Canada, as you may know, produces a ton of oil. Billions of tons every day, actually. Nearly all the oil we use was taken from the ground, one way or another, right here. And yet! When the Strait of Hormuz shut down, the price Canadians pay for Canadian-produced oil and gas went through the roof, just as it's done in nations that need to import almost all their oil.

The answer to why that happened goes back to a policy that Canada has flip-flopped on over decades. It touches on Western Alienation and separatism, the legacy of Pierre Trudeau and a system that we theoretically could change, but practically cannot.

Today, Economist Jim Stanford, of the Centre For Future Work, welcomes you to the world of Canadian energy policy!

Feedback from listeners is so, so welcome. If you have something to say, email us: [email protected].

This week we're checking in with the audience on the first few months of CanCon, discussing episodes we did or didn't (yet!) create, reading some of your feedback and getting a feel for where we're at before we dive back in to another few months of Canadian stories. If you haven't yet, don't forget to let us know what you think, and what you'd like us to cover. And thanks, as always, for listening.

Feedback from listeners is so, so welcome. If you have something to say, email us: [email protected].

A roof over one's head has been a necessity of life since we lived in caves. But when that roof also represents Canada's class struggle, our income inequality issues and potentially the owner's entire retirement portfolio...things get complicated.

More than half of young Canadians don't expect they'll ever own a home. There are millions of Canadians right now who own their homes thanks to privilege, timing, relationships and...just plain ol' luck. Some of those lucky Canadians, including Cancon's host and today's guest, look around and see the generations following them stuck in shoebox apartments with no hope of qualifying for a mortgage and feel guilty for owning their homes.

Not enough to do much about it, mind you, but still, guilty. Are we part of the problem? Today we unpack the complicated dynamics of home ownership, at a time when a human right has become an investment strategy.

Feedback from listeners is so, so welcome. If you have something to say, email us: [email protected].

In recent weeks, dozens of videos pushing Alberta separation (and frequently US annexation) have driven tens of millions of views on YouTube. But there's a problem. All these videos and accounts are remarkably similar, and to someone who actually knows the province, there are signs the people making them ... do not.

Who's behind these videos and what's their goal? To truly drive an independent Alberta, or to sow division during a tumultuous political time for Canada? How do they manage to pump out so many, and why do they drive so much engagement? And most importantly, what do Canadians need to know about who's messing with our political discussions?

We invited Alex Boyd, a Calgary-based reporter on the Toronto Star's investigations team, to join us to take the temperature on the Alberta separatist movement, break down a study of these videos and explain what and who might be behind them.

Feedback from listeners is so, so welcome. If you have something to say, email us: [email protected].

In the late '90s and early '00s, the music industry fundamentally changed. Within a decade, fans went from buying CDs in a local music store to purchasing $0.99 singles on iTunes. But before iTunes was available in Canada, and before the US giants took over the industry, Canadian startups were at the front of the pack.

In this episode, we reminisce on a very strange and transformative time in media--you might remember the first CD you ever bought, but you probably don't remember the last one. We speak to Cam Gordon, author of Track Changes: The Origin Story of Canadian Music on the Internet, about Maple Music and Puretracks. And if you were a Canadian music fan in the early '00s ... you might know what we're talking about.

Feedback from listeners is so, so welcome. If you have something to say, email us: [email protected].

It's not just a Canadian problem, though it has likely cost some Canadians their lives. Staff answering 911 calls in centres the world over are overworked, stressed and sometimes ... there just aren't enough of them. As a result, callers are sometimes left on hold in the most awful circumstances possible. Money has been spent on recruitment, but talent is tough to come by. Enter Hyper.

A Canadian startup that was just acquired by Motorola, Hyper is already helping 911 operators in several cities—but not in the way you might imagine. Not yet, anyway...

Award-winning reporter Katherine Laidlaw joing the show to discuss her piece on Hyper, which was written for a brand new Canadian publication called Be Giant, which aims to report on the people, places, ideas and breakthroughs shaping Canada's future.

Feedback from listeners is so, so welcome. If you have something to say, email us: [email protected].

Would you call Walmart Canada a "Canadian" company? It's a much more complex question than it appears—but I think most of us would agree on the general answer. It's a Canadian subsidiary of a giant US retail behemoth. But when it comes to procurement spending from the federal government, often these are kinds of companies that can meet qualifications to describe themselves as "Canadian" and earn an edge over their competitors.

It shouldn't be a surprise that government spending can get complicated, but it does raise a fascinating question: For the past year many of us have learned a lot about what makes a food item or a retail product Canadian—but what about a company? 

Vass Bednar, managing director of the Canadian Shield Institute, joins Jordan to puzzle through that question, and how our tax dollars are spent because of it.

Feedback from listeners is so, so welcome. If you have something to say, email us: [email protected].

When the World Happiness Report first began scoring countries on their self-reported levels of happiness in 2012, Canada was consistently in the top 10. It felt right, we were pretty happy. Over the past several years, things have been changing, first slowly and now rapidly. In the recently published edition of the report, Canadians' happiness levels ranked 25th in the world, by far a new low. And that precipitous drop has been driven predominantly by one demographic...

UBC Professor Emeritus and co-creator and editor of the World Happiness Report John Helliwell joins us to discuss what's changed, who's unhappy and what we know about how to generate happiness in our own lives from two decades of scientific research.

Feedback from listeners is so, so welcome. If you have something to say, email us: [email protected].

In any other entertainment medium, a Canadian-made product winning the equivalent of a Best Picture Oscar would be historic, headline-grabbing news. But when Canadian-made games win Game Of The Year—and they have, multiple times—the country barely bats an eye. Games are big business in Canada, and we have some of the world's premier talent, in both massive corporate studios and tiny indie development houses. Yet unless you're really, really into video games, you'd never know. Why?

Jonathan Ore of the CBC hops on the show to talk about video games in Canada, how good they are, and why nobody even knows where the games they play are made.

Feedback from listeners is so, so welcome. If you have something to say, email us: [email protected].

One might've thought we'd learned our lesson in 2020. That being hit with waves of deeply ill patients that pushed our health care system—especially its front lines in hospitals and ERs—to the brink would have woken us up to just how close to disaster we were operating. Alas.

On this episode of Cancon, Emergency Room physician, podcaster and author Dr. Brian Goldman takes us inside the ongoing low-level crisis that happening in emergency rooms across the country. Like any good doctor, he diagnoses the root of the problem, outlines the kind of long-term treatment it requires, and gives us some take-home instructions for the next time we find ourselves with a loved one in need of emergency care.

Feedback from listeners is so, so welcome. If you have something to say, email us: [email protected].