The Big Story

In nearly a single week, three global hot spots ushered in some dramatic changes. Russia made a constitutional amendment allowing Vladimir Putin to add 16 additional years to a 20-year run. China put into effect new security law, stripping Hong Kong of its autonomy and shuttering the democracy movement. And in Israel, a looming annexation plan could take over as much as 30 percent of the West Bank. Why did all this happen now? Did the global pandemic play a part? Did an America in free fall encourage it? And what will it do to the peace and balance of power on the world stage? GUEST: Mark MacKinnon, senior international correspondent for The Globe and Mail. GUEST HOST: Sarmishta Subramanian 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're just a few weeks away from the return of the NBA, NHL and MLB. The NFL plans to join them soon afterwards. It could be a wonderful few months for sports fans ... but it's also unnecessary, risky and could end very, very badly. How badly do leagues, players and networks want the games to return? What happens as more and more players test positive? What do we know about how the plans are working so far? What would it take to shut down a single team, or a whole league? What if someone dies? It's a grim but real possibility. GUEST: Donnovan Bennett, Sportsnet 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 Canada is going to keep COVID-19 under control, contact tracing and tracking will have to play a huge part in it. You hear about contact tracing in every interview or article about controlling the virus—but how does the process actually work? Who are the people tasked with the often difficult job? How do they deal with people who are scared or angry to hear from them? How many cases can be missed before an outbreak looms? And as Canada prepares for a second wave...do we have enough of them to handle what's coming? 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

There's another public outcry about Facebook! Shocking, right? But this time over 800 companies are putting their advertising dollars behind it, in an attempt to force the social media giant to confront hate speech and white supremacy on its platform. Will it work? Is there a dollar amount big enough to force Mark Zuckerberg to back down? And how much of a role will Facebook play in the upcoming U.S. election? Are we in for a repeat of 2016? GUEST: Jesse Hirsh, Futurist, 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

The organization was supposed to distribute more than $900 million in student grants, but the reaction when the deal was announced was immediate and intense. There's now an ethics investigation and WE has walked away from the plan. What happened? Why did the Liberals agree to this, and what should they have known about the organization before announcing it would be handling nearly a billion dollars of taxpayer money? GUEST: Jesse Brown, Canadaland 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

Warning bells were sounding. Some of the country's leading scientists were writing urgent emails to politicians and public health units. There was an emergency coming. It was going to get bad. We should take action now. Still, Canada waited to take steps such as closing borders, securing PPE and planning for a massive wave of COVID-19. Compared to our neighbours to the south, we've handled the crisis fairly well—but what could we have done with an extra month to plan? How many lives and millions of dollars could we have saved? Who sounded the warnings, and who listened? And who didn't? 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 clear from the politicization of masks in the United States, and the mandatory mask policies being enacted in Canada, that we're not seeing enough voluntary compliance to impact the spread of COVID-19. So who's to blame? And how do we get where we need to be to curb the virus? Messaging on masks has been abysmal since the early stages of the pandemic, so you can't simply blame people for not complying now. And the shaming and shunning of non-mask wearers isn't what's needed to convince everyone to buy in to something that represents a huge change in everyday behaviour. So what kind of messaging works? Well, we actually do have a pretty good idea... GUEST: Dr. Julia Marcus, epidemiologist and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School; writer at 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

