The Big Story

The Alberta Premier does not like restrictions, or telling people to stay home. His caucus likes that stuff even less. But the third wave of Covid-19, which is hammering Alberta thanks to looser restrictions than the rest of Canada, has left Kenney with no choice. Kenney hasn't been tough enough on restrictions to contain Covid-19, or loose enough to please his base. Now, more than a year into the pandemic he and his party trail Rachel Notley and the NDP in the polls. How did Kenney end up in a no-win situation? Where could he have taken a different path? And what does this mean for the future of his party and his province? GUEST: Jason Markusoff, Alberta Corespondent, 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

We have a certain image of the sort of person who reports encounters with Unidentified Flying Objects. It's a ... skeptical image, to put it mildly. And it couldn't be further from the truth, at least according to the actual reports that are filed. And there are actual reports. Dozens of them. Filed by pilots and crew and air traffic controllers — not exactly the sort of people you'd expect to be claiming they saw a UFO in the sky. They report them, though. The question is what happens to those reports? GUEST: Daniel Otis, for Vice 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

A year ago, as the pandemic's first wave began to recede, British Columbia was held up as a shining example of a large Canadian province that managed to beat back Covid-19. Its top doctor, Bonnie Henry, was a hero and even something of a celebrity. A year later, all that has changed. BC has been one of Canada's worst hit province's in the third wave, Dr. Henry's decisions are being second guessed, and a government that won a majority this past fall is no longer being hailed as the pinnacle of pandemic leadership. What happened? GUEST: Liza Yuzda, Legislative reporter, CityNews1130 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 neighbourhoods like Peel in Ontario, South Asian-Canadians are being impacted by Covid-19 at a much greater number than their share of the population. At the same time, many have friends and family in India, which is facing perhaps the worst outbreak of the entire global pandemic. As South Asian-Canadians in hotspots try to navigate inequality at home, they're also desperate to help their loved ones overseas. Now that India's hospital system has collapsed, global aid is finally on the way. But will it be enough? How did things get so bad? What can Canada, and Canadians, do to help both a country in trouble, and our neighbours in despair? GUEST: Sabina Vohra-Miller, clinical pharmacologist, co-founder of the South Asian Health 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

You probably know already that most of the illegal guns in Canada come from the United States. But how much do you—or the police—really know about the long journeys they take to get here? Who's buying them and moving them? How do they get across the border? Why aren't more stopped before they can enter Canada? And how do they get from the border to the street to the hands of a would-be killer? A new documentary takes a look inside how the guns get here, and what might actually work to stop them. GUEST: Cristina Howorun, CityNews (You can watch The Gun Chase tonight on CityTV.) 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 rare side effect has dominated the discussion of the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines. Some people have used the potential for blood clotting as a reason to "hold out" for other vaccines, even as the wait leaves them vulnerable to Covid-19. How realistic are their fears? What are we learning about this side effect? And what could that learning do to help us understand the virus itself? GUEST: Roxanne Khamsi, independent science journalist 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

Today we revisit the van attack of April 23, 2018. It's been three years since a van mounted the sidewalk near Yonge and Finch in Toronto's north end, killing 10 and injuring 16. All it took was 7 minutes to terrorize a community and traumatize a city. Now we reflect on how the attack impacted the people who lived through it. We'll hear from first-hand witnesses, family members of victims, and people who didn't even think twice to jump right in the middle of everything and help those injured. If you would like to make a donation to the Anne Marie D'Amico Foundation visit their website. 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

Even people who have spent their lives covering governments of all stripes can't recall a week like the one Ontario's Progressive Conservative government has had. New restrictions, massive public blowback, and immediate reversal on some just-announced measures. Rising ICU numbers threatening to overwhelm the hospital system. Police forces publicly declining to enforce new tactics the government claimed would be implemented. Calls for Doug Ford's resignation. A mad vaccine appointment scramble. And now, a premier isolating after a close Covid-19 contact. That's not everything. It's just a handful of the strangest headlines. It's been quite a week in Ontario. We'll get an insider's take. GUEST: Cynthia Mulligan, Queen's Park Reporter, CityNews 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

Picture the moment Covid-19 became real to you—when you left to work from home, or sports shut down, or someone you know got sick. How accurate is that memory? Now, what do you remember about the days, weeks and months that came afterward? When you tell these stories to your grandchildren one day, how will you frame them? The past year has been unbelievably hard, and if you've lost something it can often feel like it was needless and hopeless. But what we learn from studying memory is that those aren't the stories we end up telling ourselves about difficult struggles... GUEST: Melissa Fay Greene for 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

