Shows / The Big Story
The Big Story
An in-depth look at the issues, culture and personalities shaping Canada today.
Episodes
The Big StoryHow the Liberals screwed up Bill C-10. And how they can fix it.
You know something's gone wrong when the government is promising to amend their changes to the broadcasting act to make sure it doesn't apply to, say, your…
The Big StoryHow are you? I am fine: What we lose without small talk
How many strangers have you chatted with recently? Probably not a lot. And while your immediate reaction to that might be, "Great, I hate talking to strangers…
The Big StoryDid this pandemic teach us how to tackle the climate crisis?
A year ago we never would have imagined that humanity could collectively change its work habits so quickly, or that governments could unveil ambitious national…
The Big StoryAs Alberta’s cases spike, Jason Kenney faces a no-win situation
The Alberta Premier does not like restrictions, or telling people to stay home. His caucus likes that stuff even less. But the third wave of Covid-19, which is…
The Big StoryCanadians are reporting UFO sightings. What happens with those reports?
We have a certain image of the sort of person who reports encounters with Unidentified Flying Objects. It's a ... skeptical image, to put it mildly. And it…
The Big StoryHow B.C. dodged Covid-19’s first wave, but got swamped by its third
A year ago, as the pandemic's first wave began to recede, British Columbia was held up as a shining example of a large Canadian province that managed to beat…
The Big StoryFor South Asian-Canadians, two pandemics at once
In neighbourhoods like Peel in Ontario, South Asian-Canadians are being impacted by Covid-19 at a much greater number than their share of the population. At…
The Big StoryHow do handguns get from American gun shows to the streets of Toronto?
You probably know already that most of the illegal guns in Canada come from the United States. But how much do you—or the police—really know about the long…
The Big StoryA look at the science behind vaccines and blood clots
A rare side effect has dominated the discussion of the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines. Some people have used the potential for blood clotting as a…
The Big Story“This isn’t yesterday’s news”: Three years after the Toronto van attack
Today we revisit the van attack of April 23, 2018. It's been three years since a van mounted the sidewalk near Yonge and Finch in Toronto's north end, killing…
The Big StoryInside an unprecedented week in Ontario politics
Even people who have spent their lives covering governments of all stripes can't recall a week like the one Ontario's Progressive Conservative government has…
The Big StoryHow our minds make lasting memories out of a pandemic haze
Picture the moment Covid-19 became real to you—when you left to work from home, or sports shut down, or someone you know got sick. How accurate is that memory?…
The Big StoryCanada’s Vaccine Hunters have tips to help you book your shot
In one week, the @VaxHuntersCan Twitter account has grown from a few thousand followers to more than 85,000. By the time you read this it may be close to…
The Big StoryWe may have just realized how little we understand about our universe
In the middle of a world gripped by plague, a major scientific discovery passed nearly unnoticed. If it's verified, it means one of the most important models…
The Big StoryWhy does nobody talk about the dangers of meditation?
In recent years, meditation has become a huge business in the western world—with millions of people testifying it has helped them calm their minds, improve…
The Big StoryIs in-person worship an essential service?
Last weekend, protesters clashed with police over the closing of GraceLife Church in Alberta. It's not the first time that houses of worship have been a…
The Big StoryCanada had a blueprint for an amazing health data system. We never built it.
In the late 1990s, it became clear that Canada's health data systems would need to go digital. A thorough report was presented, the first of many to come…
The Big StoryWhat did the pandemic do to our social media use?
It increased it, obviously. But how? And what is that doing to us. A dive into the data that shows us where we spent our extra time, how it made us feel and…
The Big StoryCanada’s housing bubble is hitting smaller and smaller communities
And also... bubbles are supposed to burst, aren't they? At some point? It's been more than half a decade since house prices in Canada began to truly climb, and…
The Big StoryThey were switched as babies, and found out decades later. And they aren’t alone.
