Zoomer Week in Review

January 5 2025-The Alarming Impact of Smoking on Life Expectancy & New Year's Resolutions If your New Year’s Resolution is to quit smoking, researchers say it will extend your life expectancy. A new study in the UK quantifies the harm of cigarette smoking and finds it shortens life expectancy at nearly double previous estimates. British researchers have found that just one cigarette takes about 20...

December 22 2024-Lawrence Hill Opens Up About "Book of Negroes" Ban by a London School Board & Lucy Waverman's Cookbook Recommendations Renowned novelist Lawrence Hill is speaking out after a local high school teacher was ordered to stop teaching one of his award-winning novels because of its use of the N-word. The London District Catholic School Board ruled that the award-winning novel “The Book...

December 15 2024-Missing Pensions in Canada & Stress-Free Grandparenting Tips for the Holidays A new report reveals a shocking number of missing pension plan members in Canada. In Ontario alone, nearly 200,000 pension plan members are considered missing, leaving behind $3.6 billion in unclaimed entitlements. And the National Institute on Aging report highlights the challenges to individuals entitl...

December 1 2024-Ezra Levant On His Arrest At A Pro-Hamas Demonstration & Supporting Cancer Care At The Princess Margaret It seems like the police got it backwards. Last Sunday, a group of pro-Hamas protesters went to a Jewish neighbourhood, staging an event glorifying the deceased terrorist Yahya Sinwar, the architect of the October 7 attacks on Israel. Although the protesters were violating Canad...

NOVEMBER 24 2024-HOW RFK JR AS HEALTH SECRETARY COULD IMPACT CANADA & DETERMINING THE RIGHT TIME TO TAKE YOUR CPP His ideas have been called “Quackery on steroids." From the debunked claims that vaccines cause autism and fluoridation causes brain damage, the appointment of anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be the US secretary of health and human services is considered a danger. And wh...

November 17 2024-Charities Making the Biggest Impact & A History of Big Concerts that Took Over Toronto In this season of giving, it can be overwhelming deciding which charity deserves your donation. Most charities claim to make a difference in the lives of those they work with. But just how difficult is it for donors to tell if their donation really is making a difference? Charity Intelligence ha...

November 10 2024-HOW TRUMP MAY SHAPE CANADA'S TIES WITH THE U.S. & THE 2024 SILVER CROSS MOTHER ON REMEMBRANCE DAY The consensus is that Donald Trump's resounding victory will have a huge impact on everything from the price of groceries to the Western alliance. I talked with Conservative strategist Will Stewart about how Canada’s place in the world may shift with the new US administration. And Mau...

November 3 2024-The Only Canadian Hostage Still Being Held by Hamas & Continuing the Dialogue About Women's Rights Judih Weinstein, a 70 year old Canadian-born Senior and her 72-year-old husband Gadi were murdered by Hamas terrorists while on their morning walk on Oct. 7, 2023, in Southern Israel. Their bodies are still being held in Gaza. Judih is the only Canadian hostage still being held by Ham...

October 27 2024-Dr. Jane Philpott Wants to Fix Primary Care in Ontario & Exploring the Origin Story of Poutine Former federal health minister Dr. Jane Philpott will head a new provincial health team with the goal of connecting every person in Ontario with a primary care provider in the next five years. She’ll step down as dean of Queen’s University Health Sciences to begin her new role December 1s...

October 20 2024-Challenge for Older Canadians Accessing Primary Care & A New Catalogue on Painter Jack Bush Many older Canadians are struggling to get the healthcare they need. And a new report by the National Institute on Ageing is sounding the alarm, finding access to a primary care physician may be even worse than previously understood. The NIA finds that nearly 5 million Canadians 50 and older...

October 13 2024-Marc Garneau's "A Most Extraordinary Ride" & Preventing Pain After Breast Cancer Surgery He made history as the first Canadian to fly in outer space. Then he notched another first - becoming the first astronaut to be elected as a Member of Parliament. Marc Garneau went on to serve in cabinet through some of the biggest events of the past decade. He came to our Liberty Village studi...

October 6 2024-Amir Tibon Recounts the October 7th Massacre and his Rescue Tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary of the October 7 Hamas massacre. For the most part, we have been dealing with the fallout from that terrible event, the war, the fate of the hostages, the displacement and destruction and the worldwide rise in anti-Semitism. I talked with journalist Amir Tibon, author of The Gates of...