In one week, the @VaxHuntersCan Twitter account has grown from a few thousand followers to more than 85,000. By the time you read this it may be close to 100,000. And that's because the account has one simple mission: find available Covid-19 vaccination appointments in clinics, hospitals and pharmacies across Canada, and find people ready to take them. In the middle of a vaccine rollout that has been convoluted and sometimes confusing, the Vaccine Hunters have been a godsend. But what does it say about our government that they're needed at all? How did this project come together and evolve? And what have they learned while doing it that can help you book your vaccine? GUEST: Josh Kalpin, Vaccine Hunters 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

In the middle of a world gripped by plague, a major scientific discovery passed nearly unnoticed. If it's verified, it means one of the most important models we use to understand particle physics is incomplete. And that would open a doorway to a world of things we can't explain yet. If you've spent that past few days gripped in a cycle of Covid-19 rage and anxiety, come and rediscover the wonder of the universe... GUEST: Dennis Overbye, Science Reporter, New York Times 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 recent years, meditation has become a huge business in the western world—with millions of people testifying it has helped them calm their minds, improve their mood or even work through bouts of mental illness. There is no shortage of press about the positive effects of meditation on people, and there are plenty of studies to back them up. But there is also evidence—evidence that's been growing for decades—that prolonged meditation can have a drastic negative impact on some people. This doesn't make the practice bad, or invalidate the help it has given to many ... but ask yourself if you've ever heard anything about the possible dangers of meditation. Why is that? GUEST: David Kortava (Read David's piece in Harper's Magazine) 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 weekend, protesters clashed with police over the closing of GraceLife Church in Alberta. It's not the first time that houses of worship have been a flashpoint for anti-lockdown action. Why has religion, and in particular evangelical and fundamentalist Christianity been so opposed to restrictions on in-person gatherings, even in provinces run by conservatives? How have churches of all denominations handled a year of virtual worship? How do you keep faith in a time of plague, when some of your fellow Christians seemed determined to spread it? GUEST: Michael Coren, Anglican cleric, author, broadcaster 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 late 1990s, it became clear that Canada's health data systems would need to go digital. A thorough report was presented, the first of many to come, laying out what needed to happen for Canada to lead the world in digital health data. A national data system would track everything from outbreaks and symptoms to vaccinations and side effects. But...we never built it. Over the next 20-plus years, little was done—and nothing at all from a truly national level. Now, when we desperately need to be able to have access to real-time data on what's happening where, every province relies on a different system, and many of them are duct-taped together from the bones of what was supposed to be a world-leading piece of infrastructure. What happened? GUEST: Justin Ling (Read Justin's reporting 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

It increased it, obviously. But how? And what is that doing to us. A dive into the data that shows us where we spent our extra time, how it made us feel and which platforms have become indispensable and which ones we actually enjoy can reveal a lot about how the apps that live on our phones can change our behaviour. And how they can change to be more useful to us ... if that's their goal. GUEST: Rani Molla, Senior Data Reporter, Recode 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

And also... bubbles are supposed to burst, aren't they? At some point? It's been more than half a decade since house prices in Canada began to truly climb, and that climb has accelerated even through a pandemic. It's no longer just the big cities that are driving prices, either. It's the smaller towns outside them—and the towns even further down the road when those smaller towns get too expensive. What has the unending surge done to the Canadian economy? What could stop it? What happens in small Ontario towns when people from Toronto start flooding in and pushing home prices way over asking? And can we still call this a bubble, if some of the underlying factors driving it appear to be here to stay? GUEST: Economist Mike Moffatt, Smart Prosperity Institute 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

Have you ever been mistaken for somebody else by a stranger? They call you by another name and you say "Sorry, that's not me." And they say something like, "Oh, I’m sorry, you look just like them." Sometimes, they might add with a smile, "Are you sure you’re not related?" And you say nope, and off you go. Today’s story is what happens when you discover that, actually, you are related. That other person is your sibling, and you should have come home from the hospital with their mother, and grown up as a member of that family. But you didn't. GUEST: Lindsay Jones, writing for The Atavist 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 been ... a bad year for economies, to put it mildly. The jobless rate has risen just about everywhere. Small businesses across Canada have scratched and clawed to stay afloat. Larger businesses have fared better, but have also issued layoffs to compensate for loss of revenue. And even as vaccines roll out and the end of the pandemic is in sight, there's still uncertainty as to what economic recovery will look like. But one glimpse of it can be found in the number of new businesses that have started up over the past several months. Whether they are in response to needs created by Covid-19, the result of recently laid-off workers striking out on their own or incredibly low interest rates and rental office space—or a combination of all of these—Canada is seeing tens of thousands of entrepreneurs taking a leap. And that will be crucial to the economy as the country looks to bounce back from an ugly recession. So what are these businesses? Who is starting them and why? And how many of them will make it to next year? GUEST: Matt Lundy, Economics 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

