Your hosts this week, Lynn, Terry, Leo, Marc

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Skilled professionals facing uncertain job future

More and more skilled Canadian professionals are working in unstable jobs with without benefits. (iStock, cbc.ca)

We usually think of "precarious" work as being low-skilled, low-pay jobs. Precarious means there's no real job security, no pension, no benefits, and in a job that could easily be terminated.

Increasingly it seems, precarious work includes skilled and professional positions. A new study has come out called, "No Safe Harbour: Precarious Work and Economic Insecurity Among Skilled Professionals in Canada".

Terry spoke to Trish Hennessy, who co-authored the study for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives'

Reconciliation or creating division. Legacy of Canada's founder and aboriginals

The statue of Sir John A Macdonald as it stood in front of Victoria B.C. City Hall before council voted to have it removed because he was "a leader of violence against Indigenous people" (Mike McArthur-CBC)

In the past few years the movement to re-examine the legacy of Canada's founder and first Prime Minister has grown. That movement blames Sir John A Macdonald for creating the disastrous aboriginal residential school system.  They have been calling for removal of all his statues, and his name from institutions like schools, and from certain awards.

Marc spoke to Frederic Bastien, Montreal author and professor of History at Dawson College who says those calling for the removal of statues are at best misguided, and not interested in facts or history.

Rare birth of pygma hippo at Toronto Zoo

First-time mother Kindia and her new baby pygmy hippo are doing well so far at the Toronto Zoo. (Toronto Zoo)

Pygmy hippos are listed as an endangered species, so it was a thrill for all when a 12-year-old hippo named Kindia gave birth to her first baby at the Toronto Zoo. This is because the species tends not to easily reproduce in zoos.

The zoo participates in the Pygmy Hippopotamus Species Survival Plan (SSP) which involves zoos in North America in efforts to breed endangered animals.

Lynn spoke to Maria Franke, curator of mammals at the Toronto Zoo about the birth and efforts to maintain the species of which there are only about 3,000 left in the wild.

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