Conservative Finance Critic Jasraj Hallan

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For a limited time, go to Stamps.com and use code podcast for a free welcome gift. Taxes and fees apply. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Neil Coxell. Good evening. I'm Chris Howden. This is as it happens.

Tonight. Covering the spreadsheet, the liberal government is painting a rosy picture of Canada's financial situation, but we'll ask the conservative finance critic for his assessment of the spring economic statement. splitting headache. There's a lot of talk about petitions and referendums on the subject of Alberta, separating from Canada, but a new poll of Albertans suggests that actual support for that idea remains tepid. Existential Crisis, a winner in this year's World Press Photo Contest tells us about her work documenting labor abuses in Saudi Arabia, including a mother and her daughter who was forced to live for years without legally existing.

Entrance strategy, then exit strategy. A colleague remembers American diplomat Lionel Rosenblad, who led an unsanctioned trip to Vietnam in the last days of the war to get hundreds of Vietnamese civilians out safely. Don't put yourself down. A Winnipeg woman was mid-chat with friends, not far from her house, when she suddenly found herself armpit deep underground.

She'll share the whole story. And wake-up call. A group of customers sue Trader Joe's after a discovery that made them angry and sleepy. They learned the store had sold them half-cats, half coffee without divulging that it was half calf. As it happens, the Tuesday edition, Radio that figures you can stir that coffee, but it will not stir you.

The birds are singing, flowers are poking up out of the suninging up out of the soil, and the sun has come out at last. That is essentially the message finance minister of Francois-Philippe-Champeng delivered in the spring economic update today. That update describes an economy that's doing better than expected. The projected deficit is $67 billion, which is $11.5 billion lower than predicted in the fall. Here's some of what Mr. Champagne said in his remarks this afternoon. Mr. Speaker, our economy is resilient, driven by GDP growth, rising incomes and obviously more jobs. Let me be clear, Mr. Speaker.

This is good news for Canadians. It reflects a stronger, more productive economy. And we have made this happen through pragmatic and targeted investments. Through making Canada the most competitive jurisdiction in the G7 for investment, including to the productivity super deduction and through our trade diversification strategy, Mr. Speaker, and we have ensured that as revenues have grown two-thirds, two-thirds of this increase over the past year has been directed toward affordability measures that make a real different in the lives of Canadians. Finance Minister Francois-Ferlis-Champeng presenting the spring

the Liberals having the highest food inflation in the G7, highest household debt in the G7, highest housing costs in the G7, and the second highest unemployment rate in the G7. this update was nothing more than just more disappointment for Canadians, just looking for more relief right now in this cost of living crisis that the liberals created. One of the other headlines, as you know, from this economic update is this announcement of $6 billion over five years to recruit, train and hire up to 100,000 new tradespeople. This is something your own leader, Pierre Poilievre and your own party has pushed for,

albeit in a different way, and you wanted to see, I think, more than 300,000. but is that something you can get behind? Look, there's no doubt that conservatives, even in our platform, we had something for the skilled trades. I don't think the issue is getting people into skilled trades. The problem is the jobs after they graduate. We have the second highest unemployment rate in the entire G7,

and these skilled trades who we think would go into home building, home buildings starts have actually decreased and they are decreasing. In fact, when I asked the housing minister in committee that when will they fulfill their commitment of building 500,000 homes, that that was their promise. He could not give me an answer. Their own housing agency cannot answer when they can build those homes because there's so much more red tape, so many more taxes, and permitting is horrific in this country under the liberals. But hiring will be part of it, and there are other tradespeople. It's not just home building. Do you see anything optimistic in there?

They're trying to get more jobs for 100,000 people, more training. Job, that's the problem. Jobs are the problem because the liberals chased away a trillion dollars, a trillion dollars of our Canadian investment out to the U.S., which means less jobs, less investment happening in Canada, less companies opening up. In fact, the CFIB came out with a report that said there are more businesses, more Canadian businesses opening up in the U.S. than there are in Canada.

and that is because of the high red tape, high regulation, higher taxes that liberals have imposed on small business owners. It's jobs that are the problem at the end of the day. And again, that's why right now we have the second highest unemployment rate in the entire G7. In terms of cost of living issues, some of the things the government has put forward. We know about the excise tax going, you know, being lifted temporarily until Labor Day. Today they talked about lowering some Canada pension plan contributions for employers and workers, those will help people.

There's the grocery benefit as well that many Canadians will be able to benefit from. Look, with the excise tax being removed, conservatives are actually calling, and we continue to call on all of the taxes on field to be removed for all of the year. Whereas the liberals have offered 10 cents per liter, our plan would remove 25 cents per liter

that would save Canadian families $1,200, just this year. And we would permanently remove the liberal clean fuel tax, which is making the cost of even food go up. What we need to do is we need to lower the cost of food. Under the liberals, Canada and Canadians have the highest food inflation in the entire G7. These fuel taxes add to that. The industrial carbon tax adds to the cost of food. And that's why we see 2.2 million Canadians going to a food bank in a single month. A third of those are children. We need to lower the cost of food. have to lower the input of the cost on the food. The liberals are doing it the opposite way, where they're increasing taxes to make food more expensive. As conservatives, we will do the

opposite. We will bring down the cost of food. The liberals have a majority government, as you know, how will you push what you want to push and what you want to see if what was announced today is not good enough? Up until now in the last 10 years, the liberals have doubled the national debt. In fact, their debt, which is Canadian taxpayers are responsible for, now there's more money going to bankers and bondholders than there is to health care transfers. This is the record of the liberal government. We will bring back the Canadian dream. The conservatives under Pierre Paul Yev want to bring back that Canadian dream. We need to unlock and unblock our resources, that we will continue and fight to do that so that we can get good Canadian jobs. Canadiens can get

good paychecks. We need to make sure that we're selling to more markets across the world. because the world needs our Canadian energy that will help us get us good jobs. We need to lower access for Canadians so that they can keep more in their pocket. We need to create more competition. You're pitching a future conservative government, what a future conservative government might do

in this moment with everything that's going on with the United States, the wars, the cost of living, as you've said, this particular government, this Prime Minister, Mark Carney, was chosen, was elected to deal with all of those issues. spending is going to be necessary to try to counter some of those issues, no?

