The Decibel

The federal government has laid out a budget with $56-billion in new spending over six years . On the day the budget is released, journalists get to see the document in advance of the Finance Minister’s announcement – if they join what’s called a “lockup.” The Decibel was in the lockup at a hotel in downtown Ottawa, where Globe journalists explained the main takeaways from the budget, covering spe...

This week, Ukraine took back some key areas in the northern part of the country from Russian troops – including the cities of Bucha and Chernihiv. While we’ve heard reports of atrocities from inside these war zones, it’s only now that journalists and other officials are getting to see the damage and death with their own eyes. The Globe’s U.S. correspondent, Nathan Vanderklippe , is one journalist...

As we enter the sixth wave of COVID-19, hospitals are bracing for yet another surge. After two years of weathering wave after wave, doctors, nurses, and hospital staff are “burnt to a crisp,” as one Hamilton, Ont. doctor put it. The problems with Canada’s hospitals – from surgery backlogs, to “hallway medicine,” to staffing shortages – stretch back long before the pandemic. Globe and Mail investig...

COVID-19′s sixth wave is here. Quebec ’s institute of public health says the sixth wave began in mid-March. On Monday, Ontario premier Doug Ford said the province is in the midst of a “little spike” but that it’s manageable. Hospitalizations are up by about 30 per cent since the week before. And in Alberta, the province’s Health Minister Jason Copping acknowledged an uptick in case positivity rate...

Pope Francis has apologized for the Catholic Church’s role in the residential school system – an apology long awaited by Indigenous Peoples in Canada. This comes after a week of meetings between a delegation of Métis, Inuit and First Nations and the Pope and other members of the Catholic Church. Angie Crerar is an 85-year-old elder of the Métis Nation of Alberta. She spoke to Globe reporter Willow...

The federal government has released yet another climate change plan oriented toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions. What’s different this time? This latest Emissions Reduction Plan is a sector-by-sector blueprint that specifically puts pressure on the oil and gas sector to cut its emissions by 42 per cent by 2030 . Adam Radwanski is The Globe and Mail’s climate change columnist. He talks about...

Employment is growing across Canada’s economy, but nowhere near the rate of the tech sector. Jobs in STEM jumped nearly 200,000 since the pandemic. Specifically, jobs in computer systems design are up 22 per cent. It’s good news for skilled tech workers, but not for small to mid-sized Canadian tech companies. That’s because big American tech companies are scooping up Canada’s top tech talent. And...

On March 28, it was announced that Ontario had finally signed onto the federal child-care deal . With all provinces and territories now signed on, families across the country will eventually be paying only $10 a day for child care. To make this possible, the federal government is investing $30 billion to open 146,000 new child-care spots by 2026, but that investment may be useless if we don’t have...

The UN has called it the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Yemen’s now seven-year-long war has killed almost 400,000 people, mostly children younger than five years old. Millions of people in the country are at risk of famine. And the war, between the Iran-backed Houthi rebels and a Saudi-led coalition trying to push them out, rages on. Kamal Al-Solaylee was born in Yemen. He’s a journalist, auth...

Almost every province in Canada has now removed its mask mandates in public schools. But many are questioning if now is the right time, and some are even challenging the decision . Today we hear from Sophia Alexanian, a 16-year-old high school student from Toronto, who co-founded a group called Ontario Students for COVID Safety. She organized a province-wide school walkout to protest the end of th...

Hate crimes in Canada are up. Recent data out from Statistics Canada showed that in the first year of the pandemic, incidents reported to police increased by 37 per cent from the previous year. 2,669 hate crimes were reported to police in 2020 – the highest number since data became available in 2009. But in Canada, charging someone for a hate crime rarely happens. A Globe and Mail investigation fo...

Women and children make up the vast majority of people who have fled the invasion of Ukraine – now over 3.5 million. And while they are no longer at risk of bombing, shelling and other attacks, their journey to safety remains fraught. Globe and Mail reporter Janice Dickson spoke to us from Slovakia, which shares a 100-km border with Ukraine and has accepted a quarter of a million refugees. Janice...

