Storylines

It’s a little money saving trick Canadians who live near a provincial border know well. They drive to another province to save a bit because products are cheaper there. It’s the kind of thing you’d do without giving it a second thought. However, for Gerard Comeau, driving from New Brunswick to Quebec to buy a case of beer resulted in a ticket and a constitutional challenge that made it all the way...

Over the past near-century, Academy Award categories have come and gone. In the silent film era there was an award for Best Title Writing. You know, the written cards that summarized the “dialogue”? Oscar worthy.  This year’s 96th Academy Awards broadcast saw Oscars handed out in a whopping 23 different categories, from the big wins like Best Picture, to awards for behind-the-scenes expertise...

The Chinook salmon of the Yukon River are on the brink of extinction. This cultural keystone species has  the longest salmon migration in the world, up to 3,200 kilometres. But warming waters caused by climate change, along with other stresses, have decimated their numbers, forcing a seven-year fishing ban.  For Indigenous communities in the region, this is not only an environmental trag...

In July 2024, seven fishermen from around New-Wes-Valley, Newfoundland set out on their fishing boat in search of turbot.   While at sea that day a fire broke out near the engine room, before long the bunkroom was full of smoke. The seven sailors had no choice but to abandon ship and before long they were  sitting in a small life-raft.  What followed was a 52-hour ordeal that t...

The stories of undocumented people living in the United States are well known, especially since President Donald Trump began a major immigration crackdown. However, there is also a sizable population of undocumented people in Canada. According to the federal government, there could be as many as 500,000 people living here without legal status. Many of them work in jobs that make them like "ghosts"...

Early one August morning, the cameras outside Jas Arora's house in Abbotsford, B.C., recorded someone throwing glass bottles at his home. When Jas stepped outside to investigate, he found broken glass and smelled gasoline. He then got a call from a man speaking Punjabi, demanding millions of dollars. Jas is among many South Asian Canadians targeted by people who, the RCMP says, have connections to...

A rogue wave is defined as being at least 2.2 times as high as the average waves which have come before. They are described as coming out of nowhere and their consequences can be deadly.  In her documentary, The Wave, Joan Webber chronicles swimmers struck by these potentially deadly maritime phenomena. Though rogue waves themselves are not infrequent, it's considered rare that a person is hi...

In Vancouver's Lower Mainland, a dealer known only as "Jay" sold drugs to teens, making drop-offs right next to their high schools and homes, offering free "goodie bags" of Xanax and other drugs.  When Julie Nystrom discovered her 17-year-old daughter was hooked on counterfeit pills from Jay, she went to the police. The cops told her that they needed names, details, so she decided to take mat...

In an empty parking lot somewhere in northern California, Andrew Song and Luke Iseman inflate a balloon the size of a small car, full of sulfur dioxide. They will then launch the balloon high up into the stratosphere where it will pop, releasing its sulfur dioxide contents.  Song and Iseman are the co-founders of Make Sunsets, a geoengineering startup that sells cooling credits. For a price,...

Despite being our national sport, and that most Canadians agree it should be for everyone, hockey remains surprisingly exclusive, especially when it comes to ice time. For some, the barriers to access the game are significant, and the sport can feel unwelcoming.  In his documentary, “Hockey for All,” CBC journalist Douglas Gelevan uncovers how the complex system of ice time allocation often f...

Sethu Ramaswamy grew up in a cultured Indian family and it rubbed off on her. She loved books and ideas. By the age of 10 Sethu had read all of Charles Dickens’ novels, but her emerging interest in books and ideas would have to be put on hold.  When she was the same age, she was forced to leave school, get married, and become a mother at 15. As an adult, she raised a family and for...

Every day, in Hamburg, Germany, Annette Venebrügge wakes up to a single word emailed from her friend Tina Oehmsen-Clark in Toronto. And every evening, she sends one back. No sentences, no stories — just one carefully chosen word, and always in German. What started as a simple pandemic project between two art school friends has grown into an archive of over 3,000 words. In her documentary "One Word...

In Washington state, a law known as Ricky’s Law, allows authorities to force people with addiction into treatment. The law is named after Ricky Garcia, whose struggles with drugs and alcohol inspired him and his friend Lauren Davis to push for change. From emergency room visits to suicide attempts, Davis watched as Garcia went through more than 75 emergency visits in just two years. Davis helped s...

