The Big Story

Your friends and family live in your phone. Sure, you see them from time to time, but usually for scheduled events, planned well in advance, with an agenda and a timeframe. How often do you just find a friend ... and chill?

A new book illustrates the kinds of casual hangouts that are dying out, at the same time as loneliness rates are rising around the world. There's a particular kind of energy we get from just killing time, or wandering, and we're losing it. What's that doing to us?

GUEST: Sheila Liming, author of Hanging Out: The Radical Power Of Killing Time

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Around the world, transgender people are under attack. Often legislatively, other times physically. And many of us would like to think of Canada as an oasis amidst this rise in prejudice. But we're not.

Today, a look at a clinic that provides gender-affirming care virtually to trans and non-binary people across the entire province of Ontario. Except right now it doesn't, because new legislation makes it impossible, and the provincial government has so far refused to provide an exemption. What's standing in the way? What is gender-affirming care, and why is it so important? And why is virtual health care, the only option for many communities, being trimmed by the government?

GUEST: Kai Jacobsen, steering committee, Trans PULSE Canada; co-author, The Conversation

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It was thought that the former president might be arrested on Tuesday, and charged in relation to alleged hush-money payments to an adult film star. That hasn't happened, but many who have been watching the case still expect charges to come. When they do, what will happen next?

But this isn't the only investigation into Trump's potential crimes. There are more, and they involve more sinister allegations. So who exactly is investigating Donald Trump, and for what? Where do those investigations stand? What would a nomination race and potential presidential campaign look like, if one of the contenders is preparing to face a trial? Or perhaps more than one trial?

GUEST: Aaron Rupar, independent political and policy journalist, author of Public Notice

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Today it's Nordstrom, fleeing Canada after failing to turn a profit in almost a decade of trying. Before them, it was Target, thought to be a sure thing in this country. So far, Walmart is the exception that proves the rule: If you're an American retailer with your eyes on the Canadian market, you better do your research and have a plan.

The loss of Nordstrom is sad for those who love its designer names, sure, but the stores themselves are a bigger loss as anchor tenants for premium locations in big cities that are slowly being taken over by empty storefronts. So what happened here? Was it them, or us? And what can we learn from the latest American brand to fail in Canada?

GUEST: Gary Newbury, retail supply chain expert, Strategic Advisor and Delivery Executive with RetailAID

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Even three years after it emerged, there's still no consensus on the origin of the virus that shut down the world. Last week, the US Department of Energy said that its conclusion (albeit with "low confidence") was that the virus escaped from a lab. Three days later new genetic research pointed to the presence of the virus in racoon dogs found in Wuhan at the time the virus began to spread.

So chalk up another data point for each side, and still we're searching for answers. What does the new evidence tell us about each theory? How has this debate become politicized? Will we ever know where the virus truly came from? And if we did, what would it change ... if anything?

GUEST: Umair Irfan, correspondent at Vox writing about climate change, Covid-19, and energy policy. (Read Umair's latest piece on Covid's origins here.)

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It's called chlorpyrifos, and it's actually still being used in Canada right now. Despite years of reports on the danger it might pose, it was only last year that the government banned it, and it's using a gradual phase out that won't end until the end of this year.

So what is chlorpyrifos and what's the risk? What kind of foods is it used on? What can exposure do to us? And why was Canada behind both Europe and the United States in getting rid of it?

GUEST: Marc Fawcett-Atkinson, reporter and writer covering food, climate, plastics and the environment for Canada’s National Observer

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We're already in another space race. The question this time is who gets the prize at the end of it. Both China and NASA have committed to plans to put bases on the moon in the next decade or so, and one of the main attractions is its resources.

There are lots of valuable commodities on the moon, and it also makes a great jumping point for further space travel in the future. So the competition to extract the moon's minerals first, in harsh, remote conditions, with the use of space robotics, will give someone a huge advantage. And there just happens to be a country to the north of the United States that is a world leader in all those things...

GUESTS: Alex Ellery, Canada Research Professor in space robotics and space technology at Carleton University;
Heather Exner-Pirot, senior fellow and director of natural resources, energy and environment at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute

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Everyone who lived through 2008 as an adult flinched when Silicon Valley Bank failed last week. But was the bank's crash a unique situation, or something that should make us question our own financial institutions? 

What makes Canadian banks different from banks like SVB? What can we learn about the future of the economy from this failure? Why is the US government helping already-rich tech investors? And what do we need to watch for in the coming weeks and months?

GUEST: William O’Connell, PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto. His research includes global management of financial crises and the regulation of cryptocurrency markets

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Over the past couple of decades, five workers have died on the job at Fiera Foods, sparking protests, investigations and allegations of a dangerous workplace. But where did those workers come from? Fiera says they are employed through temp agencies, and they have filed for the tax breaks to prove it. But the CRA says those agencies aren't real, and Fiera workers tell stories of showing up at the factory and being put right out onto the floor.

This legal fight sheds light on just how companies can use temp agencies to reduce liability and save money, even when the jobs can be deadly.

GUEST: Sara Mojtehedzadeh, investigations team, Toronto Star

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For the past month, headlines have been dominated by leaked CSIS documents, intelligence sources, fears of foreign interference in Canadian elections and the political fallout of all that. But most Canadians don't know much about how our intelligence community operates. Which agencies do what? Who do they report to? Who can access their information? Why would they release it to the press?

Because this is already shaping up to be the political story of the year in Canada, we wanted to lay out the basics. Here's what you need to know to understand what matters and why.

GUEST: Stephanie Carvin, former national security analyst, Associate Professor at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, author of Stand on Guard: Reassessing threats to Canada's National Security

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