The Decibel

The opioid epidemic is taking young lives – the number of 15-24 year olds dying from opioid overdoses tripled between 2014 and 2021 in Ontario. And young people are shown to be less likely to seek treatment for their addictions. A deadly mix of those factors and a contaminated drug supply are creating lethal outcomes. The Ontario Drug Policy Research Network’s lead investigator, Dr. Tara Gomes is...

After months of negotiations, automaker Stellantis and battery maker LG Energy Solution have reached a deal with the federal and Ontario provincial governments. It’s worth up to $15-billion in subsidies for a plant that’s being built in Windsor, Ont. The plant is part of Canada’s push into the clean energy sector, but with a cost in the billions, it raises questions about whether this specific dea...

El Niño is back in a big way. This natural weather pattern is known to increase severe weather around the world. And scientists are trying to predict the impacts of this climate wild card – especially on top of global warming impacts. Ivan Semeniuk , The Globe’s science reporter, has been investigating the effects of El Niño. He’ll explain the impacts of El Niños in the past and what to expect thi...

Last year, the federal government set an ambitious new immigration target — to bring in half a million permanent residents a year by 2025. While the country is already dealing with a pretty profound housing crisis, it’s likely everyone will feel the housing crunch even more as a record number of immigrants move to Canadian cities in the near future. Where will all these newcomers live and whose jo...

Coal mining might seem like a job of the past, but global demand for it has actually surged in the past few years. Nearly 7,000 coal miners are still working in the industry. But the job is killing them. Inhalation of coal dust particles is leading to black lung, an incurable condition that workers describe as drowning in their own lung fluid. Worse yet, Canada doesn’t have a tracking system, whic...

Canada, alongside much of the world, has plans to become net-zero by 2050 . And one of their main action-items is to move away from fossil fuels. But does Canada have an economic plan for when the oil and gas sector declines ? The Globe’s energy reporter Emma Graney tells us about why Canada is falling behind, and how this may impact our economy if we don’t start making these changes now. Question...

It’s sparkly, athletic and enthusiastic. But it’s grittier than you might think. Competitive cheer is a fast-growing sport in Canada that requires the skills of a gymnast and the agility of a dancer. Recently, almost 8,000 athletes from around the country gathered in Niagara Falls for the national cheer championship. The Globe’s feature writer, Jana Pruden was at the three-day competition where sh...

The Grade 8 students of St. Demetrius Catholic School are in many ways like every other class – they’re nervous about going to high school, but excited for graduation. They’re also mostly refugees from the war in Ukraine , so they are also grappling with learning a new language and culture, and trying to set up a new life without knowing how long they’ll be here. The Globe’s education reporter Car...

Multi-generational living in your 20′s and even 30′s has become common as young adults deal with unaffordable housing rates across Canada. And more than half of parents surveyed by the Globe and Mail say their adult kids pay rent while they live at home. Rob Carrick , the Globe and Mail’s personal finance columnist, joins us to discuss his recent survey on parents charging their adult kids for ren...

Over the weekend, a chaotic 36 hours unfolded in the Kremlin. The Wagner Group , a team of Russian military mercenaries created an uprising to challenge the Russian military, before Wagner’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin abruptly aborted the mission. But the damage was done – Russian president Vladimir Putin accused Prigozhin of trying to start a civil war. And for the first time in nearly two decades...

Over 20 years later, someone has finally paid the price for Canada’s bread-fixing scandal – other than shoppers that is. Last week, baked-goods producer Canada Bread was fined $50-million for its role in coordinating the price hikes on bread. Susan Krashinsky Robertson is The Globe and Mail’s retail reporter. She explains why it has taken so long for the Competition Bureau to hold a company accoun...

Many municipalities across Canada are choosing profit over the environment when it comes to waste management options . This has left many Canadians questioning the country’s alleged commitment to long-term environmental protection. Dr. Cassandra Kuyvenhoven has a PhD in Environmental Studies with expertise in waste management. She breaks down the systematic issues surrounding Canada’s waste manage...

