This Matters

Politicians have been using artists' music without permission for a long time, but Donald Trump is a new kind of offender. Neil Young has had enough. Entertainment lawyer Larry Iser tells us how a new lawsuit might stop the President from "Rockin' in the Free World."

Joanna Chiu, who covers China-Canada relations for the Star, joins This Matters to discuss the state of relations between the two nations, and the issues that are causing friction between them. With a number of issues that seemed to stem from the Canadian arrest of Meng Wanzhou and the subsequent detaining and imprisonment of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, that spat has coloured all interactions between the countries since. Add to that, global geopolitical and business tensions have now been exacerbated by recent developments like the new security law in Hong Kong and U.S. President Donald Trump two recent executive orders to ban WeChat and TikTok, and it's clear that these issues show little sign of subsiding.

A bunch of bike lanes, a plethora of pop up patios and new landlocked beaches? What Toronto is this? Star columnist Shawn Micallef joins This Matters to talk about public spaces and the Toronto's changing cityscape.

The belief that schools are the safest place for kids is not the lived reality for many students who faced problems even before the pandemic. Dr. Tyler Black, child and adolescent psychiatrist at the University of British Columbia, talks to Adrian Cheung on the mental stress of reopening schools and why the pandemic is the moment to reshape and rethink how education works in Canada.

York University researchers published a study reporting that while the Chinese diaspora in Canada faced incidents of harassment, they often ahead of the curve in responses to the pandemic, even compared to the advice of public health officials at the time. Adrian Cheung and Star reporter May Warren talk about the reporting of the new study, what early reporting on racial incidents missed out on and what lessons we can learn from our own communities during the pandemic.

The Star's Queen's Park Bureau reporter Kristin Rushowy joins Saba Eitizaz to try to answer some of the most burning questions that parents have about how to navigate a back to school season while still battling a public health crisis.

Advocates are raising the alarm as more than 20 percent of Toronto's homeless population is made up of children — nearly doubled in number from just four years ago. There are currently thousands of children living in shelters across Toronto, and nearly 70 percent of them are younger than ten. The Star's Affordable Housing Reporter Victoria Gibson spent time with some families in the system to understand the realities of child and family homelessness at a time when the city battles a pandemic.

Adrian Cheung and Toronto Star reporter Angelyn Francis break down the intricacies of the law, backed by the advice of employment lawyers, the changing societal acceptance of protests, and the cross-section of exercising your rights while potentially putting your job on the line.

You probably can't stop checking your phone for another news article, another video, another chart to help you make sense of what's happening. And there's a (relatively) new word for it: 'Doomscrolling.' Navneet Alang, technology columnist for the Toronto Star, and This Matters host, Adrian Cheung, talk about their terrible doomscrolling habits, why we're all doing it and maybe, just maybe, how we can stop.

Investigative reporter David Bruser speaks to Saba Eitizaz about thousands of undocumented Torontonians who were brought here as children, grew up here and call Canada home and are being shut out of their own future and a higher education due to restrictive tuition and student loan policies. These are Canada's dreamers, living in the shadows of the only home that they have ever known — and they might have even less support than their American counterparts who have been under legal assault by the Trump administration.

"We have an opportunity to create a different reputation." This episode is a rebroadcast from Thursday, July 23, where Mahesh Prajapat, Chief Operating Officer of CAS Toronto, tells Saba Eitizaz it's time for CAS to stop trying to bring children in to the child welfare system — and focus on supporting the family instead. Since that episode ran, the Ontario government has announced initiatives towards over-hauling children's aid to focus more on prevention and keeping families together — and to address the over representation of Black and Indigenous youth in the child welfare system. According to Toronto Children's Aid Society, Black Torontonians only represent 9 percent of the city's population while Black children represent the highest percentage of children in their care. The most recent data shows 42 percent of children and youth in CAS-T's care identify as Black, reflecting a number that hasn't changed much in the last few years. Toronto's Children's Aid Society admits systemic racism is a problem, along with pre-conceived ideas about a parent's ability to care for their child. So how do we fix this?

Doug Smith, Toronto Raptors beat writer for the Toronto Star talks to Raju Mudhar about the NBA's return, the Orlando bubble and the Raptors chances of winning another NBA Championship.

