This Matters

The world seems to be changing every day, let alone every month. It's now May and there are still so many questions about how our world will look with few answers. This Matters aims to answer those questions, on important stories and ideas, every day, Monday to Friday.

Foodora is bankrupt and leaving Canada. Now what? The popular meal delivery app is declaring bankruptcy and leaving next month. This, even while the demand for meal deliveries has arguably never been higher. The timing of the announcement is raising eyebrows with labour activists, as Foodora's couriers have only recently won the right to unionize from Ontario's labour relations board. Adrian Cheun...

It might be time to start teaching that old dog new physical distancing tricks. With the news of two pet cats catching the coronavirus from their owners in NYC last week, public health authorities have revised their advice on what people who are sick with COVID-19 should do with their pets. As this virus is believed to have come from bats, there are plenty of questions about what might happen if i...

There have already been COVID-19 outbreaks in correctional institutions across the U.S., British Columbia and Quebec. In Ontario, the largest outbreak has centred on the Ontario Correctional Institute (OCI), where of 109 inmates, 80 have tested positive, as well as 21 correctional officers. But it's not just inside the jails and prisons, as the government is letting many low-risk offenders out to...

The way people move around and commute in cities has changed, perhaps forever. Is the time of COVID-19 actually the perfect moment to remake the transit and transportation networks in cities? Some say the countries that are preparing to make the streets more accessible, post-pandemic, are the places that are built to grow and succeed, not merely recover from it. Adrian Cheung talks to Ben Spurr, T...

"It shouldn't be a deterrent to seek emergent care because of COVID," says Dr. David Carr. "You need to come here. We're a safe place for you to come." Some doctors and the Canadian Medical Association warn of a backlog of other serious illnesses, including cancer and heart attacks, that could be going untreated. Some of this is because potential patients themselves are worried about COVID-19 risk...

Does Canada have the data and the planning in place for an exit strategy that will help get through this crisis sooner than later and with minimal causalities? Saba Eitizaz talks to Amir Attaran to find out where we're at in the fight against the virus. Attaran is a biomedical scientist, lawyer and professor at the University of Ottawa's School of Epidemiology and Public Health, and was part of a...

While most of the world continues to be shut down during the pandemic, in Taiwan, society continues to function. The tiny island state off the coast of China currently has less than 500 confirmed cases and deaths are in the single digits due to COVID-19, making it one of the best case scenarios in the world. Adrian Cheung talks briefly to Nick Zarowny, a Canadian in Taiwan, for a view of what life...

Low-wage migrant workers are a significant part of Canada's agricultural workforce—almost half of the agricultural labour that grows the year-long produce that lands in kitchens. Life has become even more uncertain for them as COVID-19 has led to travel bans and border closures. And the decrease in that essential workforce could also mean Canada's food security is at risk. Saba Eitizaz talks to th...

From drugs to gambling to theft and more, COVID-19 has also had an adverse effect on the criminal organizations and gangs that run these illegal enterprises. To discuss how organized crime has been affected by COVID-19, Raju Mudhar talks with Peter Edwards, a reporter on the Star's Courts Crime and Justice team, who has also written 15 non-fiction books on organized crime, many of them becoming na...

"If you don't need to buy or sell you should be staying home right now," John Pasalis, president or Realosophy, a brokerage that takes a data driven approach to the market. For most, buying a home is the single largest purchase most people will make in their lifetimes, and like with everything in our society, the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the real estate market in a number of ways. 

Many Indigenous communities face big challenges: fewer doctors, inadequate housing and water that isn't safe to drink. All of those issues, alongside systemic racism, can lead to especially bad health outcomes during a pandemic, Canadian public health officials say. Adrian Cheung talks to Dr. Janet Smylie, one of Canada's first Métis doctors and a lead researcher on the inequities of health care f...

Just as COVID-19 has changed almost every aspect of society, it is also definitely not politics as usual. Leaders are being forged in the crucible of a pandemic, and there is plenty of criticism and kudos to go around. But since COVID-19 has become a serious issue, Premier Ford has drawn praise from many corners for the way that he has handled this ongoing crisis.  Raju Mudhar is joined by Martin...