It's not that this is what a conservative government will do. We've actually offered to the liberal government take all of our plans. These plans that I'm listing that would help Canada get back on track and bring back that Canadian dream, we're more than happy if they want to take the credit for it. We're more than happy to give it to them. What we want at the end of the day is bring back that Canada that's safe and affordable once again, which is not under the liberals. We have a great, we had a great platform that had all these ideas.

is in it where we can unblock our resources, get more jobs in Canada, get our economy back on track, lower the deficit, which means lower taxes and keeping interest rates low. We are more than happy to work with the liberal government to do that and do that just for Canadians. That should be our only job right now. Jess Raj, Alan, I appreciate this. We have to leave it there. Thank you. Thank you so much. Jazz Rush Holland is the conservative finance critic. We reached him in Ottawa.

In the last few days before the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, Lionel Rosenblatt decided to pack up and go, not away from Vietnam, but to Vietnam. For five days, Mr. Rosenblatt and a colleague, Craig Johnstone, both U.S. Foreign Service officers who had served in Vietnam for several years, worked tirelessly to find and evacuate hundreds of Vietnamese colleagues and friends. What made their effort even more notable was that nobody had asked them to go, nor had they asked permission. The plane had to land in Guam. We took Pan Am. So again, we had to go out in the commercial service.

This was the last flight in. So we got on it. And it was an eerie feeling because there was 747. And there were about 50 people on the 747 because nobody was going back in. Lionel Rosenblatt, speaking in 2013 as part of an oral history project, by the Vietnamese American Heritage Foundation. Mr. Rosenblatt, who went on to serve as president of NGO refugees international, died this month. He was 82 years old. We reached Craig Johnstone in Seattle, Washington.

Craig, do you remember the moment that you and Lionel Rosenblatt decided to do what you did? Yes, actually, I remember it quite well. We had received a message in our little working group in the office of the secretary, state from the embassy in Saigon that made a reference to how the Vietnamese might be able to get out and it seemed to us to be very casual and not very well planned. It was a message that said that they could work their way toward their shores and possibly be picked up by U.S. naval vessels. And I think as that moment, Lionel was ready to pack his bags. I was a little bit more cautious, but that was Milano's nature. And so we decided that evening to leave the next day.

What did you both fear was going to happen to the people you were trying to get out if they stayed? We thought they would be killed. In fact, we had no doubt about it. Both his and my employees there were involved in very sensitive work there, and there would be no doubt that they would have been put into education camps until they died or just simply killed. So over those five days, as you are trying to accomplish everything you need to accomplish, you had to also avoid Vietnamese police as well as staff at the U.S. Embassy. What was your strategy for doing that? Well, in terms of the staff at the embassy, the staff was actually very cooperative,

but they were under orders to apprehend us and send us back. to the United States. But our real concern was the national police who had taken an interest in anybody trying to evacuate. And we had been told of a story of an American who had arrived to take out some people, I don't know who they were, but that he had been apprehended by the police and given a very rough time. And we had also, when we set up a safe house, we had a pretty regular patrolling by the police of the ground. We were in an apartment building on one of the main throughfares, and since the police were kind of looked like they were staking it out, we moved to an adjacent building just to be sure that they didn't, hadn't figured out where we

were. You mentioned, you know, a little bit about what Lionel was like, the fact that he was ready to go. What else would you want our listeners to know about the kind of person he was. was the kind of friend he was well he was you know he he was even then and he became later on a you know probably the one of the world's foremost leaders on refugee issues but even then he had demonstrated a great deal of compassion um and intelligence his graduate of Harvard and Stanford law he'd spent a year there as well so I mean obviously a very intelligent person but unusually action oriented um and uh he believed in just jumping into the problems and sorting your way through them on the fly and was extraordinarily

effective in doing that. Do you know how he felt about how the current administration in the United States is handling those kinds of issues just recently, of course, and over the years as well, we've covered the stories of people from Afghanistan who worked for the United States as interpreters. Now the Trump administration is saying they want to send them back to Afghanistan, which is under Taliban rule, as you know, or even to Congo. Did he ever, did you know how he felt about how things stand right now on these issues? Well, I think our views were absolutely identical, and we're horrified by what has been

happening in the United States with respect to migration and with respect to the people who've devoted their lives to helping us, and then we treat them like scum. It's really a disgrace. did he feel proud of what you were able to accomplish together, what he had accomplished on the refugee file as well? Well, there's no question. I think he was pleased by what we were able to get done. But knowing Lionel, he would always regret that we hadn't been able to do more

or convince more of the people that we talked to to be able to go with us. And Lionel worked very hard to convince people that the situation was dire. The situation was more dire than it was being felt in Saigon at that moment. They were late to come to the realization that the end was just around the corner. He did such serious and compelling and important work, but something in the coverage I thought was interesting. It might help people actually to know that he certainly wasn't perfect. There's mention of his lack of organizational skills a couple of times in the coverage of his passing.

