Now or Never

Whether it's through sheer luck or hard work, you've been handed an opportunity you've maybe only dreamed of. What do you do with it? Actor Feaven Abera has been hustling in the industry since she was 17 years old. She remembers taking jobs to pay for acting classes, commuting from Hamilton to Toronto and back for auditions and student films, and sometimes coming up short on bus fare. At 25, she w...

‘Tis the season for exchanging greetings, sending salutations, and dashing off (humblebrag) holiday letters.  But chances are, there’s someone you haven’t reached out to yet…so what are you waiting for? Today Now or Never is nudging you to finally get those meaningful messages out into the world, starting with our own Trevor Dineen. For the past three (!) years, a complete stranger with Trevo...

This week, stories of people racing to save something before it disappears completely. For most of his life, Gerry Smerchanski has watched the stars from his property in the small town of Teulon, Manitoba. But now the town has grown up around his home, and the amateur astronomer’s night sky is disappearing because of light pollution. Find out how he’s fighting to preserve the night sky, and why it...

Messing things up is part of the human experience. But what happens when you fail at something so big, and so publicly...how do you come back from that? On this episode, four people confess their most epic fails, and what they're doing to dig themselves out. Edmonton’s Kayla Huszar used to cajole, bribe and beg her children to brush their teeth. But her "gentle parenting" approach led to both her...

Roommates. They can be great, they can save you money....and they can also make your life a living hell. Roommate households are the fastest growing living arrangement in Canada, so we wanted to know, how are people making it work? (or not) Five stories of people navigating some tricky real-life moments with their roommates. Deb King never thought she’d need to find a roommate at 67 years old, but...

Saying goodbye can be hard — whether it's to a relationship, a job, or the place you call home. On this episode, hear how people knew it was time to say goodbye, and what happened after they walked away. Ify pops in for one last visit to the Imperial Pub, an iconic neighborhood bar in Toronto that's closing its doors after 81 years. Long-time owner Fred Newman reflects on the end of an era, while...

Asking what someone does for work is more complicated these days. More than a million Canadians, or 5.6 per cent of the working population, are holding down multiple jobs. So today on Now or Never we’re looking at the art, and real cost, of the side hustle. After two decades in the education industry, Lethbridge, Alberta teacher Verna Mabin didn’t expect she’d still be working a side hustle…and se...

Just in time for Halloween, stories of people being scared out-of-their-mind about something, but doing it anyway. The last time Mike Bahuaud  ran a half-marathon, he went into cardiac arrest and collapsed at the finish line, where his heart stopped beating for nearly five minutes. One year later, he's determined to run the exact same marathon, to finish what nearly ended him.  It was a...

If you, like us, are not a runner, it might seem nuts to risk the muscle pain, the boredom, not to mention the chafing. So we asked a bunch of people what keeps them moving, and got some really surprising answers. Four days ago, Tata Shifrin finished her first full marathon in Toronto. Which is not what her doctors would have predicted, since she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2014 and t...