The Big Story

Will it all probably be fine, or are we asking for another wave? With Alberta already ending masking, and Ontario promising to follow suit, it's likely that much of Canada will be Covid-restriction free by April.Cases and hospitalizations are trending down, and much of the country has at least two doses of vaccine. But with a new subvariant already here, and showing infection rates higher than Omicron, will wee see another spike? And it's also important to ask, as the pandemic closes in on its two-year anniversary ... if not now, when?GUEST: Dr. Raywat Deonandan, Global Health Epidemiologist and Associate Professor with the Interdisciplinary School of Health Sciences at the University of Ottawa We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

They probably don't look like your typical picture of anti-vaxxers. They own yoga studios, or push organic juice on Instagram. But the wellness space has been home to some of the pandemic's most unexpected sentiment against vaccinations. And it shouldn't really surprise anyone who has been paying attention. Today we'll explain how it happened.GUEST: Stacy Lee Kong, writer and editor, creator of the Friday Things newsletter We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

It's the worst mass killing in Canadian history, and there are hundreds of questions still unanswered almost two years later. A public inquiry into the Portapique shootings is happening right now, and the early answers to some of those questions are disturbing. What more will we learn about how many lives could have been saved? Will RCMP officers actually agree to testify at all? And what about the killer's rumoured connections to the RCMP itself?How much of this mystery will we unravel? And how bad will it get?GUEST: Greg Mercer, Atlantic Canada reporter, The Globe and Mail We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

For all the bad news (and there is a lot of it) contained in the newest IPCC report, there is also one very clear message: It's still possible to save our world from the worst outcome, and we have about eight years to do it. The impacts of climate change are already being felt around the globe, including in many parts of Canada—but all is not yet lost.What will it take to win this fight? And what can we learn from the global response to the pandemic, or more recently from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, that we can apply to the biggest existential crisis humanity has ever faced?GUEST: Catherine Abreu, founder and executive director of Destination Zero, a nonprofit dedicated to accelerating the global transition away from fossil fuels; member of Canada's net-zero advisory board We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

The footage of that legendary fighter pilot is from a video game. The Ukrainians who told the Russian warship to "go f--- yourself" were not killed and are still alive. Even the image you see attached to this episode—a still from a widely circulated video that was supposedly shot during the current conflict—was actually captured in Libya back in 2011. All this might seem obvious, but there are dozens, likely hundreds, of pieces of misinformation being shared widely as the world's attention turns to the war in Ukraine.So how can you tell real from fake? What's at play in our hearts and minds that helps us fall victim to this stuff? What should be the first thing you do when you see footage that purports to show something unbelievable from the war zone? We'll help you figure out where to start.GUEST: Craig Silverman, reporter covering misinformation and digital manipulation for ProPublica, editor of the Verification Handbook We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

When we share stories of immigration to Canada, we often tell them and hear them as individual, personal tales. And those stories are great—but they don't illustrate just how big a part of Canada's history programs like the West Indian Domestic Scheme really were. Thousands of women came to this country, brought their families, made Canada home and supercharged Canadian women's entry to the workforce. Why don't we view this as one of our country's building blocks?GUEST: Garvia Bailey, co-creator of Strong and Free, a Historica Canada podcast We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

It sounds like hyperbole—unless you listen to the Russian president's thinly veiled threat to use nuclear weapons on any country that intervenes with his aggression in Ukraine. That doesn't mean this conflict will escalate to a multi-nation war, but the possibility is certainly there, according to experts. And nobody knows what happens next.What does this mean for the future of the international order and traditional alliances? What does it mean for millions of innocent Ukrainians? For countries like Canada who are on the sidelines? How will this conflict reshape the world in the weeks and months to come?GUEST: Balkan Devlen, senior fellow at McDonald Laurier Institute, Superforecaster for Good Judgment, Inc. We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

On the surface it seems silly. Why hold a vaccination clinic at a strip club in downtown Toronto? But once you look a little deeper, the answer becomes obvious. Ontario currently has 92% of its 12+ population with at least one dose. Finishing the last eight percent will require reaching the people who are hardest to find, and who don't trust the traditional healthcare system. So you have to go where they can find you, safely.GUEST: Ellie Ade Kur is a board member at Maggie's Toronto Sex Workers Action Project We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