You've probably never heard of Line 5. It's an offshoot of Enbridge's main pipeline and it moves more than a half-million barrels of crude oil and natural gas from Alberta, through the United States and back across the border to Sarnia, Ont. Unless the state of Michigan gets its way and shuts it down on May 12. The pipeline is more than 60 years old, and though Enbridge claims it's safe, a study reports that a spill could devastate the shorelines of Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. So Michigan wants it shut off. But an immediate shutdown would leave Sarnia in economic crisis and hike energy prices across Ontario and Quebec as fuel would need to be moved by truck or train. So Canadian governments want the line to keep flowing. It has all the makeup of at least a legal mess, and possibly an environmental one, too. GUEST: Hilary Beaumont, freelance investigative reporter (Read Hilary's story in The Narwhal) 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

We all want this pandemic to be over. But it's not. And vaccines alone won't stop the third wave of Covid-19 that's now rolling over much of Canada. The third wave is driven by variants, and you've probably heard them mentioned many times. But what are they? How are they worse than original Covid? What stops them and what doesn't? Do vaccines work on them? And what do we need to do in the meantime to keep Canadians alive until this is over? GUEST: Dr. David Fisman, epidemiologist, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, 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

Most of us have been isolated for more than a year. Many of us, though, have been isolated for longer than that, and will feel it even more sharply when those of us who do have lots of friends and family can resume seeing them. Before there was a global pandemic, there was an epidemic of loneliness spiking in many countries around the world. And if there's one thing capitalism knows how to do, it's how to take an unfulfilled basic human need and turn a profit on it—hence, the loneliness industry. Would you like to buy a hug, or rent a friend for an afternoon of shopping? Maybe you'll eventually need your own robot buddy. Have no fear, with enough money you can do all this and more! GUEST: Brian Bethune 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 ramped up with Canada's detention of a Huawei executive, and China's retaliatory detention of two Canadian citizens. But it didn't begin there. And tensions are not likely to end if and when Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, or Meng Wanzhou, are released. The truth is, the diplomatic relationship between us and the emerging superpower has been decaying for years, and the past six months has only added fuel to the fire. But as Canada stands up to human rights abuses and claims of genocide by China's government...should we even want to improve them? If we did, what would it take? And can we rely on our allies if China decides to flex its muscles on us? GUEST: Stephanie Carvin, Assoc. Prof. of International Affairs, Carleton 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

Its name is the Ever Given. It will forever be a part of the history of this odd time. And when it lodged itself horizontally in the Suez Canal last week, it launched a thousand memes—but also brought global shipping and supply chains to the brink of disaster. How could such a simple screwup cause so many problems? What could have gone wrong? What did the Stuck Boat Disaster teach us all about the fragility of both supply chains and human planning? And, uh, why was it so funny? GUEST: Lori Ann LaRocco Author of Trade War: Containers Don't Lie, Navigating the Bluster, trade columnist for FreightWaves, reporting on the Ever Given for CNBC 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

Picture the last story you read or heard about a woman killed by a man. Where did she live? How old was she? Why did you picture it that way? With much of 2020 spent under stay-at-home orders, it's not a surprise that Canada saw a jump in femicide. But what is surprising is what we do and don't do about it. And which stories get told. This is the pandemic you haven't been hearing about. GUEST: Julie Lalonde, speaker and educator, women's rights advocate, author of Resilience Is Futile 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 almost a year now, reporter Cynthia Mulligan has been staying in touch with people who caught Covid-19 early and survived, only to see their debilitating symptoms linger. What do their symptoms and experiences have in common? Not much, except for two things: None of them has fully recovered, and nobody has been able to figure out how to help them. With new research estimating that long-haul Covid can impact between 10-20% of people who catch the virus, science is scrambling to figure out how to help what could be tens of thousands of Canadians who may never again live a normal life. What do these sufferers need? From doctors, from governments, and from the rest of us? GUEST: Cynthia Mulligan, CityNews 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

