The Decibel

The ground and water near Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation in northern Alberta has become a toxic mess. A nearby oil sands site, run by Imperial Oil, has leaked industrial waste into the hunting and fishing grounds of the Indigenous community. But the First Nation alleges Imperial Oil and the provincial regulators tasked with keeping the companies in line, hid the seriousness of the leak. Athabasc...

Right now, one in 25 Canadians who use Google can’t find some news sites through its search bar. That’s because the tech giant has purposely blocked these searches in response to legislation put forward by the federal government. The Globe’s Deputy Ottawa bureau chief Bill Curry is on the show to explain the bill taking the fight to Google and other big tech companies and what the government is tr...

For years, a diagnosis of cystic fibrosis has often meant an early death for patients. This week, Cystic Fibrosis Canada released its annual data report this week for 2021. A new drug, Trikafta , is keeping patients out of hospitals and off of transplant lists. The Globe’s health reporter Kelly Grant explains why doctors are now talking about cystic fibrosis as a disease in transition and the hope...

Canada has a high rate of police killings compared to similar countries like England, Germany and Japan. Officers are rarely charged when they kill someone, and they don’t even have to participate in the investigations into their conduct. The Globe’s Nancy Macdonald spent months looking into hundreds of investigations into police officers, how often officers co-operate and the consequences of thei...

On February 8, Indigo’s website went down and customers couldn’t buy products in-store either. After scrambling to launch a new website with limited e-commerce abilities, the company announced a major breach of personal and financial information of employees. The Globe and Mail’s technology reporter, Temur Durrani , has been speaking to employees about the life-long impacts of this breach, what is...

Artificial Intelligence and chatbots are having a mainstream moment. In November, the public was introduced to ChatGPT – a chatbot that can have seemingly human-like conversations with users. And after a “creepy” conversation between a New York Times tech columnist and Microsoft’s new Bing chatbot (which called itself “Sydney”) the debate around AI sentience has re-ignited. But, behind all the awe...

Documents from Canada’s spy agency CSIS – viewed by The Globe and Mail – show how China was influencing Canada’s 2021 federal election by promoting candidates favourable to the regime, how it warned “friendly” Canadians about investigations and targeted Canadians with tactics like cyberattacks, bribery and sexual seduction. These documents highlight a troubling web of China’s interference in Canad...

In a special bonus episode, The Globe and Mail’s Senior International Correspondent Mark MacKinnon and Europe Correspondent Paul Waldie join The Decibel host Menaka Raman-Wilms for an in-depth conversation on the first anniversary of the war in Ukraine. Mark and Paul share their perspectives, personal stories and insights in a year of covering the war.  This episode was recorded as a livestreamed...

Since Russia invaded one year ago, eight million people have left Ukraine . Olena Tsebenko, Sonya and Oliver Hawes and George Fedorov all left behind their homes on February 24, 2022. From births to deaths and marriages, they share their stories of how their lives have carried on in the wake of the war. Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at thedecibel@globeandmail.com Hosted by Simplecast, an Ad...

An unofficial border crossing between Southern Quebec and New York state is at the center of a heated political debate . In December, almost 5,000 people entered Canada through Roxham Road , a stretch of road between the two countries that has seen an influx of migrants seeking to claim refugee status in Canada. Both official opposition leader Pierre Poilievre and Quebec Premier Francois Legault a...

Title fraud happens when someone poses as a homeowner to sell real estate they don’t own to an unsuspecting buyer – and while still rare, it’s on the rise in Canada. For victims, whether the buyer or the legitimate homeowner, the anguish of learning you’ve been defrauded almost always comes with a lengthy legal process to straighten things out. And without title insurance, the buyer may be out the...

Just over a year after the federal government invoked the Emergencies Act, an inquiry has found that the Liberals acted appropriately , even though the Act gave them sweeping powers. This report – by Justice Paul Rouleau – marks the end of a commission that investigated the trucker convoy protest, the breakdown in policing and governing that lead to the Emergency Act being invoked. Political colum...