Who gets priority access to a vaccine? Should the first vaccines go to the most vulnerable and elderly populations? How do we define these terms? Who gets to decide? 'This Matters' talks to Daniel Ashlock, mathematics professor at the University of Guelph, about the artificial intelligence program being developed by his team, spread across three Canadian universities, that could help public health officials decide who needs the vaccine most — and how it should be used.

Landlord/tenant lawyer Caryma Sa'd and Star reporter Victoria Gibson talk to Saba Eitizaz about the many questions surrounding the recently legislated Bill 184 and why many tenants are fearfully referring to it as the "eviction Bill."

Who was Pat Musitano? The Star's Peter Edwards first ran into him in the early '90s and has been writing about him and the Musitano family ever since. The Star's organized crime expert takes us through everything we need to know about the life and violent death of Pat Musitano.

Gun violence in the GTA has grown at an exponential pace and does not appear to be slowing. Wendy Gillis, who covers crime and policing for the Star, joins us to discuss the alarming numbers and what might be done to fix the problem.

Jennifer Pagliaro, city hall reporter for the Toronto Star, talks to Adrian Cheung about the rules and forces that shape our living in a city, during a most uncertain time. During the pandemic, bylaws have been front and centre in regulating new standard of living: how to enforce mask wearing inside stores and businesses, social distancing regulations and proper re-opening protocols. Are they fair? What rules are being enforced? What and who is being left behind, as enforcement focuses on COVID-19 related calls?

According to Toronto Children's Aid Society, Black Torontonians only represent 9 percent of the city's population while Black children represent the highest percentage of children in their care. The most recent data shows 42 percent of children and youth in CAS-T's care identify as Black, reflecting a number that hasn't changed much in the last few years. Toronto's Children's Aid Society admits systemic racism is a problem, along with pre-conceived ideas about a parent's ability to care for their child. So how do we fix this? Mahesh Prajapat, Chief Operating Officer of CAS Toronto, tells Saba Eitizaz it's time for CAS to stop trying to bring children in to the child welfare system — and focus on supporting the family instead.

Robert Benzie, Toronto Star's Queen's Park bureau chief and David Rider, Toronto Star's City Hall bureau chief joins This Matters to talk about the future of Ontario Place, the false starts and new hope for the waterfront, and the battle between the province and the city over a Toronto institution. The Toronto Star exclusively reported this week that major bids from Canadian and international firms are being collected to redevelop the current grounds of Ontario Place on Toronto's lakeshore.

Karon Liu, culture reporter at the Star and a former food writer joins This Matters to discuss how bars and restaurants are reopening in Ontario.

With questions at how every level of education may safely return, Kris Rushowy, a Queen's Park Bureau reporter for the Star, who also spent many years as an education reporter, joins This Matters to explain where we stand right now and what a return to school might look like. We are almost at the middle of summer vacation, and parents and students from all levels of education are wondering what a return to school will look like in September. All options are on the table, with a full return, full-time remote teaching, or some kind of hybrid model all being discussed by the Provincial government and the various school boards.

Andrew Clark, director of the Humber School of Comedy joins This Matters to talk about TV comedy's racial reckoning, as several sitcoms have excised episodes featuring blackface on streaming platforms. This is a part of larger racial reckoning in comedy which has also seen several white actors step down from voicing people of colour on animated series.

Months after testing negative, thousands of patients around the world — known as 'long haulers — continue to face serious and often mysterious symptoms: skin rashes, short-term memory loss, shortness of breath and the loss of smell and taste. Two patients with long-haul symptoms, Hannah Wei and Hannah Davis, join Adrian Cheung to talk about their experiences with COVID-19 and why they're pushing for more research into a virus with wide-ranging and unknown long-term effects.

Saba Eitizaz talks to Sara Mojtehedzadeh, The Star's Work and Wealth Reporter, about a new report on occupational cancer in Ontario which looks at why sick workers or their surviving families might be left to suffer for years, often struggle to seek compensation and also prevent exposure in the first place.

Susan Delacourt, national political columnist for the Toronto Star, talks to Adrian Cheung about Trudeau's ethics violations, why he continues to find himself in the middle of controversies and what this means for his ongoing legacy as prime minister.

Full transcription available here (thanks to Access Now for transcribing). A lot of us haven't thought about the fact that the way we're experiencing the world in the midst of a deadly virus, might actually just be every day in the life of a disabled person, even before a pandemic. Maayan Ziv, disability rights activist and the founder and CEO of AccessNow, a digital accessibility platform for the disabled, talks about the struggles and rights of Canada's disabled community – and what we need to do to make inclusive and safe spaces for everyone in our collective experience.