Canada's Supreme Court issued an historic ruling yesterday, deciding by a 6-3 margin the the federal government does indeed have the power to implement a carbon tax (or a price on pollution) in provinces that don't set their own. The decision has implications on both sides of the fight, and on how future governments could use this ruling to perhaps expand their powers. What's in the ruling, exactly? What does it mean for Canadians, for the climate and for its political opponents? How will it impact the next election, and what will the premiers who fought so hard against it do next? GUEST: Fatima Syed, for The Narwhal 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 long time ago, an amenity in a condo was limited to things like a pool, a gym or maybe a patio. Now, as units grow smaller and developers court buyers, they've become more and more luxurious. You want a rock-climbing wall? Access to communal BMWs? A rooftop running track that lights up at night? A full library and study area? No problem. But what happens when many of the services that used to belong to the neighbourhood become accessible to condo owners only? If nobody uses the neighbourhood pool, or library, or running track—because they already have a private one in their building—how long do cities fund those things? What does a downtown look like where every development is built to be self-contained, and nothing is made for everyone to access? GUEST: Aaron Hutchins, 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

The second graduating class of this pandemic is about to enter the workforce. There are still very few jobs and thousands of grads desperate for them. Plus, this year's grads have the added benefit of an entire year without mentorships, extra-curricular activities or all the other ways young adults make themselves more attractive to recruiters. (Also ... this year, what recruiters?!) What can governments and the private sector do to help spur the hiring of young adults? What kinds of work could they do? We've seen massive employment pushes before, and we still enjoy their legacies today. If we wanted to make sure today's graduates aren't still living at home waiting to launch a year from now, what has to be done and who has to do it? GUEST: Karim Bardeesy, Executive Director and Co-Founder, Ryerson Leadership Lab 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

So, now the AstraZeneca vaccine is OK for people over age 65? What about the blood clot risk?! Why are some pharmacies taking walk-ins for people in their 60s right now, but some government portals are only booking for people 75 and up? Why is it suddenly alright to go four months between doses? Why are we leaving so many vaccines in the freezer? Is there enough supply or not? Why do Quebec, Ontario and Alberta have such wildly different priorities when it comes to who gets it? The first few months of Canada's vaccination rollout have been slow, and extremely confusing. When supply was limited, perhaps that wasn't such a huge deal. But with two million doses at least expected every week for the next month, now is when push comes to shove. Is this just about to really get going? Or have our governments dropped the ball? GUEST: Sabina Vohra-Miller, clinical pharmacologist, co-founder of the Vohra Miller Foundation 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

Hundreds of thousands of Canadians have lost loved ones to this pandemic. And most of them lost them without being able to say goodbye or to properly mourn them. Grief over a death is challenging at any time, but how are we coping without the two parts of the process that can offer us comfort. A last hug or hand squeeze, a wake and a communal gathering have been part of our grief as long as we've been human. For the past year we've done without them. How will that impact us when all this is over? GUEST: Dr. Mary Fernando 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 Simpson family's circumstances have barely changed at all over 30 years—but the world around them has dramatically shifted. When the show debuted, Homer and his family were holding onto the bottom rung of the lower class, and were portrayed that way through all sorts of financial crises. But by today's standards, Homer—who has a steady job that pays enough for Marge not to work, belongs to a union, owns his own multi-bedroom home and can afford annual vacations—would be among the most economically stable millennials. The way income inequality has shifted the window of dreams for a young family can be clearly seen in TV's longest-running sitcom. But how did it happen? GUEST: Dani Alexis Ryskamp, freelance journalist, 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

For more than 12 months, Asian-Canadians and Asian-Americans have been targeted for harassment, assault and worse. In the early days of the pandemic, it was words. Then actions. Then violence. And all along they have found it difficult to get a real, comprehensive response from police or government—often being forced to document their own assaults and collect databases with entries from community members to be taken seriously. And then Tuesday night in Georgia, eight people were shot, allegedly by the same man. Six of those eight people were Asian women. In the aftermath, police are still hesitant to label this a hate crime, but anybody who has been watching the steady rise in both the number and intensity of these incidents recognizes what's happening. So the question now is who will step up to help? What can we do? And where does this end? GUEST: Amy Chung, freelance reporter and writer 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

Dr. Jennifer Kwan is just one of dozens of ordinary Canadians who decided early in the pandemic to spend their free time presenting data on the virus to the masses via easy to understand charts. These unlikely dataviz experts have been integral to the general public's familiarity with things like waves, exponential growth, positivity percentage and other key indicators. How and why did they decide to start making these graphs and charts? What has come along with their status as virus experts online? What holes in government communications are they filling? And when, oh when, will they finally make their last chart and get some rest? GUEST: Dr. Jennifer Kwan 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

