The Bill Kelly Show Podcast:

Abacus Data completed a national survey of 2,025 Canadian adults from November 25 to 30, 2021, and they asked some questions about COVID and public concerns that they have been tracking since the start of the pandemic. 

Four in ten adults say they are becoming more worried about the pandemic over the past few days, almost doubling (20-point increase) the response to the same question a month ago.

GUEST: Oksana Kishchuk, Director of Strategy and Insights with Abacus Data

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Millions of dollars in covid-19 support payments are going to thousands of businesses that shouldn't have been eligible for the money.

That's just one of the findings of Ontario's auditor general, detailed in her annual report.

Founder of the Queen’s Park Observer, Sabrina Nanji joins us with the highlights from the 2021 AG report.

GUEST: Sabrina Nanji, Founder of the Queen’s Park Observer

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Canada's Health Minister has just added Nigeria, Malawi and Egypt to the travel ban. In addition, all air travellers coming from outside Canada, excluding the US, will now need to get a test at the airport. Travelers will have to self-isolate until their negative result is in.

Is the travel ban too reactive based on what we know?

What will it do to the travel and tourism industry?

GUEST: Dr. Marion Joppe, Professor with the School of Hospitality, Food and Tourism Management at the University of Guelph

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“The Beatles: Get Back” is easily one of the premier television events of the year – and if you need some nudging in the direction of the Fab Four, here are some reasons that you should add it to your viewing list.

GUEST: Eric Alper, Publicist and Music Commentator

Mayor's Town Hall with Hamilton Mayor Fred Eisenberger 

Topic include: Urban Boundary, Encampments, Calls and more. 

GUEST: Mayor Fred Eisenberger

The Bill Kelly Show Podcast:

Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) emphasizes that the best way to reduce the risk of getting and transmitting COVID-19 is through widespread vaccination. It is critical that technology and intellectual property linked to COVID-19 medical tools and vaccines are shared, allowing low- and middle-income countries to more easily access or manufacture these tools, thereby reducing mortality and morbidity

GUEST: Dr. Jason Nickerson, Humanitarian Affairs Advisor for Doctors Without Borders

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The omicron variant is dealing a blow to optimistic hopes that the world economy would enter 2022 on a firmer footing, potentially undermining plans by policy makers to focus on inflation rather than weak demand.

Researchers worldwide are racing to understand the full impact of the new strain , and governments have banned travellers from South Africa and nearby countries on concerns omicron could evade the protection of vaccines and fuel new surges.

What comes next will be dictated by what scientists discover about the new COVID-19 variant, including how resistant it is to vaccines and how more transmissible it is than the delta variant which raged in recent months without sending economies back toward recessions.

GUEST: Moshe Lander, Senior Economics Lecturer Concordia University

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The federal government has introduced a reworked bill aiming to outright prohibit both adults and children from being subjected to conversion therapy practices, pledging to the LGBTQ2S+ community that this time will be different.

The legislation, titled Bill C-4, proposes to eliminate the harmful practice in Canada for all ages, through four new Criminal Code offences. It includes wider-reaching vocabulary of what constitutes conversion therapy than what the federal government attempted to pass in the last Parliament. 

After the Liberals campaigned on the promise to re-introduce legislation within the first 100 days of a new mandate, now the government says it’s determined to get it passed, citing widespread support and confidence in the constitutionality of the bill in the face of early detractors. 

GUEST: Dr. Lori Turnbull, Director of the School of Public Administration with Dalhousie University