The Big Story

Most Canadian provinces now have or are planning to implement a vaccine passport. But who will have to ask for those passports? Check their authenticity? Deny service to those who refuse to show one?
It'll be the same people who have already spent the pandemic bearing the brunt of anger over public health restrictions: Frontline service and hospitality industry workers who didn't sign up to enforce health regulations. Is there a way to both protect necessary measures like the passports, but give these workers the help and support they need to deal with the inevitable garbage that will come their way?
GUEST: John Sinopoli, restaurateur, co-founder of savehospitality.ca

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It's wonderful that two Canadians caught in the middle of geopolitics are home and safe after more than 1,000 days detained in China. It's not great that the circumstances of their return seem to imply that hostage diplomacy works. How should Canada be dealing with China? Do we have any power in this situation? Was this a win, or a capitulation? And what's to stop it from happening again the next time we make China angry?
GUEST: Stephanie Carvin, former National Security Analyst, author of Stand on Guard: Reassessing Threats To Canada's National Security

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The app is called Staffy and it was created to help the hospitality industry fill gaps in scheduling when a server or cook couldn't work. But when the pandemic began and shortages rose at long-term care homes and hospitals, Staffy pivoted to focus on demand. Now nurses and care workers and more are taking day gigs through the app, with no benefits, insurance, sick days or anything else.

Is it ethical to bring health care into the gig economy? And if it isn't, why do we think drivers or handymen are different?
GUEST: Alison Motluk, writing for The Local

(This is what Staffy looks like.)

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A month ago, they needed a miracle. Now they're in the final stages of a playoff push—and no team in their right mind wants to face the Blue Jays in the post-season. How did Toronto turn it all around? What will it take to bring it home this final week? And what does a thrilling September for baseball in Canada mean to a country that just trudged through a joyless election and is facing a fourth pandemic wave?
GUEST: Stephen Brunt, Sportsnet

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Western has always been known as a party school, and with that comes a culture that can lead to sexual violence. But this year's freshman orientation week ("O-week" as the school calls it) was horrifying even by that standard. Multiple accounts of sexual assault and violence are being investigated both by the school and the police. A fed-up student body led a 12,000-person walk out. And the administration has promised to take action and change the culture.
How? What happened two weeks ago on campus? How inevitable was something like this? And did an influx of young students, who had spent most of the past 18 months in lockdown only to emerge on their own for the first time, lacking support, make this even worse?

GUEST: Rebekah Rodrigues, news editor at the Western Gazette (You can read the Gazette's coverage right here.)

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The province is suffering from an absolutely devastating fourth wave of Covid. Premier Jason Kenney was absent until it was too late to prevent the worst of it. Now, as hospitals blow past their capacity, Kenney is shuffling his cabinet and hoping vaccine passports can help right the ship. How did it come to this? What could have been done to prevent it? And will this cost the premier his job?
GUEST: Jason Markusoff, Maclean's

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A Liberal minority government. Likely within a few seats of where we started, 37 days ago. Did this election matter? What did it reveal about Canada's political mood? About the health of our electoral system? And about the future of the two leaders who went head to head for the past six weeks? Turns out, more than you might think.

GUEST: David Moscrop

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This was the shortest possible election Canada could have had — so why did it feel so long? Maybe because nobody really wanted it. As Canadians (at least those who haven't voted in advance) head to the polls today, we offer you a rapid recap of the highs and (mostly) lows of this campaign. If you have mercifully had other things to do all day, this will give you everything you need to know. If you have been paying attention this whole time, you will marvel at how long ago the beginning of a very short election feels...
GUEST: Cormac Mac Sweeney

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We asked our listeners what their key issues were in this election, and this week we'll tackle the top five. Every day we'll go deep on the major party platforms with an expert immersed in that field. Today, the climate crisis. This was our listeners' top issue, and it wasn't particularly close.
For the first time in a federal election, every major party has a legitimate plan to deal with the climate crisis. But those plans are wildly different. Which plan is ambitious enough to be effective, but rational enough to be achievable? What do we know about the climate now that we didn't know in 2019? How much time do we have left to act, and where do our targets need to be to make a difference?
GUEST: Fatima Syed, climate and environment reporter, The Narwhal Ontario

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We asked our listeners what their key issues were in this election, and this week we'll tackle the top five. Every day we'll go deep on the major party platforms with an expert immersed in that field. Today, truth and reconciliation. A few months ago, when news of hundreds of unmarked graves at residential schools was horrifying Canadians, it seemed unimaginable that dealing with Canada's legacy of racism and implementing meaningful reconciliation would not be a leading issue in the next election. Now here we are and ... is it?
Every party has a plan to tackle the darkest element of Canada's history and culture — but what are those plans, and how do they sound to Indigenous people who have been promised so many things, and let down so many times? And speaking of that: How many boil-water advisories are still in effect, and why should any party that has held power in the past four decades be taken seriously on this issue while they remain?
GUEST: Jaida Beaudin, Indigenous journalist, currently at the Waniska Research Centre

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