The Big Story

A global pandemic has trapped most of us inside our homes. We're cut off from friends and family. We're scared and lonely and worried about our jobs and the rent or the mortgage. Which means, sadly, that we've never been riper targets for scammers and fraudsters looking to profit off our collective misery. The scams began as soon as news of a virus made its way out of China in January, and as COVI...

An early estimate says perhaps one in 10 non-chain restaurants have already closed for good. This month could add 15-20% more. The hospitality industry depends so closely on incoming cash flow, that they simply aren't built to survive a shutdown like this. A group of independent restaurant owners have banded together to lobby all levels of government for the only thing they say can keep them alive...

When Shannon Fleming's loved ones gathered to mourn her passing, there hadn't yet been any official bans on gatherings of this size in Newfoundland. Attendees remember it as a normal funeral, though the funeral home says it took precautions. A week later, someone who had visited the funeral home tested positive for COVID-19. More and more positive tests followed. Now it's Canada's largest single o...

Everyone you know probably has an opinion on whether or not we should be wearing masks outside. So does Canada's chief public health officer—and her opinion has evolved over the past month. Canadians are now being encouraged to wear non-medical masks in places where social distancing is difficult. Which raises a couple of questions: What difference is this supposed to make, and to whom, and if it...

Pandemics force us into a lot of changes that otherwise might never have been made. Some of those changes are horrible choices between 'bad' and 'worse'. But not every one of them. In an effort to help both drug users and the front-line care workers who support them, British Columbia is changing its drug policy in a way that advocates have long hoped for. Will this approach spread to the rest of C...

The novel coronavirus presents in different ways for different people, and that means that experts think we're likely missing lots of cases due to mild symptoms, test shortages or both. This, perhaps, includes our host. But it definitely includes today's guest, who despite not being tested, due to not being at risk, was told by doctors that she had COVID-19, and then was told to go home and ride o...

POP QUIZ! If a province's report says it has 426 new cases of COVID-19 in one day, which brings the provincial total to 2392 and represents a 22% increase day-over-day—but the number of test results on that day tops 6,200, a figure more than double the total previous day's test results, when 260 new cases were found...is that a good day or bad day in the fight against this virus? The Coronavirus n...

For decades, the image of Montreal apartments has been a lure to the rest of Canada: Huge, spacious units in beautiful old walkups, for prices that wouldn't get you a basement in most other cities. Those days are gone. Montreal today features rising rents, evictions and the same short-term AirBnB challenges that have decimated the rental availability in Toronto and Vancouver. And now, in a city wh...

These are stressful times, to put it lightly. And the message from Canada's health officials is that there's no clear end in sight for physical distancing measures. As we go longer and longer without the sort of everyday things that make us feel good, the COVID-19 pandemic will take a higher emotional toll. But that doesn't mean we're powerless. We actually know quite a bit about what our brains c...

The last time we talked to Dr. Michael Warner, he was headed in a week leading his time in the critical care unit at a Toronto hospital. He joins us to update what teams at hospitals across the province are seeing on the front lines. The worst is coming, and it's scary, but the community response has also buoyed his spirits. This is a fight everyone can help win, by listening to doctors and helpin...

Do you qualify? How much will you get? For how long? What if you still have a tiny bit of income, but it's not enough to live on? What if you're already on EI? What if you haven't been fired, but can't work? What if the rent's due before the money arrives? The federal government announced an unprecedented aid package for Canadians who have lost their incomes in the pandemic. But the bill is compli...