NOW and NEXT

In this episode of The Daily Brief, we explore the WELFARE WALL. It refers to the unintended consequence of social support programs  that effectively discourages people from supplementing their pension, their welfare or social assistance cheques with a part time job. Thousands of individuals with serious disabilities end up on welfare. And many of them inadvertently become trapped behind that welfare wall because it is their chief source of income and often the only route to disability supports and benefits.

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Whoot! Where did the time go? It was freezing cold and dark outside when I decided to jump into a daily podcast back on January 19th, 2022. Here we are on one of the hottest days on the planet, (got to 38C in Toronto today, without a Humidex reading!) and we've been doing the podcast for 6 months. 

Big new is, we're getting set to muscle it up. We will hit the pause button on The Daily Brief in August with a view to offering a bigger and better Brief the week after Labour Day.

In the meantime, we continue to explore the challenges faced by those living in poverty as the COVID pandemic lingers and inflation rates hit generational highs. Today, we highlight another episode of the Story Studio Network podcast series, The 2030 Project.

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I talked to a colleague who is travelling through the SW United States. He said the temperature in Arizona this past weekend was hovering just above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. That translate to nearly 38 degrees Celcius.

It just so happens, Toronto's humidex reading was flirting with the mid 30s C today. At the same time, we were on a call with upcoming podcast guests from the UK, where they are experiencing an exceptional heat wave. The forecast high in London was 37C. I'm not sure I remember a time when we would have said the desert in US southwest, the Great Lakes Region and Great Britain would be experiencing the same kind of heat on the same day!

Also, today on The Daily Brief, we take a look at the latest news from the Bank of Canada. Projections suggest inflation will hit 8% in this country before it starts to slide. And it will be more than 2 years before it settles in the 3% range. What is that doing to the cost of living. And what kind of added pressure does that pose for food banks across the country.

In this episode, we revisit The 2030 Project - a Story Studio Network podcast produced for Daily Bread Food Bank in Toronto.

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To hear the official Rogers explanation, the nationwide system failure that cascaded across the country last Friday happened during a maintenance update. I'm no IT expert, but I know enough to know that maintenance updates are routine. How could the "routine" have caused such a collosal collapse? Today on The Daily Brief, we continue with our cyber-security series 1 CLICK 2 CYBER CHAOS. We focus on the vulnerablilty and resilience of critical infrastructure. How much of a threat is there? Host Kym Geddes is joined by Greg Markel, CEO at Ridge Canada and veteran broadcast journlist Kevin Newman.

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This week on The Daily Brief, we've hihglighted a new Story Studio Network series - 1 CLICK @ CYBER CHAOS. We did so in response to Rogers' nation-wide system failure that cut millions of people off from internet connections and cost thousands of businesses untold sums in lost revenues. Cyber-security isn't a one-and-done effort. It's an ongoing challenge. So, today, we ask the question: "How do we create resilience in cyber systems when the attacks are constant and evolving?"

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The Ukrainian government says Tik Tok is the social media platform of choice for the Russian propoganda offensive in Ukraine. The Washington Post says a representative from the Ukrainian Ministry of Digital Transformation says Tik Tok is the weakest platform and the Russians are making the most of it. Mis-information and dis-information wars are being waged at the click of a mouse.  Today on The Daily Brief, we highligh the role social media now plays in international conflicts and threatens well established democracies around the world.

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Canada’s Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne met with the telecom CEOs and has given them pretty clear marching orders. They need to come up with a workable plan to  adopt emergency roaming, mutual assistance during outages, and a communications protol to better inform consumers et al on the state of the outage. (Side note: Could Rogers crisis comms be worse?? The company is offering $5-6 for your trouble. WTF??) Today on the Daily Brief, we highlight a new Story Studio Network podcast series, 1 CLICK 2 CYBER CHAOS. This episode focuses on the ransomware attacks that cripple hospital services across Newfoundland and Labradour in November 2021.

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Millions of Canadians felt the full effect of a nation-wide system failure at Rogers. The outages affected cell, wireless, television, and internet services, in some cases, for days. That, inturn, closed some businesses and services or slowed them to a crawl. After the initial outrage was voiced loudly across the country, the narrative turned to calls for more telcom competition and questioned the wisdom of a Rogers-Shaw merger. But the real issue that needs to be addressed is the state of our cyber security. Whether or not the Rogers crash was caused by a cyber attack is one thing but it was most definitely a cybersecurity failure. This week on The Daily Brief we will highlight one of our new Story Studio Network series: 1 CLICK 2 CYBER CHAOS.

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Today on The Daily Brief, Brian Lambie, President of Redbrick Communications says government agenices and public employees often default to avoiding social media. The thinking is, avoiding social media means avoiding landmines.  But Brian says it can create a blind spot, particularly for municipal agencies if they aren't aware of or attuned to local issues being discussed and debated in social media communities.  He notes, you don't have to be a big city to do it right. We give a shout out to Selwyn Township for it's handling of the tornado that hit the Peterborough area on May 22, 2022.

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We are still in the pandemic. We can expect more COVID cases and, by all accounts, we will see an uptick in cases come the fall. So, it ain't over. But COVID is receding. That's good news. That's allowed us to return to business, to school, to recreation, to a restaurant without a great deal of restriction. But the crisis caused by COVID is not nearly in the rearview mirror. Inflation and the cost of living are bringing us perilously close to recession. So Toronto Region Board of Trade President and CEO, Jan De Silva says now is the time to reignite the economy. "We're the champions of "Hit GO!" She says it is critical for the newly re-elected Ford government and municipalities in the Toronto-Waterloo corridor to accelerate affordable housing, transportation, energy and innovation initiatives and address the talent shortage in some key sectors of the economy.

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