Edward Keenan, the Toronto Star's Washington bureau chief, talks to Adrian Cheung on the Canada/US border issue, what the timeline of reopening could look like, and how the US — through the policies of its administration — is isolating itself from the rest of the world.

The good ol' hockey game is about to come back, with the NHL set to confirm its choices of Toronto and Edmonton as its two hub cities where it will house players, teams and staff as it gets set to resume the season and hold the Stanley Cup Playoffs. It actually took a lot for the NHL to get here, and to discuss that, Raju Mudhar is joined by Kevin McGran, who covers the Leafs and The NHL for the Toronto Star. He's here to tell us everything we need to know about the NHL's hub cities plan.

Pizza Pizza has been voluntarily serving up customer information to the police without a warrant. The Star has learned multiple police investigators obtained phone numbers and then went to a contact at Pizza Pizza to search their data for information. This Matters is joined by Jim Rankin, a Crimes, Courts and Justice reporter at the Toronto Star, who broke this story.

Toronto's Associate Medical Officer of Health Dr. Vinita Dubey talks to Saba Eitizaz about the new mandatory mask policy, what we need to do to protect ourselves and others, and why there is such confusion and contention regarding this issue.

How do we travel now? What are the ways that are safest? Travel bubbles, a road-trip renaissance, camping, RVing, longer and more meaningful trips, visiting friends and family. Sarah Khan, travel writer, talks to Adrian Cheung about what the future of travel looks like and why this could be the great re-set on how we see the world. The way we travel has changed, perhaps forever.

John Sewell, former Toronto Mayor and member of Toronto Police Accountability Coalition, speaks to Saba Eitizaz about why the police are on the mental health frontlines and what can be done to avoid these tragic outcomes. One of the questions being raised is why are police the first responders to mental health emergencies and why are "wellness checks" being conducted with the help of guns and body armour?

Facebook's current relationship status with advertisers: It's complicated. Steven Levy, tech journalist at Wired and author of Facebook: The Inside Story, discusses the Facebook advertising boycott campaign. The #StopHateforProfit campaign has picked up support from hundreds of companies, including Unilever, Microsoft, Coca Cola, Starbucks and all of Canada's 'Big 5' banks, to pressure the social media company to combat hate speech, fight misinformation and deal with threats of violence on the platform.

For Toronto's cyclists, many of their dreams have come true, as the city has aggressively and quickly added a number of new bike lanes on several thoroughfares to provide more space for those travelling on two wheels. Toronto has added 40 kilometres of bike lanes to the city this spring. To discuss this, This Matters invited two Star columnists who have opined on this issue. Norris McDonald is a columnist in the paper's Wheels section, while Matt Elliott writes about city affairs and municipal politics.

Wendy Gillis, Toronto Star's crime reporter, breaks down the details of the Theriault trial verdict with Adrian Cheung. And they discuss how this case is playing into larger questions of community trust in policing and what justice looks like in Canada's judicial system.

Some say the "extreme intoxication" defence sends the wrong message on sexual assault, and takes society back to a time when judges found ways to excuse violence against women. In today's episode, Saba Eitizaz talks to criminal lawyer and social justice advocate Caryma Sa'd for her legal opinion the debate – and finds out what all of this could actually mean in a court room.

Three Canadian journalists discuss anti-Chinese racism. The Toronto Star's digital producer, Evy Kwong, audio engineer/producer, Sean Pattendon, and host/producer, Adrian Cheung, are in conversation about their experiences as Chinese-Canadians during the pandemic. Then, an interview with Justin Kong, executive director of the Chinese Canadian National Council on how the organization is collecting data on racial incidents and the work that is being done within Asian-Canadian communities to dispel the 'model minority myth.'

This Matters is joined by Travis M. Andrews, an internet culture reporter at the Washington Post, to discuss Kpop stans' and TikTok teens' efforts to flex their online muscle and embrace a new kind of political activism.

Paul Burns is the managing director of Twitter Canada and he discusses why his company is letting employees choose if they want to come back to an office. We are also joined by Kennedy Gordon, managing editor of the Peterborough Examiner, which has announced it is leaving its office spaces and becoming a completely virtual newsroom.