What would you say about that? Well, I mean, he's impetuous and we'll go right to the issue. He had the brains to be able to do that. I must say I learned a great deal from him in terms of the fact that you don't necessarily have to have everything planned out in advance of moving to engage in a humanitarian activity. Sometimes it's better to just go. And I've told others that I've had my own Lionel moments in my own. career where I had to do that. I've been in and out of Ukraine 10 times. And a lot of what I do

now, I think it was more characteristic of what Lionel would have done or would do and was still doing than it would have been how I was more than what my temperament was at the time. Craig, I appreciate this. Thank you. Certainly. Craig Johnstone is a former U.S. Ambassador and U.N. Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees

and a former colleague of the late Lionel Rosenblad. He's in Seattle. On Saturday night, Christine Kilback went out to the movies, and on her way home, she made an unexpected pit stop, by which I mean she was stopped by an unexpected pit. We reached her in Winnipeg. Christine, as far as Saturday nights go for you, where does this one rank? Well, as the most unusual Saturday evening I've ever had.

So you were with friends, as our listeners heard at a movie, and then they dropped you off. What happened? Well, I kept talking to them through the window of the car, so Jeff turned the car off and they got out and I stepped back further into the boulevard and then I was gone. Oh, no, just gone. Well, they said they thought I tripped and fell, so when they came around the front of the car, they were quite surprised. They thought you'd been taken in the night. Well, and it looked hysterical because my head and shoulders were above the ground. Okay.

So they knew you were somewhere, just how it all happened was the question. What did you feel when you fell? Nothing. It happened so fast. I was there one second and in the hole the next. immediately I thought well you want to get out right so I tried to push down on the edge around the hole but it disintegrated the earth left go so that wasn't going to work and then when I tried kicking to try to get a toe hold in the earth in the hold it was it was falling away as well so it was very quick that I said to them like we're going to have to call 911 because I don't want to make this worse than it is yeah I mean the pictures I was I was looking at them earlier you're smiling it's amazing how well you're taking this how quickly did did help come once they called it in well it was 10 minutes the firefighters were here in 10 minutes

and i as i was standing in the hole uh holding on to the shovel and the and the and the broom i was thinking oh no how long am i going to have to wait okay take me back where the when did the shovel and the broom enter the picture well well um when i when the edge of the hole was falling away if i put pressure on it. Jeff ran and got me those so that I at least had something to hook my arms over. And I don't know if that really would have made any difference or not, but it sure made me feel better. What a resourceful bunch. First of all, you're laughing and it's so great because you were not hurt. No. You could feel the bottom. How far, I mean, your head and shoulders were above ground, right? Yes, I could feel the bottom. The left side of the soil was falling away. But the right side,

my right foot was quite stable. So I just tried not to put any weight on the left side. So, you know, I knew, I really was hoping we could get this fixed before the whole got any worse. So you're waiting for, you know, more help to come. Are you at any point getting scared or worried? What are you feeling in those moments? You know, I don't know why, but I wasn't. I liked howled it on to my shovel and broom.

And I was talking to neighbors. One neighbor offered me a snack. you know, so I realized how ridiculous it looked. And I said to my girlfriend, Linda, please take tons of pictures because nobody's going to believe this. You have a pretty great attitude about all of this. But our CBC news colleagues asked the city about this. They said it appears to be a catch basin that was missing a manhole cover

and that the investigation is ongoing. If your friends had not been close by, I mean, How could this have gone differently, do you think? No, it was still light out. So it was before 9 o'clock or a little after 9 when it happened. So there was still light. And I, people walked by. And if I had yelled, I have the best neighbors.

Somebody would have come out. Like, I have no doubt that somebody would have helped me. There was a lovely young teenage girl who was determined to pull me out of the hole. But I said, no, we're going to wait for the firefighters. And how, I mean, smart. Smart move. How did those firefighters and the emergency workers get you out? You know, honestly, I have to say this is the absolute best part of the story is how professional, resourceful, kind of those folks were. So they set up a tripod and taught me how to put the harness

on, which I had to bend down in the hole so my head was below. I didn't enjoy that part very much. But I got the harness on. I was motivated. And they went to. me out. So it was very quick. And then by the time I got about, I don't know, halfway out, I, you know, was able to kind of push myself out to the side. So city workers were out and investigating it, as we said. What did they find yesterday? Well, you know, it was fascinating is directly across the street on the other boulevard, they went to investigate and there was soft earth. They felt soft earth. So they poked it with a metal rod and made a second hole, like an identical hole.

This is troubling. What do they think might be? So the hole that you fell into, was it covered at all? Or was it open and you just didn't see it? No, just by sod. Just by sod. Okay. There had been street construction here two years ago.

They replaced our whole street. But I've lived on this street for 32 years and in this house for 15. So if there was a catch basin there, obviously there is. It was from a long, long time ago. because even before that construction, there was not a cover there. I mean, again, we've been laughing and you're all right. Everything went as well as could be expected under the circumstances. But I mean, a child could also.

Well, that's what I think. A positive thing about this situation is that I'm happy it was me. I'm happy that I was tall enough to still have my head outside the hole. Because if it had been a child or an animal, it would have been a child. different thing altogether. Christine, glad we could speak and glad you're doing okay. Thank you. Oh, you're welcome. It's nice to meet you. Christine Kilbeck was unexpectedly trapped in and then rescued from a hole this past weekend.

She's in Winnipeg. I'm a bit sluggish today. I did eat half a turkey just before the show, and I washed it down with a liter of 10% cream. But that's probably not why. Regardless, I need a boost, so buckle up. Here is two Unlimited's classic jock jam. Get ready for this.

