This Matters

Guest: Robert Benzie, The Star's Queen's Park bureau chief It seems like the Progressive Conservatives believe the road to next year's election will be paved with new highways. Recently, Premier Doug Ford announced the province would fund the Bradford Bypass, a new 16 km road that would connect Highways 400 and 404. As well, the Ontario government has proposed plans to build Highway 413, a new 60...

Guest: Monte McNaughton, Ontario Labour Minister The last two years of this pandemic hit everyone differently. It is undeniable that its impacts were not equitable and those with precarious jobs — including frontline essential workers — paid the most disproportionate price. Now the government that was previously criticized for favouring businesses over workers seems to be trying to make amends. La...

Guest: Jennifer Pagliaro, City Hall reporter for the Star It's been three years since cannabis was legalized in Canada, and you can see the results on many streets around the GTA. In Ontario, there are now just over 1,000 cannabis stores. Toronto has over 300 alone, with another 200 in the process of getting approval. The issue is that many of them are in neighbourhoods and often right next each o...

Guest: Deborah Dundas, Star Books Editor Canada's prestigious literary award, the Scotiabank Giller Prize recently announced its shortlist — which is not short on diverse Canadian literature — and we'll have a winner on Monday in an actual in-person award ceremony after nearly two years of this pandemic. The Toronto Star's Books Editor Deborah Dundas is on "This Matters" for a breakdown of the Gil...

Guests: Peter Edwards is a reporter covering crime at the Star. Luis Najera is a journalist who covers crime, and is in exile from Mexico. They are the co-authors of The Wolfpack: The Millennial Mobsters Who Brought Chaos and the Cartels to the Canadian Underworld. When many of us think of organized crimes, the images that endure are those of mafia movies from the 70s, or shows like The Sopranos....

Guest: Heather Scoffield, Toronto Star's Ottawa bureau chief and economics columnist COP26, the United Nations-led summit on climate change is underway in Glasgow, where world leaders and their delegates are meeting for a pivotal moment in the fight against climate change. Despite the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015, many of the world's biggest emitters have not backed up promises with concrete po...

Guest: Nadine Yousif, reporter covering mental health issues, the Star New data shows that the number of teachers taking sick leave during the pandemic has doubled over the past two years of the pandemic. Researchers at Brock University have done early research that shows teachers are dealing with higher levels of stress and burnout, in large part due to the disruptions to the education system bro...

Guest: Liam Casey, reporter at The Canadian Press Trying to tackle the issue of homelessness is a difficult one, as there is no one singular fix. But one issue for many people living on the streets is that they dislike the shelter system, which in many communities is seen as the only real solution. During the pandemic, the feeling of unease best showed itself as many people experiencing homeless s...

Guest: Tess Kalinowski, real estate reporter for the Star Toronto's hotel industry has been one of the hardest hit in the COVID-19 pandemic. With the start of the first lockdown, hotel rooms emptied as dozens of hotels were closed completely. Thousands of workers were badly impacted by the loss of jobs and working hours. Many just never came back. As more people are vaccinated and travel restricti...

Guests: Shawn Micallef, columnist, and Gilbert Ngabo, reporter Toronto is one of the major Canadian cities where collisions with pedestrians are at a dangerous high. More than a hundred pedestrians were killed on Toronto roads between 2018 and 2020. Among those, 69 per cent were age 55 years or older, according to the Toronto Police Service. It's been nearly five years since the launch of Toronto'...

Guest: Omar Mosleh, Toronto Star reporter The medical community is only beginning to understand long COVID, the debilitating and often mysterious symptoms so-called "long hauler" patients face that can last for months after they've fought the virus. Even less is known about long COVID in children, flipping the misconception that the worst of the illness only impacts adults and seniors. To date, on...

Guests: Dr. Louis Kwantes, president of the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association, and Jory Bocknek, veterinarian The phenomenon of the pandemic pet boom is real. According to an Abacus Data research poll, more than 900,000 Canadians got a pet who didn't have one before. Animal shelters and rescue organizations have seen a dramatic rise in requests from hopeful pet owners. But all those new pets...

