The Big Story

Torontonian Henry Wolfond is traveling into space today as a paying customer aboard Jeff Bezos' New Shepard rocket.  

He joins The Big Story with host Richard Southern to talk about why he’s doing it, what he’s paying for it, and about the Taylor Swift bracelets his granddaughter wore to the pop star's Toronto show that he's bringing with him into the great beyond.

Guest: CEO of Bayshore Capital Henry Wolfond

Host: Richard Southern, NewsRadio

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This week marked 1,000 days since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  

Vladimir Putin has updated Russia’s Nuclear Doctrine in response to Joe Biden authorizing long-range missiles for the Ukrainian military. Experts say the world’s nuclear temperature just went up. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is set to take back the Oval Office in January. He has threatened to pull U-S support for Ukraine entirely. He has said he will end the war on his first day in power.  

The fate of Ukraine hangs in the balance.  

Professor Elliot Tepper is Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University.

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Guest: Patrick Groom, labour lawyer with McMillan LLP

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According to the former and future US President, Canada's water is like a 'very large faucet' that one could turn on, say, to help California in a drought, or any other Pacific Northwest state that might need it. According to scientists, it's ... not like that at all. But still, Canada has water. And increasingly, the United States needs it.

Does Trump actually intend to ask for, buy or even take Canadian water? Would it even be possible if he wanted to? What do Canadians need to know about their abundant natural resource as the climate crisis makes it scarcer around the world? How worried should we be about Canadian water?

GUEST: Dr. Jay Famiglietti, hydrologist and  Global Futures Professor at Arizona State University; former Executive Director Emeritus of the Global Institute for Water Security at the University of Saskatchewan

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For decades, it's been the dream that children will grow up to have more opportunities and a better life than their parents did. Not many young people see that as possible anymore. Wealth and income inequality, combined with the affordability and housing crises, have created a world in which a majority of them don't believe they'll be able to own a home.

There are some who are sure that they will, though: The Jackpot Generation, a subset of Millennials and Zoomers who will be on the receiving end of valuable property inheritances, worth far, far more than their parents ever paid for them. That equity gives them a gigantic head start as they move into adulthood or middle age—and it's creating a system that's the opposite of the equality we've been striving for.

GUEST: Katrina Onstad, reporting in Maclean's

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We've had an update to one of our most popular episodes -- the counterfeit toonie. Enjoy!

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They call it the "camel-toe toonie", and you will understand why as soon as you look at the front right paw of the polar bear on it. Since they were first discovered in circulation in 2020, estimates range from at least tens of thousands to likely millions of them reaching circulation.

But who is behind it? How do you counterfeit toonies at scale and get them into the banking system? And ... why toonies?

GUEST: Brent Mackie, creator of cameltoetoonies.ca, numismatist, treasurer of Waterloo Coin Society

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This episode first aired on November 14, 2024 over at In This Economy?!, our sister show at the Frequency Podcast Network. The show helps Canadians understand the systems behind their money problems so they can make informed decisions about their personal finances. If you like what you hear, please consider giving us a follow! 

The colder weather has finally arrived, and with it a big question: Is it time to put winter tires on the car? Climate change may have you questioning the necessity of winter tires, and the price tag is certainly not making that decision any easier. So we want to know, are winter tires worth the upfront cost? And what do they really do anyway? 

GUEST: Lorraine Sommerfeld, columnist with Driving.ca. 

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Many of us have a favourite garment — a sweater we've been wearing for the last ten years,  or a pair of sweatpants we throw on every night before cozying up in front of some Netflix. Then there's all those other clothes, the shirts you buy on sale that are lucky to survive ten wash cycles, or the sweaters that pill up almost instantly.  

Increasingly, it feels like more and more clothes belong to that second category. And it's not just so-called 'fast fashion' anymore, as the push to produce more for less drags down the quality of even the most reputable brands.

So why has it become so difficult to find a decent pair of pants that'll last more than a few months? And how do we fight back against a culture that increasingly sees clothing as disposable? 

GUEST: Monika Warzecha, Digital Editor at The Walrus, where she wrote about fast fashion

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The crime is horrific. The details are as bad as you can imagine. The woman at the centre of it, though? Exhibiting incredible bravery, under the worst possible circumstances. The rape trial of Gisele Pelicot's husband, and 50 other men, has transfixed the world. Not simply because of the crime itself, but because of the way Gisele has wrestled the narrative away from the ones the world all too often hears in the coverage and discussion of sex assault.

Today we'll take you inside that courtroom, with a reporter who has been covering the trial, to explain exactly what's happening within its walls, and within the justice system of France — but the impact of this case well beyond that, because Gisele Pelicot's bravery may change more than just narratives.

GUEST: Catherine Porter, international correspondent, The New York Times

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We tend to see the challenge we face in terms of raw numbers and targets that need to be hit. The number of dead from extreme weather. The all-time highs in temperature set in whatever city we're living in. The emission reduction figures we're definitely not on track to hit. And it can be depressing, and demoralizing, to say the least.

But there's good news: Focusing on the numbers doesn't change the fact that a shift to a net-zero world is inevitable now, and we're just arguing over the timeline and how much damage we'll do on the way. What if there was a way to make that transition that would also solve so many of the other problems we face? What if there was a way to do it that even the billionaires who tend to oppose typical environmental regulations would sign up for?

GUEST: Dr Elizabeth Sawin, Director of the Multisolving Institute; author of Multisolving: Creating Systems Change in a Fractured World

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