The Bill Kelly Show Podcast:

The theory that SARS-CoV-2 may have originated in a lab was considered a debunked conspiracy theory, but some experts are revisiting it amid calls for a new, more thorough investigation. Paul Thacker explains the dramatic U turn and the role of contemporary science journalism.

Click HERE for the full article.

GUEST: Paul D. Thacker, Freelance Journalist for the British Medical Journal and a Former Investigator for the U.S. Senate and Safra Ethics Center at Harvard

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A University of Ottawa professor has discovered one of the few benefits of the pandemic schooling that had Ontario children physically distanced, closely supervised and restricted from mixing much with other kids.

She has been investigating the intractable problem of bullying among children for a decade and says the rates of students who are either victims or perpetrators have remained stable.

But a survey she conducted among 6,578 students at a large urban school board in southern Ontario in September, October and November 2020 found striking changes.

The survey found that 39.5 per cent of students said they were victims of bullying last fall compared to 59.8 per cent who said they had experienced bullying before the pandemic.

GUEST: 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

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The pandemic has upended many long-held beliefs about flexible work arrangements. Labour experts say the past 14 months have provided a glimpse into the impact of remote and hybrid work hours on a massive scale. Increasingly, managers are evaluating the benefits of condensed workweeks as a tool for improving efficiency, retaining current employees and enticing new hires.

In early July, results from the world’s largest study of a four-day workweek were released, based on a four-year trial in Iceland by 2,500 public service workers. It concluded that productivity in Icelandic offices, hospitals and police stations either remained constant or was boosted.

Zorra Ontario’s experiment, meanwhile, is modelled after a larger, pioneering four-day work week trial in Guysborough, N.S., that ran last year and was adopted as a policy in April.

GUEST: Vik Singh, Assistant Professor of Global Management Studies with the Ted Rogers School of Management at Ryerson University

A Chinese tech giant filed more patents in Canada last year than any other company, evidence of what some observers say is a failure by Canada to secure the critical intellectual property rights needed to build next-generation technologies.

Guangdong Oppo Mobile Telecommunications, a Chinese consumer electronics and smartphone maker, filed 281 individual patents in Canada’s intellectual property office in 2019-20. U.S. semiconductor company Qualcomm was second on the Top 10 list, followed by several other American firms and two Chinese multinationals, Huawei Technologies (sixth) and Alibaba Group (10th). State-owned oil giant Saudi Aramco was seventh.

For years, experts have warned policymakers in Ottawa that the comparable absence of IP rights among Canadian companies threatens to put Canada at a severe disadvantage, one that will be increasingly amplified as the economy continues to shift toward more digital, intangible assets. That will in turn make Canada increasingly dependent on foreign multinationals for products and services, and crimp the productivity of the Canadian economy.

GUEST: Elliot Tepper, Emeritus Professor of Political Science with Carleton University

Chief’s Townhall with Hamilton Police Chief Frank Bergen 

Topic include: Hate Crime Case Review Team, Crowd control for Euro 2020 Final, Statue toppling, and more. 

GUEST: Hamilton Police Chief Frank Bergen

The Bill Kelly Show Podcast:

The Tokyo Olympics will be held without spectators in the Japanese capital and three neighboring prefectures, due to surging coronavirus infections in the metropolitan area, a source familiar with the matter said Thursday, as the organizers of the games began a meeting to discuss whether local fans will be allowed into venues.

The three prefectures are Chiba, Kanagawa and Saitama, according to the source. The meeting of the five organizers, including the International Olympic Committee and the International Paralympic Committee, was convened after the Japanese government decided to put Tokyo under another state of emergency until Aug. 22.

With the decision, the likelihood increased that there would be no spectators in the stands at venues in and around Tokyo when the games start in just two weeks' time.

GUEST: Peter Donnelly, Professor with the Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education at the University of Toronto

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Political engagement by First Nations remains crucial to advancing Indigenous issues. Moving beyond the Indian Act requires profound legislative change. Which leads to an important question. Should engagement remain within existing political parties, or would Indigenous leaders achieve more by founding a new one?

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GUEST: Tasha Kheiriddin, CEO of Ellipsum Communications and Public Policy Analyst

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The Alberta government intends to join TC Energy Corp. in challenging U.S. President Joe Biden’s cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline, in what would be the first time a level of government is directly involved in a NAFTA dispute as an investor, according to legal experts.

The case is being filed as a legacy North American Free Trade Agreement Chapter 11 dispute under the newly renegotiated United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, “to recover damages resulting from the revocation of the Keystone XL project’s presidential permit.”

ALSO: Gas prices

GUEST: Dan McTeague, President of Canadians for Affordable​ Energy, Former Liberal MP