Both the occupation of Ottawa and the federal government's use of the emergencies act were unprecedented. And it's hard to see a future where neither one is used again. If the game is truly changing, what does that mean for Canada's national security? And for Canadians' personal freedoms?GUEST: Stephanie Carvin, former national security analyst, author of Stand on Guard: Reassessing threats to Canada's National Security We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

You would think that after so much "listening and learning" by white people over the past few years, we'd stop seeing them wearing blackface in Canada. But it still happens. Relatively often. Why do Canadians consider this an American phenomenon? What's the history of blackface in this country? And how can we provide the proper context to explain why it's so awful?GUEST: Dr. Cheryl Thompson We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

Yes, it's worse in America. But it's not great here, either. The past few years have seen an alarming rise in hate groups in Canada—and there's nothing on the horizon that appears set to slow it down. It's a recipe for the sort of violence we've seen in Washington recently, and have seen on our own soil more frequently in recent years.So what does defuse the growth of white supremacy? What can governments do to curtail the kind of polarizing anger that leads to reactionary violence? And what can we do, each of us, when we see people we know who may be taking the first steps down a road that leads to conspiracy theories, hate and violence?GUEST: Shakil Choudhury, Anima LeadershipThis episode was first released in January 2021. We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

Do you remember the Ikea Monkey? That's just the tip of the iceberg. A lack of provincial laws around exotic animals in Ontario means that there's nothing preventing you or I from owning just about any kind of dangerous animal. To illustrate how this works today: The story of some lions who are in Ontario, were once a part of a roadside zoo and are now ... well, we don't know exactly where they are now. Really.GUEST: Grant LaFleche, investigative team The Toronto Star (Read Grant and reporter Sarah Crookall's investigation right here.) We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

Quick, name a signature, unique, statement building opened in Canada in the past couple of decades! Your choices are few and far between. And aside from some of the oldest buildings in the entire country, Canada is known by enthusiasts around the world for having ... not much, when it comes to beautiful public buildings and spaces.There are reasons for that. And it's possible to change our approach. But will we? Do we care enough? Do our leaders? Or will Canada remain a country of mostly grey boxes, forever?GUEST: Tracey Lindeman, writer and author, writing in the Walrus We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

It's a tricky phrase—but these days you are as likely to hear it from a government official or public health officer as you are from someone who is just sick of vaccine passports. As the Omicron wave subsides and governments across the country ease or eliminate restrictions, a growing number of Canadians are in favour of a future where we no longer tailor our lives to the virus.But is that possible? If it is, what would that look like? Who will thrive in this future and who will suffer? And is there a way, with proper planning and enough commitment, to have the best of both worlds? A world where we can protect the vulnerable and let everyone get "back to normal"?GUEST: Timothy Caulfield, Canada Research Chair in health law and policy at the University of Alberta We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

You might assume that millions of crowdfunded dollars are behind the scenes on the streets of Ottawa and at border crossings across the country. But very little of the money raised on GoFundMe or GiveSendGo has been released, and what was released was mostly frozen. So where is the money to support these lengthy protests coming from? How is it getting into the hands and bank accounts of organizers? And what does it tell us about the future of fundraising and foreign influence in Canadian affairs?GUEST: Jessica Davis, president and principal consultant at Insight Threat Intelligence We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

This Olympics will make history for an uncomfortable reason: It will be the first winter games where basically all the snow used will be man-made. Past Olympics have needed snow machines to varying degrees, but never before to make all the snow. It's a sign of the times as a warming planet makes snowfall less reliable—but what does it mean for the future of the Olympics, and winter sports in general?GUEST: Kathryn Blaze Baum, environment reporter, The Globe and Mail We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

Some people deserve to have awful Google results. But a lot more people don't, and end up with them thanks to a vendetta, a soured relationship, or a targeted harassment campaign. Regardless of whether or not the reputation is deserved, there's basically one way to fix it — online reputation rehab, companies that take your money to fix your Google results.Some of these companies are totally above board, but others can trap victims in cycles of endless payment to remove new results. And there's not much stopping them.GUEST: Paul Gallant, Toronto-based reporter, writing for The Walrus We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

