The Decibel

Albertans firmly rejected the option to separate from Canada in Monday night’s referendum vote, with 75 per cent of voters opting to keep the province in the country. But will that mark the end of the separatist movement in Alberta? And what does it mean for Premier Danielle Smith and her future? Tyler Dawson is a Globe columnist and Opinion editor based in Edmonton. He is also the author of the b...

Household chores can be seen as a drain on your time. But to some AI companies, how you do those chores is valuable data . Apps like Atlas Capture are using videos of people sweeping or cleaning a toilet to train humanoid robots. Who are the people doing this work for AI companies? And is the pay (usually around US$3 per hour) worth their time? Joe Castaldo is The Globe’s AI and tech reporter and...

Today is the referendum in Alberta , where Albertans will cast their vote either to remain part of Canada or start the process to hold another referendum to leave ( among other ballot questions ). But this issue stretches far beyond the past few years – it goes back to before Alberta was a province of Canada. Today, we’re going through the history of the Alberta separatist movement with Tyler Daws...

This past week, a judge in Washington state heard arguments around whether a woman accused of conspiring with the Tumbler Ridge shooter should be released before her tria l. James Cody Bryant – who identifies as a woman and uses she/her pronouns – was arrested by U.S. authorities at the beginning of the month. Jesse Winter is a reporter and photographer with The Globe. He went to report on Ms. Bry...

For many, AI is no longer a curiosity but increasingly built into our daily lives. Whether through intentional use of chatbots or its inclusion in online searches, it’s radically changing the way we receive information. Products, brands, services are all being tailor-made for you, through the use of AI. But what if these recommendations are being manipulated behind the scenes? Today, we have Nick...

The populations of Vancouver and Toronto have doubled in the past 50 years, but in certain neighbourhoods of those cities, populations have declined by as much as 40 per cent . The Globe’s architecture critic Alex Bozikovic explains why neighbourhoods have lost so many residents, what that means for the areas, and how it might present a solution to the housing crises. Questions? Comments? Ideas? E...

Amidst the news about Canada’s strained and struggling healthcare system, there is a bright spot. The Globe and Mail published a series recently about volunteers filling in the gaps, called Care Between the Lines – about the volunteers who take a patient-first approach in a system that can often be isolating. Today, we’re bringing you a few of those stories of the volunteers getting rural Canadian...

Albertans will go to the polls to vote in a referendum on October 19 . By now, everyone knows about the question on whether Alberta should stay in Canada, or hold another referendum on whether to separate. But there are, in fact, nine other proposals Albertans are being asked to vote on . Matthew Scace is a staff reporter for The Globe based in Calgary. He’s on the show to explain what else Albert...

Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., is on the front lines of Canada’s trade war with the U.S.. The city lies just a few kilometres away from the U.S., across a river from a city with the same name in Michigan. Its core economic industry is steel, which has been hit with U.S. President Donald Trump’s 50 per cent tariffs. The Globe and Mail’s staff reporter, Patrick White , recently went to ‘The Soo’ to see how...

The law governing income tax in Canada is as complex as the legislation is thick – it’s over 3,000 pages long. All of this complexity isn’t just a nuisance for taxpayers. It can cost people and businesses money if they are unaware of deductions or exemptions, or if they have to hire help to make sure they are compliant. Chris Wilson-Smith looked into how the Income Tax Act became a Frankenstein’s...

A secret meeting with Republican strategists near an airport hanger, and talks of access to Alberta water and royalties from oil. These are some of the revelations from a Globe investigation looking into some separatists courting American support in their pursuit of independence. Carrie Tait , a reporter in the Globe’s Calgary bureau, Globe investigative Grant Robertson and Globe international cor...

Quebec is facing a fractured political landscape ahead of its election today, with no single party polling higher than 30 per cent in the run-up to the election. And there are important issues hanging over the campaign, from separatism to spending issues to U.S. President Donald Trump . Today, The Globe and Mail’s Quebec correspondent, Maura Forrest , explains why the province’s parties have faile...