Guest: Christine Dobby, Business Reporter at the Star It has been an extraordinary week at the highest level of power at Rogers Communications, one of Canada's largest telecommunications empires. A battle for control has been underway, pitting Edward Rogers against other family members as he attempted to change the company's CEO and put his hand-picked replacement in his place. While that manoeuvr...

Guest: Megan Ogilvie, Toronto Star health reporter It's well documented and well-known now that pregnant people and their unborn babies are at significantly high-risk due to COVID-19, with many requiring hospitalization and intensive care. Six months ago, COVID's third wave in Ontario saw more pregnant people in ICU's than both the previous waves combined. Now we are seeing similar tragedies play...

Guest: Star journalist Morgan Bocknek and Keanu Uchida, professional dancer An exclusive Star investigation has found allegations of widespread sexual harassment and predatory behaviour by Break the Floor (a big part of the dance community of North America) coaches over their younger students. Eight former staff and students allege BTF employees, famous in the dance world, initiated sexual convers...

Guests: Star reporters Noor Javed, who covers 905 municipal politics, and Kris Rushowy, Queen's Park reporter Earlier this year, the Ontario government controversially used the notwithstanding clause to push through a new election advertising law which, despite being found to be unconstitutional, added new restrictions on third-party advertising to curb large scale, American-style special interest...

Guest: Rosa Saba, Business Reporter at The Star With vaccine mandates now being enforced in many establishments, workplace mandates are now proliferating across many businesses as they try to return to normal. This raises questions about employer and workers rights if an employee chooses to remain unvaccinated. It's something we are seeing play out on large stages, like the NBA, where star player...

Guest: Edward Keenan, Toronto Star's Washington Bureau Chief More than 18 months it closed due to the pandemic, the world's largest undefended border will reopen in November. The closure has resulted in long delays and frustration, and fraught with clear-as-mud guidance around the air travel and policies around mixed doses and vaccination. As Canadians get ready to cross the land border once again...

Guest: Shawn Micallef, contributing columnist for the Star This summer, the city of Toronto spent almost $2 million on private security guards and police to forcefully clear encampments in public parks. Despite the obvious need for housing, council has once again delayed a decision on legalizing rooming houses citywide, a debate that's been ongoing for ten years at City Hall. Rooming houses, also...

Guest: David Johnston of the Schulich School of Business at York University With the holiday season fast approaching, many retailers have been ramping up their efforts to make sure there is enough stock on the shelves for consumers to buy, but experts warn that disruptions in the global supply chain are already resulting in product shortages, delays in delivery and higher prices. There are contain...

Guest: Nicholas Keung, immigration reporter The pandemic, travel restrictions and the recent refugee crisis in Afghanistan have created some serious issues within Canada's immigration system. From refugees, to permanent residency holders trying to make their landing in Canada, to those already living in the country waiting for citizenship, everyone has been in limbo as the backlog piles up. To try...

Guest: Alex McKeen, Toronto Star reporter For much of the pandemic, New Zealand has avoided mass outbreaks, a large number of deaths and high case counts, and in doing so has been heralded by COVID-Zero supporters as the poster-child of the strategy to eliminate the virus. But that's all come to an end as New Zealand, like a number of other nations, has all but abandoned the official strategy. The...

COVID-19 showed how under-resourced and ill-equipped many Canadian nursing homes were to cope with a crisis. It also opened up an important conversation on structural and systemic issues within the long-term care industry — and the right of senior citizens to a better quality of living. Ontario has now opened up legislation on this front for the first time in more than ten years. Star investigativ...

Guest: Tess Kalinowski, real estate reporter at The Star The real estate market has been one of the few things that this pandemic has not really disrupted. After an initial lockdown, the Greater Toronto Area market has been soaring to new heights in terms of prices and sales. After 21 months of the pandemic, there is cautious optimism that the market might return closer to normal — at least in ter...

Guest: Ben Spurr, the Star's transportation reporter The pandemic has been near catastrophic for public transit. Ridership dropped for the TTC, costing the transit service millions in fare revenue and the Ontario government more than $140 a ride as the province covered the cost of near-empty GO Transit and UP Express trips. But the worst could still be to come and the fear of the "death spiral" re...