Have you ever been mistaken for somebody else by a stranger? They call you by another name and you say "Sorry, that's not me." And they say something like…
The Big StoryEven as the third wave rises, new businesses offer a glimpse at pandemic’s end
It's been ... a bad year for economies, to put it mildly. The jobless rate has risen just about everywhere. Small businesses across Canada have scratched and…
The Big StoryThe Line 5 pipeline: A disaster waiting to happen, or necessary to avoid an energy crisis?
You've probably never heard of Line 5. It's an offshoot of Enbridge's main pipeline and it moves more than a half-million barrels of crude oil and natural gas…
The Big StoryIs the third wave really “a new pandemic”? A Covid-19 Variant FAQ
We all want this pandemic to be over. But it's not. And vaccines alone won't stop the third wave of Covid-19 that's now rolling over much of Canada. The third…
The Big StoryHow capitalism profits from an epidemic of loneliness
Most of us have been isolated for more than a year. Many of us, though, have been isolated for longer than that, and will feel it even more sharply when those…
The Big StoryHow Canada-China relations became strained to the breaking point
It ramped up with Canada's detention of a Huawei executive, and China's retaliatory detention of two Canadian citizens. But it didn't begin there. And tensions…
The Big StoryEver Given: The stuck boat that was both a crisis and a comedy
Its name is the Ever Given. It will forever be a part of the history of this odd time. And when it lodged itself horizontally in the Suez Canal last week, it…
The Big StoryCanada’s invisible victims of femicide
Picture the last story you read or heard about a woman killed by a man. Where did she live? How old was she? Why did you picture it that way? With much of 2020…
The Big StoryWhat we know (and don’t know) about long-haul Covid
For almost a year now, reporter Cynthia Mulligan has been staying in touch with people who caught Covid-19 early and survived, only to see their debilitating…
The Big StoryWhat does the carbon tax ruling mean?
Canada's Supreme Court issued an historic ruling yesterday, deciding by a 6-3 margin the the federal government does indeed have the power to implement a…
The Big StoryHow the condo amenity wars are changing Canadian cities
A long time ago, an amenity in a condo was limited to things like a pool, a gym or maybe a patio. Now, as units grow smaller and developers court buyers…
The Big StoryCan we create a national plan to kickstart graduates’ careers?
The second graduating class of this pandemic is about to enter the workforce. There are still very few jobs and thousands of grads desperate for them. Plus…
The Big StoryCanada’s vaccine rollout is slow, and very confusing. Here are some answers.
So, now the AstraZeneca vaccine is OK for people over age 65? What about the blood clot risk?! Why are some pharmacies taking walk-ins for people in their 60s…
The Big StoryCovid and grief: What happens when we can’t say goodbye?
Hundreds of thousands of Canadians have lost loved ones to this pandemic. And most of them lost them without being able to say goodbye or to properly mourn…
The Big StoryHow Homer Simpson became an aspirational figure
The Simpson family's circumstances have barely changed at all over 30 years—but the world around them has dramatically shifted. When the show debuted, Homer…
The Big StoryA year of anti-Asian racism reaches its inevitable, tragic conclusion
For more than 12 months, Asian-Canadians and Asian-Americans have been targeted for harassment, assault and worse. In the early days of the pandemic, it was…
The Big StoryHow a family doctor helped Canadians understand COVID-19
Dr. Jennifer Kwan is just one of dozens of ordinary Canadians who decided early in the pandemic to spend their free time presenting data on the virus to the…
The Big StoryOne week out, did Harry and Meghan’s interview really change anything?
And will Canada ever remove the monarchy? A week ago, it seemed like a tipping point was at hand, as the world reacted with shock and scorn to allegations of…
The Big StoryHow GoFundMe became everyone’s digital safety net…
...and what our governments can learn from it. While crowdfunding sites were originally intended to help with getting projects off the ground, over the past…
The Big StoryHow the Toronto Blessing helped build America’s most unusual church
In 1994, a small Toronto church gave birth to a bizarre spiritual movement that spread across the country and the globe. It was known as the Toronto Blessing…
The Big StoryHow we can fix elder care in Canada
If there's one thing this pandemic has taught us, it's how poorly we care for our elders in Canada. The stories of the carnage in long-term care facilities…
The Big StoryAmid a slow rollout, a Canadian vaccination success story
In most Canadian towns and cities, public health is still trying to vaccinate people 80 and up. In Canada's North, it's a whole different story. In larger…
The Big StoryHow will Canada (and the world) use immunity passports?
