The Decibel

As the global economy revs back up after the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, consumer demand is up. Supply chains are bogged down. So prices are spiking and the inflation rate is getting higher – and concern is rising with it . Economics columnist David Parkinson is on The Decibel to unpack what’s happening with inflation and why he thinks that with some time and some patience it’ll settle back d...

Cindy Blackstock , executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring society , has been at the heart of an ongoing battle with the federal government. While working as a social worker in B.C., Blackstock noticed that the child welfare program for First Nations kids living on-reserve received less funding than for kids living off reserve. She, along with the Assembly of First Nations,...

We’ve already warmed the climate by 1.1 C and we’re starting to see the effects with more frequent extreme weather events. On Monday, political leaders from around the globe will address the world to talk about how they plan to tackle the immense challenge of climate change. Dr. Sarah Burch is a climate change researcher and an associate professor at the University of Waterloo. She is on the show...

China’s President Xi Jinping is unlikely to attend COP26, leaving some to wonder how countries will be able to agree on bold moves to lessen climate change without the leader of the world’s highest carbon-emitting country at the table. Over the next two weeks , leaders from more than 190 countries will meet in Glasgow to talk about the state of climate change and how to transition to a low-carbon...

Only nine people in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s new cabinet remained in their old jobs. The massive shakeup in the team included putting a climate activist in charge of Environment and Climate Change Canada, a rising star in Foreign Affairs and the first woman of colour at the head of a problem-plagued Defence ministry . But what do all these moves mean? And why should voters care about the pr...

Over the last year, almost a dozen senior Canadian military leaders have been accused of either enabling or perpetrating sexual misconduct, prompting an independent review by a former Supreme Court justice, and many calls for change within the Canadian Armed Forces. But Megan MacKenzie, a professor and the Simons Chair in International Law and Human Security at Simon Fraser University who research...

The largest childhood mass vaccination campaign since polio could soon be underway in Canada. Health Canada recently received a submission from Pfizer/BioNtech to approve COVID-19 vaccines for kids aged 5-11. On Oct. 22 the drugmaker also released data from a clinical trial that showed their vaccine was 90.7% effective for that age group. Following shortly behind, Moderna announced on Oct. 25 that...

The first sign that there was fighting at the highest levels of power at Rogers Communications Inc. appeared in late September. That’s when it was announced that the company’s CFO, Anthony Staffieri, was leaving. Soon afterward, The Globe reported that his departure was connected to an attempt he made to oust Rogers’ CEO, Joe Natale, with the help of then-chair of the board, Edward Rogers. In the...

Cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin, created a whole new market – and it felt like a whole new world to journalist and author Ethan Lou. He wrote Once a Bitcoin Miner: Scandal and Turmoil in the Cryptocurrency Wild West . After he started investing in Bitcoin while in university, he ended up making enough money to quit his job as a journalist at Reuters in his mid-twenties. Ethan tells us about his own a...

Dave Chappelle’s latest Netflix comedy special, The Closer, has been getting a lot of criticism since its release on October 5th. That’s because a number of jokes in the standup are about trans people and are being called transphobic. This prompted some Netflix employees to stage a walkout on Wednesday in protest of the special but also because the company continues to stand by the content and the...

On Monday, Albertans headed to the ballot box to cast their votes on a number of things: municipal leaders, the merits of daylight savings and whether the country should get rid of the mention of equalization from the Constitution Act of 1982. But there’s a problem with that last one: Alberta alone can’t actually make any changes to the country’s Constitution. So what was the point of this referen...

People in Iqaluit are in the midst of a water crisis. On Oct. 12 a state of emergency was declared when some of the 9,000 residents in Nunavut’s capital city complained of a suspicious fuel-like odour coming from their taps. Since then, they’ve been told to avoid drinking that water. Recent test results confirmed the water is contaminated with high levels of hydrocarbons consistent with diesel fue...

