It's time for Tech Talk with Adam Oldfield!

Topics include: Instagram and Facebook scams, sad day for blackberry, new Android phone, Apple became a 3 trillion-dollar company and more!

The Bill Kelly Show Podcast:

As the Omicron variant surges, lockdowns are once again the rule for most Canadians, while in most parts of the United States restrictions are few.

We are about to witness the effects of two very different approaches to managing the fifth pandemic wave.

While Canadians, despite grumbles and howls, acquiesce in more weeks of lockdown, in the United States, “the tide of opinion is such that no politician seems to be able to do anything close to a lockdown,” he observed. Two countries, two systems, two cultures.

GUEST: Jon Allen, Former Canadian diplomat and Senior Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy

-

Weekly Ontario Political round up:

GUEST: Richard Brennan, Former Journalist with The Toronto Star covering both Queen’s Park and Parliament Hill

-

Matthew Walker was apologetic. “I don’t want to seem puritanical here,” the British scientist said on one of the newest episodes of his popular sleep podcast, in which he explained the ways in which alcohol does a number on sleep, including by tripping the sympathetic nervous system’s fight-or-flight switch. Sleep becomes more fragile, more “littered with fragmented awakenings,” said Walker, a professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of California, Berkeley.

When broken down by the liver and kidneys, alcohol’s byproducts also mess with REM sleep, or dream sleep, and without sufficient dream sleep we’re left more anxious, more emotionally unstable and less sharp, mentally.

GUEST: Dr. Sheryl Green, Associate Professor with the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences at McMaster University

GUEST: David Hopkins, President of The Fifteen Group

The Bill Kelly Show Podcast:

We have scheduled provincial and municipal elections two months apart. And we may have a federal election at any time because Parliament is in a precarious minority situation. Elections are a time of great democratic renewal, but they are also a time of polarizing partisanship as each side tries to win the hearts and minds of voters.

Concern for the pandemic will be exacerbated by the rhetoric of division and hyperbole during the electoral periods ahead. It will seem as if the centre isn’t holding, but that is only the appearance of chaos. In fact our democracy will prevail and be strengthened by the process ahead.

GUEST: John Best, Founder of the Bay Observer

-

A month away, what is the state of the Beijing Olympics?

Should Canada send athletes to Beijing?

GUEST: Dr. Angela Schneider, Director of the International Centre for Olympic Studies at Western University, Silver medal rower, coxed fours, 1984 Olympics

-

How do we move forward with the unvaccinated in society? Australia denies Djokovic entry to their country, but in Canada the thought of denying healthcare to unvaccinated people is unthinkable? We are denying healthcare to people who need surgeries by delaying them. Where do we draw the line as a society?

GUEST: Timothy Caulfield, Professor at the University of Alberta and Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy

The Bill Kelly Show Podcast w/ Guest Host Scott Radley:

The federal government has unveiled its $40-billion agreement in principle to provide compensation to First Nations children and their families harmed by an underfunded child welfare system and establish long-term reform.

As a result of the largest class action lawsuit in Canadian history, Ottawa will provide $20 billion to children on reserve and in the Yukon who were unnecessarily removed from their homes between April 1, 1991 and March 31, 2022. This extends to their parents and caregivers. Compensation will also be provided to those impacted by the narrow definition of Jordan’s Principle between Dec. 12, 2007 and Nov. 2, 2017.

"This is the largest settlement in Canadian history, but no amount of money can reverse the harms experienced by First Nations children," said Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations Marc Miller. "However, historic injustices require historic reparations."

GUEST: Dr. Dawn Lavell-Harvard, Director at the First Peoples House of Learning at Trent University

-

Across Ontario, educators, parents and students were left scrambling to prepare for a return to class Wednesday, after the winter break. As a result of surging COVID-19 cases, in-person learning, which the province last week assured Ontarians would resume, has been paused.

On Monday, Premier Doug Ford warned that Ontario faces “a tsunami of new cases in the days and weeks ahead” and ordered that schools switch to online learning until at least Jan. 17.

The about-face frustrated many educators and families who are calling on the province to use the next two weeks to ensure a safe reopening for schools. Among the demands of some parents and teachers’ unions are measures such

GUEST: Dr. Tracy Vaillancourt, Canada Research Chair in Mental Health and Violence Prevention in Schools, and a Full Professor in Counseling Psychology at the University of Ottawa

-

If you want to rent a cottage this summer, industry experts say you better start looking now. Or do you? 

GUEST: Heather Bayer, CEO of Cottage Link Rental Management