This Matters will broadcast the Toronto Star's six-part podcast Hustled each Monday. In the final episode of Hustled, Foodora couriers in Toronto are buoyed by a recent win. They want to create a gold standard for gig workers. We look to the Golden State. EPISODE 6: Golden State With a win under their belt, Foodora couriers in Toronto want to create a gold standard for gig work. In this final episode, we take a trip to California, the birthplace of the gig economy, to explore what the future could look like closer to home.

Diane J. Brisebois is the president and CEO of the Retail Council of Canada, and with much of Ontario entering phase two of the reopening plans, she joins Raju Mudhar to talk about how the retail sector will respond to this turmoil and what comes next, from the economics for retailers, employees and consumers to the technology that will begin to be used. Ultimately, she says, health and safety is priority number one.

Hal Johnson, of 'BodyBreak,' talks to Adrian Cheung about the racism he faced in Canada's media industry, how those incidents drove their will to make the famous show, and why systemic and structural racism continues to be a big problem today. 'BodyBreak', the popular mini-episodes on health, fitness and wellness is something many Canadians remember from the 1980s and '90s. But Johnson's admission this week — that their main motivation was to fight back against racism — has added to a larger conversation about racism, anti-Blackness and diversity in Canada's media industry.

Charlton McIlwain (@cmcilwain), Vice Provost of NYU and author of the book Black Software: The Internet and Racial Justice, from the Afronet to Black Lives Matter, talks to Saba Eitizaz about whether technology is out there to liberate and empower or to control people.

Andrew Lochhead started a petition to have the Dundas Street renamed, with over 10,000 signatures and City Hall looking int it. He and Melanie Newton, an associate professor of history of the Caribbean and the Atlantic World at the University of Toronto, join Raju Mudhar, to discuss the problematic past of the namesake and how a history of colonization and its monuments can harm.

This Matters will broadcast the Toronto Star's six-part podcast Hustled each Monday, where the Star's labour reporter Sara Mojtehedzadeh takes us behind the scenes of a David vs. Goliath battle between a scrappy group of Toronto food couriers and the app company they work for. EPISODE 5: Groundhog Day An abrupt announcement from Foodora amid a global pandemic rattles couriers and raises questions about the company's past. When a new player enters the scene, couriers wonder about the future of their jobs — and what they've fought for. Listen here or subscribe at

How do film and TV come back safely? Emily Andras is the creator, executive producer and showrunner on supernatural horror western Wynonna Earp, and she joins Raju Mudhar to talk about television and film production and how it comes back in a COVID-19 world. Like the rest of society, the business of film and television shut down in mid-March, affecting the plans of the some of the biggest entertainment entities in the world. As jurisdictions reopen, many productions can restart, but have to follow many restrictions to try to keep things as safe as possible on set.

Doug Smith, the Toronto Star's reporter on the Toronto Raptors talks to Adrian Cheung about the Raptors' championship run, his memories covering the franchise for 25 years and what a restarting NBA season, in the middle of a pandemic, will look like. We revisit the magical 2019 NBA championship and its top moments, culminating in raising "Larry OB" on Thursday, June 13, 2019 — from Kawhi Leonard's "The Shot," to the all-out battle in the semi-finals, to toppling an NBA dynasty in the Golden State Warriors.

Morgan Campbell, a freelance sports writer, joins Raju Mudhar to discuss the new world of sports activism, and how the business of sport is responding. "Stick to sports" has been the catch phrase whenever people got uncomfortable or disagreed with what a prominent athlete had to say on an issue. It's also an outdated idea, as athletes and sports have long been a part of social change. That has never been more evident than right now, as even some of the most apolitical athletes are speaking out in support of the protests against police brutality in the United States.

Desmond Cole, activist, journalist and author, offers his opinion in a conversation with Adrian Cheung, on the movement to defund policing and why he thinks the system of policing, as we understand it, should be abolished.

This Matters will broadcast the Toronto Star's six-part podcast Hustled each Monday, where the Star's labour reporter Sara Mojtehedzadeh takes us behind the scenes of a David vs. Goliath battle between a scrappy group of Toronto food couriers and the app company they work for. EPISODE 4: Pandemic As COVID-19 grips the city, Foodora couriers find themselves working under even riskier conditions. While they receive praise from the public who have gained new appreciation for the food delivered to their doors, their lack of job protections stand in stark contrast to their essential designation. Listen here every week or subscribe to Hustled.