What I'm going to. Someone told us to buckle up for two Unlimited's classic jock jam. Get ready for this. We got this uninspiring half-speed version. I submit to you. We were not ready for this. That feeling that we all have right now, that combination of disappointment, irritability and lethargy is what the plaintiffs in a new lawsuit claimed to have experienced.

They all purchased Trader Joe's French roast low acid coffee, but it didn't have the effect that they'd expected. And over time, doubts about the coffee began to percolate like the coffee itself. So they began to pour over the facts also like the coffee itself, except P-O-R-E instead of P-O-U-R, so different. Eventually, they sent the coffee off to be tested. What they learned was astonishing, although at first they were probably too groggy to understand it. The coffee, they had been futilely gulping down every day, had only 51% of the caffeine of Trader Joe's dark French roast,

and only 45% of the caffeine of Trader Joe's house blend. And yet, there was no mention of this diminished caffeine anywhere on the label. You can imagine their outrage and exhaustion, but they've somehow bravely mustered the energy to file a lawsuit against Trader Joe's. Is that an overreaction? How should they know? Sorry, they're a bit jittery. They're back on the regular coffee. The truth is it might be an overreaction, but they certainly have grounds for a lawsuit.

We're going to take a short break now. He needs to have a caffeine break, obviously. When we return, photojournalist Kiana Haieri tells me about her award-winning portrait of a mother and daughter living in Saudi Arabia that echoes those of thousands of other Kenyan women who travel there to find work. And the King's speech, in a touchy time for international relations, Charles III tries to smooth things over in an appearance at a joint session of the U.S. Congress. Stay tuned. I'm Chris Howden.

And I'm Neil Kuksel. Shipping, billing, admin, payroll, marketing. You're managing all the things. So why waste time sending important documents the old-fashioned way? Mail and ship when you want, how you want, with Stamps.com. Print postage on-demand. 24-7 and schedule pickups from your office or home. Save up to 90% with automated rate shopping.

That's why over 1 million small businesses trust Stamps.com. Go to Stamps.com and use code podcast to try Stamps.com risk-free for 60 days. The firehose of news from America can feel like a lot these days. If you're trying to figure out what to make of it all, we got you. I'm Katie Simpson. And I'm Paul Hunter. We're correspondents here in Washington. Working just around the corner from where much of the action is taking place.

Two blocks from the White House. And that's the name of our new podcast. For top-notch analysis of U.S. politics from a Canadian perspective, find two blocks from the White House every Wednesday, wherever you get your podcasts. Including YouTube. The issue of potentially going away is not going away. As we've told you on the show, organizers of a petition in support of Alberta, independents say they've managed to gather nearly 200,000 signatures.

in favor. A counter petition has also seen strong support. The petitions are likely to trigger a referendum, which could be held this fall, but how many Albertans actually want to say goodbye? A new poll commissioned by the CBC aimed to find out. Janet Brown opinion research directed a random survey of 1,200 Albertans asking them about separation and other key issues in the province. We reached pollster Janet Brown in Calgary. Janet, why did you feel like this was the right time to do this, to ask Albertans, about this issue of separation? Well, the issue of Western alienation

has been on the radar for a long time. We've actually been tracking that for about eight years. But last year, there was some really serious talk about a referendum on separation. So last year, we asked a question very specifically about the referendum, not knowing exactly the wording of the question, but we just simply ask people, if there was a referendum on Alberta separation,

would you vote for separation or would you vote against separation? And then we asked exactly the same question one year later, and it was remarkable how consistent the answers were. In 25, 28% of people said they would vote to separate this year it's 27. Did that surprise you? Well, no, because separative sentiment has been quite strong and unmoving, like I said, for eight years. Now, we're hearing a lot more noise about separatism, and when you look deeper in the data, you can definitely see that people on both the separatists and the federal side are getting louder, getting more committed to their opinions. So, yeah, we're seeing a lot of activity around

separation, but it was interesting to see that despite all this noise, things are still baked in. They don't seem to really be changing at a high level. And just break down the numbers a little more. Where do Albertans land, those you polled? What does this poll suggest about the numbers? Well, one of the biggest subgroup differences that popped up at me was voting intention. So if you look at just those Alberts who would vote for the United Conservative Party, if an election were held today, 57% of them would also vote for separation in a referendum. 34% of UCP supporters would vote to stay and 10% aren't sure. So what that says to me is that, you know, the separatists are very much living in the UCP camp.

Now, Danielle Smith has said she's not a separatist. She supports the idea of a strong Alberta within United Canada. And she seems to have, be walking this fine line where she is keeping both a large group of separatists and a group of non-separatist sort of inside of her party. You also looked at income levels, the economic situation of those who are leaning towards this idea of separation. Well, that was really interesting because, you know, we looked at income. interesting. And then we had a measure we said just how easy or difficult is it to meet your monthly expenses? We saw a little bit of a difference there. But when we combine those two variables, that's when it got interesting. So people who say it's easy to meet their monthly

expenses, whether they're low, mid or high income, those people by and large are against separatism. You know, it's almost like if things are easy for you, why would you mess it up and vote for separation? Then when you look at the people who say life is difficult, for them. If you have a low income or a mid-income and life is difficult, you don't want to separate. Why take that chance? But the group who has a high income, but at the same time has difficulty meeting the month expenses, that group is 50-50, half and half whether they would vote for against separation. Why do you think that group is the one saying this? Well, I've sort of been cracking this joke and I've been saying, oh, look, they're rich people who think they should be even

richer. But that's kind of insensitive to their needs. I actually think that these are people who, you know, they may have a high income, but they probably also have big expenditures, right? Maybe they've got a large family. Maybe they've got a big property. Maybe they have a business where they have to buy a lot of tools, have a big truck. Maybe they've got a long commute to work. You know, these are people who they're successful, but they kind of look at what's going on and they say, you know, Canada's holding me back. I would do better if Alberta was on its own. I'm doing okay now, but I'm being held back. I think that's how I would characterize this group.

