The Decibel

Emergency rooms across Canada are in a dire state. Wait times in many ERs remain stubbornly high. And in some provinces, the full understanding of how bad the situation has become isn’t even clear – with inconsistent or little data to rely on. For many Canadians, that lack of clarity in emergency situations is a life or death matter.

Globe investigative reporter Tu Thanh Ha joins The Decibel to break down the details he and data editor Yang Sun dug up and what story the numbers tell about the reality of emergency care.

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If you were to spend an afternoon wandering around an art museum, you’d see hundreds of pieces, if not thousands. But the reality is, what you see on display is only a small percentage of a museum’s holdings. Depending on the institution, anywhere from 95 to 99 per cent of the artwork it owns is in storage – and according to a 2019 report, many of those storage spaces are so full that experts say the artworks may be at risk. 

Kate Taylor is the Globe’s visual arts critic. She’s on the show to explain how Canadian art museums ended up with such large collections, and how tax breaks are what drives collectors to donate their pieces.  

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Amber Tuccaro was 20 years old when she disappeared in Edmonton in August 2010. She was never seen alive again. But she left an important clue: a chilling recording of what appears to be the final moments of her life, and the voice of the man who may be her killer.

Hosted by The Globe and Mail’s Jana Pruden, ‘In Her Defence: 50th Street’ retraces the final days of Amber’s life, explore her home, the Indigenous community of Fort Chipewyan, Alberta and asks serious questions of the police investigation of her unsolved murder.

More episodes of ‘In Her Defence: 50th Street’ can be found here and other platforms where podcasts are available.

Support for families impacted by Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls is available through the Indian Residential School Survivors Society at irsss.ca

Individuals impacted by the issue of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls can contact the MMIWG Crisis Line toll-free at 1-844-413-6649.

The Indian Residential School Survivors Society also offers 24-hour support through the Lamathut crisis line toll-free at 1-800-721-0066.

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What does it mean to be connected in the world today? Gen Z – the cohort born between the late 1990s and the early 2010s – has been inundated by social media and smartphones, but they’ve also been hampered by years of social distancing in the pandemic. So, what effect has that had on them in terms of their social connections? 

The Decibel spoke to several Gen Zers, including Globe reporter Pippa Norman on what life is like – their hopes, anxieties and the way they want to push back against stereotypes. 

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At all but a handful of publications, restaurant critics are a relic of bygone days. In their place, the food influencer has risen up in popularity. Seen mostly on platforms like Instagram and Tik Tok, influencers take their audience along for the ride at all sorts of restaurants, from high-end to casual dining… but unlike old school critics, they don’t necessarily adhere to standards like paying for their meal or remaining anonymous, which helped critics paint a full – and sometimes critical – picture of an establishment. 

Dakshana Bascaramurty is the Globe’s food culture reporter. She’s on the show to talk about how food influencers are changing the attention economy for restaurants and how good they are at helping us decide where to go for dinner.  

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This is the second part of a two-episode special looking at the rippling effects of a year of war in Israel, the Gaza Strip and Lebanon. 

In this episode, Mark MacKinnon, The Globe and Mail’s senior international correspondent, talks about the scale of destruction in Gaza, how people are surviving there and what future Palestinians see for themselves. 

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The Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, killed nearly 1,200 Israelis and saw 250 people kidnapped. It also sparked one of the largest wars in the Middle East in a generation. A year of Israel’s ground attack and air strikes on the Gaza Strip has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, causing mass displacement as fears of a wider war continue to develop.

In the first of a two-episode feature on this sombre anniversary, the Globe’s senior international correspondent Mark MacKinnon captures the feelings of Israelis, sharing the stories of survivors from the attacks and analyzes whether the possibility of a ceasefire remains.

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Justin Trudeau’s poll numbers have been bad for a while. The Liberals have lost two crucial by-elections and are trailing behind the Conservatives in seat projections. They just lost the support of the NDP. The shine seems to have completely come off the nine-year-old government. And yet Trudeau remains defiant. Why?

The Globe’s Shannon Proudfoot set out to determine why, in the face of increasingly long odds, some politicians can’t seem to read the writing piling up on the wall. She spoke to former Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne and a pollster on the disastrous 1993 Progressive Conservative campaign to find answers.

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Canada’s Navy has been expanding its presence in the Pacific, as tensions with China rise, leaving vital trade routes in potential danger. At the same time as they recommit their efforts to the region, the military as a whole faces issues around funding and recruitment, raising questions about its future direction. 

The Globe’s Asia correspondent James Griffiths spent a week aboard The HMCS Vancouver as it engaged in war games in the West Pacific, to learn more about Canada’s evolving naval strategy.

James Griffiths spent seven days onboard the HMCS Vancouver in August and September 2024, during which he was subject to a Media Embedding and Ground Rules Agreement with the Canadian Navy. The Navy did not review this episode.

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On Tuesday, Iran fired hundreds of missiles into Israel following weeks of increasing Israeli aggression on Hezbollah. This week, Israel began ground raids and hit central Beirut in a strike. These attacks have killed hundreds in Lebanon and driven millions from their homes. 

Thomas Juneau is an associate professor of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa who specializes in the Middle East. He’s on the show to talk about what we can make of these escalations, and when we may see further involvement from Iran and the U.S. 

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