Saba Eitizaz speaks to employment lawyer Hermie Abraham to help answer some of the questions around the emergency help--who is eligible, how they can apply and who might still be left behind, although the government is moving fast to expand the umbrella of financial protection-and with Star journalist, Rosa Saba about why some Canadians might have to pay it back.

Employees are taking care of business but are businesses taking care of employees? Within a matter of weeks, Canadians, and people around the world, have learned which industries and workers are essential for our survival. So are major companies doing enough to protect them? Is it time we consider how to make our economy more sustainable in a post-COVID world? Adrian Cheung talks to Toby Heaps and...

Star City Hall Bureau Chief, David Rider, talks with Dr. Eileen de Villa, Toronto's public health guardian, on her life and the weight of the fight against COVID-19. Dr. de Villa, medical officer of health, is the eye of Toronto's public health hurricane. David Rider got a few of de Villa's precious minutes to check up on the doctor.

Some people can work at home, avoid transit, connect to colleagues and friends via Zoom, order supplies to their door, stockpile necessities, and avoid COVID-19. Others can't. Saba Eitizaz speaks to Ian Goldin, of Oxford, about how the Coronavirus has highlighted a class divide and what kind of world will we live in after this is over. Saba also speaks to the Toronto Star's social justice reporter...

Raju Mudhar speaks to Kate Allen, the Star's science and technology reporter, and asked under what circumstances it's safe to go out for a stroll. The messages about physical distancing seem to be finally getting through to Canadians, as the mantras of "stay inside" and "stay at home" have been repeated over and over again by public health leaders. But that does leave us with a bit of a strange qu...

Adrian Cheung talks to Ben Makuch, national security reporter for Vice News, about why some neo-Nazis and white supremacists view the COVID-19 pandemic as their moment to act out their racist ideologies.

Raju Mudhar speaks to fellow Toronto Star journalist May Warren about her experience with COVID-19. She discusses how she got COVID-19, how she couldn't get tested and how much this disease beat her down, regardless of how young she is and revealing how community spread has been in Toronto longer than expected and how—without widespread testing—it's hard to know how pervasive this is. 

What is it really like to serve on the frontline of a pandemic? What are doctors and nurses seeing in emergency rooms? How are our healthcare workers coping with the mental stress of making life and death decisions at an unprecedented time, while also being exposed daily to COVID-19? Adrian Cheung talks to an ER doctor, Dr. David Carr, in Toronto. Carr has worked in emergency medicine for nearly t...

Yesterday, as Ontario races to get ahead of the COVID-19 curve, the government announced that children won't be returning to class until at least May 4. In today's episode, Saba Eitizaz talks with Dr. Sejal Patel, associate professor of Early Childhood Studies at Ryerson University—and a parent herself—about ways to cope and keep your kids engaged. Saba also speaks to Hema Lozano, a young mother o...

From fraud to cyber-attacks and terrorism, bad actors may be trying to take advantage of this COVID-19 pandemic. Raju Mudhar discusses crime in the age of COVID-19 and how the actions of some could affect Canadians' civil liberties with Stephanie Carvin, assistant professor at Carleton University and an expert on security issues, who has consulted for the US Department of Defence and worked as a s...

Scientists all over the world are working on finding ways to test and develop vaccines for COVID-19. Raju Mudhar talks with a member of the team of researchers who collaborated to become one of the first to isolate the COVID-19 virus. Dr. Karen Mossman, now in self isolation and a professor of pathology and molecular medicine and VP of research at McMaster University, talks about what it took to i...

When "accidental hero" Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19, and more NBAers followed, it triggered a domino effect that shut the doors of every major sport in North America. After Canada was the first to announce it would not send athletes, the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics games were postponed until 2021. We are joined by Hayley Wickenheiser, four-time Olympic Gold medalist, who has been traini...