Storylines

24 Sussex Drive. That Ottawa address has been the official residence for the prime minister since the 1950s, but Canada’s current one doesn’t live there because the house is in disrepair.  Workers have already removed  asbestos, mould and rodents, but it’s estimated it will cost millions more to make the building habitable—and secure. Critics call the languishing home an “embarrassment”...

It’s been 12 years since Widlene has seen her son. She had to leave the little boy in Haiti with family after she was targeted by gang members. The plan was to get out, find somewhere safe, make a home there, and have her son join her. So when she was granted asylum in Canada, Widlene believed her fight would be over.  Instead, it was only just beginning. Asylum seekers are supposed to be abl...

You might associate sommeliers (wine experts) with fancy restaurants and snooty attitudes, but Canada’s Best Sommelier is as likely to be found traipsing the backwoods in steel toed boots and a cowboy hat, as in a MICHELIN starred restaurant in a three piece suit.  It all depends on what he’s up to: is he harvesting maple syrup at the sugar shack he runs with his family? Or is he representing...

The Great Bear Rainforest on BC’s coast is a spectacular place. Rugged mountains and old growth forests stretch all the way to Alaska. It was here that nearly a decade ago a group of coastal First Nations decided to halt most of the logging in their territories. And in the areas where they did log, they would do it differently. But ten years on the plan hasn’t gone quite as expected… And it’s left...

Not long after Russian troops invaded Ukraine, Sasha Skochilenko walked into a grocery store in St. Petersburg, Russia. She reached into the pocket of her puffy winter coat, and pulled out a sheet of sticker price tags where she’d printed information she was learning about the war. Information she wasn’t getting from Russian state media. She placed the tags on a few shelves, and left. But these sm...

For years, thousands of kids with roots in Canada, the U.K., the U.S. and beyond lived under the Islamic State’s so-called caliphate. Some were taken there by their parents. Others were born there. But after the war against the Islamic State was won, many of these children still remain in limbo. They wait in detention camps, run by the group which helped defeat ISIS – the Kurdish-led Syrian Democr...

The federal government estimates that on average 27 people a day in this country are diagnosed with brain tumours. Among the most aggressive is Glioblastoma (GBM). According to Brain Cancer Canada, people with GBM have a life expectancy of 15-18 months. So when David Cormican was told that his father’s tumor was the “size of a baseball” the family started looking for something—anything—that would...

Is Newfoundland and Labrador English dying? No b’y, but it is changing! From dropping an 'h' to adding an 's', Newfoundland and Labrador accents are among the most recognizable regional accents in Canada. But while some features of those accents may be in decline, linguist Paul De Decker says younger generations are finding creative ways to keep them alive. On this week's Storylines, Caroline Hill...

The Marefat School in Kabul, Afghanistan earned an international reputation for being a place where democracy, freedom, and education could flourish. But when the Taliban took over the country in August 2021, many of the female teachers and students had to flee for their lives. On this week's Storylines, Leisha Grebinski follows the harrowing story of Maryam Masoomi a music teacher who—with the as...

Green burials are a growing trend in after death planning. On this week's Storylines, Caroline Hiller visits graveyards across the country, exploring how some people are reducing their carbon footprint from beyond the grave.

In 2016, Adrian Ma received a truly thoughtful gift from his uncle. A gift he proceeded to put in his closet where it remained for the next seven years. It was a bottle of The Glenlivet Special Jubilee Reserve—a rare scotch whisky that sells for upwards of $3000. Adrian is a whisky guy… but this is, by an almost absurd degree, the most expensive bottle of booze in his collection. That’s exactly wh...

For Kent Hoffman it was a surreal delight to produce an interview with the famed American mentalist 'The Amazing Kreskin'. But what really surprised Kent was when a few months later he received a Christmas card from Kreskin. And another Christmas card the next year... and the year after that…. and every Christmas since. It turns out that Kreskin sends out thousands of holiday cards, every year, to...

A two-part episode following Canadians desperate to get their families out of Gaza. PART 1. A decade ago in Gaza, Mohammed Fayad worked for the UN in the education and IT departments. He fled Gaza as a refugee bound for Indonesia, but had to leave his family behind. Years ticked by and he watched his kids grow up through videos. His ex-wife, the kids’ mother, eventually had to flee too. So the kid...