It might not look like it, but when you walk among them it becomes clear there's more than one group in Ottawa. If you want to find evidence that the protesters are peaceful, ordinary, frustrated Canadians who came to Ottawa to make their displeasure known, you can find those folks. And if you want evidence that the protesters are angry, racist, far-right agitators here to attempt to overthrow the government, you can find that, too.This is what makes the scene on the street so difficult to capture in a 60-second news report, or a short video stream. So we called in someone who has spent a couple of days attempting to blend in with both kinds of protesters, to tell us what he's seen and heard.GUEST: Matt Gurney, writer and commentator, co-founder of The Line (You can read Matt's dispatches from Ottawa right here.) We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

Or is Vladimir Putin bluffing to gain the world's attention? The history of Russia-Ukraine conflict dates back decades and can only be properly understood by looking at what has come before.But right now, Canadian citizens are being warned it's time to come home, there are massive amounts of troops on the border and the world is worried diplomacy might not work. So ... what happens next?GUEST: Seva Gunitsky, associate professor of political science, the University of Toronto. We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

If you want to know which kids are least likely to get vaccinated, there’s a decent way to tell — they're the ones attending an alternative school. Even before covid, with traditional vaccines that were proven safe over decades, the opt-out rate among alternative school kids was many times higher than kids in traditional classrooms.Why is that? Where does the hesitancy come from? And what can we learn about the factors parents weigh when they make these decisions by studying the philosophies of the schools they choose?GUEST: Inori Roy, investigative journalist, writing in The Local We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

Amid the current rhetoric around protests across Canada, it's worth examining what successful, peaceful protest looks like, and what we can learn from it. It took more than half a decade, work by Indigenous women and leaders and non-Indigenous allies. It took a deep understanding of treaties and laws and relentless positive commitment. And in the end, an oil and gas company simply gave up, and left a beautiful river system alone. This is the story of how it happened.GUEST: Cheryl Maloney, protest leader, Mi'kmaq woman, former national environment coordinator for the Native Women’s Association of Canada We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

Since Stephen Harper left, the federal Conservatives are on their fifth leader in six years. Later this year they'll likely choose a sixth—and the party's eventual choice will go a long way to determining its future. What does O'Toole's exit and the choice of Candice Bergen as interim leader reveal about the state of the party currently? Is this really good news for the federal Liberals as some pundits claim?The next few months will be critical to determining what Canadians are choosing the next time they go to the polls. Will it be a united CPC, led by the right wing of the party? A fractured party still trying to hold its various factions together? Or could the unification that led to Harper's success end with O'Toole, producing a split between the party's two ideologies?GUEST: David Moscrop, political writer and commentator, author, host of the Open To Debate podcast We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

Depending on where you stand, you may have blamed anything from Covid-19 to vaccine mandates, protesters to climate change, or even the federal government for the empty shelves you’ve seen. And all those answers are valid. But the reasoning you'll hear from politicians depends on who you ask. And of course, so does the assessment of how much of a crisis this actually is.So how big a problem are the scattered empty shelves? How precarious is Canada's food supply chain? When will the pressure ease? And when it does, how much more will it cost to put food on your table?GUEST: Sylvain Charlebois, Senior Director, Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, co-host of The Food Professor podcast We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

For decades, Canada's men's soccer team was irrelevant at best, a punchline at worst. While the women's side went on to Olympic medals and World Cup runs, the Canadian men ... did nothing. Until a few years ago, when the tide began to turn. And then last year, when the unthinkable started to happen. Now undefeated during qualifying, having beaten both the United States and Mexico, Canada is not only likely headed to the World Cup for just the second time in its history, but the team also looks ready to do some damage when it gets there. How did the unthinkable happen?GUEST: John Molinaro, veteran Canadian soccer journalist, founder of TFC Republic We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

