings with explosive drones, then when guests panicked and tried to escape. to have gunmen waiting for them. Five suspects were arrested just days before the event. They had not yet traveled to Washington. Authorities confirm one of those arrested was nineteen year old Tyson Proper.

I haven't heard about it now. But I watched the attack that I watched were the fighters.

Other officials are taking it very seriously. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine.

Look, we we live in difficult times and and there are people out there who are who are inclined and capable of doing very bad things.

The motivation is unclear. Court documents filed by prosecutors say some members of the group are Said they didn't like anyone connected to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein running the country. Others claim they were upset that pro Israel lobby groups had so much influence on US politics. U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance blames left-wing opponents of the Republican administration.

And we've actually been trying to go with those networks of coordination because this is a it's a terrorist plot. That's not a few guys doing crazy stuff. That is a coordinated planned terrorist plot.

Police say they are looking for eighteen more suspects as their investigation continues. Sasha Petrusick, C B C News, Washington.

The CBC will no longer be televising any NHL games, marking the end of an era that spanned more than seven decades. For lots of hockey fans across the country, it means they'll now have to pay to watch their favorite teams hit the ice on Saturday nights. Jamie Straschen reports.

General Motors hockey broadcast. Olá, Canadá e fãs de hockey.

In 1952, the voice of Foster Hewitt launched Hockey Night in Canada. The CBC show beamed into Canadian homes and became synonymous with wintery Saturday nights.

the guys who used to watch it in the garages on Saturday nights in Saskatchewan to the watch parties uh for the when the doubleheaders happen on the West Coast to the games where they switch on coaches corner in English and Montreal French bars.

Michael McKinley, the author of Hockey Night in Canada Sixty Years, says the show was part of the Canadian identity, a place where Canadians could join together and enjoy their national sport.

I mean, it really was a unifying force in the country. The C B C invented how to tell the story of hockey at the same time for broadcast. So it was a big deal.

Starting next season for the first time in nearly seventy-five years, NHL hockey will not air Saturday nights on CBC as part of the iconic Hockey Night in Canada program. In twenty thirteen, when Rogers acquired the Canadian rights, C B C continued to air games on Saturdays as part of a sublicensing agreement with Rogers. Today, in a joint statement, C B C and Sportsnet said C B C will no longer carry games.

A lot of people my age grew up, you could only get one chance. There's something about CBC and hockey night in Canada on Saturday night.

Carrie Kaplan, the owner of the sports marketing firm Cosmos Sports and Entertainment, says the decision is a huge loss for fans who will no longer enjoy free access to hockey and for the CBC. Who said in a statement it intends to launch Saturday night programming highlighting Canadian amateur athletes?

If you ask people what a C B C broadcast over the last fifty years, name one thing, Hockey Nan Canada wins that in every province.

Hockey historian Liam Maguire acknowledges the move as part of an evolving television landscape, but says it doesn't make it any easier.

And not be able to watch one of your seven Canadian hockey teams for free as we have been since the advent of TV is it's run.

Wrong.

Maguire says Canadians will of course still be able to watch their favorite teams, but laments the loss of tradition so integral to the history of the game. Jamie Strason, CBC News, Toronto.

A fast growing fire has broken out in West Kelowna, BC. The fire is out of control, being fueled by strong winds. It started in a regional park and has grown to eight hectares. Multiple fire departments have responded and some residents have been asked to leave their homes. Officials in BC are already preparing for what could be a challenging wildfire season.

These conditions, on top of the ongoing drought, are setting us up for an increase in wildfire activity as we enter the core of our wildfire season. particularly in the southern interior and south coast, where we must be ready for the chance of difficult to manage and aggressive wildfires.

BC has already had three hundred wildfires this season and more than forty two hundred hectares burned.

Coming right up, the US President's harsh words for Israel regarding its war with Hezbollah and the big promises he's making about his yet-to-be-revealed peace deal with Iran. and the concern for their unintended consequences. And later we'll dive into some good news about coral reefs.

Coral reefs are often framed as ecosystems beyond saving. This research shows otherwise.

Some of them can't take the heat, but new research says there are far more that can.

You would think that the ones that survive through the heat once, they're gonna be the ones that can survive again, but not when they just get hit over and over again like that.

This coming up on your world tonight, I'll tell you about the danger ahead and why it may put the newfound resilience at risk.

US President Donald Trump is publicly criticizing Israel and its military tactics in Lebanon, saying too many people are being killed. The rebuke comes as the president tries to protect a newly signed framework deal with Iran. An agreement Israel strongly opposes, Chris Brown reports from London.

Good things are happening.

Онли а фіпливт одональ Трамп'сділ від Іран, де вони клімс вил реопет індвар. Бот ЮС президент се видні дас еринві.

Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. And it says it loud and clear.