Controversy followed Minister of Public Safety Marco Mendocino after he said he was unaware that notorious serial killer Paul Bernardo was being moved from a maximum security to medium security prison. His explanation follows a pattern of federal ministers saying they’ve missed emails or hadn’t been briefed by their staff on major files. Marieke Walsh , the Globe’s senior political reporter, joins...

Usually the news coming from Canada’s Supreme Court is about the rulings they make, not about the Justices themselves. But the story of former Justice Russell Brown is unprecedented in many ways. It’s one that started in an Arizona hotel and ended with his resignation nearly six months later. The Globe’s Justice writer Sean Fine reports on what happened, how the investigation unfolded and what thi...

Publication bans have become all but automatic in sexual-assault cases across Canada. These bans were put in place to protect survivors who have come forward. But My Voice My Choice , a group of women who are fighting those publication bans, argue that these bans prevent survivors who want to speak openly about their experiences. Molly Hayes and Zosia Bielski are national news reporters for The Gl...

As the world races to mine more critical minerals, China has managed to capture nearly 100 per cent of the cesium market. While not as well known as lithium, cesium is an even rarer mineral. There are only two mines globally, and one of them is in Manitoba . But its owners are based in Beijing. And that is raising a number of national security concerns . The Globe’s mining reporter, Niall McGee ,...

British Columbia will send cancer patients across the border for radiation therapy to deal with growing wait times and backlog at home. The plan will cost the province three times the amount for treatment at home. Globe and Mail reporter Andrea Woo explains how this will work and what this says about the state of our healthcare system. Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at thedecibel@globeandmai...

Canada’s immigration system is overwhelmed. Cases are backlogged and little information is being communicated to applicants. This has led to a surge of access to information requests, which has created another backlog , and has left people trying to settle in Canada in the dark. Tom Cardoso , an investigative reporter with The Globe, explains why people started using this workaround to get informa...

Chocolate may be sweet, but it comes at a steep cost. Labels that claim your favourite treat are sustainable can hide harsh realities for farmers. Millions of cocoa farmers in Africa and Latin America live in hunger and poverty because big corporations refuse to pay a fair price for their cocoa. In the face of this increasingly aggressive price war, some cocoa farmers have joined fair-trade, farme...

Canada’s household debt is really high . In fact, we outrank France, Italy, the UK and even the U.S. And while, the debt load is high for Canadians of every age group, one particular generation stands by owing over $600,000 on average. Rob Carrick is The Globe and Mail’s personal finance columnist. He’s on the show to explain why Canadians owe so much and how over-indebted Canadians should be thin...

In late May, the Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni signed one of the world’s harshest anti-homosexuality bills into law. It authorizes the death penalty in certain circumstances and a 20-year prison sentence for anyone who “promotes” or “normalizes” homosexuality. The situation was already bad for queer people in Uganda, but this new law makes things much worse. Kimahli Powell is the CEO of Rainbo...

David Johnston resigned as the special rapporteur on Friday after looking into foreign interference in Canadian elections. The former Governor General’s decision to step down came days after he appeared at a parliamentary committee on his work and was grilled by MPs from opposition parties. Steven Chase is The Globe’s Senior Parliamentary Reporter and he has been leading the foreign interference r...

When Canada first passed legislation to create its access-to-information system, it was seen as a world leader in terms of transparency. But fast forward 40 years and that same system is sluggish, overwhelmed and preventing Canadians from their right to government information. Globe and Mail investigative reporters Robyn Doolittle and Tom Cardoso spent more than a year reporting on the state of th...

The 2007-2008 financial crisis hit countries around the world hard. But, Greece’s economy really faltered. At the peak of Greece’s crisis, unemployment hit 28 per cent, a figure higher than unemploymen t during the U.S.’ Great Depression. Greece required three hefty bailouts from the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund which totalled almost €300-billi...

A lot of Canada is on fire right now – fires are burning in nearly every province and territory and the federal government says this season could see the most land burned since we started keeping records. Today, The Globe’s Lindsay Jones joins us from Halifax to talk about the biggest wildfire the province has ever seen, and why fires are so bad there this year. Then, The Globe’s Mike Hager tells...