Shane Hewitt and The Nightshift

Coercive control is where Shane Hewitt starts when he asks what makes a group a cult. If you’ve ever walked out of a course wondering what you’d just signed up for, he offers a question you can use to sort out what felt off.

A group can ask a lot of its members. Listen for what changes when it starts shaping who you spend time with and what you’re allowed to believe. Shane gets into how that pressure can reach into the rest of your life.

How much say do you still have when you disagree? Shane makes the question practical by looking at what happens when you decide you’ve had enough.

Topics: Coercive control, cult warning signs, voluntary membership, isolation, group pressure

Originally aired on 2026-11-06

The federal budget looks different from the bleachers of a small-town rink. Andrew Caddell gives you a way to judge Ottawa’s recreation spending by what happens when the local team plays on a Friday night and the town turns up.

Shane wonders if funding rinks and rec centers is an easy way for the government to look good. Caddell takes him straight to a junior hockey game. If that’s where you catch up with people you haven’t seen all week, hear why he thinks the spending lands differently in rural Canada.

There’s another choice in the budget Caddell would make for young Canadians. Given free admission to a museum or a national park, hear which one he puts first and what he hopes young people take home from the visit.

Topics: Federal budget, recreation funding, junior hockey, rural Canada, national museums

GUEST: Andrew Caddell

Originally aired on 2026-11-06

Online cults can draw in people who never signed up. W5’s Avery Haines takes you inside the Honolulu courtroom where three Saskatchewan residents faced a defamation suit from spiritual influencer Liana Shanti. They had relatives in her community, and they filed a claim of their own.

Shanti believed the three Canadians were behind online posts criticizing her. Haines traces how those posts and Shanti’s public accusations against the Canadians turned into a four-year court fight that cost them hundreds of thousands in legal bills.

Listen for what happened when the jury started reading the awards. Haines thought the first figure would cover the Canadians’ legal bills. Then the jury kept going.

Topics: Liana Shanti, Saskatchewan families, online criticism, defamation countersuit, jury awards

GUEST: Avery Haines | https://www.youtube.com/@OfficialW5/

Originally aired on 2026-11-06

If you’re deciding what to watch this weekend, Steve Stebbing has two casting choices that might settle it. One actor made him look twice at a scene he already knew, and one name on a Crave cast list surprised Shane.

How Do You Play the Guy Who Wrote Rocky?

In I Play Rocky, Anthony Ippolito plays Sylvester Stallone writing his way into a starring role. If you know the original by heart, hear which scene had Steve wondering how the filmmakers got the recreation so close.

A Family Business With Actual Bears

Jared Keeso’s I Kill the Bear follows a French-Canadian family that has raised bears for entertainment for generations. The family’s old ways are falling out of step with the times, and one of the brothers is played by Georges St-Pierre.

Topics: I Play Rocky, Anthony Ippolito, Wild Horse Nine, I Kill the Bear, The Gilded Age

GUEST: Steve Stebbing | stevestebbing.ca

Originally aired on 2026-11-06

When relationship patterns repeat, is it just bad luck? Clinical psychologist Dr. Laurie Betito hears that question in her office and offers another place to look: what makes a new partner seem familiar in the first place?

After his divorce, Shane was told that if dating felt easy, he might be repeating an old pattern. Laurie adds a question to the advice: what kind of easy? That distinction is worth hearing before taking ease or discomfort as a sign of anything.

In one of Laurie’s examples, a woman grows up trying to get her father’s attention. Years later, she’s drawn to partners who are emotionally unavailable, and there’s one thought that keeps the story going: maybe this time it’ll work. What makes another try seem like a chance at a different ending?

Topics: Relationship patterns, dating after divorce, emotional familiarity, emotional availability, repetition compulsion

GUEST: Dr. Laurie Betito | drlaurie.com

Originally aired on 2026-11-06

What do Canadian media archives actually hold from the shows people grew up watching? Mohit Rajhans went looking for the story behind the SCTV documentary and found a question that goes beyond comedy: who knows where the old footage is when somebody finally comes looking?

Radio makes that question harder. A broadcaster can be on the air for years, leave a station and suddenly be hard to find. Shane names one whose television work is easier to track down than his time on the radio.

Mohit has another reason to go looking. He remembers people in Canadian broadcasting who had to fight to be first. What would go missing from that story if all that survived were the shows somebody had the money to go looking for?

Topics: Canadian media archives, SCTV, Canadian radio, diversity in broadcasting, archival footage

GUEST: Mohit Rajhans | mohit.ai

Originally aired on 2026-11-06

The CFL division finals could send two Western teams to the Grey Cup. TSN 690’s Sean Campbell sizes up whether the Winnipeg Blue Bombers can pull that off by beating the Montreal Alouettes, the last team left from the East.

Winnipeg has already gone into Toronto and won. Now the Bombers have to get through Montreal with injuries at quarterback and running back. Campbell weighs what Winnipeg showed against the Argos against what Montreal has done at home all season.

Montreal has the league’s Most Outstanding Player in Davis Alexander. Winnipeg has already made the crossover count. Hear which team Campbell backs when the whole East comes down to one game.

Topics: CFL crossover, East Final, Montreal Alouettes, Winnipeg Blue Bombers, Davis Alexander

GUEST: Sean Campbell | tsn690.ca

Originally aired on 2026-11-06

AI and youth mental health meet a difficult parenting question: how do you stay close when a screen feels easier to talk to? Nicholas Watters offers ways to start that conversation without making your child feel inspected.

Being glad your child is opening up and questioning the answers they receive can happen at the same time. But how do you encourage that openness while helping them challenge what sounds convincing? There is more to it than getting a better answer from a chatbot.

And if your child is still years away from a social media account, when should those habits begin? One age range in this conversation may change where you think the work starts.

Topics: AI and youth mental health, parenting and AI, critical thinking, digital resiliency, family technology habits

GUEST: Nicholas Watters | https://www.cymha.ca

Originally aired on 2026-11-06

When did the analog to digital transition actually happen in our everyday lives? Think beyond computers, CDs and the internet. There was a point when the way we communicated, handled money and spent time together began to change. But can we identify a single year?

Your answer might depend on when you grew up. Ryan O'Donnell remembers getting his first smartphone in high school, while earlier generations recall a world of handwritten notes, physical banking and logging onto the internet rather than carrying it everywhere. What experience marked the change for you?

For Throwback Thursday, we're searching for the dividing line between two remarkably different ways of living. From early smartphones to depositing cheques without visiting a bank, which development finally moved our lives into the digital world?

Topics: analog to digital transition, smartphones, online banking, digital nostalgia, 2007

Originally aired on 2026-11-05

Grocery cybersecurity has a weakness you probably never considered: the freezer. Dr. Sylvain Charlebois reveals why connected refrigeration systems are attracting hackers, and what the growing threat means for your food, your personal information and potentially your grocery bill.

Think about how much technology sits between you and your groceries. Digital price tags, purchasing histories, artificial intelligence and temperature monitoring all serve a purpose. But when so much information and equipment is connected, where does convenience end and vulnerability begin?

There's another side to this story. The same consumer data that raises concerns about surveillance pricing can also help grocery stores protect customers. Dr. Charlebois brings that contradiction into focus as cyberattacks raise a larger question: how secure is the food supply chain we're all depending on?

Topics: grocery cybersecurity, surveillance pricing, digital price tags, food supply chain security, consumer data

GUEST: Dr. Sylvain Charlebois | @‌foodprofessor

Originally aired on 2026-11-05