And will Canada ever remove the monarchy? A week ago, it seemed like a tipping point was at hand, as the world reacted with shock and scorn to allegations of mistreatment and racism from Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in an interview with Oprah Winfrey. But what has happened since the interview aired? How did the Royal family defend itself? What are Commonwealth nations planning to do in response? And what would it take if Canada really wanted to get the Queen off our money? GUEST: Patricia Treble, 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

...and what our governments can learn from it. While crowdfunding sites were originally intended to help with getting projects off the ground, over the past decade they’ve increasingly become a last-resort for people who have fallen through the cracks of the services government provides. It’s not just raw funds that the digital safety net provides where governments don’t—it’s everything from reddit users helping you navigate complex taxes, or benefits to crowdsourced neighbourhood childcare. Should Canadians facing eviction have to rely on going viral to stay in their homes? The obvious answer is, no, they probably shouldn’t. But they are anyway, so what should we do about it? GUEST: Vass Bednar, Executive Director, Master of Public Policy Program at McMaster University; author of Regs 2 Riches 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 1994, a small Toronto church gave birth to a bizarre spiritual movement that spread across the country and the globe. It was known as the Toronto Blessing, and among its many eventual destinations was a church named Bethel in Redding, California. More than a quarter century later, Bethel is one of the most powerful—and strangest—churches in America, featuring worshipping that has been described as cult-like, flaunting public health orders and claiming evidence of all sorts of supernatural phenomenon. How did this church become so huge? What role did the Toronto Blessing play in its evolution? And how much power do its leaders wield in the United States and beyond? GUEST: Tara Jean Stevens, host and creator of Heaven Bent 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 there's one thing this pandemic has taught us, it's how poorly we care for our elders in Canada. The stories of the carnage in long-term care facilities have been endless and bleak. The gaps in the system have been laid bare for all to see. That's the bad news. And it's horrific. But the good news is that this is fixable. This is not an insurmountable challenge. The only question is we are ready and willing, finally, to pay for it? And where do we need to start? GUEST: André Picard, Health Reporter, The Globe and Mail; Author, Neglected No More 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 most Canadian towns and cities, public health is still trying to vaccinate people 80 and up. In Canada's North, it's a whole different story. In larger northern cities, 40-somethings are getting their shots. And in small, more remote places, everyone over 18 has been offered a jab. No, it's not practical in places like Toronto or Calgary because of sheer scale—but it's worth noting that Northern communities have traditionally been underserved when it comes to health resources, and COVID-19 outbreaks in these settings can spread like wildfire. And so far at least, all levels of government have gone to extraordinary lengths to get needles to everyone. How much had to happen for this to go so right? GUEST: Kent Driscoll, APTN National 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

Once you've received your COVID-19 vaccine, you'll also receive proof that you've got it. That's not a new concept—we do it for children's vaccinations all the time. The big question health organizations, governments and even businesses are currently contemplating though is what you'll be able to do with it. Will you need proof of vaccination to attend a concert this fall? What about to return to work in your office? To get on an airplane? The answers to these questions are ethically complex and need to be addressed thoroughly to ensure equitable access to society and to aim for any real semblance of a "return to normal"? So...will we get it right? GUEST: Nicole Hassoun, ethicist at Binghamton University, director of the Global Health Impact 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

When we focus on gender-based inequality in the workplace, we usually talk about money. The wage gap has been a problem since women began joining the work force in large numbers. We’ve acknowledged it, companies have pledged to fix it and governments have passed laws to end it. But it persists. The wage gap has become a shorthand way of referring to inequality at work. But it’s not the only gap. Think about the last time you worked in an office. How many other workers at your level were women? What about their managers, how many of them were women? And those managers' managers? That, in a nutshell, is the Power Gap. GUEST: Robyn Doolittle, 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