Since the pandemic put a sudden stop to foreign travel, places around the world that were once overrun by tourists have had a chance to breathe. And the people living in them have started to realize what life is like without all those extra people. For some, the break has been nice — a chance to finally visit the monuments that were always just around the corner, but never empty enough to enjoy. For others, it's revealed a deep-rooted dependency on an industry that doesn't always love them back. As travel restrictions start to ease in Europe and other parts of the world, are we going to revert to our old habits or look for ways to create new experiences? GUEST: Christopher de Bellaigue, writer for The Guardian. 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 migrant farm workers in Ontario have tested positive for COVID-19 and three have died, leaving behind wives and children. Health officials say the workers arrived healthy and that the virus was spread locally. How do these outbreaks happen even with regular screening in place? What measures are now being put in place to control the spread? Are they enough? GUEST: Kathryn Blaze Baum, 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 may have seen the picture during one of its many trips around the internet over the past seven years. It's a honeycomb shaped like a heart, allegedly made by the bees themselves, freeform, when their keeper forgot to put the frame in their hive. It's a lovely story, and that's why it sticks around. Is it true? Not entirely. Does that matter? Maybe. But the case of the heart-shaped honeycomb provides a look inside a rapidly developing field called Internet Folklore, and can teach us a lot about the stories we tell and why some of them endure. GUEST: Steve Bryne, Folklorist 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 this special episode of the Big Story, Arash Madani of Sportsnet hosts a discussion of racism and activism in sports. The games we love have been at the forefront of many waves of social change, and they have the power to bring us together for a common cause. From John Carlos' raised fist at the Olympics to Colin Kaepernick's brave protest that cost him his job, we'll explore athletes, activism and what needs to happen now if real progress is to be made. GUEST HOST: Arash Madani, Sportsnet 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 a perfect world, a "wellness check" would be exactly what it says. A person seems like they’re having trouble or are in crisis, so we call someone to check on them, to help them get well. As you probably know by now, that's not always what happens, and the results are people dead at the hands of the police. Why are police the default when a wellness check is called for? Does it have to be that way? How is a wellness check supposed to be conducted—are there protocols that aren't being followed? How are officers trained for them? Exactly how much mental health training do prospective officers get? GUEST: Uzma Williams, teaches a mental health course to students and prospective police officers at MacEwan University in Edmonton; she's also a co-editor of Police Response to Mental Health in 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

The Big Story turns two today. We're officially entering our toddler years, just in time to throw a tantrum at the news cycle with two of our favourite guests. This year is not yet half done and it either feels like it's been a week or a decade long. How will we remember 2020? Among the thousands of things that we've changed so far this year, which ones will last when things return to normal? How have we done, as the media, covering history as it happens? And is there ANY good news in this year? ... Anything? GUESTS: Sarah Boesveld and Fatima Syed 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 allegations in a recent lawsuit are horrifying to read. Teenagers allegedly being bullied and abused by older teammates as coaches watched and did nothing. These aren't the first stories to come from Canadian junior hockey players and they likely won't be the last. The initial reaction from those without a stake in the game, including our host, is to burn the whole system down. Is that the only way to fix it? What needs to change for the game we love to be safe for the kids who play it? Who's standing in the way of that? And what does real change look like inside locker rooms everywhere? GUEST: Brock McGillis, former OHL and pro player, LGBTQ+ speaker and advocate 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 is the 35th anniversary of the Air India bombing, which killed 329 people, 280 of them Canadian citizens. In the immediate tragedy, the terrorist attack was seen largely as a foreign incident. As recently as 2007, not even half of Canadians considered it a "Canadian" tragedy. Why did the largest mass murder of Canadians in the country's history remain for so long a story about India and Ireland? And how have things changed in the past decade to reframe it? GUEST: Chandrima Chakraborty, Professor, Department of English and Cultural Studies, McMaster 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

When we discuss how COVID-19 has changed everything on this show, there's one big topic we haven’t covered yet. It’s sensitive. It’s intimate. It’s not easy to talk about even when there is no pandemic. It’s … just messy. It’s marriage. And living together. And partnership, with kids or without. If you’re married, or partnered, you haven’t been alone through all this. So you’re lucky. But you’ve also likely spent the last few months navigating an entirely different landscape, adjusting to a new daily life and, probably, fighting. At least sometimes. GUEST: Stephen Marche, host, How Not To F**k Up Your Marriage Too Bad (Available on Audible for free until July 11) 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 expect the world's biggest technology companies to have your data and know a lot about your life. But your favourite (or least favourite) coffee chain?! This is the story of what happened when one reporter saw a notification on his phone and followed it down a rabbit hole to find out what, exactly, Tim Horton’s knows about him—and you too, if you use their app. Also, why exactly do they need to know that stuff? And what do they do with it? And who else might be doing it? Because if your local coffee chain can compile this stuff...what’s stopping everyone else? GUEST: James McLeod, business and technology reporter, Financial Post 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 Hospital for Sick Children issued a report Wednesday that recommends children go back to school in September—even though it admits the virus likely won’t be eradicated by then. It says the risks of infection and transmission need to be balanced with the effects closed schools are having on their physical and mental health. What do we know about the long-term impacts of kids being yanked out of school and isolated from their friends for months on end? How does it impact different kids at different ages and in different situations, and how do researchers try to quantify it? What don’t we know right now? And what will be likely found out years down the line as the Pandemic Generation grows up? GUEST: Sarmishta Subramanian, Editor At Large, 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