They needed certainty. They got chaos. For over a decade, countless people from at least five different countries put their trust in a company offering prenatal paternity tests. It promised clients “99.9% accuracy” — but then routinely, identified the wrong biological fathers. In the six-part investigative podcast Uncover: Bad Results from CBC News, journalists Rachel Houlihan and Jorge Barrera tr...

On this week’s show, an investigation into land, money and power that has gripped the Piapot First Nation in Saskatchewan. For decades, a small group of band members has been leasing huge swaths of land owned by the community and personally pocketing millions in rental fees  When a new band council decided to fix the issue, there was a pushback that included threats and confrontations with fa...

This week on Storylines, the story of Vince Carter, the Toronto Raptors legend who transformed basketball in Canada. From the high of “Vinsanity” to the low of his bitter departure from The Raptors, Carter’s career left a permanent mark on Canadian sports fans.  Carter’s story is told by Adrian Ma, a Toronto journalist and professor. As a kid growing up in Ancaster, Ontario, Adrian spent hour...

For 28 days after her husband’s death, poet Molly Peacock woke up and cried. It was, in her words, a “full moon cycle" of tears. Then, on the 29th day, the tears subsided. The feelings that followed surprised her, they were of a wider spectrum than she expected — she likened it to a “widow’s crayon box”. In the documentary What Can a Widow Be?, Molly takes us with her on her journey as a widow. Sh...

This week on Storylines, the voices of Canadian World War One soldiers, sharing their stories of the front lines. You’ll hear these veterans talk about poison gas attacks, shellfire, the mud, the air war, and even the food.    The stories come from interviews with World War One veterans done for the CBC program Flanders Fields which first aired on November 11, 1964.  Also, a st...

In 2013, American psychologist James Hardt made a promise to Indigenous kids in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. He said his brainwave training would transform their lives by increasing IQ, curing mental health issues and potentially giving them superpowers like levitation.  Perhaps the most surprising thing — he convinced the Prince Albert School Board and the research ethics board at the Univer...

On this week's Storylines, we start on January 6, 2021, when the U.S. Capitol was overrun by rioters A few blocks away, as the dramatic scenes unfolded, CBC journalist Katie Nicholson was confronted by a group of angry Trump supporters who heckled her and said she should get out of their country. One woman accused her of “spewing BS” and said that she and her crew should run.  Ever since...

Some twenty five years ago, in a small, nondescript building in downtown Tokyo, children gather to look at a suitcase displayed behind glass. They write poems and draw pictures about the suitcase because of the tragedy it represents. The suitcase came from Auschwitz.  This suitcase belonged to Hana Brady, who was born in the Czech Republic, and whose life was brutally cut short by the Holocau...

Tiny forests are taking root around the world. These dense forests, often the size of a tennis court, are jam-packed with trees. The density means the forest grows faster, which has made them popular in communities who want to grow forest canopy, making them a popular trend in urban and suburban areas. But do tiny forests live up to the hype? Join CBC climate reporter Ben Shingler as he explores t...

In 2015, Yasser El Tahan picked up a stranger while off roading in Newfoundland. Days later, Yasser learned that the man he’d taken into the woods was a missing person named Jonathan Hannaford.  Jonathan would be found a few days later, but this chance encounter on a country road haunted Yasser. So he decided to find Jonathan and talk to him about what happened that day.  In this documen...

She pretended to be a nurse in Colorado, Ontario, Alberta and B.C., posed as a teacher in Alberta and Quebec and worked as a hairstylist in multiple cities. And no matter how many times this serial imposter ends up behind bars, Brigitte Cleroux just keeps returning to her life of deception. In the documentary, “The Professional,” Bethany Lindsay follows Cleroux as she zig-zags across North America...

Every day, hundreds of people cross the border from Sudan into Chad, searching for safety. They’re escaping a brutal civil war in Sudan which has been raging since April of 2023. In the conflict, men have routinely been rounded up and killed. Women have been raped. Homes and villages have been raided and destroyed. The conflict has forced 10.5 million people from their homes. More than 600,000 of...