Closer Look

On this week's episode of Inside the Village , Frisco and Scott sit down for an in-depth conversation with former NHL coach of the year, Memorial Cup Champion — and now author — Ted Nolan. His new book, Life in Two Worlds: A Coach’s Journey from the Reserve to the NHL and Back , is a brutally honest recollection of his life at the highest levels of our national game, and the racism he endured...

Michael Friscolanti and Scott Sexsmith are back for another episode of Inside the Village. The feds have announced they are putting a temporary cap on the number of international students being granted visas. This move will result in colleges and universities losing millions in revenue. How did we get here and how will that lost money be made up? Dr. Mike Moffatt from the University of Western Ont...

It’s the kick off to season three of Inside the Village with Michael Friscolanti and Scott Sexsmith. With winter late out of the gate this year it has dramatically impacted outdoor sports and recreational activities, particularly snowmobiling. Lisa Stackhouse from OFSC stops by for some trail talk and also some tips as we celebrate Snowmobile Safety week in Ontario. Also on the show a new site lau...

Welcome back to Inside the Village - and Part 2 of our Year in Review. This week we take a look at the lighter side of the news from Hockey Night in Canada’s Ron MacLean to Gurdeep Pandher, the Bangra dancer from the Yukon who spread joy, hope and positivity around the world during the pandemic, to the 18 year old lottery winner from Sault Ste. Marie who gave us 48 million reasons to love her stor...

Welcome back to Inside the Village, a one-of-a-kind podcast where all news is local - and no topic is off-limits. In the latest episode, Frisco and Scott take a stroll down memory lane in Part 1 of our year end show. Looking back, we covered a lot of ground in 2023. From the birth of the Trillium to the passing of Gordon Lightfoot, the economy and inflation to one of the greatest tragedies of the...

This week on Inside the Village, there’s a “seismic shift” on the horizon for alcohol sales in Ontario and it will likely start with The Beer Store. Dan Malleck, a Brock University professor and leading expert on drug and alcohol regulation, joins Frisco and Scott to talk about the 2018 campaign promise Doug Ford made regarding booze sales, and what the impacts — positive and negative — could be....

By 2030, one million Canadians will suffer from dementia. By 2050, that number is expected to triple. Here’s another scary stat: In 2020, care partners (including family members, friends and neighbours) spent 26 hours per week assisting older Canadians living with dementia — the equivalent to 235,000 full-time jobs, or $7.3 billion annually. Bottom line: this disease is taking a devastating toll o...

The state of the economy has been a hot button issue for some time now and a new study from Dalhousie University has some alarming data from the restaurant industry. Over 50% of restaurants nationwide are operating in the red and almost 10% of respondents are no longer eating out. Frisco and Scott get the goods on the survey from Dr. Sylvain Charlebois on everything from the effects of inflation t...

After a couple weeks off, Inside the Village is back in a big way. The Prime Minister paid a recent visit to Sault Ste. Marie, where he toured the local power utility, met with veterans at the Legion — and sat down with Frisco for a one-on-one interview. At the heart of their conversation was Bill C-18, the Liberal legislation that prompted Facebook to block all news content from the feeds of Cana...

Every week, Scott and Frisco bring you this podcast from Village Media’s headquarters in downtown Sault Ste. Marie. This week, their northern Ontario city was propelled into the national news for all the wrong reasons: a mass murder-suicide that claimed the lives of three innocent children and a 41-year-old woman. In this special episode of Inside the Village, they explore what happened, why it ha...

The unionized staff at TVO, the province's public broadcaster, have been on strike for almost two months. Steve Paikin, the veteran host of The Agenda, is part of the bargaining team and isn’t holding out much hope that the labour impasse will end anytime soon. In the meantime, he has joined Village Media’s The Trillium — our Queen’s Park news site — as a guest columnist. We couldn’t be happi...

Alberta was the first Canadian province to establish one, and now they’re expanding to Ontario: a safe location where mothers can surrender their unwanted babies — no judgment, no questions asked. City council in Sault Ste. Marie is the latest to examine the idea of setting up its own “Hope’s Cradle,” ensuring mothers and caregivers who find themselves in a desperate situation have a place to turn...

