The Big Story

More than a decade ago, a Canadian researcher tracked local media coverage given to cases of missing Indigenous and missing white women. You can probably guess what that revealed. Since then, however, Canada and other countries have spent time discussing racial bias, and attempting to correct it. Canada even had an entire national inquiry dedicated to the travesty of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

Yet in late summer, when a pretty young white woman named Gabby Petito disappeared, none of that mattered. The media was flooded with a continent-wide search for Petito while Indigenous and Black women who had vanished just as recently were barely mentioned. Why is this phenomenon so pervasive and how has seemingly nothing aside from words changed in a decade?

GUEST: Kristen Gilchrist-Salles, researcher

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It's been more than a year and a half since Canadians could freely drive across the border to the United States — to visit friends and family, to see a game or do some shopping. But maybe "freely" isn't the most accurate way to put it, since the crossing process will be more regulated and restricted than pre-pandemic times.

So what do you need to cross? What arrangements do you have to make? How much might it cost? What about kids? And what else do you need to know before finally heading south again?

GUEST: Cormac Mac Sweeney, Parliament Hill reporter

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The minister who managed to secure tens of millions of Covid-19 vaccines gets the toughest job in government as a thank you. or much of the past year, barely a month has gone by without a new sexual harassment or assault scandal in the Canadian Armed Forces — and all too often those scandals have involved some of the military’s top ranked officials.

Previous attempts at reform have failed, efforts to shift the culture have barely budged it and meanwhile, recruitment has fallen dramatically. So something needed to change. Why not the minister? What challenges will Anand face and where should she start if this is to be the reform that actually works?

GUEST: Julie Lalonde, advocate and educator, author of Resilience is Futile: The Life and Death of Julie S. Lalonde

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The Eternals hits theatres today, and will no doubt earn Marvel Studios and Disney hundreds of millions of dollars. But is it really fair to call these things "movies" anymore? They are projects that require viewers to come equipped with vast background knowledge and exist to set up the next film, and the film after that. Today we examine what has become of the modern "Super Hero Movie" through the lends of the seven (soon to be eight) big-budget Spider-Man films.

How did we get from a Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man, to whatever this has become?

GUEST: Jeremy Gordon

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Amid a worsening climate crisis and reports detailing the need for urgency, world leaders took to the stage at COP26 this week to ... promise to do more. There were impressive promises, to be sure, including several from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. But at least from the leaders there were precious few details about exactly how these ambitious targets would be achieved. We know the goals we need to hit to keep our planet livable—the question is if we're prepared to do more than agree we should hit them.

GUEST: Fatima Syed, The Narwhal and The Backbench

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It's a problem that predates the pandemic—but eighteen months of a public health crisis has only made it worse. Every day nurses and emergency room staff in Canada face threats and assault from the public they care for. For decades they have suffered mostly in silence. But as Covid-19 has made their jobs even less safe, some of them are finally speaking out.

These are critical workers, who are already dealing with exhaustion and burnout. What's being done to protect them? Why is this happening now? And what becomes of the health care system if even more of them give up and walk away?

GUEST: Flannery Dean, writing in The Globe and Mail

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John Tory has a longstanding relationship with Rogers Communications Inc., as a previous executive and as a friend of the late founder, Ted Rogers. Toronto voters knew he would maintain some ties with the company when he ran for office—but the depth and power of those ties went largely unreported—until an internal fight for company control made it obvious that Tory would be a key mediator and decision-maker in the ultimate outcome.

What did the public know of this relationship—and what has it only learned now? Where has Tory recused himself and where could conflicts remain? And will the fact that the city's mayor was making six figures from one of Toronto's biggest companies, and the public didn't know, be a re-election issue?

GUEST: Jennifer Pagliaro, City Hall reporter, Toronto Star

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Meth has always been a dangerous drug — but never this dangerous, users and social workers across the continent tell Sam Quinones in his new book. A new production method has made the drug easier to and cheaper to make, allowing it to spread from the Mexican border all the way up to Canada, with devastating effects. Amid the opioid and fentanyl crises, the impact of new meth can be lost among the overdoses, but this drug seems to attack users' minds in a way it hasn't before.

How did meth spread so fast and so far? What's different about the meth on the streets today? What is it doing to users, and what is being done to help them? And why can't researchers dig into what's happening in users' brains?

GUEST: Sam Quinones, author of The Least Of Us:  True Tales  of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth

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Most cold cases ... stay cold. For every one that closes, and makes headlines, dozens or hundreds more are left languishing in files and databases. But sometimes, if you ask the right question, to the right person, after enough time has passed, you learn something new. And one new fact can be enough to unearth a bunch more, if you're lucky enough to find the right one.

So how do you reheat a cold case? Where do you start? What do you do with something new when you find it? What happens if you approach a decades-old murder with the urgency of breaking news?

GUEST: Fil Martino, crime reporter, co-host of Tracking a Killer: The Cold Case Files

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There are many communities and public health units across Canada where, for one reason or another, vaccination rates lag way behind other population centres. In many places, this happens quietly. In Aylmer, Ontario, it happens very loudly. Aylmer isn’t a big town. And it wouldn’t be particularly notable, except for one man, and one church, and the national and international attention he has brought to it.

Why are Henry Hildebrandt and the Church of God Restoration so against public health measures? What has the town done about their refusal to comply with them? How did Hildebrandt turn this small Ontario town into a magnet for prominent anti-vaxxers from across North America and if and when this is all over, what happens to a community that has been fractured?

GUEST: Luc Rinaldi, writing for Toronto Life

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