The Alex Pierson Show

It's been ten years since Sammy Yatim was shot and killed on a streetcar by a Toronto police officer while having a mental health crisis. After all this time, we finally will get a coroner's inquest into what happened with the case. Will Sammy's family finally get retribution or will things come up cold? To talk about it, we spoke with Joseph Neuberger, a Criminal Lawyer. Learn more about your ad...

John Tory is about to begin his final term as Mayor of Toronto, and the question is already being asked as to who would possibly replace him when the term ends. Ben Spurr is the Toronto Star's City Hall Reporter, and joined Alex to talk about it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For years, we've been having the debate on whether or not masks actually work to prevent flu like illnesses. Dr. Chris Millburn is an Emergency Room and Family Doctor, who was removed as the Head of Emergency Medicine (Eastern Division), for voicing concerns and publicly questioning some of Nova Scotia's decision making regarding Covid-19. He joined us to talk about the lack of proper evidence to...

Alex is joined by Dr. Neil Rau, an Infectious Disease Consultant, to help make sense of what’s going on in our hospitals. Dr. Rau says it’s not COVID cases that’s causing kids to go to hospital, but RSV. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"We had to keep under cover. Meanwhile there were other soldiers who had caught the bullet and they were either lying dead or they were wounded. So it was a pretty rough landing." That's what 98 year old veteran, Jim Parks, said when he recounted the day he and the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, who he was enlisted with, stormed Juno Beach on D-Day in 1944. Jim is about to be featured in an upcoming docum...

For years, CSIS has been sounding the alarm on interference from other nations, namely China, on politicians and elections in Canada. For a long time, the Trudeau government has been sitting on these memos and is only now seemingly acting on it. But we've already been infiltrated in this country. So what does this mean? Dan Stanton is a Former Manager of Operations at CSIS and is now the Director...

Toronto needs a commitment for more funding from senior levels of government by the end of the month to avoid “an unprecedented and inflationary property tax increase” and extreme severe service and program cuts, Mayor John Tory says. We spoke with David Rider, Toronto Star’s City Hall Bureau Chief, about Mayor John Tory calling on the province and federal government for more funding in order to a...

1,100 people before the courts on firearm charges currently free on bail instead of sitting in jail. The situation is said to be worse in Peel, York and Halton. The Toronto Police and Durham Regional Police have announced the firearm bail dashboard, an “inter-agency collaboration to share firearm bail compliance data in real time.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lots of news about the failures in our healthcare system. Including a new report from Second Street dot org that found at least 2.9 million Canadians are waiting for surgery, scans and specialist appointments.. Colin Craig, President of Second Street dot org, joined us and said the federal and provincial governments both bear the blame for these catastrophic failures. Learn more about your ad choi...

54%, a bare majority of Canadians are confident in the federal government. According to Elections Canada which commissioned internal polling“to gauge the general public’s opinion on various electoral issues.” “on the question of changes to make voting easier or fairer for all Canadians,” 21 percent, disagreed. 21 percent, said “voting is prone to fraud” in Canada. 66 percent, said they do not thin...

On Tuesday, provincial leaders held a meeting with federal leaders to discuss funding for the health sector. But both sides walked away without a deal being reached. With how poorly run our health system is right now, how hard is it now without a deal to get better healthcare? Dr. Alika LaFontaine is the President of the Canadian Medical Association, and spoke to Alex about the details and how it...

Tech giant, Meta, announced major layoffs on Wednesday with over 11,000 job cuts. And naturally, Toronto’s tech sector is concerned. We’re a tech city. Sunil Sharma, Managing Director of Techstars Toronto, joined us and explained why we’re seeing these job cuts and whether or not this is a long term solution. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The kids still aren't alright and their education is constantly being slammed by either pandemic shutdowns or labour strikes that disrupt learning further. With the Ford government offering up to $200 per kid for private lessons, is that actually enough? Can that money be better utilized elsewhere? Kat Eschner is TVO's Affordability Reporter and joined Alex to talk about it. Learn more about your...