It was only ever barely about vaccine mandates. As thousands of Canadians took their grievances to Ottawa, some of the ugliest parts of the far-right joined them, distorting a message that was never that clear to begin with. After a weekend of blockades and plenty of bad behaviour, lots of legitimate protesters went home. Those who remain have vowed to occupy Canada's capital, and demand the end of the Liberal government. Who are these people? What happens next? And why are leaders from both sides pouring gas on the fire?GUEST: Elizabeth Simons, deputy director of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

The four-year-old boy, who went missing in 1991, might be Canada's most famous missing person. Thirty years after he vanished from a Victoria, BC playground, a new podcast retraces the investigation, connects with his family and tries to figure out both what happened, and why the case matters so much to so many.GUEST: Laura Palmer, investigative reporter and host of Island Crime: Missing Michael We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

Some critics have declared Harry Potter "over", or Lin-Manuel Miranda "cringe". In the real world, both Potter and Miranda remain enormously popular with people of all ages. Do critics become irrelevant when their views fall out of step with the vast majority of the audience? Or is shifting people's views towards a differing viewpoint part of a critic's job? How do we explain the vast gap between what an elite corner of social media feels is worthy, and what the sales numbers tell us?GUEST: Yair Rosenberg, Deep Shtetl, The Atlantic We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

You could hear it as far away as Alaska and the West coast. It was many, many more times powerful than an atomic bomb and the largest volcanic eruption in more than 25 years. What was so unique about the underground volcano that shook the Pacific nation last week? And what can it tell us about the climate and what's to come?GUEST: Shane Cronin, volcanologist at the University of Auckland We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

Every province and territory except Ontario has made a deal with the federal government on its affordable child care plan. And with an election looming most think Doug Ford will fall into line soon. National, affordable child care has been decades in the making, and it couldn't come at a more critical time.Research shows that women have borne the brunt of the pandemic's impact on careers, often due to a lack of child care. Can this help them make up for lost time? What do we stand to gain as a country with a plan that makes it affordable for everyone?GUEST: Carolyn Ferns, Public Policy and Government Relations Coordinator, Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care. We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

The first summer and fall of the pandemic, foreign migrant workers who come to pick Canada's fruits and vegetables were experiencing some of the toughest working conditions around. In response, more inspections were promised, and the government vowed to make Covid-19 protocols safer for these vulnerable workers. Since then, what has actually happened to help protect them? What's it actually like on the farms where they work? And despite their necessity to Canada's agriculture industry, why don't many of us seem to care?GUEST: Hilary Beaumont, investigative journalist, writing for The Narwhal. Hilary worked with photographer, Chris Katsarov Luna on the project. We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

British Columbia has put regulations in place to protect its dwindling salmon stocks, as fewer and fewer fish are returning to spawn. But those regulations don't apply in Alaska, and fish don't respect borders. Meanwhile Alaskan fishers are catching fish bound for BC rivers, depleting the stocks further.What should Canada do? Rely on diplomacy? Start taking fish bound for Washington State in retaliation? Is there any hope of cooperation as the industry on both sides of the border faces a supply crunch that will only get worse?GUEST: Stefan Labbe, climate and environment solutions journalist, Glacier Media. We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

Investors — a lot of them — were told there was gold in the Cordova mine, and that's what they believed. But there wasn't. All that was there was a rundown office inhabited by bats. So begins the long fight to reclaim a lifetime of savings. Who sold them on the mine? Why did they buy-in? How were they bilked? And what could have prevented them from losing their shirts?GUEST: Grant LaFleche, investigative reporter, St. Catharines Standard We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

Almost since the day the pandemic began, provincial leaders have promised more hospital and ICU capacity. They've promised hundreds of beds, thousands of beds...and two years later, only a fraction of the promised amount are available, and our hospitals are still at the breaking point during every wave. How was Canada's health care system set up to fail? Why haven't we been able to meaningfully fix it?Like it or not, at some point there will be a discussion about letting the private sector pick up some slack, if only because it's necessary to keep Canadians alive. If Canadians don't want to go down that road, then something has to change, and quickly.GUEST: Justin Ling, writing for Maclean's We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