In the early days of the pandemic, many speculated that being locked down with partners would inevitably lead to a baby boom. Recently, Statistics Canada released preliminary data that points to the opposite. In 2020, more than 13,000 fewer babies were born than in the previous year. Experts were surprised at just how sharp the decline was. Zosia Bielski is a national reporter for The Globe who wr...

A terrorism hoax charge has been withdrawn years after a Burlington, Ont., man told multiple journalists that he had travelled to Syria and worked as an executioner for ISIS. An RCMP investigation then found no evidence that Shehroze Chaudhry, now 26, went to Syria or joined the terrorist organization. Leah West , national security lawyer and professor at the Norman Paterson School of Internationa...

Restaurants in Canada are facing an exodus . Over the past 19 months the hospitality industry has lost 15 per cent of the work force. Labour issues have been plaguing restaurants since the pandemic began and many are scrambling to hire and keep workers on. But this is an issue that existed long before COVID-19. Therese DeGrace worked in restaurants, including as a chef and as a consultant, for alm...

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has yet to set a date for the reopening of Parliament nearly a month after the federal election. Parliamentary reporter Marieke Walsh updates us on what the parties think about their gains, their losses – and their leaders – as they look toward a new session. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of...

Today we're bringing you an episode of City Space , a new podcast from The Globe and Mail about how to make our cities better, hosted by Adrian Lee. The 15-minute city is an urban planning concept that would see neighbourhoods designed so that day-to-day amenities are always just a short walk or bike ride away. And after living 18+ months of pandemic life, where most of us were forced to stay in o...

A deadline to get the COVID-19 jab – or lose their job – is quickly approaching for unvaccinated health care workers in Quebec and British Columbia . Meanwhile, the issue of mandatory vaccinations is also being hotly debated in other provinces such as Ontario. All of this is prompting questions about what could happen to our hospitals and long-term care centres if thousands of workers suddenly are...

On February 23, 2018, Ulla Theoret was murdered along with her son and her mother by a neighbour who was obsessed with her. More than three years later, an Ontario committee that reviews all cases of intimate partner homicides examined what happened to Ulla and her family and provided some recommendations for the province’s Solicitor General. The review was prompted by national reporter Molly Haye...

It’s been a busy few days for Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen. On Sunday, the former lead product manager for Facebook’s Civic Misinformation team went public with her criticism of the company in an interview on 60 Minutes . Then on Tuesday, she testified before a U.S. Senate hearing and accused the social media company of putting profits ahead of people and democracy. Now that it’s known th...

What do blackouts in China , surging natural gas prices in Europe and Asia and renewable energy have to do with each other? They are all wrapped up in a bumpy moment for the global energy supply as economies across the world revved up following a pandemic-induced slowdown. Globe and Mail reporter Jeffrey Jones explains exactly why this pickup in demand has stressed our global supply at this moment...

In 2018, The Globe’s telecom industry reporter Alexandra Posadzk i was hacked via a cell phone scam known as SIM swapping . This allowed the hacker to assume her identity and correspond with her friends and my family. The ordeal left her feeling unsettled and wondering just how common this type of fraud is in Canada. The answers, as Posadzki found out, weren’t readily available. She had to file an...

More than 4,000 care home residents have died in Quebec during the pandemic, but not all were directly due to COVID-19. Some were left to languish – without food, water or basic sanitary care – during the first wave of the pandemic and essentially died of neglect. The most infamous example was a home called Résidence Herron , where 47 of the 139 residents passed away after the home’s staff disappe...

As Canada marks the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation , we remember its origin in Orange Shirt Day , and explore how to meaningfully measure progress toward reconciliation. One way: The Canadian Reconciliation Barometer , developed by Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers . Katherine Starzyk is a psychology professor at the University of Manitoba and principal investigator on the...

Marie Henein is one of Canada’s most famous criminal defence lawyers. Her successful career is highlighted by her representation of well-known clients most notably, former CBC host Jian Ghomeshi. This has also made her a polarizing figure. Defending Ghomeshi against sexual assault charges – which he was acquitted thanks to her work – garnered public backlash. She was even accused of being a traito...