Outlook on Radio Western

Our guest says: It really made you realise how different all of us/all of you with rare diseases are. We assumed we’d find some things in common but we found more differences than more things in common which is interesting just because of how vast it is and what an area it covers. Janet is back, talking being the mother of two one in a million children, a full seven years since that time after her...

What’s an omnibus? What’s an archer? This week’s program kicks off with the theme to BBC Radio 4’s The Archers Omnibus, a song that pumps up Kerry and Barry at the start of every week. The Archers, which is celebrating it’s 75th anniversary this year, also happens to be the longest running serial in the world. This radio drama which takes place in rural England has become routine listening for Ker...

Well sports fans, holding court and One Court - it’s snowflakes in April, along with it being National Volunteer Week with its benefits to the community and yet with a historical track record of exploitation of people with lived experience of disability. As you can tell, it’s another Outlook with a mixture of topics this week. We’re back, all of us, and live in studio - sister/co-host Kerry is thr...

“Are you really blind?” We three don’t usually get questioned on whether or not we’re really unable to see, but in a large room with around eight hundred people, BF Barry had the question posed to him as he held a mic and called out the guy, on stage, with the bag over his head. It’s a somewhat x rated April mixed bag show, last one from Ireland to Canada for a while, with Sibling’s Day having hap...

It’s an April scramble, we’re celebrating the birth of a few friends of the show, and it’s two months exactly till the big performance - sister/co-host Kerry finally appears, BF Barry in the background. This week on Outlook we’re talking getting sick/on our own and together, VoiceOver gestures, and kidneys on the mind. Kerry can’t handle the germs, brother/co-host Brian reflects on his first kidne...

Our guest for this one says: I’m so keen now on representation and demystifying things for people and inviting them in and like: “Hey, understand my experience. I’m not the weird character you saw in that movie. Do not fear me. I’m a human being. I’m Jennie”. This week on Outlook we’re speaking with advocate, actor, and athlete Jennie Bovard, from her home in Halifax, about her experience with low...

After first spending a magical week in community together in Mexico nearly a decade ago, sister/co-host Kerry has taken multiple classes and workshops from writer and filmmaker/producer Kerra Bolton such as - Writing with Your Ancestors: Infusing Memoir with Family History and Say It Plain. “It’s very hard in writing and what I’ve noticed among writing students is that a lot of times when they are...

For 2026’s "Blindness 101" workshops, offered this year with no cost to recipients and facilitated by Blind Beginnings Society out of British Columbia, our guest this week says, on bridging the gap: "The biggest bonus is it’s free. For this year, we’re literally doing a workshop that any company if they were to call and have a talk on autism in the workplace the person that they call would wanna b...

Life is one giant puzzle and we spend it simply gathering up all the pieces we can and attempting to put them in some sort of working order. This week we’re talking the puzzles of life on Outlook - it’s nearly Rare Disease Day, an awareness day that is on the final day of February each year, as every four years it will then fall on February 29th, the rarest day of the year. Sister/co-host Kerry is...

Sibling: each of two or more children or offspring having one or both parents in common; a brother or sister Regular co-host BF Barry isn’t used to this term, being from Ireland where the word is less commonly used and more something clinical, a word a social worker might use. He is an only child so we figured he’d be the perfect person to moderate this year’s Family Day sibling episode. This week...

Ra Ra Braille! We at Outlook are cheerleaders for braille, whether it’s Braille Literacy Month in January or now being into the month of February and for this first Mixed Bag show of the month following January’s BLM, we continue talking braille this and braille that. This time we’re talking third co-host BF Barry using his learned braille skills to play a card game with brother/co-host Brian or B...

For White Cane week in February, this year we have a discussion with Elizabeth Lalonde about the recent completion of her Masters Thesis: --An Interpretive Analysis of the Effectiveness of Non-traditional or ‘Structured Discovery’ Blindness Rehabilitation in Canada from the Perspective of Blind Service Recipients and teachers This week on Outlook we’re speaking with Elizabeth about building confid...

Blindness 101 testimonial: Shawna (mother of a son who is blind) says, "People won’t leave being an expert in blindness, I don’t think as a sighted person I would ever call myself an expert. Even when Charlie is sixty, but I think that de-stigmatizing is what the workshop’s intending to do and ending the awkwardness is the hope, that people feel like they’ve had enough information and they’ve had...