Some stores across Canada owned by Empire Company Ltd. continue to experience disruptions due to an information technology systems issue. Empire, which owns Sobeys, Lawtons, IGA, Safeway, Farm Boy, Foodland and FreshCo, among other brands, said on Monday that an IT problem is preventing some of its pharmacies from filling prescriptions. Alex was joined by Dr. Sylvian Charlebois, Professor of Food...

The winter months are upon us and that means it's going to be harder for those who are without a home to stay warm. The City of Toronto says that we could expect to see expansions on the amounts of beds and hotel rooms available to homeless individuals. We spoke with Lorraine Lam, an outreach worker and organizer with Shelter and Housing Justice Network, who says that the city is great at throwing...

Federal departments are concealing records on contracting, says the Procurement Ombudsman who cited unnamed departments for hiding documents that he knew for a fact existed. So this has to do with numerous complaints of sweetheart contracting in the name of pandemic relief-- $237.3 million purchase order for ventilators from Baylis Medical Co., a firm that had never made ventilators but was operat...

The housing market might be starting to show signs of cooling, but that doesn't stop the cost of building homes rising. Alex was joined by Christopher Alexander, President of Re/Max, and asked if developers are feeling the pinch and having to pull out of the projects they've already started. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Ford government has turned back on its promise not to touch the protected Greenbelt lands, announcing that it would open up 7,400 acres for new housing so developers can build 50,000 homes on that land. In exchange, it would add 9,400 acres in different areas to the existing two-million-acre swath of agricultural, wetlands and environmentally sensitive land, the province said on Friday afterno...

Thursday's Financial update mentioned nothing for the city of Toronto that has a massive $865 Million shortfall. Mayor John Tory argues that they were told we’d be getting help after the pandemic. Now with their sights turning to the provincial update on Nov 14th, is the expectation we are going to see a fight if the province also doesn’t deliver? Pressure campaign? Or a tax hike that will go over...

The saga continues in the inquiry into the use of the Emergencies Act in order to quell the Freedom Convoy from continuing further. On Thursday, Tamara Lich took to the stand and began her testimony saying that she was frustrated by the mandates that were imposed during the pandemic and that Trudeau's comments on the unvaccinated were divisive. So the big question coming out of this entire inquiry...

It's no secret that Toronto loves its trees, but did you know that there is a very invasive species of tree in the city? Acer platanoides, more popularly known as the the Norway maple, is an invasive species. The Ontario Invasive Plant Council calls these trees “a serious threat to woodlands across Ontario” because of their aggressive spread into forests and ability to suppress native species. The...

It's becoming all too common for teenagers in Toronto to be exposed to gun violence. On Halloween day, a shooting outside of a Toronto high school, killing an 18 year old, and injuring a 15 year old. The shooting was witnessed by dozens of kids who took out their phones to record it and put it on social media. What is the Toronto Police doing to help curb any of this needless violence? We turn to...

It is that time of the week where we do a deep dive on all things Ottawa. Today, we talk about how the Department of Canadian Heritage bought maple leaf flag pins from China even as the Commons voted to condemn the People’s Republic for crimes against humanity, records show. Federal contracts for patriotic paraphernalia were worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. For this we speak to Tom Korski,...

Deputy Prime Minister, Chrystia Freeland, is expected to make an announcement late on Thursday, updating Canadians on the fiscal outlook going ahead. But will she use the word 'recession' at all in her announcement? For that, we ask Moshe Lander, an Economist with Concordia University, and find out if Freeland will say we're going into a recession, or not. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit m...

The Heritage Minister’s parliamentary secretary accused Facebook of threatening Canadians’ safety, after the company said it could pull news off its platform if it’s forced to share revenue with news publishers. We spoke with Dr. Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair in Internet and e-Commerce Law. Geist says this will have a huge impact on what we consume on the internet and freedom of expression....