September 29 2024-Donating the Brain for Research & Cooking for the Holidays Ontario’s Minister of Sport, Neil Lumsden, has made a commitment to donate his brain to research after he dies. The 10-year CFL veteran and four-time Grey Cup champion is one of several former football players making that legacy through the Concussion Legacy Foundation. I talked with about what he hopes this will accompli...

September 22 2024-Exploding Pagers in Lebanon & AI Saving Lives in Hospitals The use of pagers and walkie talkies may seem like a relic from the 1990’s but in Lebanon, this week, they were the targets of an entirely new level of electronic sabotage. Over two days, thousands of devices carried by Hezbollah terrorists exploded. Israel is presumed to be behind the attack. We spoke with Dr. Amos Guior...

September 15 2024- Athletic Fundraising Events vs. Traditional Galas & When Is It The Right Time To Take Your CPP? This morning the annual Terry Fox Run is underway with 15,000 participants here in Toronto and many more across the country. Last weekend, The Princess Margaret's Walk to End Cancer raised a record 3.5M with 1500 walkers. As fundraisers recover from Covid, athletic participation event...

September 8 2024-On the Road with The Beatles & It's Arthritis Awareness Month It’s been 60 years since Beatlemania gripped the world. And one man..then a reporter with the London Daily Express..spent six weeks of unrestricted access to the fab four during their iconic 1964 North American tour. In his book ‘The Beatles And Me On Tour- 60th Anniversary Edition’ Ivor Davis recalls his life on the ro...

September 1 2024-Tips For This Wasp Season & The "Grandma Babysitting Club" They seem to be everywhere this summer…unwanted guests at our backyard bbq’s, outdoor family gatherings forcing many of us indoors. Why so many wasps now, is there anything you can do to keep them away, and what should you do if you get stung? We posed these questions and more to Royal Ontario Museum’s entomology expert An...

August 25 2024-Wait Times for Surgery in Ontario & What Are We Agreeing to When We Click “I Agree” There is a staggering variation in wait times for elective surgery in Ontario. For cataract surgery for instance, it ranges from 15 days for some patients to 249 days for others. And it’s not just the difference from one hospital or clinic to another, but from surgeon to surgeon. I talked with Dr. Da...

August 18 2024-Professional Grief Counselling For The Loss Of A Pet & The Rich History Of The Noble Anchovy To take on ownership of a pet is to welcome a new, full-fledged member into your family, and there is an entire industry devoted to their care. With the strong emotional ties that bind people to pets, there is even professional help available to overcome the loss when they die. Certified pet...

August 11 2024-LTC Home Offering 24/7 Medical Record Access & How Flooding Can Damage Your Vehicle It’s believed to be a first in this country. A Toronto long-term care home is offering families direct access to their loved ones’ medical records 24 hours a day..the first not for profit to offer the service. Meighen Health Centre, run by the Canadian Salvation Army, reports that 84 percent of famil...

August 4 2024-Are the Olympics Worth the Cost for Host Cities & How Olympics Will Impact Upcoming Tennis Tournament in Toronto Billions of people around the world are watching the Summer olympics in Paris. There’s no question the spectacle is entertaining and sometimes uplifting. But Sports Economist and senior lecturer Moshe Lander argues the games and similar events like the World cup do not del...

Toronto was already one of the most congested cities in the world, But the simultaneous construction projects now underway have made it unbearable. It takes hours more to commute on the Gardiner. Travel time has tripled along Spadina and it can take 40 minutes to drive a few blocks on the only road now open in and out of Liberty Village.  It may also be shortening our lives. I talked with Jeffrey...

July 21 2024- What a Trump Presidency Would Mean For Canada & Backlash From Overtourism What would a Donald Trump victory in the US mean for Canada? At this week’s Convention, Republican leaders blamed free trade for massive job losses in the American rust belt. And there’s the impact of trying to meet our NATO spending target and trying to compete with lower American taxes. Canadian politicians o...

July 14 2024-What Ottawa Promised at the NATO Summit & The History of Our Obsession with Cats Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has finally announced that Canada intends to meet Nato’s 2% military spending target by 2032. The last minute announcement came after heavy criticism from allies at this week’s NATO summit in Washington. Libby Znaimer reached Prof. Stephen Saidman at the NATO Summit Expert Fo...