Guest: Kate Allen, climate change reporter

Fresh air, trees, grass on bare feet. The sound of birds while playing on a playground. Leisurely swinging in the shadow of a tree. Many of us have childhood memories outside in parks and forests, and research shows this time is key to our physical, mental and social well-being and development. So what about the children being raised in urban centres like Toronto, where green space has shrunk significantly over the past two decades as the region faces pressure to build housing and city reports warn that the amount of parkland per person risks falling further. As part of the Star’s “The Kids Aren’t All Right” series, climate change reporter Kate Allen joins “This Matters” to discuss the impacts on children and their development.

This episode was produced by Paolo Marques and Brian Bradley.

Guest: jade guthrie, FoodShare Toronto

When kids don’t get enough to eat at home or they worry about running out of food, it can affect everything in their lives from their ability to learn and grow, to their ability to be healthy and resilient. Yet food insecurity is the reality of 1.8 million kids in Canada. In this episode from the Star’s “The Kids Aren’t All Right” series, guest host Alyshah Hasham and jade guthrie of FoodShare Toronto discusses what we can do to turn the crisis around.

This episode was produced by Paulo Marques, Julia De Laurentiis Johnston and Alyshah Hasham.

Guest: Victoria Gibson, affordable housing reporter

Housing affordability and accessibility are only getting worse. For many Canadians, they might be just one bill or unexpected expense away from being unable to afford that month’s rent. Renovations, rent, or repair expenses are all factors that have led to more than 600,000 kids growing up in precarious housing across the country. As part of the series “The Kids Aren’t All Right,” we take a look at what that means and how a child might experience these challenges.

This episode was produced by Paulo Marques, Brian Bradley and Saba Eitizaz.

Guest: Megan Ogilvie, health reporter

Ever since the COVID pandemic, Canada’s health care system is near a breaking point and may take years to fix. Among the issues, experts are worried that many children are not getting needed surgery within the safe medical window. An estimated 17,000 children are on long waiting lists for surgeries that could improve the quality of their lives. Some of them wait for months or years. Some might never recover. The Star’s health reporter Megan Ogilvie unpacks the impact it has on children and their families.

This episode was produced by Paulo Marques, Julia De Laurentiis Johnston and Saba Eitizaz.

Guest: Amy Dempsey, series editor

In many different aspects of life, kids in Toronto are struggling right now. Housing is unaffordable, educational supports are lacking, surgical wait times are long and the social safety net is frayed. Amy Dempsey is editor of the series “The Kids Aren’t All Right,” which looks at the varied and interconnected ways we’re letting down the next generation and what we might start doing to fix it.

This episode was produced by Sean Pattendon, Julia De Laurentiis Johnston and Edward Keenan.

Guests: David Rider and Ben Spurr

Since her election in June, Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow has begun the work she was elected to do — building relationships with councillors and the premier, trying to kick start affordable housing and working to fix the city’s budget hole. David Rider, city hall bureau chief, and Ben Spurr, reporter, have talked to her allies, opponents and city experts to evaluate how far she’s come, how much further she has to go and potential political landmines in the coming mayoral schedule.

This episode was produced by Sean Pattendon, Julia De Laurentiis Johnston and Edward Keenan.

Guest: Deborah Dundas, books editor

The 2023 Scotiabank Giller Prize, Canada’s prestigious literary award, will be handed out on Nov. 13. Five books were shortlisted last week from a longlist of twelve, picked out of more than a hundred books that were submitted across the country. Star books editor Deborah Dundas walks us through the most buzzworthy books and gives great recommendations to add to our holiday reading and gift lists.

This episode was produced by Paulo Marques, Brian Bradley and Saba Eitizaz.

Audio Sources: Wellington Square Books, Vancouver Public Library, Kobo, Waterstones, Notre Dame Day

Guest: Amy Laski, founder of the Tween Girls Hockey League

The city’s policy for allocating recreational permits for sports facilities favours tradition. Long-term permit holders get renewed year after year. That’s great for building up those leagues, but leaves any newcomers, including those trying to serve girls and others who feel left out of the existing sports culture, scrambling to try to find a way in. Hockey mom and league founder Amy Laski outlines her struggle to get the city to accommodate her league and fix the policies that led to it.

This episode was produced by Sean Pattendon, Julia De Laurentiis Johnston and Edward Keenan.

Guest: Dr. Sasha High, internal medicine and obesity physician

Ozempic has been all over the news and social media as it has been hailed as the miracle drug for weight loss. As it is a trend among A-list celebrities, it’s also found itself surrounded by controversy. Experts say Ozempic is a medicine, not a TikTok trend and needs to be taken with the advice of your doctor. Last year, Ozempic hype and reported off-label use led to a shortage of the drug in certain regions for people who needed it, including diabetics. It isn’t all black and white — diabetes and obesity are often interrelated — and this drug and others like it could be a game changer for those struggling with both. That’s around seven per cent of the population in Canada.

This episode was produced by Paulo Marques, Julia De Laurentiis Johnston and Saba Eitizaz.

Guest: Lydia Greene, student nurse

For a long while, Lydia Greene would forgo many vaccines for her and her children, believing them akin to poison. A mother of three and a former quality-control chemist for a pharmaceutical plant, Greene called herself an anti-vaxxer. But when COVID-19 put vaccine safety into the spotlight, she decided to dig deeper into the research and concluded she might actually be wrong. She talks to “This Matters” about how she got from there to here, what it was like to administer her first vaccine as a student nurse and about grappling with that very human quandary of what it feels like to realize you’re wrong.

This episode is produced by Alex Boyd, Julia De Laurentiis Johnston and Sean Pattendon