It's a slogan gathering steam, and support--but not enough support to make it practical. Yet. What don't people understand about the phrase and the options on the table for police reform, which range from abolishment of the police, to superficial changes that advocates say won't make much of a difference? How well do we understand what needs to happen next? And what reforms can actually make a difference now? GUEST: Monica Bell, associate professor of law and sociology, Yale 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

It's been closed to all but essential travel for months, and polls show most Canadians want it closed for a good while longer. The border is the most visible symbol of the increasingly divergent paths taken by Canada and the United States—paths that began before COVID-19 struck. In the 208 year history of the "longest undefended border", the experience of crossing has changed several times, and each event has left a lasting impact. What does the future hold for the relationship between the two neighbours, the border itself and the communities that live on either side of it? GUEST: Alex Bitterman, professor at Alfred State College of Technology at The State University of New York; Contributor, The Conversation 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 a very specific image in our minds of what country music is. It shouldn’t be surprising—that's how it’s been promoted and sold for decades. But it wasn’t how the music was born. And it’s not representative of the artists who make it today, either. So what’s the real history of country music? GUEST: Elamin Abdelmahmoud, Editor of News Curation, BuzzFeed; contributor, Rolling Stone 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 banner year for disinformation, and the past few weeks have been the worst of all. Coronavirus hoaxes and miracle cures are still circulating, but there's also been a deluge of confusion, lies and misrepresentation around what's happening at the protests that have taken over streets in almost every town and city in North America. So how do you tell the real from the fake, especially when the misinformation is sometimes coming from traditional sources of authority? What are the most common hoaxes surrounding these protests? What's the goal of them? And how close are these social media hoaxes getting to inciting real-life violence? GUEST: Jane Lytvynenko, senior reporter, BuzzFeed 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

Three months ago, Canadians were asked to adapt to a 'new normal'. We were told to stay inside, avoid contact with others, and limit trips to the bare necessities. It was awful, and scary, but we did it. Now, as case numbers of COVID-19 decline across the country, we're opening things back up—stores, parks, salons...even daycares. And some of us are anxious about returning to the world. What has the past three months done to our brains and the levels of anxiety we live with? Why have some people struggled to cope with isolation, while others are nervous to resume daily life? What will the long-term legacy of the pandemic on Canadians' mental health look like? And what are some coping strategies we can use if we're having trouble? GUEST: Judith Law, executive director of Anxiety 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

The rates of COVID-19 among Black and other racialized communities in the United States and around the world are staggering. It would be interesting to have that data in Canada...but we don't have the numbers. Only recently has Toronto begun releasing COVID-19 cases broken down by postal code, and the map of where the disease is spreading is exactly what you may have expected. Even in a country with "universal" health care, racism and classism still play a determining role in far too many medical outcomes. What data do we need to do something about it? What do health care workers on the front line say is needed? Are they getting it? And how can we ensure the systems we change for the better to fight COVID-19 don't regress when the pandemic is over? GUEST: Dr. Naheed Dosani, palliative care physician and health justice advocate. 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

Several of the world's leading technology companies—including Shopify, the largest in Canada—have announced that they don't ever plan to return to full-time office work. Other companies plan to stagger the return of employees as the pandemic wanes. Some may have to refit their entire floor plans in order to maintain social distancing if they want their staff back in the office. None of that is easy, or cheap. We might not know what the future of work looks like once a vaccine for COVID-19 is found, but it's safe to say that office work will never be the same. And what we've learned in the past few months, under the pressure of an emergency in a desperate situation, is not a fair proxy for what remote work in a normal world would look like. So what do we know about 'working from home' and productivity outside of a pandemic? What data will companies use to inform their decisions about how many employees return how often? And what should employees be doing to prepare for a future that might involve a four-day work week, or a drastically different schedule? GUEST: Nicholas Bloom, Stanford 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

Right now, Canadian businesses are vulnerable. Many of them are worried they won't survive COVID-19, and that makes them attractive targets for foreign investors. In some cases, it's a win-win: Canada needs foreign capital, and these companies want to acquire assets in a stable and prosperous country. But some of these deals raise real security concerns. When a state-owned Chinese company pays millions more than anyone else is willing to for a Canadian operation...why is that? What do they think they're getting out of it? How can our government balance the need for foreign money with the risk of handing over Canadian assets and property to other governments? And how many of us are even paying attention? GUEST: Stephanie Carvin, assistant professor of international affairs at the Norman Paterson School 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