If Keegan Mitchell had just kept his head down and played hockey, none of this would have happened. And we'd all be worse off for it. But when the junior player stood up for a teammate who was called a racial slur, and then broke the league's social media policy by condemning the matching suspensions the two players received, an otherwise ugly part of the game was dragged into the spotlight. Now Hockey PEI is promising to do better, and players from the Hockey Diversity Alliance are reaching out to Mitchell to thank him for demonstrating how the culture can change. And where it starts.GUEST: Keegan Mitchell, Sherwood Metros We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

Toronto's Vision Zero plan is now five years old. The city's residents are still waiting for it to work. On Boxing Day, the latest tragedy saw a car jump a downtown curb onto a busy corner, injuring several and killing a teenager. It would be shocking, if it weren't for the fact that barely a week goes by without a driver striking someone just minding their own business.Why is Toronto so bad at this? Is it a lack of will, or a problem with how the city was built? What are other cities doing that Toronto isn't, and how fast can that change?GUEST: Ben Spurr, transportation reporter, Toronto Star We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

Fifteen years ago, a human rights complaint was filed against the federal government over their fundamentally unequal treatment of First Nations children in the child welfare system. Earlier this month, after years of fighting it in court, the government agreed to a $40-billion settlement. And now as an April 1, 2022 deadline approaches, advocates for these children and families are holding their breath until the money actually comes through.Why did it take so long? Why did the government go to court, even as it admitted how badly it has handled Indigenous issues? What will this money do, and can it ever make right what our government has done wrong?GUEST: Cindy Blackstock, executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society, and professor at McGill University's School of Social Work We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

In the 1950s, before they fuelled the acid-trips of the '60s, psychedelics were being passed around the Weyburn Mental Hospital in Saskatchewan. And not just among the patients—as well as being given to those struggling with mental illness, doctors and their spouses were using them on themselves—for "research purposes".How did Saskatchewan become the world's psychedelic hub? What did we learn there that would inform the rise in use and then strict enforcement of these drugs in the decades to come? And how can it help us understand why these drugs are now making a return to therapy?GUEST: Erika Dyck, historian of health, medicine, and Canadian society at the University of Saskatchewan and Canada Research Chair in the History of Medicine; author of Psychedelic Psychiatry: LSD on the Canadian Prairies We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

With hospitals under stress across the country, governments are pulling out all the stops to keep the health care system working. Ontario will allow internationally educated nurses to apply for accreditation. And Quebec has floated the idea of a tax on those who are eligible for vaccination but refuse. Is this ethical? Or is this a slippery slope?Meanwhile, with testing capacity breached in many parts of the country, how will we even know when we are starting to turn the corner on this awful winter wave?GUEST: Dr. Christopher Labos, cardiologist, master's in epidemiology, co-host of The Body of Evidence podcast. We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

It's called Trikafta, and people living with Cystic Fibrosis describe it as a true game-changer. It can treat symptoms at the source rather than manage them endlessly every day. It was approved in the United States in 2019 but only arrived in most Canadian provinces a few months ago. Why did it take so long? How does this drug work? And is the approval process it went through a precedent of better days to come for Canada's health care system?GUEST: Jeremie Saunders, host of Sickboy, living with Cystic Fibrosis We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

This is not an episode about whether or not schools should be open. We've had that conversation. This is a discussion of what two years of on-again-off-again in-person schooling has done to Canadian kids, what we're learning from this huge and unwanted experiment and how we can help them adapt and, eventually, put this strange development stage behind them.GUEST: Dr. Rebecca Pillai Riddell, clinical development psychologist and professor at York University We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

A fresh annual report shows that by January fourth the average CEO of a top-100 Canadian company had already made the annual salary of the average Canadian worker. This shouldn't surprise anyone. The scale of CEO compensation has been escalating for years, even as regular wages have remained mostly stagnant.But it wasn't always this way. CEO salaries used to be tied to the same things as frontline workers' salaries. They were higher, but not insanely higher. How did that change? And what would it take to return to a more equitable sharing of the wealth?GUEST: David Macdonald, senior economist, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ National Office We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

