This Matters

Guests: Justin Piché , University of Ottawa A landmark report from the Ontario Chief Coroner's Office has revealed there were almost 200 inmate deaths in Ontario jails in just eight years, almost all of which were preventable. There is an obvious need for reforms, but are more jails and more staffing the answers to a complex, systemic issue with roots that extend beyond our correctional facilities...

Guests: Noor Javed and Charlie Pinkerton Premier Doug Ford's ties to developers are under scrutiny again . As reported by The Star's Noor Javed and freelance journalist Charlie Pinkerton , several well known developers attended wedding events the Ford family held to celebrate the nuptials of one of the premier's daughters. Ford says he's done nothing wrong and that his guests have been his friends...

Guest: David Rider is the Star's City Hall Bureau chief. An hour after the Star's City Hall reporters David Rider , Ben Spurr and Alyshah Hasham reported Toronto Mayor John Tory had a consensual affair with a 31-year-old staffer, the mayor confirmed the inappropriate relationship and  announced his resignation . The news came as a shock for a politician who sailed to victory months ago, and comes...

Guest: Ben Spurr , City Hall reporter CaféTO is a city program created during the pandemic to help restaurants generate business by allowing them to build patios around their establishments on sidewalks and road lanes. While it energized the city's street culture, it also caused more traffic and congestion. As city hall created new rules and fees for it to become a permanent fixture, restaurateurs...

Guest: Tonda MacCharles and Robert Benzie Prime Minister Justin Trudeau revealed a $46.2 billion, 10-year deal in health funding this week, writing a prescription to help deal with a health care crisis. Calling it a "major federal investment," the plan includes an immediate injection to tackle the crisis in pediatric hospitals and emergency rooms, ongoing wait times for surgeries and other key hea...

Guest: Estair Van Wagner of Osgoode Hall Law School A recent court ruling in Waterloo concluded the city could not evict people from an encampment if there was not adequate shelter space available in the system because it was a violation of their human rights. This could have ramifications over how other municipalities deal with unhoused people but, like with most legal decisions, it is complicate...

Guests: Raisa Patel and Asmaa Malik It was Jan. 26 when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed Amira Elghawaby, a visibly Muslim woman, as point-person on Islamophobia and just days later, Elghawaby found herself at the centre of a media storm with government officials calling for her resignation. Why? A 2019 opinion piece Elghawaby co-wrote about Quebec's controversial Bill 21 resurfaced, in whi...

Today, we're bringing you the first episode of season 2 of It's Political with Althia Raj . She welcomes the Star's Susan Delacourt, in conversation with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. This week on "It's Political," we bring you Toronto Star's columnist Susan Delacourt's interview with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The two sat down together on Jan. 17 in Windsor, Ont., for a candid conversation o...

Guest: Jessica Mudry, associate professor at Toronto Metropolitan University When the change in recommended guidelines for alcohol use was served last month, the reaction was spirited. While once the guideline said 10 to 15 drinks per week was the recommended maximum, the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction (CCSA) now says no amount of alcohol is good for your health and anything beyond...

Guest: Victoria Gibson, affordable housing reporter While hospitals are still struggling with staff shortages and overflowing ERs, some have also been pushed to the front lines of Toronto's homelessness crisis. As almost 5,000 homeless Torontonians came through St. Michael's downtown trauma centre last year, some were there simply because they had no place to stay. It prompted hospital staff to la...

Guest: Dr. Sean B. Rourke, neuropsychologist at St. Michael's Hospital Smart vending machines have launched on Canada's East coast. They're the first of what will be 100 nationwide. But instead of dispensing chocolate or candy, these machines hold life-saving supplies like HIV tests, naloxone kits and unused needles. They're called Our Healthbox and they're designed to reach communities underserve...

Guest: Katie Daubs, feature writer Scarborough is the former city and Toronto borough that feels like it never gets any respect. Now as the federal government looks to update electoral districts based on population and density, slices of the Scarborough-Agincourt and Scarborough Centre ridings might be annexed into two North York ridings. These moves have left residents upset with many fighting th...

