In August, a man allegedly broke into someone’s home in a small Ontario town. After an altercation, the intruder was hospitalized with life-threatening injuries. Now, both men face charges. The case has sparked a country-wide conversation about the limits of self-defence, with politicians across Canada weighing in.

Today, the Globe’s opinion columnist Andrew Coyne joins The Decibel. He’ll tell us how the public discourse is playing out and what Canadian law actually says about self-defense.

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Maryam Fatima was born with a condition called hemimegalencephaly, a rare birth defect in which one side of the brain is abnormally large. She suffered from severe seizures from the moment she was born. They became so bad that they stopped Maryam from feeding, sleeping and breathing. Her life was at risk.

That’s when a team at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto decided to attempt a first-in-Canada procedure to save Maryam’s life.

Health Science reporter Jennifer Yang interviewed some of the medical professionals who performed the procedure, as well as Maryam’s mother, Muzna Nafees. She tells the story of how Maryam’s life was saved.

This episode originally aired June 6, 2025.

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Having social media accounts hacked is stressful. Usually, companies have formal channels for users to regain access. But for Meta platforms like Facebook and Instagram, some users say the social media giant isn’t responding.

Now, a new kind of broker has sprung up, helping people locked out of their accounts connect with a Meta employee or contractor who can expedite their request … for the right price. In 2022, Meta fired or disciplined employees or contractors who had allegedly abused the internal account recovery system for bribes. Kathryn Blaze Baum, an investigative reporter at The Globe and Mail, and Alexandra Posadzki, The Globe’s cybercrimes reporter, found that three years later, this is still happening.

Today, Kathryn is on the show to talk about how this back-door process works, how Meta is cracking down on it, and where this leaves users who have had their accounts compromised.

This episode originally aired June 13, 2025.

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Problem gambling is a real issue in Canada – where reporting shows young people having even higher rates than adults. The increasing monetization of games, especially online, often uses similar mechanics to gambling, despite it being illegal for youth to gamble in Canada. And some experts say these apps and games are reinforcing feelings of risk and reward.

Dr. Loredana Marchica is a pediatric psychologist at the Montreal Children’s Hospital and at Pathways Psychology Clinic. Her research focuses on gambling among young people. She’ll tell us how the line between gaming and gambling is becoming blurred – and how to tell it’s become a problem.

This episode originally aired May 5, 2025.

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The way medical records are handled in Canada is a patchwork of disconnected systems – creating massive headaches for patients and doctors. Patients struggle to access their own data, and practitioners have to waste time compensating for inefficiencies. But governments, companies and health care professionals are searching for ways to make all these systems talk to each other.

Chris Hannay is a staff reporter at The Globe who covers the business of healthcare. He’ll explain how Canada’s medical record system ended up like this and what Canada could gain from adopting an interconnected system.

This episode originally aired April 15, 2025.

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Bill C-2, also known as the Strong Borders Act, is one of the first pieces of legislation by Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government. The 140-page bill proposes a series of enhanced powers for law enforcement and major changes to how the government processes some asylum claims and immigration applications.

Sara Mojtehedzadeh is an investigative reporter at The Globe who writes about immigration and refugees. She explains the details of the bill and why the government believes the changes are necessary.

This episode originally aired June 11, 2025.

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In 2021, mine workers in Morocco made a huge discovery. They found a fossil that scientists believed to be a new species of mosasaur – a large swimming reptile that lived in the same era as the Tyrannosaurus Rex. However, many scientists, including a group in Alberta, are now questioning whether the fossil is real or fake.

Ivan Semeniuk is The Globe’s science reporter. He’s on the show today to explain what we know about this fossil, the feud that it’s provoked between paleontologists and when we might uncover the truth.

This episode originally aired May 30, 2025.

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When the U.S. first imposed sweeping tariffs on Canada, setting off a trade war, businesses and consumers braced for high inflation. But nearly half a year later, prices for consumer goods have not risen as much as expected. So what happened?

Consumer affairs reporter Mariya Postelnyak talks about why prices haven’t gone up as much as predicted and why that could soon change.

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A national strike by Air Canada flight attendants ended on Tuesday morning, three days after it began. One of the key issues that Air Canada and the Canadian Union of Public Employees were fighting over was "ground pay," the amount flight attendants are paid for their work before takeoff and after landing.

Jason Kirby is a business reporter for The Globe and Mail. He’s on the show to talk about what we know about the deal so far, and what impact this strike could have on future labour disputes.

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Since Wikipedia was founded nearly 25 years ago as a free, online encyclopedia, it has consistently ranked as one of the top 10 most visited websites globally. In an era when so much of the internet is full of misinformation, polarization, and social media platforms designed to keep you doomscrolling for hours, you could argue that Wikipedia – free of ads, and maintained by volunteer editors – is one of the last good places online.

Samantha Edwards is the Globe’s online culture reporter. She’s on the show to talk about what motivates these editors to volunteer, how AI is threatening the site’s future, and why going down a Wikipedia rabbit hole might actually be good for you.

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