Just to underline again, the top line numbers here, 27% said that they would vote for separation. 67% said they would vote against it. 6% said they were not sure how they would vote. If these numbers have remained stable, what do you think is fueling this surge right now, this discussion, the people signing the petition? Well, we don't know for sure that we're having a referendum on separation in Alberta, but I think most Albertans are assuming it's likely.

So I think this is what everybody's gearing towards. So things are baked in now. They're not really moving. Separatists are talking to themselves. Federalists are talking to themselves. But once we get closer to a campaign, anything can happen in a campaign. And even though these numbers are been fixed for a long time, they may not be fixed by the time we get around to the referendum date. You've also looked at economic anxiety in Alberta more broadly.

How would you characterize generally how Albertans say they're feeling about their future? Well, that was really interesting because, as I said, we didn't see any real change in separatist sentiment. We didn't really see much change in political sentiment, but gosh, is it a very different economic situation? You know, that question where we ask people if they're finding life easy or difficult, 59% of Albertans are saying it is difficult to meet their monthly expenses. That's almost reverse of what we saw eight years ago. Economic anxiety is climbing fast in this province. It's interesting that things like separatism seem to be unaffected by that.

It is interesting. We're speaking on the day of the federal government's economic update. Between that and how people are feeling about their general economic situation right now, what do you think might move the needle? for the numbers that have stayed steady for so long? You know, I think the one thing that could really break the logjam is a decision related to the memo of understanding, the memo of understanding that both Alberta and Canada signed last November.

Now, they missed a deadline on April 1st. Nobody's really panicking. They thought those deadlines were just advisory anyway. But I think if, you know, if in the next few weeks, the Premier is able to say that a good deal has been made, that could change things. On the other hand, the Premier could say, look, we don't think we're going to get to a deal.

We think it's status quo. Then that will be very bad for the federalist side. Janet, I'm glad we could speak. Thank you for this. Thank you very much. We reached pollster Janet Brown in Calgary.

It was a surprisingly united response in a building where hardly anyone ever usually agrees on anything. but this afternoon members of the U.S. Congress gave Charles III a sustained unanimous standing ovation. When the King addressed the joint session, he didn't poke at any of the bruises in the current relationship between the U.S. and the U.K., but he did suggest, to mix metaphors, that there were fences to mend. Here's part of the King's speech for the record. Standing here today, it is hard not to feel the weight of history on my shoulder because the modern relationship between our two nations and our own peoples spans not merely 250 years, but over four centuries.

It is extraordinary to think that I am the 19th in our line of sovereigns to study with daily attention on the affairs of America. So I come here today with the highest respect for the United States Congress. this citadel of democracy created to represent the voice of all American people to advance sacred rights and freedoms. Speaking in this renowned chamber of debate and deliberation, I cannot help but think of my late mother, Queen Elizabeth, who in 1991 was also afforded this signal honour and similarly spoke under the watchful eye of the statue of freedom of birth. us. As I look back across the centuries, Mr. Speaker, the emerge certain patterns, certain

self-evident truths from which we can learn and draw mutual strength. With the spirit of 1776 in our minds, we can perhaps agree that we do not always agree, at least in the first instance. Indeed, the very principle on which your Congress was founded, no taxation without representation, was at once a fundamental disagreement between us, and at the same time a shared democratic value which you inherited from us. Ours is a partnership born out of dispute, but no less strong for it. So perhaps in this example, we can discern that. that our nations are in fact instinctively like-minded, a product of the common democratic,

legal and social traditions in which our governance is rooted to this day. Drawing on these values and traditions, time and again, our two countries have always found ways to come together. And by Jove, Mr. Speaker, when we have found that way to agree, what great change is brought about, not just for the benefit of our peoples, but of all peoples. This, I believe, is the special ingredient in our relationship. As President Trump himself observed during his state visit to Britain last autumn, the bond of kinship and identity between America and the United Kingdom is priceless and eternal. It is irreplaceable and unbreakable.

For the record, Charles III, speaking at a joint session of the United States Congress this afternoon. As radio people, we're not that fond of the expression. A picture is worth a thousand words. But when it comes to Iranian-Canadian photographer Kiana Hiri's work, it's undeniably true. Take her recent photograph of a mother sitting in a chair with her young daughter perched beside her. The mother, Edith, is a Kenyan domestic worker in Saudi Arabia. When she got pregnant with her daughter blessings, she hid it,

because under Saudi Arabian law, married women who give birth risk being arrested. And when Blessings was born, there was no way to get her a birth certificate or leave the country. So the two of them spent years trapped in a legal system that makes children born to unwed mothers effectively invisible. The photograph is entitled Children Who Do Not Exist. And it won Keanu Hayiri, a 2026 World Press Photo Award in the Africa category. We reached Ms. Hairi in London. Kiana, this image was taken as part of a larger New York Times investigation.

What drew you as a photojournalist, as a photographer, to Edith and Blessings? So this has been a commissioned work and I received a call from my editor. I think mostly because of the history of the work I have done with sensitive topic, a lot of portraits. I made two trips to East Africa in Kenya and Uganda and my colleague, Abdi Latif Daya, who was based in Nairobi at the time, followed them for months. So by the time I arrived there, the relationship was already built. the trust was there. And I spend with Abdi three days with Blessing and Edith.