Once you've received your COVID-19 vaccine, you'll also receive proof that you've got it. That's not a new concept—we do it for children's vaccinations all the…
The Big StoryA wage gap isn’t the only gender-based workplace inequality
When we focus on gender-based inequality in the workplace, we usually talk about money. The wage gap has been a problem since women began joining the work…
The Big StoryWhy baseball means spring, and spring means hope (with bonus Blue Jays ASMR)
It's been a sign of spring for well over a century—baseball players heading down south to meet their teammates, toss around a few balls and play some…
The Big StoryHow COVID-19 will impact your taxes this year
It's tax season! If you took any form of government COVID-19 relief this year, you've probably got all sorts of questions about how that impacts your return…
The Big StoryHow a Canadian pension fund profits from American evictions
Since the 2008 financial crisis, the single-family rental industry has exploded in the United States, with massive companies buying up as many single-family…
The Big StoryWho are we vaccinating now? Who should be next?
Provinces are rolling out their vaccination plans for the general public, and they all seem pretty similar. After the initial push to vaccinate frontline…
The Big StoryHow can we learn to embrace boredom?
Even without a global pandemic, we're spending less and less time just doing nothing. The urge to check our phone every 20 minutes is the same urge that leads…
The Big StoryA note of optimism on the climate crisis
Temperatures are rising everywhere. Severe weather is becoming more common. And climate disasters are becoming an increasing part of our lives. So it can feel…
The Big StoryWould you let your face be your passport?
What if your face could serve as your passport and identification? Does that sound convenient, or incredibly creepy and invasive? As advances in technology…
The Big StoryIs Canada’s government about to go to war with Facebook?
The social media giant is currently negotiating with the Australian government—which is a big improvement from last week, when Facebook was blocking all links…
The Big StoryHave we found proof of alien civilization?
You remember it, even if you've forgotten how to pronounce it. Oumuamua was a cigar-shaped object that passed through our inner solar system and mystified…
The Big Story“Living the racism dream”: Where comedy ends and activism begins
Today we meet the woman who can win over a crowd of cowboys in one of Canada's whitest places. All while telling jokes about systemic racism. She is one of the…
The Big StoryHow America’s biggest flour company survived 2020
Remember when flour disappeared for a brief moment as we stocked up for the pandemic? It wasn't because we bought up all the flour in the world. Companies were…
The Big StoryOne year after the Wet’suwet’en protests
In February 2020, RCMP officers raided Wet’suwet’en camps along the route of the $6.6 billion Coastal GasLink pipeline in northern B.C that plans to transport…
The Big StoryUncovering the little known Black history of Oakville, Ontario (and other Canadian cities)
The history of every Canadian city isn't always what we think it is. We stumble upon some of it, on plaques in parks or benches across our cities but a lot of…
The Big Story“One moment of romance in an otherwise stressful year”
In a breakaway from the pains of the pandemic, today we bring you the sappiest Canadian love story we could find. She was a master's student visiting London…
The Big StoryLet’s unmask the confusion about masks
As new variants of Covid-19 spread around the world, we're all a little worried about the strength of our masks. New guidelines are now emerging from various…
The Big StoryCan the city of Toronto make high-speed internet more accessible?
Earlier this month, Toronto City Council approved a plan to build its own high-speed broadband network. It’s an ambitious idea that will be tried out in three…
The Big StoryWhere are Canada’s vaccines? Part 2
In June 2020, Canada established its COVID-19 vaccine task force. The federal government recruited 11 vaccine and infectious disease experts from across the…