It’s fairly well known that some Canadians fought with the American armed forces in Vietnam, but fewer know about Canada’s official peacekeeping role there. But between 1954 and 1973, close to 2000 Canadians went to Vietnam to observe and safeguard peace accords. Erin Moore’s grandfather, Doug, was one of them. He wrote dozens of letters home documenting the realities of the war. Erin still has hi...

As a family physician, Dr. Melissa Lem knew she couldn't stay silent on the health dangers of climate change. But when she spoke out against the use of fossil fuels, the backlash was more vitriolic and personal than she ever expected. She's not alone. From death threats to sexual intimidation and sinister phone calls, Dr. Melissa Lem, Tzeporah Berman, and Judy Wilson have paid a high cost for thei...

Over more than half a century, Canada welcomed close to 3,000 South Korean children, orphans, to be adopted by Canadian families. But new information is emerging that those adoptions aren’t all that the Canadian government – or adoptive families – thought they were. Journalist Priscilla Ki-Sun Hwang investigates the stories of adoptees Kelly Foston and Kim McKay.

Andrew Anderson never told his family the whole story of what happened during the years he spent as a spy in the Norwegian resistance during WWII. Nor did he share all the details about what happened next, as he fought to survive for nine months – held prisoner by the Nazis. But growing up in rural Saskatchewan in the 1970’s, Andrew’s son Gary could always feel the echoes of his father’s past. On...

About a hundred years ago you could take passenger trains all over Canada. Rail was king… until the automobile and planes came on the scene, making the train look antiquated. Alongside a shift in federal spending and political attitudes, trains were pushed into the past. But if we’re serious about fighting climate change, then getting people out of cars and planes, and onto a fast, affordable and...

In 1987, the remains of a sailor were discovered on the coast of Labrador. A skeleton, wrapped in a shroud, buried with an overcoat, a loose key, and a knife with the initials “W.H.” He is believed to have been buried in the 1800s. There are many questions about the man now known as W.H. Who was he? Where was he from? And what brought him to the coast of Labrador 200 years ago? Because W.H.’s rema...

In small hamlets, First Nations and Inuit communities across Canada’s north, many pregnant women have little choice but to travel south, far away from home, to give birth. Local care for mothers and babies simply isn’t available. For decades, Inuit women in the vast area of northern Quebec known as Nunavik faced similar pressures. That was until one pregnant woman refused to get on a plane and go...

In 1961, Canada and the U.S. signed a treaty to co-manage the Columbia — a cross-border river that flows from B.C. through to the Oregon coast. Entire valleys were flooded and more than 2,000 people relocated to accommodate the fourteen new dams along the river’s main course. The Columbia River Treaty has generated billions of dollars for the governments of both countries and the hydroelectric ind...

When the Scotty Creek Research Station in N.W.T. burnt down in an unusually late-season wildfire -- Thanksgiving weekend, exactly one year ago -- internationally recognized climate research was put on hold. Now, reporter Liny Lamberink is heading north as the Łı́ı́dlı̨ı̨ Kų́ę́ First Nation and a group of scientists from across Canada are racing to rebuild it, and get the very research that might s...

All Sonali Sharma wanted was to go to school in Canada and become a nurse. It was everybody’s dream for her. So much so, that when she was accepted to a private college in Vancouver, Sonali’s entire village turned out to celebrate. Her dad took out a loan against their small farm in India to make it happen. But when Sonali arrived in Canada, everything she imagined her education would be evaporate...

There’s a battle going on about how to teach kids to read. It’s been fought over decades. In Canada, it mostly shakes down as follows: on one side, phonics, which focuses on letters—how they sound, how they blend together, and sounding words out. On the other side, three-cueing—which uses context clues like what the story’s about, what letter a word starts with, and looking at the pictures in orde...

In tiny towns and massive cities across Canada, it can be typical—and legal—to have a vegetable patch or a few chickens. But Newfoundland and Labrador has what many see as strict and outdated rules when it comes to growing your own food. Ironically, or perhaps relatedly, the province also has some of the highest rates of food insecurity in Canada. It's all part of why Frank Brown, a small town far...