The last day I said I would love to have a portrait, and that's what we did. The jury said of your work, quote, through thoughtful lighting and composition, the photographer uses portraiture effectively to humanize the challenges migrant domestic workers face to obtain necessary documentation in Saudi Arabia, unquote. These are sensitive relationships that you're building in short time spans. How did you build that trust in the time you were spending with Edith and blessings?

What did you say to them to make them feel comfortable with you and your lens? I think the most important thing is being honest and being sincere about what you're doing. But with Edith specifically, there was a little bit of reluctancy. There was something. There was a hesitancy. I couldn't really put my finger on it. But there was one time that I actually turned around as we were leaving her house. And I ran back and I had a heart to heart chat with Edith where I looked her and eyes, held her from her shoulder and I said, listen, Edith, trust us. We've done a lot of stories like this. We know exactly what we're doing. Please trust us with the process. I know it's been very long and painful and something changed at that moment there. She opened up. She was much more available. She was answering much more sincerely.

There's a lot for those you featured in this piece and others to fear. Was she able to share what was holding her back before you had that moment? Yes, there is a lot of uncertainty. Obviously, there's a lot of corruption in this human trafficking. There are a lot of people that doesn't want the story to get out. And I have so much respect for all the women who came out, first of all, to talk about the abuses that they went through. And those who chose to put their face, to put their name,

to the story, those who named and shamed politicians and Saudis who abused them, it takes so much courage. And yes, I think one of the things Edith was reluctant is everything she has done over the years was to protect her daughter. And because there's so much uncertainty, it was understandable that at times she would change her mind. She was okay with being photographed and she wasn't okay with showing her face. So I think just to be on the safe side, I mostly like 95% I photographed her in a way to protect our identity. What did you make of her daughter and how she was handling all of this? Our blessing is, I sometimes wish I could actually photograph her with her first drawing.

We decided it was a collective decision between me, Abdi, and her mom that we should protect her identity. She is this beautiful, beautiful girl who looks much older than she is. She's super smart. And she had this way of asking questions. and being curious, it was such a pleasure to be around her. I'm looking at the portrait again right now. It is quite compelling, deceptively simple. Why did you want a portrait?

I wanted to have that one portrait to represent that the mother and daughter bonds. I just wanted to have that as a backup to like symbolize the whole story, which ended up being actually the leading image of the story. Do you know how Edith and Blessings feel about the image and the coverage? Yes. We are in touch. Yes. They are fine. She loved it. Actually, one of the things you asked me about how you get trust is when I'm dealing with very sensitive cases. I do, with other people, I don't do this. But I do when I take the photo, I turn the camera to them and I show them what I'm capturing. I would ask them, how do you feel about this? Do you like how you're being portrayed? And I would direct them to like open up their shoulder because I think that brings a lot of respect and dignity. You often shoot in more zones. Much of your work focuses on women living in conflict zones. You've spoken in the past. about your work, you know, being, quote, slow storytelling. Tell our listeners what you mean by that.

I mean, we live, unfortunately, in a time where people's attention is very short. We quickly switch, like, war is one in one place, and then we move on to the next place. We'll forget entirely about the other place. I think in those times, it's very important to stay with the story because even though our attention shifts somewhere else, that doesn't mean the people's struggle comes to an end. So, and in the years I lived in Afghanistan, I lived in Afghanistan for nearly a decade, and

I moved to Afghanistan at a time where everybody has moved out. I moved there at the end of 2014, NATO pulled out, a lot of journalists moved out. I moved in and I stayed on, and I stayed on, and I stayed on throughout all those years. You know, even Taliban took over. I stayed on for another 13 months, because I think that is how you read nuances, that is how you can tell multi-dimensional stories. That's how you can dig deeper into the story. And that's how you can connect people from outside into that world. We should also mention, we're speaking to you just after you've been announced as the winner of the inaugural Sir Harry Evans Global Fellowship in photojournalism. What does that mean for what you will do next? It's amazing. It's a project that I've been

developing for many years now. And the project is about how education is under attack in different ways around the world. From literal attacks, from schools getting bombed in Lebanon, in Iran, in ISIS attacks on schools in Afghanistan, from those attacks to, you know, like in France, Muslim girls who choose to wear hijab cannot attend public school. And not to forget, usually people outside of Canada when I tell them books are banned in school and some schools in across Canada, people get shocked. How do you take care of yourself when you're doing all of this work important but difficult? I think I've gotten better, to be honest.

I've learned little coping mechanism to kind of like take breaks and I used to live in Afghanistan which now looking back and understand when you don't have a way out of the violence, it builds up and at the time it's you don't really feel it's like building up your spice threshold and then and then you leave and you realize oh my God it all comes back crashing. Now I do take breaks. I take therapy very seriously. Like 13 years, I'm in therapy every week. But also sometimes I give up.

When I started this project with the New York Times, the first trip we did, throughout the trip I told my partner, you know, it's very strange. I don't really feel much. And we're documenting these horrendous, horrendous stories of women being abused in every possible way, you think. And some of them don't even make it. Some of them they die.

And wasn't feeling anything. And on the, I think it was like last weekend I was in Uganda, I was in my hotel room and I started feeling something coming and I knew from experience that, oh, it's a panic attack. I have been piling all of this up without processing it and it came. So now, and then the second trip, I was much better. I made sure I pace myself. I don't expose myself to too much unnecessarily. So I was much better on the second trip. Kiana, I'm so glad we could speak.

congratulations again. Thank you. And take care. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me on the show. Kiana Hairi is a winner in the Africa category of the 26 World Press Photo Contest. She's in London.