Meeting with leaders from the Persian Gulf on the sidelines of the G7 in France, Trump was peppered with questions about Israel and its intensely negative reaction to his deal. In extraordinary remarks, Trump positioned himself as Israel's savior.

Without the United States there would be no Israel. Without me there would be no Israel'cause no other president was willing to do what I did.

Equally remarkable was his assessment of Israel's military tactics fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon. where more than 3,800 people have been killed. In criticizing the impact on civilians, Trump echoed arguments more commonly used by Israel's harshest international critics.

Israel's fighting Hezbollah too long and too many people are being killed. And you don't have to knock down an apartment house every time you're looking for somebody. Because there are a lot of people in those apartment houses. And they're not all Hezbollah, that I can tell you.

The potential lifting of sanctions to ease Iran's crippled economy and the future of its nuclear program, which both the US and Israel said necessitated the war. have been kicked down the road to be dealt with during two months of negotiations, said Iran's Foreign Minister Sayed Abbas Arachi. Israel's full withdrawal from Lebanon must come first, he said.

אנחנו יצרנו שטחה.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not address Trump's criticisms of him or his war tactics. But Monday night he vowed to maintain Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon, casting doubt on how long the negotiations with Iran will last. If Trump's deal holds, shipping lanes will reopen and more attacks and bombings averted. But with Iran's leadership emboldened, the alliance between the United States and Israel is being tested, perhaps as never before. Chris Brown, CBC News, London.

Well Iran was expected to dominate the G seven, instead another major global conflict took center stage as world leaders rallied to refocus attention on Ukraine. Mark Carney and Donald Trump both met with the Ukrainian president, but as Kate McKenna reports, beyond the official meetings, it was the informal side chats that stole the spotlight.

Thank you.

Thank you for the

This G seven may become known for what was said when leaders didn't know they were being recorded.

When did you arrive?

Україн президен Володимир Зеленський was greeted with a hug by the host of the G Seven, French president Emmanuel Macron. The leaders walked together, apparently unaware their conversation was being picked up by a microfon.

So first, the bilateral is being organized.

Макрон ассленський if he had a meeting planned with US president Donald Trump. The Ukrainian leader said no. Макрон said he'd help set that up.

Yesterday we had a good weekend.

The audio is faint, but Macron is heard saying he had a difficult discussion with Donald Trump yesterday. But minutes later Macron appeared to broker a meeting between Trump and Zelensky.

Look, Russia should make a deal. Russia's lost Tremendous amounts of people, and so is Ukraine.

Donald Trump also signaled the US could soon reimpose sanctions on Russian oil shipments. Canada also announced new sanctions targeting Russia's shadow fleet. Prime Minister Mark Kearney met with Zelensky.

The tide is turning as expected in this war, and this is part of what we just discussed.

Well.

But the extent to which leaders sought to handle Trump was on display throughout the day, starting with German Chancellor Friedrich Mertz presenting him with a personalized soccer jersey in the morning. The Canadian prime minister's diplomatic efforts were also caught by a hot mic.

You'd actually like to.

This shouldn't surprise anybody that the Prime Minister took this opportunity to discuss what is a well known circumstance for a number of months.

US Canada Trade Minister Dominic Leblanc met with his counterpart in France and says progress is being made on trade talks, but wouldn't say what that progress is.

And we talked about a number of other issues that the United States raises with us, but we also talked about issues um that are important to Canadian workers and the Canadian economy.

LeBlanc says he's set to meet again with Jamison Greer next week, but with the summit about to wrap up, it doesn't look like Kearney will have a bilateral meeting with Trump. Kate McKenna, CBC News, Avian Le Bay, France.

The G seven leaders also discussed the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. They warned that the crisis could get worse as people travel for the World Cup. and pledge to coordinate travel and quarantine measures. doctor Jean Casseya is the head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control. He says the Ebola outbreak could become the worst ever.

If we don't stop this outbreak very soon it will be even worse than what we had in West Africa. and is eastern part of the earth.

That outbreak in West Africa was in twenty fourteen and killed more than eleven thousand people. There are now nearly eight hundred confirmed cases in Congo and more than one hundred and eighty deaths. Caseya says one major problem, the work of tracing tens of thousands of potential contacts. He estimates the country has traced only about 12% of 33,000 contacts.

Car theft, extortion, human trafficking. For these kinds of crimes and more, bail and sentencing laws in this country just got tougher. And while that's welcomed by police groups, Others warn overcrowding in Canada's prisons will just get worse. Tom Perry has more from Ottawa.

This is a piece of legislation uh that is part of the government's public safety strategy designed to uh make communities across this country safer.

With a line of Liberal MPs behind him, Justice Minister Sean Fraser marked the passage of the government's new bill on bail and sentencing.

term uh vision is not to uh incarcerate more people, uh it's to uh prevent crime from happening that demands incarceration in the first place.

Fraser says the bill is meant to address Canadians' fears about crime, but to critics it's a solution in search of a problem.