The Liberals and NDP have set aside their differences and come to a partnership agreement – a pledge from the Liberals to act on major NDP policy issues in exchange for the NDP’s support of the Liberal government on votes that could trigger an election. This deal will keep the Liberal government in power until 2025. It also means we may soon see forward movement on dental care, Pharmacare, housing...

Videos showing Muslim students begging to be let into a school while wearing hijabs has gone viral in India, sparking protests. Several of the students petitioned the government to reverse the decision to ban hijabs in schools , the latest in a series of policies targeting Muslims throughout the country. Neha Bhatt is an award-winning journalist and author in Delhi and a frequent contributor to Th...

An international court has ordered Russia to stop the war in Ukraine, but the attacks carry on. So what was the point of this case? What impact does the order actually have on the war in Ukraine? Harold Hongju Koh was one of the lawyers representing Ukraine in the case against Russia, and he’s also the Sterling Professor of International Law at Yale University. He tells us about the arguments they...

Every six days, a woman in Canada is killed by an intimate partner, and yet the topic of intimate partner violence (IPV) – more commonly referred to as domestic abuse – is rarely talked about. Because of this, many of the red flags that precede physical violence are often missed. These warning signs can include a pattern of controlling behaviour, which is called coercive control . Elizabeth Renzet...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky delivered a stirring speech via video to U.S. Congress on Wednesday, once again calling on the U.S. to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine, transfer more military equipment to his military and put Russia under a complete trade embargo. Zelensky’s speech is being called historic, but what Mr. Zelensky is pleading for may never happen. David Shribman is a contrib...

It’s been a year since companies like GameStop and AMC were making headlines for their eye-popping stock price spikes. And while the heights of the craze have passed, a lot of retail investors who got caught up in the momentum are still advocating for their stock picks – and risking a lot of money on their convictions. Business reporter Joe Castaldo recently looked into who these meme stock invest...

Poland’s capital, Warsaw is struggling to cope with the huge number of people fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Of the more than 2.6 million refugees that have left, 1.7 million – and counting – have ended up in neighbouring Poland. Warsaw’s mayor says 300,000 have settled in the city so far. The city has set up a number of sprawling shelters including one at an expo centre for up to 20,000...

It’s a plea that has been heard around the world: Ukraine wants its allies to set up a no-fly zone in its airspace. They believe it would give them the tactical advantage in the war that Russia started. But so NATO, U.S. President Joe Biden and other leaders have decisively said no to the idea. But what would establishing a no-fly zone over the country actually look like? Who would be responsible?...

In two weeks, more than 2.3 million refugees have fled Ukraine because of the ongoing war. It is the fastest exodus since the Second World War. Poland has seen the largest influx of refugees with more than 1.4 million people arriving in the country since Feb. 24. The Globe’s Europe correspondent Paul Waldie has been reporting from border towns in Poland since the war began. He tells us how these t...

The race to become the next federal leader of the Conservative Party of Canada is kicking off, not long after the ousting of Erin O’Toole . Chief political writer Campbell Clark says “blast from the past” Jean Charest could have a shot at the top job, but likely isn’t the favourite. He’ll tell us who the early favourites are – including Charest, Pierre Poilievre , and Leslyn Lewis – and what this...

According to Statistics Canada, more than 235,000 people experience homelessness in any given year, with 25,000-35,000 people experiencing homelessness on any given night. During the pandemic, health issues were exacerbated for people experiencing homelessness. Shelters were often crowded and faced outbreaks. One study found that homeless people were over 20 times more likely to be admitted to the...

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has shocked the world with his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But many within Russia don’t know what’s going on just across the border, due to the government’s censoring or shutting down of independent and social media. Russia last week passed a new law making it illegal to spread “fake news” that Human Rights Watch says “ criminalizes independent war reporting ....

Three million people lost their jobs at the beginning of the pandemic. In response, the federal government introduced the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB). The program provided $2,000 a month for up to seven months to people living in Canada that had stopped working because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The government paid out $81.6-billion to almost 9-million people. Two years later, 1.7 mill...