The Decibel

On October 14, the RCMP shared explosive allegations linking Indian government officials to homicides, extortions and coercion committed against Canadians, on Canadian soil. The RCMP said 30 people had been charged so far, and Ottawa announced it was expelling 6 Indian diplomats.  

Since the escalation, The Globe has learned the lengths Ottawa and the RCMP went to, to avoid worsening tensions between the countries. 

The Globe’s Ottawa Bureau Chief, Robert Fife, takes us inside the behind-the-scenes meetings that led to Canada’s escalation, how far up this goes in the Indian government, and what this all means for the future of Canada and India’s relationship. 

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The U.S. election is a week away, and tensions are running high. Polls show Harris and Trump as more or less deadlocked. America’s Electoral College means the presidency is won one state at a time — and in a country that vast, it’s hard to capture the nuances of the race in the snapshot of a poll.

That’s why the Globe’s feature writer, Ian Brown, got on a Greyhound bus in downtown Los Angeles, and headed east for New York City. He and photographer Barbara Davidson traveled from the deserts of the Southwest to the dairy farms of Wisconsin to try to understand what people were thinking about the election. Ian’s on the show to talk about how taking the bus shaped his thinking about American politics, and he shares some excerpts from his feature on the trip.

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On Thursday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a major reduction in the number of permanent residents the country will admit over the next three years, saying his government had not gotten the balance between labour needs and population growth “quite right.”

In 2025 and 2026, the government had initially planned to bring in 500,000 permanent residents – now, they’ve set a target of 395,000 and 380,000, respectively. In 2027, that target is 365,000 permanent residents. This signifies a major policy reversal for the Trudeau government – and would mean that Canada’s net population is projected to decline by 0.2 per cent per year over the next two years.

Marc Miller, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, joins us to discuss why the government is cutting Canada’s immigration targets, and why he says Canadians should trust the Liberals to fix the problem.

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14 years ago, a young woman disappeared in Edmonton... two years later, police released a chilling recording from the final moments of her life. Ever since she heard it, The Globe’s Jana Pruden hasn’t been able to shake the voices of Amber Tuccaro and the man suspected of killing her, so she took a trip to Amber’s home community of Fort Chipewyan, Alberta to look into the case.

Jana joins the show to share how and why she made the second season of In Her Defence: 50th Street, and what she learned reporting on Amber’s unsolved murder.

You can listen to season two of In Her Defence wherever you get your podcasts.

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Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has said he will impose 10 to 20 per cent tariffs on everything the U.S. imports. This would include, it seems, all of the goods and resources Canada sells to its biggest trading partner. And that kind of tariff wall could have serious effects across the Canadian economy.

Adrian Morrow is the U.S. correspondent based in Washington, D.C., for The Globe and Mail. He looked at exactly which parts of the Canadian economy would be hit the hardest, how much each Canadian could stand to lose on average and what Canada is doing to prepare for this possible scenario.

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Last week, the Assembly of First Nations voted to reject a $47.8-billion child welfare deal with the federal government. The agreement would have funded long-term reforms to child welfare for First Nations children on reserve. Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak, the AFN National Chief, urged the chiefs to pass the deal so that it would be in place before the next federal election.

Dr. Cindy Blackstock is a member of the Gitxsan First Nation and the Executive Director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society. She’s on the show to talk about how this deal was more than a decade in the making and why she and others say it fell short.

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On October 22, 2014, a man named Michael Zehaf-Bibeau entered Parliament Hill, killing Canadian soldier Nathan Cirillo and catching security off guard.

On the 10th anniversary of what was later deemed a terror attack — and with security risks for politicians only growing — the Globe’s national affairs reporter, Kristy Kirkup, joins The Decibel to revisit the events of that day, sharing stories of responders, and explaining how Parliament Hill changed because of it.

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Ivan Semeniuk is The Globe’s science reporter and today on the show he takes us on a tour of our solar system – and beyond! We start with the news of the Europa Clipper and its search for the conditions of life on a watery moon around Jupiter. Then we talk about Earth’s new mini moon, before catching up with those stranded astronauts on the International Space Station. 

We end by talking about what the James Webb Space Telescope has taught us about the origins of the universe, before zooming back in on a very special space rock with a familiar name. 

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The hearings for the public inquiry into foreign interference led by Justice Marie-Josée Hogue wrapped up earlier this week with testimony from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The Prime Minister said he had the names of Conservative parliamentarians who were engaged in or at high risk of being targeted for foreign interference. 

Trudeau’s testimony came just two days after the RCMP announced they had evidence of Indian officials’ involvement in homicides, extortion and violent crime on Canadian soil, which led to Canada expelling six Indian diplomats, and India expelling six Canadian diplomats in retaliation. 

Steven Chase is the Globe’s senior parliamentary reporter. He’s on the show to break down Trudeau’s testimony, what else we learned from this round of the inquiry into foreign interference, and how the new revelations about India played into all of this.

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British Columbia heads to the polls this Saturday, October 19th. It’s been an election campaign full of surprises — from the collapse of one established party, to the meteoric rise of a nearly defunct one. 

With the ongoing challenges of housing, affordability, healthcare and the toxic drug crisis, polling has BC Conservatives and the incumbent BC NDP in a dead heat.  

The Globe’s B.C. politics reporter, Justine Hunter, walks us through the province’s unpredictable election, what both the campaign and the result could tell us about the forthcoming federal election.

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