The Big Story

Both the occupation of Ottawa and the federal government's use of the emergencies act were unprecedented. And it's hard to see a future where neither one is used again. If the game is truly changing, what does that mean for Canada's national security? And for Canadians' personal freedoms?

GUEST: Stephanie Carvin, former national security analyst, author of Stand on Guard: Reassessing threats to Canada's National Security

We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:

Through email at [email protected]

Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You would think that after so much "listening and learning" by white people over the past few years, we'd stop seeing them wearing blackface in Canada. But it still happens. Relatively often. 

Why do Canadians consider this an American phenomenon? What's the history of blackface in this country? And how can we provide the proper context to explain why it's so awful?

GUEST: Dr. Cheryl Thompson

We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:

Through email at [email protected]

Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Yes, it's worse in America. But it's not great here, either. The past few years have seen an alarming rise in hate groups in Canada—and there's nothing on the horizon that appears set to slow it down. It's a recipe for the sort of violence we've seen in Washington recently, and have seen on our own soil more frequently in recent years.

So what does defuse the growth of white supremacy? What can governments do to curtail the kind of polarizing anger that leads to reactionary violence? And what can we do, each of us, when we see people we know who may be taking the first steps down a road that leads to conspiracy theories, hate and violence?

GUEST: Shakil Choudhury, Anima Leadership

This episode was first released in January 2021. 

We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:

Through email at [email protected]

Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Do you remember the Ikea Monkey? That's just the tip of the iceberg. A lack of provincial laws around exotic animals in Ontario means that there's nothing preventing you or I from owning just about any kind of dangerous animal. To illustrate how this works today: The story of some lions who are in Ontario, were once a part of a roadside zoo and are now ... well, we don't know exactly where they are now. Really.

GUEST: Grant LaFleche, investigative team The Toronto Star (Read Grant and reporter Sarah Crookall's investigation right here.)

We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:

Through email at [email protected]

Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Quick, name a signature, unique, statement building opened in Canada in the past couple of decades! Your choices are few and far between. And aside from some of the oldest buildings in the entire country, Canada is known by enthusiasts around the world for having ... not much, when it comes to beautiful public buildings and spaces.

There are reasons for that. And it's possible to change our approach. But will we? Do we care enough? Do our leaders? Or will Canada remain a country of mostly grey boxes, forever?

GUEST: Tracey Lindeman, writer and author, writing in the Walrus

We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:

Through email at [email protected]

Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

It's a tricky phrase—but these days you are as likely to hear it from a government official or public health officer as you are from someone who is just sick of vaccine passports. As the Omicron wave subsides and governments across the country ease or eliminate restrictions, a growing number of Canadians are in favour of a future where we no longer tailor our lives to the virus.

But is that possible? If it is, what would that look like? Who will thrive in this future and who will suffer? And is there a way, with proper planning and enough commitment, to have the best of both worlds? A world where we can protect the vulnerable and let everyone get "back to normal"?

GUEST: Timothy Caulfield, Canada Research Chair in health law and policy at the University of Alberta

We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:

Through email at [email protected]

Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You might assume that millions of crowdfunded dollars are behind the scenes on the streets of Ottawa and at border crossings across the country. But very little of the money raised on GoFundMe or GiveSendGo has been released, and what was released was mostly frozen. So where is the money to support these lengthy protests coming from? How is it getting into the hands and bank accounts of organizers? And what does it tell us about the future of fundraising and foreign influence in Canadian affairs?

GUEST: Jessica Davis, president and principal consultant at Insight Threat Intelligence

We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:

Through email at [email protected]

Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This Olympics will make history for an uncomfortable reason: It will be the first winter games where basically all the snow used will be man-made. Past Olympics have needed snow machines to varying degrees, but never before to make all the snow. It's a sign of the times as a warming planet makes snowfall less reliable—but what does it mean for the future of the Olympics, and winter sports in general?

GUEST: Kathryn Blaze Baum, environment reporter, The Globe and Mail

We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:

Through email at [email protected]

Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Some people deserve to have awful Google results. But a lot more people don't, and end up with them thanks to a vendetta, a soured relationship, or a targeted harassment campaign. Regardless of whether or not the reputation is deserved, there's basically one way to fix it — online reputation rehab, companies that take your money to fix your Google results.

Some of these companies are totally above board, but others can trap victims in cycles of endless payment to remove new results. And there's not much stopping them.

GUEST: Paul Gallant, Toronto-based reporter, writing for The Walrus

We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:

Through email at [email protected]

Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

It might not look like it, but when you walk among them it becomes clear there's more than one group in Ottawa. If you want to find evidence that the protesters are peaceful, ordinary, frustrated Canadians who came to Ottawa to make their displeasure known, you can find those folks. And if you want evidence that the protesters are angry, racist, far-right agitators here to attempt to overthrow the government, you can find that, too.

This is what makes the scene on the street so difficult to capture in a 60-second news report, or a short video stream. So we called in someone who has spent a couple of days attempting to blend in with both kinds of protesters, to tell us what he's seen and heard.

GUEST: Matt Gurney, writer and commentator, co-founder of The Line (You can read Matt's dispatches from Ottawa right here.)

We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:

Through email at [email protected]

Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.