It begins a couple of decades ago, with a Saskatchewan farmer spotting some black shapes sniffing around his crops. Today these wild pigs number in the tens of thousands and may even have spread as far as Ontario. And wherever they go, they leave a trail of destruction and decimated ecosystems. What is Canada doing to stop the spread of these creatures?GUEST: Omar Mosleh, Edmonton-based journalist, the Toronto Star We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

Last year's attack on the Capitol building by supporters of former president, Donald Trump, was a shocking scene. But it was merely a visual representation of the problems that have long been simmering below the surface. The nation is divided and political violence grows more popular in opinion polls. Right-wing militias are ready to fight, and Republican lawmakers seem either afraid of them or complicit. The end of American democracy used to be unthinkable. Now there are several ways it could happen, far sooner than we think. GUEST: Stephen Marche, author of The Next Civil War: Dispatches from the American Future We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

At least one group of hospitals has called a "Code Orange" this week as health care workers battle a tsunami of Covid-19 admissions. That's a protocol usually reserved for mass casualty incidents, when there are too many victims to care for. It's a sign of just how brutal the January Omicron wave may be.Schools are closed and restrictions are back in place to help stem the tide—but did it have to be this way? Could we have increased hospital capacity, kept health care workers healthy and safe and kept schools open? What would it have taken and why didn't it happen?GUEST: Dr. Katharine Smart, President, Canadian Medical Association We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

It's called solar geoengineering, and it's an idea being researched right now. If we can't blunt the impact of global warming with the measures available to us, eventually time will run short and humanity will need to take drastic action. By preventing some of the sun's heat from reaching the earth, we could attempt to cool the planet down. Would it work? Possibly! Could it backfire enormously, leading to massive crop die-off? Also possibly! GUEST: Climate reporter Bob Berwyn, for Inside Climate News We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

In June of 1990, 22-year-old University of Toronto student Elizabeth Bain disappeared. Her body has never been found, but police say it was a homicide. Elizabeth’s boyfriend Robert Baltovich was convicted of her murder. He spent eight years in prison before being deemed not guilty by the courts in 2008. Elizabeth Bain's killer remains at large.Check out Tracking a Killer here! We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

Whether a publicity stunt or revenge porn, the celebrity sex tape has long been a salacious and voyeuristic fascination for the media and its subjects' fans. But when it comes to male stars, their tapes have seemed to serve as fuel for their fire, while for female stars, the only rhetoric has been slut-shaming. Hosts, Sarah and Sadaf dive into the story behind the tapes of everyone from Rob Lowe to Pam Anderson and Tommy Lee to Paris Hilton to understand why, and what sort of ripple effect celebrity sex tapes have left in the years since.Check out The Reheat here! We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

If you're a Christmas movie person, then you already know Hallmark is a behemoth. But you might not know just how it became so dominant. It's a long story, born from a collision of religion and capitalism. But now, with critics crying for diversity, and traditionalists desperate for them to focus on family, Hallmark is at a crossroads. Will they make good on their progressive promises and risk alienating the core audience that has made them so much money? And can they afford to budge when Netflix and other streaming services are trying to carve into their market share?GUEST: Sadaf Ahsan, co-host of The Reheat (Listen to The Reheat's deep dive into Hallmark movies right here.) We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

As The Big Story takes its annual (and long overdue in 2021) holiday break, the team answers some questions from Jordan and shares their memories of a very strange and very tough year to be trapped in a news cycle. This is a glimpse behind the mics and mixers. If you've stuck with us all year, thank you for listening.GUESTS: The Big Story producers Stefanie Phillips, Joseph Fish and Braden Alexander We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

If you've heard any of our bite-sized interviews with small business owners, then you know they've faced closure so many times during this pandemic it's become part of their lives. But if we look at the big picture, what kind of help has actually made an impact? Which programs really worked? And what do the businesses that are still thriving during the pandemic have in common?This is a bonus episode of The Big Story, sponsored by Mazda's Local Legends initiative. (However, Mazda did not have any role or input in producing the editorial content of this episode.)GUEST: John Rocco, Scotiabank We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at [email protected] Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky