The Big Story

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland has deep Ukrainian roots. Depending on who you ask, those roots have been an asset or an anchor over the past few weeks, as she has been able to lead the political movement to sanction Russia, while also starring in a number of misinformation campaigns based on her history.  But there is no doubt that she has been a major global player in the finance fight a...

Will it all probably be fine, or are we asking for another wave? With Alberta already ending masking, and Ontario promising to follow suit, it's likely that much of Canada will be Covid-restriction free  by April. Cases and hospitalizations are trending down, and much of the country has at least two doses of vaccine. But with a new subvariant already here, and showing infection rates higher than O...

They probably don't look like your typical picture of anti-vaxxers. They own yoga studios, or push organic juice on Instagram. But the wellness space has been home to some of the pandemic's most unexpected sentiment against vaccinations. And it shouldn't really surprise anyone who has been paying attention. Today we'll explain how it happened. GUEST: Stacy Lee Kong, writer and editor, creator of t...

It's the worst mass killing in Canadian history, and there are hundreds of questions still unanswered almost two years later. A public inquiry into the Portapique shootings is happening right now, and the early answers to some of those questions are disturbing. What more will we learn about how many lives could have been saved? Will RCMP officers actually agree to testify at all? And what about th...

For all the bad news (and there is a lot of it) contained in the newest IPCC report, there is also one very clear message: It's still possible to save our world from the worst outcome, and we have about eight years to do it. The impacts of climate change are already being felt around the globe, including in many parts of Canada—but all is not yet lost. What will it take to win this fight? And what...

The footage of that legendary fighter pilot is from a video game. The Ukrainians who told the Russian warship to "go f--- yourself" were not killed and are still alive. Even the image you see attached to this episode—a still from a widely circulated video that was supposedly shot during the current conflict—was actually captured in Libya back in 2011. All this might seem obvious, but there are doz...

When we share stories of immigration to Canada, we often tell them and hear them as individual, personal tales. And those stories are great—but they don't illustrate just how big a part of Canada's history programs like the West Indian Domestic Scheme really were.  Thousands of women came to this country, brought their families, made Canada home and supercharged Canadian women's entry to the workf...

It sounds like hyperbole—unless you listen to the Russian president's thinly veiled threat to use nuclear weapons on any country that intervenes with his aggression in Ukraine. That doesn't mean this conflict will escalate to a multi-nation war, but the possibility is certainly there, according to experts. And nobody knows what happens next. What does this mean for the future of the international...

On the surface it seems silly. Why hold a vaccination clinic at a strip club in downtown Toronto? But once you look a little deeper, the answer becomes obvious. Ontario currently has 92% of its 12+ population with at least one dose. Finishing the last eight percent will require reaching the people who are hardest to find, and who don't trust the traditional healthcare system. So you have to go whe...

Both the occupation of Ottawa and the federal government's use of the emergencies act were unprecedented. And it's hard to see a future where neither one is used again. If the game is truly changing, what does that mean for Canada's national security? And for Canadians' personal freedoms? GUEST: Stephanie Carvin, former national security analyst, author of Stand on Guard: Reassessing threats to Ca...

You would think that after so much "listening and learning" by white people over the past few years, we'd stop seeing them wearing blackface in Canada. But it still happens. Relatively often.  Why do Canadians consider this an American phenomenon? What's the history of blackface in this country? And how can we provide the proper context to explain why it's so awful? GUEST: Dr. Cheryl Thompson We l...

Yes, it's worse in America. But it's not great here, either. The past few years have seen an alarming rise in hate groups in Canada—and there's nothing on the horizon that appears set to slow it down. It's a recipe for the sort of violence we've seen in Washington recently, and have seen on our own soil more frequently in recent years. So what does defuse the growth of white supremacy? What can go...

Do you remember the Ikea Monkey? That's just the tip of the iceberg. A lack of provincial laws around exotic animals in Ontario means that there's nothing preventing you or I from owning just about any kind of dangerous animal. To illustrate how this works today: The story of some lions who are in Ontario, were once a part of a roadside zoo and are now ... well, we don't know exactly where they ar...

Quick, name a signature, unique, statement building opened in Canada in the past couple of decades! Your choices are few and far between. And aside from some of the oldest buildings in the entire country, Canada is known by enthusiasts around the world for having ... not much, when it comes to beautiful public buildings and spaces. There are reasons for that. And it's possible to change our approa...

It's a tricky phrase—but these days you are as likely to hear it from a government official or public health officer as you are from someone who is just sick of vaccine passports. As the Omicron wave subsides and governments across the country ease or eliminate restrictions, a growing number of Canadians are in favour of a future where we no longer tailor our lives to the virus. But is that possib...

You might assume that millions of crowdfunded dollars are behind the scenes on the streets of Ottawa and at border crossings across the country. But very little of the money raised on GoFundMe or GiveSendGo has been released, and what was released was mostly frozen. So where is the money to support these lengthy protests coming from? How is it getting into the hands and bank accounts of organizers...

This Olympics will make history for an uncomfortable reason: It will be the first winter games where basically all the snow used will be man-made. Past Olympics have needed snow machines to varying degrees, but never before to make all the snow. It's a sign of the times as a warming planet makes snowfall less reliable—but what does it mean for the future of the Olympics, and winter sports in gener...

Some people deserve to have awful Google results. But a lot more people don't, and end up with them thanks to a vendetta, a soured relationship, or a targeted harassment campaign. Regardless of whether or not the reputation is deserved, there's basically one way to fix it — online reputation rehab, companies that take your money to fix your Google results. Some of these companies are totally above...

It might not look like it, but when you walk among them it becomes clear there's more than one group in Ottawa. If you want to find evidence that the protesters are peaceful, ordinary, frustrated Canadians who came to Ottawa to make their displeasure known, you can find those folks. And if you want evidence that the protesters are angry, racist, far-right agitators here to attempt to overthrow the...

Or is Vladimir Putin bluffing to gain the world's attention? The history of Russia-Ukraine conflict dates back decades and can only be properly understood by looking at what has come before. But right now, Canadian citizens are being warned it's time to come home, there are massive amounts of troops on the border and the world is worried diplomacy might not work. So ... what happens next? GUEST: S...

If you want to know which kids are least likely to get vaccinated, there’s a decent way to tell — they're the ones attending an alternative school. Even before covid, with traditional vaccines that were proven safe over decades, the opt-out rate among alternative school kids was many times higher than kids in traditional classrooms. Why is that? Where does the hesitancy come from? And what can we...

Amid the current rhetoric around protests across Canada, it's worth examining what successful, peaceful protest looks like, and what we can learn from it. It took more than half a decade, work by Indigenous women and leaders and non-Indigenous allies. It took a deep understanding of treaties and laws and relentless positive commitment. And in the end, an oil and gas company simply gave up, and lef...

Since Stephen Harper left, the federal Conservatives are on their fifth leader in six years. Later this year they'll likely choose a sixth—and the party's eventual choice will go a long way to determining its future. What does O'Toole's exit and the choice of Candice Bergen as interim leader reveal about the state of the party currently? Is this really good news for the federal Liberals as some pu...

Depending on where you stand, you may have blamed anything from Covid-19 to vaccine mandates, protesters to climate change, or even the federal government for the empty shelves you’ve seen. And all those answers are valid. But the reasoning you'll hear from politicians depends on who you ask. And of course, so does the assessment of how much of a crisis this actually is. So how big a problem are t...

For decades, Canada's men's soccer team was irrelevant at best, a punchline at worst. While the women's side went on to Olympic medals and World Cup runs, the Canadian men ... did nothing. Until a few years ago, when the tide began to turn. And then last year, when the unthinkable started to happen.  Now undefeated during qualifying, having beaten both the United States and Mexico, Canada is not o...