Canada’s national women’s soccer team is protesting unequal treatment by the sport’s governing body. The players say Canada Soccer is not transparent with its finances, and that they won’t agree to be paid less than the men. The men’s team supports them. On Thursday, the team was forced to play in the SheBelieves cup under threat of legal action. Federal MPs have noticed , and called for Canada So...

Investing your money can grow your wealth faster than just saving it— or shrink it, if you put your money in stocks that fail, or have to withdraw your money from the market while it’s down. Erica Alini , the Globe’s personal finance reporter and author of the newsletter MoneySmart Bootcamp , shares her tips for how to think about investing wisely. Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at thedecibe...

On Tuesday, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May and NDP MP Alistair MacGregor held a news conference about medical access to psilocybin – better known as magic mushrooms. The psychedelic is illegal in Canada but there’s increased interest in the potential therapeutic benefits of the drug. This is happening while still-illegal magic mushroom dispensaries have begun to pop up in Vancouver, Toronto and...

In the span of nine days , we’ve seen the takedown of four flying objects over North America by U.S. fighter jets. It has both Canada and the U.S. on high alert with speculation of Chinese spying . The White House has had to tamp down questions of whether aliens could be involved. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Trudeau says the search for debris in Yukon, where one of the objects was taken down is curr...

Fusion – the act of deriving energy by smashing atoms together – has long been the stuff of science fiction. But thanks to a recent scientific breakthrough , there has been an increase in public excitement that one day, we might be able to use this as a continuous, clean source of energy. The catch? We might not get the technology before our 2050 net-zero climate goals arrive. Science Reporter Iva...

The federal government has offered to bring some Canadian children being held in detention camps in Syria to Canada – but their mothers can’t come with them. This is part of an ongoing issue for the government over what to do about men and women who are suspected of joining the Islamic State terrorist organization — and what to do with their children. The Globe’s Janice Dickson has been covering t...

Ottawa announced Tuesday a proposed $46.2-billion injection in new federal health care funding for the provinces and territories. For years, there have been calls to reform Canada’s health care system. People have died in emergency rooms waiting for care , 15 percent of Canadians don’t have a regular health care provider and there are ongoing issues facing long term care. Will this new money help...

Canada is facing increasing calls to grow its critical mineral industry as the world pivots toward its net-zero goals and batteries are becoming increasingly important. But at the moment, Canada only has one functioning lithium mine and no refineries. Compare that to China, which dominates the entire critical mineral industry globally and has extensive reach into Canada’s current operations. So wh...

A Canadian sniper, whose codename is Teflon , was set up in an apartment building in the destroyed city of Bakhmut, Ukraine, shooting waves of Russian soldiers. He says it was almost too easy: “I actually got to a point where I was like, can you stop? I’m tired of killing people ... I shouldn’t be killing people this easily.” Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine, has seen heavy fighting for months because...

The federal government’s $30-billion pledge to bring daycare costs down to $10/day and to create 250,000 new spaces by 2026 isn’t only attracting families, it’s also getting attention from investors . As the government seeks to make more spaces, for-profit centres are quickly expanding to meet targets. The Globe’s Dave McGinn , and The Globe’s independent business reporter, Chris Hannay , explain...

On Wednesday, Dominic Barton appeared before a parliamentary committee looking into the rise in outsourcing contracts awarded to McKinsey & Company, where Barton was formerly global managing partner. Barton was also a senior policy adviser to the Trudeau government and the Canadian ambassador to China. Since 2015, the Liberal government has paid more than $116 million dollars to the private manage...

As of this week, possession of 2.5 grams of some drugs in B.C. is decriminalized . The B.C. government says it is trying to reduce the number of people who die from overdoses in the province. Around six people die every day in B.C. from drugs – but many advocates don’t believe this decriminalization program will actually prevent people from dying . Garth Mullins is an organizer with the Vancouver...

John de Ruiter, a spiritual leader known for his piercing stare and who calls himself the ‘embodiment of truth’ was arrested and charged with four counts of sexual assault earlier this month. He’s now out on bail and intends to fight the charges . De Ruiter is a leader of a multimillion dollar organization called The College of Integrated Philosophy. It’s based in Edmonton but has followers all ov...