Arab Emirates is going it alone. Today, the UAE announced that it will be leaving the oil cartel known as OPEC, the organization of the petroleum exporting countries on May 1st. According to Energy Minister Suhail al-Mazrui, the UAE wants more flexibility. And we need, as the whole world, need more energy. We need to be unconstrained. We need to be looking at it from a perspective that serves not only the producers, but also looking at it from our perspective of looking at helping the consuming nations. We would like to make sure we are agile, we are nimble, and we are fast in making the right decisions.

This move, of course, comes in the middle of a global energy crisis, but it's likely that U.S. President Donald Trump is happy about it. He has criticized OPEC and accused it of inflating oil prices. Carol Nakhre is the chief executive officer of Crystal Energy and the Secretary General of the Arab Energy Club. We reached her in London. Carol, is this game over for OPEC or just a reset? No, I think it's too rushed to judge about OPEC's future from this move

because it's not the first time that some members leave the organization. We saw that with Qatar a few years ago. We saw that was Angola, was Indonesia. So the membership has changed, but it's the first time we have such a major member, which is United Arab Emirates, which is the largest producer within OPEC after Saudi Arabia and Iraq leaving the organization. So yes, it raises questions about the effectiveness of OPEC as a group in terms of its influence on oil markets, as internal adhesion and coherence. But it does not mean end of OPEC, at least not the way we see it at the moment. The tensions won't be any surprise to most watchers between the UAE and OPEC on the limits on oil production in particular. But did you see this move coming at this moment?

Actually, I saw it a few years ago for one main reason because the UAE not long ago, they announced a major production expansion capacity, which means that they had very ambitious targets to increase their production and be a major player in the market. However, while staying in OPEC, they could not really see how they could achieve those targets. And also on several occasions, over the last few years when OPEC became more OPEC Plus and brought in other members, namely Russia, leading the plus and the group of OPEC Plus,

there we saw several on several occasions, tensions arising between the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Russia, especially when Saudi Arabia turned the blind eye to some of the moves that Russia did, particularly not delivering on its promises, let's say, to cut production. And that kind of created more frustration within the group. However, the fact that the UAE announced it just today came at the first as a surprise because I was wondering why today. But then I thought there couldn't be a better time because the market will not notice

in the midst of all the chaos that's happening in the Middle East. So prices are not going to crash. There is still lots of uncertainty about Iran. So I think if they were to make such a move, that would have been the best time. What are the risks, though, for the UAE by making this move? I would say, I mean, the main risk, being a player on your own is not the same as being part of a big group which influences global oil markets because OPEC Plus is still an important group. But I would say the main risk results, not just for the UAE only, but for any producers,

that we are looking at the future where more barrels are expected to come to the market from Venezuela, from Libya, from the UAE now. So that leaves us wondering what will happen to the oil price in the longer term. And the UAE is still an oil dependent economy. So crash the oil price, you crash the economy unless they move fast and diversify further. But in the best case scenario, we heard what the energy minister said just a moment ago. You know, they want to be able to produce more, more oil. said cheaply. That's the bottom line for them in the best case scenario. Remind our listeners why OPEC

came together in the first place nearly seven decades ago. Well, OPEC was formed in 1960 and it was during a phase where oil markets were still developing. Before that, it was the private oil companies, primarily Western companies, Americans, British and French, they dominated oil production. And as oil markets became more and more developed and people started to realize how important oil the oil is to the global economy, the sovereign owners of the resources, which are the governments, this is where they felt that they had to come together and claim stronger control over the market rather than leaving it to private companies. And this is what really is the essence that was behind the creation of OPEC in 1960. Has it outlived its purpose? Well, you know, if you look

at the textbook example of what OPEC is, people would put it under a cartel definition. I'd like to call it what a famous economist once described it as a clumsy cartel, because usually cartels, they don't live for too long. You know, they last for a few years, and then something happens and they break apart. But I have to say that OPEC is quite impressive. That's been around for so many decades, even though some members who sit around the table,

they are at war each other sometimes. You saw Iraq and Iran, and now we have Iran attacking other members within OPEC. I mean, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, you name it. So in that respect, it's quite impressive that they were able to put their differences together, politically speaking, in order to concentrate on the economic interests. You mentioned the timing being perfect in a way for the UAE to announce this in this moment. What kind of effect might it have on global markets?

Well, just to clarify about the perfect timing, because in addition to the frustration that the spend production without any restrictions. You have Iran, its neighbor, next door to the UAE. It has been attacking the UAE infrastructure from ports, from airports, from civilian areas, which have nothing to do with the Americans, by the way. So that's why the EU saw that as an opportunity to take this bold move and indirectly telling the rest of OPEC, they are not going to sit around a table where there is an Iran sitting there and having a say in where the markets are going. But at the moment, in terms of impact on

prices, really, the market will barely take notice because the market, what is driving today markets is what's happening in the Middle East on the geopolitical front and the straight of hormones, which is blocking the trade of oil and gas. I think once that is resolved, then the market will look back at the U.S. and say, what impact are we going to see on prices? in the long run, what could it mean for consumers? In the long run, it's not just the step that the UAE announced it is leaving OPEC, but overall, the more we see producers such as the UAE big producers sitting on substantial reserves of oil, the more we see, let's say these producers putting more barrels in the market,

and the more they maximize their market share, claiming more and more by selling more and more rather than curtailing production. Of course, that would put downward pressure on prices. If nothing else major changes, let's say, demand does not boom suddenly, which I don't expect. But that could mean better outcome for the consumer. Carol, I appreciate this. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Carol Nakhle is the chief executive officer of Crystal Energy and the Secretary General of the Arab Energy Club. She's in London.

