The Decibel

If you’ve bought something online recently, you’ve probably seen a payment option to spread out the purchase in installments. This is known as Buy Now, Pay Later and it’s popping up all over Canada with companies like Amazon, Adidas, Samsung and Sleep Country. But why is it all over the place all of a sudden? Finance reporter and columnist Tim Kiladze looked into it, and he explains where it came...

Next week, China’s ruling Communist Party is expected to announce an unprecedented third term for its leader, Xi Jinping. Mr. Xi has consolidated his power over the last decade, cracking down on billionaires, movie stars and businesses seen as going against party ideology. Asia correspondent James Griffiths tells us about Mr. Xi’s vision for China and what his grip on the country means for the fut...

There’s an experiment under way on the roadways around the Greater Toronto Area. Loblaw Companies Ltd. has partnered with autonomous vehicle company Gatik and is using five driverless delivery trucks to ship products around . And since August, they haven’t had a human ‘safety driver’ on board. The Globe and Mail’s retail reporter Susan Krashinsky Robertson discusses how the technology for these dr...

On Tuesday, the CEO of Hockey Canada, Scott Smith, left the organization and the entire board of directors resigned . The organization has been embroiled in controversy for months over its handling of sexual assaults , specifically the fact that Hockey Canada used funds – paid in part by registration fees – to settle sexual assault claims. Globe and Mail columnist Gary Mason has been writing on th...

The company that owns Facebook might be in trouble. Meta’s stock has plunged nearly 60 per cent this year, Facebook has been losing active users, existing users are consistently complaining about the company’s other social media platform Instagram, and fresh upstarts with their own apps are gobbling up the public’s attention. As Meta executives pour billions of dollars into the virtual reality wor...

Adaptable, smart and invasive. No we’re not talking about humans. We’re talking about wild boars . With their populations growing and sightings – even around big metropolitan areas – increasing, governments are rushing to find ways to contain them before they wreak ecological and agricultural damage. Jana G. Pruden , a feature writer for The Globe and Mail, discusses what kind of damage these crea...

In the second quarter of 2022 housing affordability in Canada saw its “worst deterioration” in more than 40 years. At the same time, rents across the country are skyrocketing . For young adults between the ages of 25-29, that means living on your own is more out of reach than ever – even if you’ve graduated from university and have a full-time job. Personal finance reporter, Erica Alini crunched t...

The Ukrainian military has made substantial advancements in two regions of the country in the past few days. Those gains come as Russian President Vladimir Putin formalizes his annexation of four regions of Ukraine, where young male residents live in fear that they might be conscripted into the Russian army. The Globe’s Janice Dickson is in Kyiv and has been travelling to different regions of the...

Liz Truss’s ‘mini budget’ didn’t get a mini reaction . The plan, which initially included a cut in personal income tax for the top earners, sent markets into a panic and sent the pound plummeting to near parity with the U.S. dollar — something that hasn’t happened since the mid-1980s. But why did the markets react that way to a budget? And what was Truss trying to do in the first place? Lucille Pe...

After a meteoric rise, the value of NFTs plummeted . But here’s the weird thing: that’s when people started stealing them. In the span of a year, one report pegs the total theft at US $100 million. The Globe’s Rita Trichur is on the show to tell us how people are being scammed out of the NFTs they paid so much for. And don’t worry, we’ll explain what an NFT is, too. Questions? Comments? Ideas? Ema...

We wanted to find out from you, our listeners, what you’re thinking about COVID-19 – especially as restrictions are disappearing and new vaccines are available. Infectious disease specialist, Dr. Lisa Barrett is on the show to answer the COVID-19 questions you have right now, like: When you get sick, is there any way to tell if it’s COVID-19 or the flu or a cold? How long should you isolate if you...

It’s become something of a rallying cry to move reconciliation forward, repeated from British Columbia to Ontario to New Brunswick . But what exactly does “land back” mean?  Bruce McIvor has written extensively on the struggles people face when trying to make a legal case for the return of their traditional lands — not least because he’s represented  some of them. He’s a partner at First Peoples L...