Sounds like… sounds like braille! What does braille sound like anyway? This week on Outlook we’re continuing with braille. What does it sound like, look like, feel like? From the analog to the electronic and the hiss of fingers sliding, reading along braille paper’s page, it’s the music of the six dots of the Braille code we’re listening to on another Braille Literacy Month edition of Outlook with...

Our first Outlook guest of the year says: I think we’re very poor at educating our population about what our government does and what it doesn’t do and what our rights are and what they aren’t. Late last year he made headlines after a ruling, his case covered by multiple media sources, but the sensationalisation of how much he was awarded in damages became the clickbait detail, in the end letting...

Over in Ireland, compared to North America, there’s braille on prescription medications and other products, standard in elevators (lifts) but go down the halls, to the rooms, and none next to or on the hotel room doors. Happy Braille Literacy Month. The Kijewski siblings (and Barry) are back - new year, let’s go. Welcome to the first Mixed Bag episode of Outlook for 2026, with brother/sibling co-h...

Whether it’s being shamed by your appliance or corrupting the data stream (check out Part One for more on all this if you haven’t yet), it’s all in his own words with blind/gay writer, (lover of chocolate and chocolate chip cookies) who writes romance fiction with disabled protagonists and non-fiction celebrating every bit of love and found family he can find. It’s Robert Kingett on Part Two of ou...

Has your fridge ever thought you were in a cult? Has your date, on a first date, ever stolen your last chocolate chip cookie? Well our guest in this final interview for the year has written about these experiences and much much more on his blog: Sightless Scribbles He thanks us for “indulging his narcissism” with this one. Welcome to Part one of two parts with Robert Kingett who describes himself...

Niagara Falls and a Christmas snail. Twas the grand month of Christmas and all through the studio, it was our final in person episode of 2025 you know. From Best Western to Radio Western, light shows and Niagara Takes Flight. At the Falls the mist was rising into the air, our 70th birthday celebrations to show our father we care. The photos of Bob through the years, made up by his eldest son whose...

Winding down and ramping up. Bf Barry and guide dog Oyster (not Lester) are back for a pre-Christmas visit and join us as our additional Outlook crew. The Centre for Independent Living Toronto, Fanshawe College and George Brown and Toronto Metropolitan University, Disability Without Poverty, and Alliance For Equality of Blind Canadians all celebrate December 3rd’s United Nations International Day...

INCLUSION BENEFITS EVERYONE December 3rd is The United Nations International Day of Persons With Disabilities where the theme for 2025 is: “Fostering disability inclusive societies for advancing social progress" And this year, on Saturday, December 6th, from 1 to 4 PM EST, Alliance For Equality of Blind Canadians is putting on a virtual day of events to mark the occasion. This week on Outlook we’r...

It’s November and Indigenous Disability Awareness Month (IDAM) raises awareness about and celebrates the significance social economic and cultural contributions that Indigenous people experiencing disability bring to our communities. It’s also an opportunity to mobilise to address the complex ongoing intersectional challenges Indigenous people face in their everyday lives. According to IDAM: Over...

Don’t mind the puns in this one, but we’re entering the “home stretch” of 2025 as we discuss how to “level the playing field” for us, as blind Blue Jays fans, when comparing baseball radio broadcast with that done on television on this Monday after the Big Game. This week on Outlook it’s a MLB Mixed Bag show as we’re joined, virtually, by BF Barry until he can join us in studio soon--to lament the...

Picture this - five ladies, two blind and three sighted and from Canada, the States, and Europe; getting together in a group to practice the skill of creating good quality audio description. Practice requires we now put our training into practice. Introducing “PICTURE THIS ADC (Audio Description Collaborative)” This week on Outlook, find out who the founders of Picture This are as individuals and...

Boo! She’s back. Sister/co-host Kerry’s back and up to her old tricks on Outlook this week. A lot to cover again on this Mixed Bag episode. Kerry teases her new audio description company she’s part of that will be revealed on the next show, but first her and brother co-host Brian discuss the state of podcasting today, along with other social media trends and where to take Outlook. As we share abou...