You may have heard the phrase this week, or even just this year, that we are living history right now. The truth is we are always living history, but some of us can afford to ignore it until it boils over. So what's the historical context for this moment in time? What can we learn from it? When racism, police brutality and the rage that comes in response to that are laid bare for the world to see, in the middle of a pandemic everyone wants to know what happens next. Where do we go from here? Is it possible to eliminate racism without dismantling capitalism? And what do we each have to do to steer the course towards a positive ending? GUEST: Andray Domise, contributing editor, Maclean's; Nathanson Fellow (History), 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

Chika Stacy Oriuwa graduated from the University of Toronto's faculty of medicine on Tuesday as valedictorian—the first black woman in the faculty's history to receive the honour alone (Dr. Kristine Whitehead, a Black woman, was co-valedictorian for the Class of 1992). She is also the only black student in her class of 259. But thanks to her advocacy and the university's willingness to work with her, the medical school class accepted for next year has 24 Black students, the highest number in the school's history. Oriuwa's story is inspiring, but it also highlights just how many systemic barriers face Black students in Canada as they take aim at the highest levels of education. What needs to be done to fix this, and how can other schools and students follow her lead? GUEST: Chika Stacy Oriuwa, valedictorian, class of 2020, U of T Faculty of Medicine (CORRECTION: This episode states that Dr. Oriuwa was the first Black female graduate to be named valedictorian. She is the first to receive the honour alone. Dr. Kristine Whitehead, a Black woman, was co-valedictorian for the Class of 1992.) 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

There’s a natural instinct a lot of Canadians have to look at the United States and feel better about ourselves. It’s obviously not a great look for us as a country at the best of times. And right now we’re a long long way from the best of times. And anyone looking for examples of police brutality in Canada won’t have to go far. Nobody knows yet exactly what happened when Regis Korchinski-Paquet was alone with two Toronto officers last week. But she fell to her death with them there. Where does police oversight in Canada succeed or fail? What needs to actually happen to make progress, and how can it be done? What are the actual differences in process between us and the United States? GUEST: Asha James, human rights lawyer and partner at Falconers, LLP 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 images of police killing black men or assaulting protesters are horrifying and disgusting, but they are just the most visible tip of an ugly, ugly iceberg. Before we talk about how far we'll really have to go to change a culture of police brutality, we're going to talk about what each of us, especially those with privilege, should be ready to do right now. Many of us won't be in harm's way on the front lines of a protest—but we also miss the many chances we have to be an ally when it can make a difference. Today, we revisit a conversation about what keeps us quiet or still when racists, sexist and homophobic acts occur in front of us, and how we can change that. Until tomorrow, stay safe and help each other out. GUEST: Shakil Choudhury, Anima Leadership 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 January 20th, 1994, strange things started happening at a small Christian church in Toronto, Canada. Worshipers found themselves laughing, shaking, falling, rolling around on the ground. That was only the beginning. How did the church suddenly become one of Toronto’s ‘Top Tourist Attractions’? Was something supernatural truly happening? Did gold teeth miraculously appear in people’s mouths? Tara Jean Stevens was a teenager when this bizarre movement spread from Toronto to her childhood church on the other side of the country. More than 25 years later, her new podcast, Heaven Bent, searches for the truth behind the miracles and explores big questions of faith and feeling. The first episode was released today, and you can find it right here. 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

Imagine you're a Canadian musician about to go international. You've been working your way up the charts, year by year, with awards, acclaimed albums, and bigger and bigger tours. You've now got a new album on the way and a full European tour planned. You're ready for this to be the biggest year of your career. And it's February 2020... The music industry has been 'disrupted' a whole bunch of times in recent years, but never have the lives of the people who make the music and the thousands of people who make the magic happen been changed like this. When will live shows return? When would you feel comfortable at a packed concert? How do non-superstar artists survive without tour income? And how well can living room concerts replicate the intimacy of a killer live show? GUEST: Hannah Georgas, pop rock singer/songwriter 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 may have heard that lots of people saw this pandemic coming. We still weren't adequately prepared. So what do we need to do now to make sure we are ready for whatever comes next? A pandemic is a low-probability, high-consequence events—it probably won't happen tomorrow, but it will happen eventually. Every year intelligence agencies, scientists and analysts spend a lot of time figuring out which of these events may be looming. Today's episode is about what they see right now. GUEST: Garrett M. Graff, Politico 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

