The Big Story

Or is Vladimir Putin bluffing to gain the world's attention? The history of Russia-Ukraine conflict dates back decades and can only be properly understood by looking at what has come before.

But right now, Canadian citizens are being warned it's time to come home, there are massive amounts of troops on the border and the world is worried diplomacy might not work. So ... what happens next?

GUEST: Seva Gunitsky, associate professor of political science, the University of Toronto.

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If you want to know which kids are least likely to get vaccinated, there’s a decent way to tell — they're the ones attending an alternative school. Even before covid, with traditional vaccines that were proven safe over decades, the opt-out rate among alternative school kids was many times higher than kids in traditional classrooms.

Why is that? Where does the hesitancy come from? And what can we learn about the factors parents weigh when they make these decisions by studying the philosophies of the schools they choose?

GUEST: Inori Roy, investigative journalist, writing in The Local

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Amid the current rhetoric around protests across Canada, it's worth examining what successful, peaceful protest looks like, and what we can learn from it. It took more than half a decade, work by Indigenous women and leaders and non-Indigenous allies. It took a deep understanding of treaties and laws and relentless positive commitment. And in the end, an oil and gas company simply gave up, and left a beautiful river system alone. This is the story of how it happened.

GUEST: Cheryl Maloney, protest leader, Mi'kmaq woman, former national environment coordinator for the Native Women’s Association of Canada

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Since Stephen Harper left, the federal Conservatives are on their fifth leader in six years. Later this year they'll likely choose a sixth—and the party's eventual choice will go a long way to determining its future. What does O'Toole's exit and the choice of Candice Bergen as interim leader reveal about the state of the party currently? Is this really good news for the federal Liberals as some pundits claim?

The next few months will be critical to determining what Canadians are choosing the next time they go to the polls. Will it be a united CPC, led by the right wing of the party? A fractured party still trying to hold its various factions together? Or could the unification that led to Harper's success end with O'Toole, producing a split between the party's two ideologies?

GUEST: David Moscrop, political writer and commentator, author, host of the Open To Debate podcast

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Depending on where you stand, you may have blamed anything from Covid-19 to vaccine mandates, protesters to climate change, or even the federal government for the empty shelves you’ve seen. And all those answers are valid. But the reasoning you'll hear from politicians depends on who you ask. And of course, so does the assessment of how much of a crisis this actually is.

So how big a problem are the scattered empty shelves? How precarious is Canada's food supply chain? When will the pressure ease? And when it does, how much more will it cost to put food on your table?

GUEST: Sylvain Charlebois, Senior Director, Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, co-host of The Food Professor podcast

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For decades, Canada's men's soccer team was irrelevant at best, a punchline at worst. While the women's side went on to Olympic medals and World Cup runs, the Canadian men ... did nothing. Until a few years ago, when the tide began to turn. And then last year, when the unthinkable started to happen. 

Now undefeated during qualifying, having beaten both the United States and Mexico, Canada is not only likely headed to the World Cup for just the second time in its history, but the team also looks ready to do some damage when it gets there. How did the unthinkable happen?

GUEST: John Molinaro, veteran Canadian soccer journalist, founder of TFC Republic

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It was only ever barely about vaccine mandates. As thousands of Canadians took their grievances to Ottawa, some of the ugliest parts of the far-right joined them, distorting a message that was never that clear to begin with. After a weekend of blockades and plenty of bad behaviour, lots of legitimate protesters went home. Those who remain have vowed to occupy Canada's capital, and demand the end of the Liberal government. Who are these people? What happens next? And why are leaders from both sides pouring gas on the fire?

GUEST: Elizabeth Simons, deputy director of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network

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The four-year-old boy, who went missing in 1991, might be Canada's most famous missing person. Thirty years after he vanished from a Victoria, BC playground, a new podcast retraces the investigation, connects with his family and tries to figure out both what happened, and why the case matters so much to so many.

GUEST: Laura Palmer, investigative reporter and host of Island Crime: Missing Michael

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Some critics have declared Harry Potter "over", or Lin-Manuel Miranda "cringe". In the real world, both Potter and Miranda remain enormously popular with people of all ages. Do critics become irrelevant when their views fall out of step with the vast majority of the audience? Or is shifting people's views towards a differing viewpoint part of a critic's job? How do we explain the vast gap between what an elite corner of social media feels is worthy, and what the sales numbers tell us?

GUEST: Yair Rosenberg, Deep Shtetl, The Atlantic

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You could hear it as far away as Alaska and the West coast. It was many, many more times powerful than an atomic bomb and the largest volcanic eruption in more than 25 years. What was so unique about the underground volcano that shook the Pacific nation last week? And what can it tell us about the climate and what's to come?

GUEST:  Shane Cronin, volcanologist at the University of Auckland

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