The Big Story

Some stories are better if you don't know much going in. So, no spoilers. All you need to know is this: An American university is suing a woman who lives in Kitchener, Ontario. It's trying to recover millions of dollars from her, that it claims she received as a result of fraud. The woman in question denies this. She worked for the money, she says, and earned it. All the stuff that comes before th...

The list is long, and varies from school to school. Some of it is structural—leaky roofs and mice infestations, repairs that never get made, poor ventilation. Some of it is impacting learning more directly—staffing shortages, a lack of equipment like textbooks and markers, and not even 1x1 care for students with special needs. Add it all up, and most schools are fighting just to stay afloat. How d...

The deadline for the airline to reach agreement with its pilots is still a week away. But already flyers are scrambling for alternatives and Air Canada is planning to start cancelling flights as soon as this weekend. Tens of thousands of passengers a day may find their flights cancelled, and some may end up stranded far from home. It's happened once already this year. What happens if Air Canada's...

New data shows that opioid overdose deaths in the province from January-May fell from 788 in 2023 to 431 this year, a 55 percent decline. There are a number of factors that could explain the reason why, but the most political one is the United Conservative Party's focus on treatment and recovery, as opposed to harm reduction or safe supply. Except... the UCP does fund harm reduction programs, and...

BC's Conservative party is on the verge of what would be a stunning win in this fall's provincial election. And one party's stunning gains, it turns out, is another party's utter destruction. When the BC Liberal party rebranded as BC United last year, it was wirth the hope of injecting new life into the party. Instead, the party is ... gone. It's been effectively disbanded by leader Kevin Falcon,...

Welcome to a preview of the fall season of In This Economy?! We're giving you a sneak peak of a test episode today, to get your feedback. As part of our new season, in addition to traditional episodes of the show, we're producing short conversations between Jordan and business experts, that aim to show you how changing economic news will trickle down to your wallet. This week, the Bank of Canada c...

It was supposed to be an eight-day mission. It will be at least eight months. When two astronauts took Boeing's Starliner to the International Space Station in June, they were prepared for a quick turnaround. Today, the Starliner comes back to Earth ... without them. Instead, they'll have to be rescued by Boeing's biggest rival in the Space Race, Elon Musk's SpaceX. But that won't happen until nex...

The supply and confidence agreement between the Liberals and NDP lasted nearly two and a half years—but now it's over. NDP leader Jagmeet Singh announced Wednesday his party would no longer prop up the Liberal's minority government in exchange for policy priorities. Without that support, any confidence vote this fall could lead to an immediate federal election. But will it? Conservative leader Pie...

The news broke last week, sort of. It turned out that last month Alberta Premier Danielle Smith had told a United Conservative Party town hall in August that the government had transferred control of a northern Alberta hospital away from Alberta Health Services and turned it over to Convenant Health, a private, Catholic healthcare provider, and that further hospitals would follow. The story raised...

For a solid couple of years, as the economy recovered from the pandemic, the narrative when discussing labour in this country was that the market was "tight" or there was a "labour shortage". Unemployment approached record lows, and companies were scrambling to hire and keep talent. Some of that was true. But not everywhere, and it wasn't the whole story. And also, however tight the labour market...

It's a long weekend, and that means its time to reach back into the bag and pull out some of our favourite listener feedback from the last few weeks.  A sincere thanks to all of you who have written in. Every piece of feedback is immensely helpful, so please keep it coming!  Happy labour day from everyone at The Big Story!  We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episo...

This weekend, we're revisiting an episode from two years ago that we felt framed the discussion around climate change, and human adaptation to it, in a really unique and fascinating way.  We hope you enjoy! Happy labour day!  ---------------------------------------------------------------------- It's no longer a question of if our comfortable lives will change as the climate does over the next few...