Doctors are very careful about using the word cured. But when it comes to one 62-year-old patient, a team of physicians in Toronto is hoping to use it very soon. The man, whom the doctors are not naming, has been living with HIV for 27 years, and a few years ago he was diagnosed with leukemia. In 2021, he underwent a bone marrow transplant for his cancer and is now in cancer remission

and prolonged HIV remission. Dr. Sharon Walmsley is the director of the HIV clinic at Toronto General Hospital. She's been treating the unnamed patient for years. We reached her in Toronto. Dr. How is your patient feeling, you know, in general, health-wise, but also with all of this attention? I actually saw him this morning, and he's actually very excited about everything that's going on

and has been oppressed by the coverage that has happened. You know, obviously he has been cured from a cancer and potentially cured of HIV, and that latter was unexpected for him. and his comment to me today was, I hope the donors out there see this case and support research so that we can continue in these efforts. I could almost hear you beaming on the other line and smile in your face.

I mean, are you constantly hugging each other and smiling at each other? Every doctor wants good outcomes, obviously. Absolutely. Yeah, just, you know, really, really unbelievable. And how are you doing, you know, as someone who has known this, for a long time, but also has been involved since the crisis first began.

I mean, to go from, we've had coverage recently on our show about the depths of the loss and the fear and the deaths in those early years to now be at this point. Yeah, exactly. You know, when I started in this game, we didn't have a name for the virus. We had no idea how it was spread. We obviously had no treatment. there was a lot of fear and lots of stigma and lots of anxiety. You know, I used to spend most of my nights sitting on someone's bedside waiting for them to die.

And then to be able to have a research career, which has taken people from that stage, develops therapies that keep people well, and now a cure. I mean, one couldn't ask for such a wonderful career. As our listeners heard, this patient has had been living with HIV for 27 years, getting this leukemia diagnosis on top of that. Just try to illustrate for our listeners what that could have meant for him. Well, let's really back up. So when I first met this patient in 1999, he had something called Burkett's lymphoma,

which involved his brain as well as the rest of his body. and we were just getting to learn about HIV treatment. So at that particular juncture, it was not anticipated that he would survive. So he was able to survive a burket flamphoma and then went on effective HIV treatment and had his HIV controlled for many years. And then later on, you know, 24th pass forward 20 years later, he developed the leukemia probably as a consequence of the chemotherapy that he received for his burkid lymphoma.

So now he has another life-threatening cancer for which he requires chemotherapy and then a bone marrow transplant, which are very invasive procedures and at risk of infection and lots of problems. And as a consequence of that, as a sidebar, you know, gets a bone marrow that eradicates his HIV. So he has had a number of miracles. Not only has he survived this cancer, but now he appears to have eradicated his HIV. The team at the Princess Margaret Cancer Center did the search for a potential bone marrow match, obviously to try to treat his cancer. While they were doing that, they thought, okay, let's try to look for a match that also has a specific gene mutation that is resistant to HIV. What were the chances of finding a match for both of those criteria?

Exactly. Exactly. So first of all, they needed to think about it. And, you know, that's the importance of a multidisciplinary team is that the bone marrow surgeon at the time had been in Germany and had been involved with the original Berlin case, so was aware of that. The head of the bone marrow transplant service at the Princess Margaret Hospital, his wife also is an HIV nurse, so he kind of was aware of the issue. So when this person was deemed that they needed a bone marrow, you know, the question came up, well, how about we go looking for this bone marrow? marrow. We don't have a registry in Canada and that's something that we're looking towards developing in the future in light of what's happened here. But there are international registries and again people need their contacts to kind of help, you know, do this because we have to find these bone marrow in a very short period of time. And no, less than 1% of the

population has this specific mutation that renders one cells resistant to HIV. And then as you point out, the bone marrow has to match the patient so that they don't reject it. So, yeah, a lot of lucky circumstances here. And what are you and the team telling the patient at that time trying to, you know, keep their spirits up, but manage expectations as well? Well, you know, I think the entire focus at that time was really on curing his cancer because that was a life-threatening thing. And if he had not had the bone marrow at that time, he would not have survived.

I'm not sure how much he really comprehended at the time of this added effect that we might cure his HIV because he was just worried about living from his cancer. This is a very specific case, obviously. This scenario would not necessarily be one that you're recommending to everyone who is living with HIV, obviously. But what do you think this might mean for the future of HIV treatment? Right. Absolutely. we cannot offer this to every person living with HIV. We have great HIV treatment now that

keeps people well for very long periods of time, not to say you don't want to get rid of HIV because there continues to be an increased risk of other diseases like heart disease and kidney disease. And also there's huge stigma still attached to living with HIV. But what this research does is it helps our scientists explore other ways by which one that we could reach. replace the immune system with one that would be resistant to infection by the virus, potentially developing drugs that would act like this mutation in preventing HIV from entering into cells. So it just opens up the opportunity for scientists to look for other less toxic, less invasive ways to do this.

Well, doctor, it's great to be able to speak with you on a day like this. Thank you for this. My pleasure, and I hope your audience is uplifted by this. Dr. Sharon Walmsley is the director of the HIV clinic at Toronto General Hospital, and we reached her in Toronto.

You've been listening to the As It Happens podcast. Our show can be heard Monday to Friday on CBC Radio 1 after your world tonight. And you can, of course, also listen to our show online at cbc.ca.ca slash Aih-I-H or on the CBC Listen app, or of course, wherever you get your podcasts. Neil Kokesol. And I'm Chris Howden.