Guest: Marco Chown Oved, climate change reporter After the Consumer Product Safety Commission in the U.S. said it was considering banning new gas stoves amid research that links them to childhood asthma, Republican lawmakers, conservative pundits and right wing social media commentators were aflame with reaction. They imply it is an infringement on freedom, but the science is clear. In addition to...

Guest: Lex Harvey, transportation reporter There have been 10 high-profile, violent incidents reported on TTC vehicles and property in just over a week. With so many seemingly random attacks, passengers are on alert as authorities look for answers and ways to make the transit service safer. This comes after another wave of incidents last year, as ridership remains down after the pandemic and the T...

Guest: Grant LaFleche, investigative reporter at The Hamilton Spectator It was only a year ago the so-called "Freedom Convoy" held a three-week demonstration in Ottawa, later termed an "occupation" by politicians and police. It was a protest that started out fighting against vaccine mandates against truckers, but became a home for all kinds of grievances across the far right political spectrum. Bu...

Guests: Brendan Kennedy and Morgan Bocknek, investigative reporters, and Leah Mosier-Farquharson, TMU student A string of sexual assaults and security incidents on the Toronto Metropolitan University campus have left many students and faculty members worrying for their safety and deeply critical of the school's response. After two women were assaulted at Kerr Hall last year, some students were so...

Guest: Matthew Van Dongen, The Hamilton Spectator The City of Hamilton has found that nearly 400 million litres of sanitary sewage from 61 homes has leaked into Hamilton Harbour, an industrial area, over a 26 year period. It is a messy situation, but one that was only found after attention was called underground in 2019 when a Hamilton Spectator investigation revealed that 24-billion-litres of sew...

Guest: Dhriti Gupta, staff reporter There were more than one million visits to food banks across Canada in 2022, according to Food Banks Canada. It is the highest number on record. In addition to this surge in demand, food banks are grappling with rising food costs. One of them is the Allan Gardens Food Bank in Toronto, which has seen an almost 50 per cent increase in individuals served in just a...

Guest: Dr. Fahad Razak, internist at St Michael's Hospital The XBB.1.5, known by the nickname "Kraken," is the latest COVID-19 subvariant of concern. Found to be highly transmissible, health experts are already seeing surges in other parts of the world like Europe and the United States, where there are higher case counts and hospitalizations. The same effect is likely to happen here. Dr. Fahad Raz...

Guest: Nicholas Keung, immigration reporter Canada needs more immigrants to help fill labour shortages, yet so many people who come here find roadblocks and issues in pursuing work in their chosen fields. It has been a recognized problem for decades, but it persists. There has been some change for the better, including better information for prospective newcomers, but skilled immigrants still face...

Guest: Megan Ogilvie, health reporter Faced with a triple-demic including flu, RSV and COVID-19, children have been hit by wave after wave of illness and filled up the pediatric hospitals across the province. It was a situation some doctors said could have been a catastrophe. By working together in an unprecedented way, moving children wherever beds were available, this is the story of how the hea...

Guest: Rob Ferguson, Queen's Park bureau The Ontario government has unveiled their plan to deal with surgical backlogs in the province by moving some procedures to private clinics. Critics fear this move will pull staff away from hospitals, and say this is moving the province toward more privatized, two-tiered health care that will cause further issues to the existing public system. This episode w...

Guests: Betsy Powell and Alyshah Hasham, staff reporters Mass surveillance is everywhere and adding to the use of video in police investigations and in-court cases. The head of the Toronto Police Service's Homicide squad credits cameras and video for helping push their solve rate above 80 per cent, but what is the price of that safety? What are the legal and ethical concerns about video becoming s...

Guest: Ed Keenan, city columnist A few months ago, Toronto Mayor John Tory was asking other levels of government to help cover $2 billion in budget shortfalls and yet, the mayor has now announced more money for police, transit safety and more. What changed? Not much. While the city is raising property taxes and making some cuts, there is a huge budget hole that will need to be dealt with eventuall...

Guest: Gábor Lukács, president of Air Passenger Rights The airline industry's meltdown over the holidays has the House of Commons transportation committee convening an emergency meeting to grill company executives about exactly what went wrong. While Canada has adopted a passenger bill of rights, critics say it has not been effective. Gábor Lukács, president of Air Passenger Rights, an independent...