Hockey Night in Canada is considered a Canadian cultural institution. For almost 75 years, it was broadcast on the CBC, accessible to any Canadian who wanted to tune in. But earlier this year, CBC and Sportsnet, which owns the rights to air NHL games in Canada, ended their partnership . Now, the CBC is trying to rebuild a new version of the show without the NHL , and people are left wondering what...

In the trade war between the U.S. and Canada, alcohol has been a bargaining chip on both sides of the border. Early in 2025, Canadian premiers pulled U.S. booze off of Canadian shelves. Then, last month, the Trump administration slapped a 50-per-cent duty on hundreds of Canadian goods including beer, wine, cider and most spirits. Notably, the U.S. cited the provincial shelf bans as justification f...

Officers at the Regina Police Service begin an internal investigation of one of their colleagues, and turn up a case larger and more complex than they could have imagined. Sgt. Alana Heiliger begins to identify patterns in an officer’s use of police databases, and a notebook filled with names and cryptic notations provides valuable clues. In Her Defence: Breach of Trust is a seven-part original po...

The Globe and Mail has learned that a Canadian diplomat was sharing intelligence with American spies in Havana and Canadians were using satellite equipment brought into Cuba by the United States when officials from both countries began experiencing debilitating symptoms caused by alleged sonic attacks linked to Russia, according to two sources. Now, former Canadian spies and high-level security of...

After several reports of AI agents going rogue , calls for regulation of this technology have grown louder. And some of the people advocating for more rules are the leaders of the frontier labs themselves, like Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei . But how can governments, which tend to move slowly, regulate a technology that is changing at an increasingly quicker pace? Taylor Owen talks about what respons...

For years, Sgt. Robert Semenchuk, a Regina police officer, preyed on hundreds of vulnerable women using information from police databases. He often posed as a contractor named Jay or Steve and sent seemingly wrong-number texts to women. Some of these texts led to intimate relationships. The women had no idea he was deceiving them, until one woman became suspicious. This case is the focus of the ne...

Chinese President Xi Jinping is in Washington this week for his first official state visit to the U.S. in 11 years. A lot has changed since then – China has become one of the world’s most dominant countries, while U.S. President Donald Trump has drastically altered global relationships with his trade war . The Globe’s Asia correspondent, James Griffiths , joins the show today. He’ll talk about the...

On Monday, the governing Liberals tabled their first bill of the new session of Parliament. Bill C-39, also called the Building Canada Strong Act , is over 240 pages long and aims to streamline and speed up development approval. It also makes changes to the Canada Labour Code that have upset union leaders . Bill Curry is The Globe’s deputy bureau chief in Ottawa. He has been covering the new legis...

Canada has had a system of equalization payments for decades, where money collected by federal income taxes gets distributed to provinces worse off financially than others. It has proven to be controversial in some areas, like Alberta where Premier Danielle Smith has claimed that equalization is a ‘gravy train’ for the rest of Canada through these payments. Members of the Alberta separatist moveme...

Canada and the EU are working toward a more integrated partnership . As the relationship with the U.S. becomes increasingly less reliable, Canadians seem to be overwhelmingly in favour of the idea of getting closer to Europe. But what could this partnership actually entail – and how much more would Canada be getting than it has now? Today, the Globe’s international affairs columnist, Doug Saunders...

What happens when one of the “good guys” turns out to be a bad guy? The acclaimed true crime podcast series ‘In Her Defence’ returns with ’In Her Defence: Breach of Trust”. A seven-episode series exploring the case of Sgt. Robert Semenchuk, a Regina police officer who preyed on hundreds of vulnerable women using information from police databases. Some of those women risked it all to expose him, an...

The Canadian Armed Forces is undergoing a generational change. From record investment and spending , to its most extensive re-organization in decades – military officials say this is Canada’s preparation for a “future battlefield.” Gavin John , journalist and photographer for The Globe, has covered the Canadian Armed Forces extensively. He joins The Decibel to discuss why the military is moving wi...

The Canada Investment Summit wrapped after two days of deals and announcements meant to spur more capital in the Canadian economy . This includes the federal government leasing parts of some of the country’s biggest airports and unveiling new tax incentives , and companies doubling down on AI data centres . Prime Minister Mark Carney is hoping that this will create a “supercycle” of investment . R...