New infections are up. Testing is down. Contact tracing is late. People are partying in parks. A report from members of Canada's armed forces on conditions in long-term care facilities is deeply disturbing. And just a month ago it looked like the province was headed in the right direction. How did things go wrong? Were they ever really right in the first place? How does Ontario get back on track and... is a second lockdown possible now? GUEST: Dr. David Fisman, Dalla Lana School of Public Health 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

Imagine being a high-school graduate right now, deciding whether to pay your tuition for post-secondary education in the fall. How do you know what you'll be getting for your money? Do the lessons in your program even translate to virtual education? And what about the hundreds of things that aren't taught in classes but make up university life? How much of that will even be possible? Meanwhile, colleges and universities are trying to make plans on the fly, survive the sudden lack of international students and keep their enrolment numbers from dropping in a world that could look dramatically different in September. It's going to be a very strange fall term on (or off) campus. GUEST: Joe Friesen, The Globe and Mail, postsecondary education 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

A few months ago, a group of couriers won a huge victory for gig economy workers in Canada. And you won't believe what happened next... We're relying on this sort of work more than ever as we attempt to stay inside and order our meals and groceries delivered. And it has never been more dangerous. With that in mind, it's a perfect time to explore the fight for better conditions for precarious workers in Canada, and how the pandemic has (and hasn't) changed things. GUEST: Sara Mojtehedzadeh, Work and Wealth Reporter, Toronto Star, host of Hustled 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

Nearly every story on a housing crisis casts Airbnb as one the chief villains driving up rents and home prices. So it should not come as a shock that the crisis facing the company as worldwide travel grinds to a halt has been met with glee from people who have struggled to find affordable housing. But will this virus kill the short-term rental app, or merely change it? What has happened to rents and home prices in cities like Toronto and Vancouver where Airbnb hosts hold a massive amount of units? What about Airbnb landlords, some of whom have sunk their life savings into properties they rent through the app? And what can we learn from this situation about how our cities function and what they should be when life returns to normal? GUEST: Matt Elliot, municipal affairs columnist, Toronto Star, CBC 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 crime itself did not generate many headlines at the time it happened. Partly because the COVID-19 pandemic was ramping up, and partly because women are killed with shocking regularity in Canada. But three months later, two words were added to the murder charge against the accused: "terrorist activity". For those who watch the way these crimes are usually prosecuted, the change this week was an incredibly significant one, signalling both our willingness to move on from the "terrorist" stereotype, and the growing concern authorities have with the self-described 'incel' ideology. So why was the charge changed? What does it mean, both symbolically and legally? And what happens next? GUEST: Stewart Bell, reporter with Global 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

Have you found yourself joking about drinking your way through quarantine? You are, anecdotally and statistically, not alone. We know more people are reporting increased use of substances—but we still imagine there's a world of differences between people living with substance use disorders and those of us chasing boredom with beer. Why is that? What's happening in our minds when we turn to our favourite vices to pass the time? What do we need to know about substance use, both among people who may be struggling to find a place to live and those of us with more privilege and more money to use to cope? GUEST: Gord Garner is the executive director of the Community Addictions Peer Support Association, and lives with a substance use disorder himself. 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

Employees returning to work is a positive sign in our battle against COVID-19, but it's also scary, and raises a lot of questions. Is my workplace safe? What is my employer required to do to make it safe? What do I do if I don’t think it is? What if my daycare is still closed and I don’t have childcare? What if I’ve been temporarily laid off—do I get my job back now? What if my office is safe, but I don’t have a safe way to get to it? Am I allowed to keep working from home, or can my company force me back? Today, a primer, from an employment lawyer who is in the thick of this right now. GUEST: Lindsay Scott, Paliare Roland and Pro Bono Ontario 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 bottom-trawling fishing boat off the coast of British Columbia has an independent observer on board. The observers monitor the catch and protect against overfishing and environmental harm. But when they do that, they're the only person on the boat with the power to report the captain and crew and cost them fines or perhaps their jobs. And many of them say they've been pressured to ignore violations, to the point where some have felt unsafe and have overlooked things they knew were going wrong. This is the story of the investigation that turned up an ugly practice happening way out at sea... GUEST: Jimmy Thomson, 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