And this is, in my view, political pandering to the public sphere at its worst.

Ottawa defense lawyer Lawrence Greenspawn says courts already have clear rules around bail and sentencing.

Uh unfortunately this uh act is unlike i is likely to be challenged. Uh it'll find its way to the Supreme Court of Canada over the next five or six years, and in the meantime um th th there will be no effective uh increase uh in in public safety.

Greenspawn says what the law will do is put more strain on the courts and more people behind bars in an already overcrowded prison system. But Tom Stamatakis, president of the Canadian Police Association, says. The changes in this new law are badly needed.

Police officers that I represent have been worried about what they're seeing in their communities and this is a strong message not just from the government but also from all par parliamentarians that public safety is important in this country.

Opposition conservatives did not stand in the way of the bill but say it should have been even tougher. Frank Caputo is the party's public safety critic.

None of these small steps have been pr proven to work. We need wholesale bail reform.

The legislation does include funding for provinces and territories to encourage them to start contributing to national data to track things like how many people out on bail are committing crime. and see whether these changes are working. Tom Perry, CBC News.

The federal government has announced a$4.6 billion investment in building clean water infrastructure in First Nations communities. Indigenous Services Minister Mandy Golmasty tabled the bill called the First Nations Clean Water Act. She says the bill establishes standards for drinking water and wastewater on First Nations lands.

First Nations knowledge and leadership are essential for strong water systems. This bill puts that leadership at its center. It affirms that First Nations' inherent right to self determination includes control over decisions on water and related infrastructure on their land.

This isn't the first time the Liberals have tabled clean water legislation. A previous bill had explicitly stated First Nations had a right to clean drinking water, but that bill died when Parliament was prorogued last year. The revised legislation backs away from that right.

There's all this crackling and snapping and and life and it's this eccentric ecosystem underwater.

Scientist Emily Darling is director of coral reef conservation at the Wildlife Conservation Society. She knows what an underwater metropolis a reef can be.

the fish are, you know, expanding from a colony and then shrinking back in as you get closer, almost breathing in their movements.

But for the last two years, many reefs around the world, like this one off the coast of Thailand, have been ghost towns. Extreme ocean heat has led to years of mass bleaching, making coral vulnerable.

Now that's not always a death sentence for all corals, but it can lead to the crumbling or loss of structure.

Structure. And that's the focus of her new research, finding resilience in many reefs against this marine heat.

We've identified climate resilient reefs across 71 countries and 100 territories, including previously underrecognized areas in the Caribbean, Pacific, and Indian Ocean.

Some areas avoid the heat through natural currents bringing cold water. Some get hot and resist bleaching. Some even seem to die off, and then

They were able to bounce back.

Stacy Jupiter is a co-author and executive director at the Wildlife Conservation Society. After Cyclone Winston hit Fiji in 2016, nearby reefs were pummeled and destroyed. But

When we did surveys four years later, we saw baby corals that were all about the same size. And so the reefs were rebounding in terms of their coral cover.

In places where we do see the extreme conditions, we see corals that are perfectly healthy through these things.

Craig Dahlgren is with the Perry Institute for Marine Science. He's seen reef resilience up close in the Bahamas. One coral bleached white, it's virtually identical neighbor, still colorful. This research, he says, provides hope and direction for communities that depend on their reefs.

really can help shape our priorities moving forward for the next five to ten years even as far as where we're gonna invest our our conservation dollars in in reefs where it's gonna have the biggest bang for the buck.

I thought that's the same.

Super El Nino.

With El Nino warming the Pacific right now, scientists are worried.

We all know there are ecological limits to adaptation and that nature needs time to adapt.

You would think that the ones that survive through the heat once, they're gonna be the ones that can survive again, but not when they just get hit over and over again like this.

Afterwards getting hit over and over with extreme heat, including from oceans absorbing the excess heat humans are emitting, could mean these survivors may soon be on life support. Finally tonight, a small kangaroo was captured in the Montreal area tonight, following several days on the loose. Someone had spotted the seemingly lost marsupial a few days ago on the south shore,

He probably realized that the inspection found out so he didn't want to uh to get himself into trouble.

Ferrar says it's unclear why the person had the animal in their possession, but that situations like this are part of a larger problem.

There's a black market for exotic animals and uh clearly this guy is is part of it at one point. Maybe he's just a buyer, we don't know. But but he certainly has some information that that that we don't as of now.

Animal advocacy groups had expressed concern for the kangaroo's safety ahead of its capture. Mirar says the animal is named Joey, and that he's talked to a local wildlife sanctuary that would be happy to take him in.

They said, Well, Joey could uh come here anytime. We'll be uh we'll be uh it would be nice to have him with us.

Quite a story. Thanks for being with us. This has been Your World Tonight for Tuesday, June 16th. I'm An Dram. Good night.

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