It depends what your definition of work is... but in announcing a 100% tariff on all electric vehicle's produced in China, Canada is following in America's footsteps. But we're a much smaller economy than the US, which means these tariffs may not have the intended impact. Of course, the intended impact also varies depending on whom you ask. Is it to score the government a few polling points? To pr...

It's expensive to follow complex disposal protocols for construction waste that can often contain toxins. It's a lot less expensive to find someone willing or desperate enough to simply allow waste to be dumped directly onto their land, with no regard for the health and environmental impacts. An Indigenous community in Kanasatake has dealt with this problem for years. Until some community members...

When public health finally figured out in June what was causing a listeria outbreak that has killed three and sickened more than a dozen others, it did so by finally cracking what every one of those cases had in common, and tracing the infections back to an unlikely source... GUEST: Hannah Alberga, health reporter, the Canadian Press   We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for...

Safe supply programs across the country that aim to provide alternatives to street drugs are under scrutiny right now. But today's story isn't an official safe supply program... it's an activist-led attempt to purchase untainted heroin, cocaine and meth and deliver it straight to users. The creators of the program argue that it has saved lives. The federal government says that what they've been do...

We've learned an awful lot about Covid-19 since the virus first hit us—but there are some things that we're still trying to solve. One of them, perhaps the most mysterious, is the phenomenon known as 'long covid'. We know much more about it now than we did in 2020, when some of those infected with the virus reported lingering symptoms, often debilitating ones. But there is still so much to learn—e...

Today, we're revisiting a fun one from 2 years ago about one of the most unique ghost towns in North America.  ----------------------------------------------------- Kitsault was a mining town of 1,200 or so people in one of the most remote areas of British Columbia. It opened in 1981. It was empty by 1982. That was its first lifetime. Since then, however, something has happened to Kitsault. Unlike...

Are you tired? In pain? Gaining weight? Experiencing any unusual symptoms? Welcome to what seems to be this summer's newest TikTok diagnosis from the wellness industry. On the surface, the trend is a grift. But people really are suffering from these ailments, and are dealing with a health care system that is either unavailable or dismissive towards them. So, is it just a money grab? Or are there r...

The WHO has declared an outbreak of the virus in Africa a "global health emergency"—but what does that designation actually mean? That doesn't mean we shouldn't take the disease seriously, or prepare vaccinations and public health strategy. But in a world where outbreaks of diseases are continually met with scary headlines, and many people grapple with trauma and anxiety in the wake of the Covid-1...

This week, the biggest names in US Democratic politics are united in Chicago for one purpose: To give Kamala Harris the momentum she needs to defeat Donald Trump. Thus far, her campaign has been a stunning success, but can that really last until November?  When the good vibes start to fade, what will it take for Harris to keep rolling? How will she define herself—and her opponent—this week? And in...

A UN envoy said last week that the temporary foreign worker program was a breeding ground for just those conditions. And that's amid a rapid recent expansion of the program, which used to focus heavily on agriculture but now funnels workers into the service and construction industries and the health care sector. Why has the program expanded so quickly? How much merit is there to the UN's criticism...

In 2008, an experimental treatment led to the first documented case of someone being effectively cured of HIV. The man, who was called 'The Berlin Patient,' greatly advanced our understanding of the disease, and sparked hope among the millions of HIV-positive people around the world.  While treatments and prognoses for the illness have improved dramatically since then, an actual cure has proved el...

If you listened to last week's Fixing Canada series (which you should check out if you haven't!), you may have noticed one key issue was conspicuously absent: housing.  A big reason for that is we recently talked at length about potential housing solutions with journalist, Gregor Craigie. And there was little we could say that wasn't already discussed during that conversation. So today we're revis...

[You've probably heard—from politicians, experts or even just friends and family—that "Canada is broken". Everyone can draw their own conclusions about that, but there's no denying some key aspects of the country aren't working well for many of us. And complaining about that is easy, it's fixing it that's the tough part. This week, The Big Story is trying to do that with Fixing Canada—a five-part...