Quebec is the one province where immigration is a ballot-box issue in provincial elections. In 2018, it was one of the deciding factors that gave François Legault of the Coalition Avenir Québec his win. Now, the major parties are vowing to set different limits on how many permanent residents the province can let in without compromising its French identity. Meanwhile, its labour force is in decline...

Russia has one of the largest nuclear arsenals in the world, and Russian President Vladimir Putin and those in his inner circle have threatened to use nuclear weapons if Russian territory is threatened. Similar comments have been made before, but many experts are looking at these threats differently in light of the so-called referendums taking place across four regions of Ukraine. Cheryl Rofer wor...

Protests are spreading across Iran – and the world – after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody. Mahsa was picked up by Iran’s morality police on Sept. 13 for allegedly not wearing the proper hijab. Three days later, she was dead. People have taken to the streets demanding justice for Mahsa, and, more broadly, justice for women living under Iran’s strict hijab laws. Jasmin Ramsey...

In September 1969, two baby girls were born in a tiny hospital in rural Newfoundland, a few hours apart. A simple accident led to both of their lives being changed forever. Over 50 years later, the truth serendipitously revealed itself and their lives changed again. Freelance journalist Lindsay Jones unravels the mystery of how these two women were switched at birth. Questions? Comments? Ideas? Em...

This week, Russian President Vladimir Putin called up 300,000 reservists in a partial mobilization for the war in Ukraine. That sparked protests in several cities in Russia, and a flood of people trying to leave the country. This is happening just before referendums are set to take place in four regions of Ukraine currently occupied by Russia – and many suspect Putin will use the referendums to cl...

Inflation is on the decline for the second straight month . New numbers from Statistics Canada show that inflation slowed to 7 per cent in August – down from 7.6 per cent in July and 8.1 per cent in June. While these numbers point to an easing in prices for consumers, not everything is cheaper – yet. Economics columnist for The Globe’s Report on Business, David Parkinson tells us what items are ge...

In the final days of a chaotic government effort to rescue people from the Taliban last summer, Senator Marilou McPhedran and one of her staff members sent travel documents to a family attempting to flee Afghanistan. The documents, called facilitation letters, were supposed to help the Afghans bypass checkpoints that had been set up around Kabul’s airport, so they could catch one of the last evacu...

In March, Ontario became the last jurisdiction in Canada to sign on to the national Early Learning and Child Care Agreement . The $30-billion commitment by the federal government aims at bringing down the cost of daycare to an average of $10 per day by 2026. While all provinces and territories are working out the kinks of their rebate programs, Ontario’s rollout has been particularly plagued by de...

On Oct. 1, natural gas bills in the U.K. will go up by 80 per cent. Most households rely on natural gas for heat, and this means their energy bills would increase from an average of £1,971 to £3,549 a year. For one third of people in the country, that would mean falling to below the poverty line. The new Prime Minister Liz Truss’s plan is to cap energy bills and pay the difference to energy compan...

Initially, residents of James Smith Cree Nation did not want to welcome the reporters into their community following the mass stabbing attack that left 10 people dead on September 4, 2022. But after suspect Myles Sanderson died in police custody , things changed. Globe reporter Nancy Macdonald was allowed into the community and she worked with colleague Jana G. Pruden to help construct a better un...

After months of fighting the Russian invasion, Ukraine has gained significant ground in Kharkiv Oblast, a province in the northeast of the country. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said this week that they have retaken more than 6,000 square kilometres in September. The Globe’s senior foreign correspondent Mark MacKinnon spoke with a commander of a special forces unit that was integral in this...

There seem to be a lot of serious storms these days, and those storms are causing more and more damage. The storm that hit southern Ontario in May claimed the lives of at least 10 people, and caused millions of dollars worth of damage. The storms we are seeing in Canada are changing – but not how you might expect. David Sills, a severe storms specialist and executive director of the Northern Torna...

While Canada’s overall inflation is ticking down, the cost of food continues to rise. Inflation for groceries rose in July to 9.9 per cent . Lisa Noonan and Filomena Bilotta are both administrators of the Canadian Savings group on Facebook , where they teach the 100,000+ members how to fight back against inflation in the grocery store. They explain how you can push back against your ever-rising gr...