Schools in parts of Quebec reopened this week—though they look different. And other parts of the country will likely be considering this move soon. And as this happens we still don't know exactly how children contribute to the spread of COVID-19. Nor do we know how they're impacted by it. There are a couple of efforts underway to change that in Canada, if we can gather enough data quickly enough to report it. And even though we're doing all we can, we also won't really know how this virus behaves in kids until they're back in their natural element...which means school. So what happens next? And what do we need to be aware of? GUEST: Kelly Grant, national health 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 know the timeline we've been quoted every time a COVID-19 vaccine is discussed: 12-18 months. But how accurate is that? What if we get lucky? What if we really, really don't? When you see news of a new vaccine entering a trial, how should you react? What percentage of vaccines that enter trials actually end up working? And if we do find a vaccine, how can we possibly make enough for more than seven billion people, and get it to them across the world? GUEST: Robert Van Exan 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 seen the stories and images from around the world. Hospitals built in China in 10 days. Convention centres turned into temporary Covid-19 care centres. A medical train moving patients around France. When healthcare systems become overwhelmed, solutions are needed quickly—and they need to be executed in a span of days or weeks, not months. Canada has avoided that drastic situation thus far, but if the virus spikes in the fall, officials will have a plan to create temporary hospitals wherever they're needed. This is the story of how that plan came together. GUEST: Kenny Smith, Temporary Healthcare Creative. 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 was one thing almost all governments—liberal, conservative, whatever—agreed upon when disaster struck, it was the need to get money into people's hands quickly. And in Canada right now, millions of people are receiving $2,000 per month from their government. This isn't universal, but it's a huge step towards a policy that has been fought for and fought against for decades, and not always by the people you'd assume would be for it or against it. So what is a Universal Basic Income? Where did the idea come from? How does it work and what would it take for us to give it a real chance at fighting poverty in the next few years? GUEST: Max Fawcett, writer and 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

Well, you probably shouldn't call them that. They may kill—but they don't intend to murder, which is what passes for good news in 2020. Since a New York Times headline vaulted the asian giant hornet onto the list of everyone's nightmares last weekend, it may seem like a new plague is almost upon us. But these hornets—at least a few of them—have been in Canada since last year. So what have we learned about their behaviour? How did they get here? What is British Columbia doing to find and extinguish them? How big a threat are they, really, to humans and to our ecosystem? GUEST: Paul Van Westendorp, provincial apiarist for British Columbia 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

Over the past two months, several programs worth billions upon billions of dollars were rolled out to Canadian people and businesses faster than we could have imagined. So...do they work? How many people have needed them? How are they being tweaked on the fly? And why do opposition parties say they either don't do enough or need to be scaled back? After the initial burst of "We're All In This Together"—the politics as usual is returning to Parliament Hill, albeit virtually. And that may not be a bad thing, because as the first wave of COVID-19 dies down and we plan for the second, it's worth taking a hard look at what worked and what didn't. GUEST: Cormac Mac Sweeney, Parliament Hill 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

OK, maybe it's not necessarily flour, but surely there's been something missing from your shopping list since COVID-19 struck. You might be surprised to know that there haven't actually been any shortages. There's still more than enough flour, toilet paper, bread and milk to go around...it's just a matter of adjusting massive supply chains to get it to you where you need it. Today we'll walk you through how Canada's food supply chains work, why they've had to adjust and how they've worked remarkably well given the circumstances. GUEST: Michael von Massow, University of Guelph 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

All of the psychoactive recreational drugs you can name are illegal in Canada. But if you're smart enough to make a new drug yourself? Well, it's not on the banned list yet. This is the story of a strange but fascinating ingredient called MEAI, the substance its inventor created, called Pace, and the inventor himself, who is also strange but fascinating. It's also a story about recreational drugs, and the push to legalize them as research becomes more expansive. (It's also not a story about COVID-19, because you deserve one this week.) GUEST: Jonah Brunet, 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

In order for us to go back to day-to-day lives that are even close to normal, we’re going to have to be able to track contacts of people who test positive for COVID-19—and we’re going to have to be able to do that unbelievably quickly. Right now, we don't have the capacity to do that on a large scale. And if we don't promptly hire an army of health workers to do it manually, we will have to look to technology. Using surveillance to track citizens in the interests of public health, though, is an incredibly slippery slope. What would it look like? Who would have access to the data? How could people who don't want to participate opt-out? Is this even possible in a democracy? Should it be? These are the questions we need to think about before an emergency leaves us with no time to figure out the details. GUEST: Jesse Hirsh, research and futurist, writer at 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