It's been a sign of spring for well over a century—baseball players heading down south to meet their teammates, toss around a few balls and play some meaningless games. In the grand scheme of things, not much about Spring Training matters, but it's still become a symbol of rebirth, and the end of winter, to millions of North Americans. This year, more than ever, we need things to look forward to. We need things that promise better days to come. And the return of baseball, and the sun, and the real chance of a contending Blue Jays team, offers that. GUEST: Stephen Brunt, Sportsnet (Stay tuned at the end of today's episode for the sounds of spring.) 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 tax season! If you took any form of government COVID-19 relief this year, you've probably got all sorts of questions about how that impacts your return. If you didn't, but you worked from home, you might be eligible for deductions you haven't even considered. As tax season begins, the pros are being swamped with questions from anxious Canadians. We asked one of those pros to clarify the confusion she hears from clients, debunk the most common misconceptions about the CERB, and share her best tips for navigating the most complicated tax year in recent memory. GUEST: Shannon Lee Simmons, The New School of Finance 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 the 2008 financial crisis, the single-family rental industry has exploded in the United States, with massive companies buying up as many single-family homes as possible, and renting them out en masse. What that means is that millions of Americans now have megacorporations as their landlords—and that's going about as well as you'd expect. And here's the kicker: One of the largest of these companies is doing hundreds of millions of dollars in business with a Canadian government pension fund. This means that hundreds of thousands of Canadians are seeing their retirement savings grow as Americans lose their homes during a pandemic... GUEST: Richard Warnica, business feature writer, 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

Provinces are rolling out their vaccination plans for the general public, and they all seem pretty similar. After the initial push to vaccinate frontline health-care workers and residents of long-term care facilities, programs will proceed by age groups, starting with the 80+ cohort. It makes sense, as the elderly are most at risk from COVID-19. But what if there was another factor that could guide our plans to where shots would do the most good? Ontario's COVID-19 Science Advisory Table has published a new report that offers evidence that simply using age is not the best way to save lives and stop the spread of the virus. But will health units take their advice, if it means prioritizing at-risk neighbourhoods over wealthy ones? GUEST: Peter Jüni, member of Ontario's COVID-19 Science Advisory Table 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

Even without a global pandemic, we're spending less and less time just doing nothing. The urge to check our phone every 20 minutes is the same urge that leads us to online shopping and bread making and ... anything else to distract us from our current predicament. But what if we could learn to turn our boredom into a strength? If we could train ourselves to once again sit quietly in the moments we get to ourselves? It's no secret the past year has taken a toll on our mental health. But can we help ourselves by embracing the stillness forced upon us? GUEST: Mark Hawkins, author of The Power of Boredom 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

Temperatures are rising everywhere. Severe weather is becoming more common. And climate disasters are becoming an increasing part of our lives. So it can feel like we're hurtling off a cliff. But in the past few years, we've also made incredible progress on reducing emissions, renewable energy and other efforts—so much so that the grimmest of possible futures is much less likely to occur. It can feel like a naive question to ask, but are we turning a corner in our fight to save the Earth? GUEST: David Wallace-Wells, author of The Uninhabitable Earth 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

What if your face could serve as your passport and identification? Does that sound convenient, or incredibly creepy and invasive? As advances in technology spread from pilot programs to wider use at borders around the world, there's very little governing what agencies can and can't do with the data they capture. And there's almost no way for us to opt out—at least, if we want to ever visit the United States again. How far can this technology go? What can it be used for? Are there any regulations in place to protect you? And just how much of our body's unique signature are we prepared to hand over, anyway? Where does this end? GUEST: Hilary Beaumont, freelance investigative reporter 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 social media giant is currently negotiating with the Australian government—which is a big improvement from last week, when Facebook was blocking all links from Australian news media. In Canada, the federal government has indicated it will follow Australia's lead in taxing Facebook and distributing the revenue to struggling news media. Facebook has no plans to let that happen and has shown it will do whatever it takes to keep its ad money for itself. Why does this fight matter? How nasty could it get? And who would even decide what qualifies as "news" on the platform anyway? Welcome to the first volley in what could be a long war. GUEST: Jesse Hirsh, metaviews.ca 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 remember it, even if you've forgotten how to pronounce it. Oumuamua was a cigar-shaped object that passed through our inner solar system and mystified plenty of scientists. It didn't fit any of the categories we have for space debris, comets or meteors. So what was it? Where did it come from? When will we find more? A new book by a Harvard University astrophysicist makes the case that Oumuamua was proof of intelligent life beyond Earth. And as we build more powerful instruments, he says, it will only be the first of many we'll find. GUEST: Avi Loeb, Harvard University, author of Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth 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

Today we meet the woman who can win over a crowd of cowboys in one of Canada's whitest places. All while telling jokes about systemic racism. She is one of the only Black women comics in Alberta, maybe the only one in Calgary. But she wields her power on, and off, the stage to make her province a better place. Guest: Adora Nwofor You can watch the documentary on Feb. 22 at 10 p.m. EST on CityTV or on-demand later at CityNews.ca. 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