Episodes
-
The Bank of Canada lowered the interest rate to 4.75 per cent on Wednesday – the first rate cut in four years. As the country’s central bank aims to get the inflation rate closer to 2 per cent, further cuts could be on the horizon. Realtors are hoping the rate cut will reignite a stagnant housing market, by possibly allowing more people to qualify for mortgages and increasing the number of potential buyers.
Mark Rendell is a journalist with The Globe’s Report on Business. He joins the show to discuss the art and science behind rate cuts, what the current cut means for people and the economy and how the Bank of Canada might move forward.
Questions? Comments? Ideas? E-mail us at [email protected]
-
Last week, former U.S. president Donald Trump was found guilty on 34 felony counts. In speeches and interviews following the decision, he used religiously-charged language and called on supporters to get revenge at the polls. This isn’t the first time Trump has utilized evangelical references, but his 2024 election campaign is increasingly relying on apocalyptic rhetoric.
U.S. political analyst and author Jared Yates Sexton is on the show to explain the wide appeal of the religious right’s messaging, the intersection of evangelicalism and the Make America Great Again Movement and how a loss of faith in democratic institutions underlies the appeal of religious narratives.
Questions? Comments? Ideas? E-mail us at [email protected]
-
Missing episodes?
-
It’s been more than a month now since the pro-Palestinian protests started up at campuses across Canada, protesting the war in Gaza and calling for the universities to make changes. There’s been a wide range of responses to these protests.
So today, The Globe’s postsecondary education reporter Joe Friesen is here to explain where the campus protests are now, what the students are asking for, and how the universities have responded.
Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [email protected]
-
Ontario Premier Doug Ford recently announced that beer and wine will soon be available for purchase in convenience stores and big-box stores across the province, fulfilling an election promise from 2018. The controversy? This deal means that people will have greater access to alcohol — for better or worse — and it will cost taxpayers $225-million.
Jeff Gray, one of The Globe’s Ontario politics reporter, outlines the policy, explains the cost, and what federal politics might have to do with it.
Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [email protected]
-
Open banking could eventually be available to Canadians, which would change how we access our personal finances. This style of banking is consumer-driven and would bring transparency to a customer’s information. but despite the talk, Canada is lagging behind other Western countries when it comes to implementing open banking.
The Globe’s personal finance reporter, Salmaan Farooqui, breaks down the inner workings of open banking – its benefits and concerns, why it doesn’t exist in Canada yet, and how this new development will affect the way Canadians manage their finances in the future.
Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [email protected]
-
Social media use among students is a big concern for schools across Canada. Ontario school boards and educators are taking matters into their own hands by suing social media companies like Meta, Snap and ByteDance for allegedly harming kids and disrupting education. And educators have had to devise creative methods to keep students engaged.
The Globe’s education reporter, Caroline Alphonso, explains how cell phones and social media use are affecting student learning, the details of the lawsuits, and what schools are doing to refocus student attention in classrooms.
Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [email protected]
-
Recently we’ve seen a shift in the national conversation around how to deal with Canada’s ongoing opioid crisis. B.C. all but cancelled their decriminalization trial. And the federal government rejected Toronto’s request to decriminalize possession of drugs. Decriminalization is part of a harm reduction strategy which advocates argue is the best short-term solution to save lives.
Alberta is also moving away from a harm reduction model and it’s all because of Marshall Smith. He’s the man that’s overhauling the province’s drug policy with a plan that’s facing a lot of criticism.
The Globe’s Marcus Gee is a columnist focusing on cities and the opioid crisis, and he recently spent some time with Marshall Smith. He’s on the show to tell us how Smith became so influential, his plan to upend conventional wisdom on how to deal with the drug crisis and whether we might see it replicated elsewhere.
Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [email protected]
-
The PWHL is wrapping up a successful inaugural season, with the three Canadian teams boasting big crowds for most games. The WNBA is adding a 14th team; this one’s in Toronto. And there’s a push from a group called Project 8 to launch a professional women’s soccer league in Canada by 2025.
There’s an undeniable momentum in the realm of women’s professional sports in Canada right now. Rachel Brady, a sports reporter for The Globe, explains what’s happening this time around that has changed the game.
Questions? Comments? Ideas? E-mail us at [email protected]
-
When nature calls, you have to answer, and quickly. The last thing you’d want is to walk several kilometers to find a public toilet.. And yet, public bathrooms aren’t easy to find in many cities across Canada. Overall, Canada has 18 public toilets per 100,000 people, which puts it in 15th place globally. And for those facing homelessness or a medical condition, public toilets are crucial for their ability to move freely through urban spaces.
The Globe’s urban affairs reporter, Oliver Moore, explains why good public toilets are so hard to find, how the pandemic created a two-tier system of access, and what Canadian cities are doing to address the scarcity.
Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [email protected]
-
On the first day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, troops occupied Chornobyl. Since the nuclear disaster in 1986, the 30-kilometer exclusion zone around the nuclear plant has been largely abandoned. But 38 years later, some Ukrainians still call the land home, including a handful of elderly residents and people who oversee the disused power plant.
Janice Dickson, the Globe’s international affairs reporter, visited Chornobyl and the surrounding exclusion zone in April. She’s on the podcast to talk about what she saw there, and how Ukraine is dealing with the challenges of war, two years on.
Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [email protected]
-
Gildan t-shirts are everywhere. The ubiquity of their products has turned Gildan into one of the biggest clothing manufacturers and wholesalers in the world, bringing in billions in revenue every year. But recently, Gildan has been in the news about a fight between its former CEO and the board. And this boardroom drama has refocused attention on how the Montreal-based company makes its clothes so cheaply.
Robyn Doolittle, a reporter with The Globe’s Report on Business, looked into Gildan’s work conditions at their factories in Honduras and explored the tension behind wanting cheap clothes that are ethically made.
Questions? Comments? Ideas? E-mail us at [email protected]
-
It has been eight years since the infamous Fort McMurray wildfire that levelled several neighbourhoods and businesses. As wildfires are once again on the rise in Western Canada, the sky was a familiar smoky orange last week in Fort McMurray as a fire crept closer to the city.
The Globe’s Calgary reporter, Carrie Tait, tells us about the current fire, and explains how for many residents and officials, they’re feeling the lingering effects of what happened in 2016.
Questions? Comments? Ideas? E-mail us at [email protected]
-
In the last few years, artificial intelligence has gone from a novelty to perhaps the most influential technology we’ve ever seen. The people building AI are convinced that it will eradicate disease, turbocharge productivity, and solve climate change. It feels like we’re on the cusp of a profound societal transformation. Fifteen years ago, there was a similar wave of optimism around social media: it was going to connect the world, catalyze social movements and spur innovation. It may have done some of these things. But it also made us lonelier, angrier, and occasionally detached from reality.
Few people understand this trajectory better than Maria Ressa. Ressa is a Filipino journalist, and the CEO of a news organization called Rappler. Like many people, she was once a fervent believer in the power of social media. Then she saw how it could be abused. In 2016, she reported on how Rodrigo Duterte, then president of the Philippines, had weaponized Facebook in the election he’d just won. After publishing those stories, Ressa became a target herself, and her inbox was flooded with death threats. In 2021, she won the Nobel Peace Prize.
As novel as AI is, it has undoubtedly been shaped by the technologies, the business models, and the CEOs that came before it. And Ressa thinks we’re about to repeat the mistakes we made with social media all over again.
-
The celebrated Canadian author Alice Munro died on May 13. She was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2013 as a “master of the contemporary short story,” and the Man Booker International Prize in 2009.
On today’s show, members of The Globe newsroom share their reflections on Alice Munro’s life and work, and columnist Marsha Lederman joins to talk about Munro’s impact and legacy.
Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [email protected]
-
As the U.S. election looms, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s team is getting ready for both possible outcomes: a Biden re-election and a second Trump term. They are assembling a team of officials to remind American politicians about the importance of free trade across our borders.
Adrian Morrow is The Globe’s U.S. correspondent based in Washington, D.C., and he explains who is on this so-called Team Canada, and how their strategy works.
Questions? Comments? Ideas? E-mail us at [email protected]
-
Hydrogen fuel is sometimes called the fuel of the future, and it’s being used in a number of ways around the world. The rail giant CPKC is trialling a new hydrogen train in Alberta, that it hopes can replace diesel-fuelled freight locomotives in delivering goods across the continent.
The Globe’s Alberta and energy reporter, Kelly Cyderman, joins us to discuss hydrogen trains, how they work, and how this development might lead toward a greener Canada.
Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [email protected]
-
Canada is in the midst of a primary-care crisis. 6.5 million Canadians don’t have reliable access to a family doctor, and some jurisdictions are turning to nurse practitioners to fill the gap. Alberta recently announced a program that would make it possible for nurse practitioners to receive public funding to establish a practice, although it comes with its conditions and concerns from other organizations.
The Globe’s national health reporter, Kelly Grant, walks us through the role nurse practitioners have in providing primary care, how they’re funded, and Alberta’s new plan to address the shortage of primary-care providers.
Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [email protected]
-
The housing affordability problem in Canada continues, and people are desperate for solutions. The federal government is handing out billions of dollars as part of the Apartment Construction Loan Program intending to create more affordable housing. But, a Globe analysis found a disconnect between what’s considered affordable in this program, and what renters can actually afford.
The Globe’s real-estate reporter Rachelle Younglai explains why these units aren’t actually attainable to many Canadian renters and looks at the concerns with the program’s definition of affordability.
Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [email protected]
-
After more than a decade, the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project (TMX) has finally been completed. One of the country’s biggest infrastructure projects is seen as a major win for Albertan oil producers, with nearly 600,000 extra barrels shipped daily, ready for international buyers.
But the future ownership of the pipeline remains up in the air. Many of the issues and questions that delayed the project – concerns over its safety and the environment, fights over Indigenous land rights, long-term economic risks – remain.
Jeffrey Jones, The Globe’s sustainable finance reporter, explains the ballooning costs of the TMX and why one of Canada’s top exports is creating tension with its future climate targets.
Questions? Comments? Ideas? E-mail us at [email protected]
-
Tension is ratcheting up in the Gaza Strip as the Israeli military descends on the southern city of Rafah. This move has forced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians sheltering there to flee yet again. All of this has been happening this week against the backdrop of ceasefire negotiations between Hamas and the Israeli government and souring relations between Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Joe Biden.
The Globe’s Senior International Correspondent Mark MacKinnon brings us up to speed on the many developments, breaks down what happened in the ceasefire talks this week, and what this means for the people in Gaza and the remaining Israeli hostages.
Questions? Comments? Ideas? E-mail us at [email protected]
- Show more