The Rundown

The provincial government is taking a "back to normal" approach to COVID-19 this fall, leaving it up to institutions to decide their own restrictions. Some universities require students to be boosted and masked. Hospitals ask their staff be jabbed and masked. However, public schools and public transit don't require either. All the while, many find their patience for restrictions waning. What's the right approach?

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Following an unprecedented two and half years of interrupted education, we ask the Canadian Federation of Students, the largest student organization in Canada, what college and university students feel they lost, and what they hope to gain heading into the new post-secondary school year.

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John Turner's star was on the rise in the mid-1960s, when he held positions of justice minister and finance minister in the Pierre Trudeau government. Then in 1975, he opted out of politics for almost a decade. He came back in 1984 to win party leadership and eventually helm the country - for a very brief time. Steve Paikin's new biography, "John Turner: An Intimate Biography of Canada's 17th Prime Minister," pulls back the curtain on how it all happened, and how Turner - the man and the politician - dealt with the ups and downs of public life.

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Unifor, Canada's largest private sector union, had elected its first female president. Lana Payne takes the reigns after the controversial exit of the former president. She talks to Nam Kiwanuka about her plans for the union.

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Data from Ontario's chief coroner is showing that northern Ontario - and specifically Thunder Bay - are continuing to deal with the highest opioid-related deaths in the province. To find out why, northwestern Ontario Hub journalist Charnel Anderson spoke to Holly Gauvin, executive director of Elevate UWO, a community-based non-profit that provides harm-reduction services about the toll and what she recommends moving forward.

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Nam Kiwanuka talks to one of Canada's most controversial artistic forces, Sky Gilbert, director, filmmaker, and professor of creative writing and theatre at the University of Guelph. He shares his insights into homosexual themes in Shakespeare's work and how queer conversations have evolved over time.

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How intelligent are fish? Can they feel pain? Do flies have social lives? And do they woo other flies? Jonathan Balcombe has spent decades writing about the inner lives of animals - including the books, "What a Fish Knows" and "Super Fly: The Unexpected Lives of the World's Most Successful Insects." He tells us how we've underestimated the complex lives of both fishes and flies.

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As a result of all the postponed weddings, it seems there's now a wedding boom in Canada. But celebrations can be more expensive due to inflation and resource shortages. Are more people choosing non-traditional weddings? Or are couples going bigger after years of lockdown and restrictions?

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As summer winds down and we head into fall and a new school year, we talk to Dr. Fahad Razak, the new scientific director of the COVID-19 Science Advisory Table to look at where Ontario is in its attempts to deal with the pandemic, how much natural immunity is present in communities, what modelling is suggested for the months ahead, and what to expect in the next round of vaccinations.

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Moose, beavers, bats, turtles, loons, river otters, and everything in between, our Ontario Hubs reporters are bringing the province's wildlife into focus in a series called Ontario's Unofficial Official Animals. Where and how do they live? What threats are they facing? And how do they reflect the province's character? TVO.org associate editor Nathaniel Basen tells us more.

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