 Earlier this month, the minimum wage in Ontario increased to $16.55 per hour, up from $15.50. Though a slight improvement, that amount is still well below what is widely considered a living wage in the province. We break down the math with Randy Robinson of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, who also shares some compelling stats on why employers should think about being a bit more gener...

Welcome back to Inside the Village , a podcast where all news is local — and no topic is off-limits. On this week's episode: Doug Ford does a complete 180 . After losing two cabinet ministers, two senior staffers, and untold points in the polls, the Premier announced last Thursday that his government would walk back its Greenbelt land removals. Insisting he was “very, very sorry,” Ford also p...

This week on Inside the Village: a dark day for local journalism in Ontario. Toronto Star publisher Nordstar Capital LP placed its regional newspaper business, Metroland Media Group, into bankruptcy protection. The move wipes out 605 jobs — including 68 of the company’s 200 journalists — and spells the end of the print edition for 70 weekly newspapers read by a combined 4.2 million people. Frisco...

The overdose epidemic has hit Northern Ontario harder than any other region in the province, with fatal drug poisonings consistently higher year after year. Yet it’s in the north where two safe consumption sites — one in Sudbury, the other in Timmins — are under threat of imminent closure because the Ford government can’t seem to decide whether to fund them. Amber Fritz, who manages “The Spot” in...

After a couple weeks of holidays, Frisco and Scott return to the studio to answer a controversial question: When is the right time to give your kid a smartphone? (Spoiler alert: postpone the inevitable for as long as you can.) Our guest this week is journalist, author, and mother of three Katherine Martinko, whose new book is titled: Childhood Unplugged: Practical Advice to Get Kids Off Screens an...

  This week on Inside the Village, Scott and Frisco unpack the recent bombshell report from Ontario’s auditor-general, who found that Doug Ford’s government gave “preferential treatment” to prominent developers during last year’s controversial Greenbelt changes. Bonnie Lysyk’s report reads like a hidden camera, explaining how certain developers used their “direct access” to a senior political staf...

  His online dancing videos have garnered more than 100 million views around the world. This week, Gurdeep Pandher spreads his message of joy, hope and positivity with Scott and Frisco on Inside the Village. From his remote cabin in the Yukon, Pandher Bhangra-danced his way through the pandemic for everyone to see, and now he’s on a coast to coast tour to spread his uplifting message of love and c...

Parliament has adjourned for the summer, which means a much-needed break for the man whose primary job is to make sure everyone behaves inside the House of Commons. Anthony Rota — the MP for Nipissing-Timiskaming, and the 37th Speaker of the House — joins Inside the Village for an in-depth conversation about what really happens during Question Period. He talks to Frisco and Scott about decorum, th...

This week on Inside the Village — the weekly podcast where all news is local and no topic is off-limits — Frisco and Scott tell the story of Barrie native Mike Haggith: the guitar player whose musical skills went viral for all the wrong reasons. A WestJet pilot by day, the musician was playing a concert in Sault Ste. Marie when he fell to the stage in pain, seemingly from a broken leg. Did he skip...

This week on Inside the Village: broke and broken. A new MNP consumer debt index shows that the largest-ever portion of Ontarians can’t make ends meet — and there’s little relief in sight. Frisco and Scott break down the alarming new numbers with insolvency trustee David Gowling. Also this week: Switched at birth in Sault Ste. Marie. Two 71-year-old men born on the same date in 1952 claim it happe...

On this week’s episode of Inside the Village, Frisco and Scott talk groceries. More specifically, do best before dates lead to more food waste? A new report on grocery affordability from a House of Commons committee argues that Canada should scrap best before dates because a lot of people wrongly believe they indicate whether a product is safe to consume. University of Guelph economist Mike Von Ma...

This week on Inside the Village, Frisco and Scott welcome Stanley Cup Champion Michael Amadio of the Vegas Golden Knights. The Sault Ste. Marie native takes the guys through the thrill of the NHL playoffs to the glorious night he earned the right to lift hockey’s holy grail over his head — and yes, he was worried about dropping it! He also breaks a bit of news of what he plans to do when it’s his...

On this week’s episode of Inside the Village, Frisco and Scott dissect Bill C-18 and the damage it will do to local journalism — not just at Village Media, but in newsrooms across the country. Facebook has already responded to the Trudeau government’s newly passed law by announcing it will block access to all Canadian news on its platform, a move that will severely limit the amount of reputable, f...