Afleveringen
-
Guest: Mary Simon, governor general of Canada
Gov. Gen. Mary Simon was appointed to her role in 2021, and made history as the first Indigenous person to hold that office. She used her social media to share updates about her work until last year, when the online hate came for her. Her team was forced to close her social media accountâs comment section because the incoming hate became vile, racist and relentless. Yet in a powerful move, Gov. Gen. Simon took back her story and publicly shared those very comments to shine a light on the rising tide of abuse and online bullying in Canada. In an exclusive virtual conversation with âThis Matters,â the governor general talks about reconciliation, respect and the fight against online hate.
This episode was produced by Sean Pattenden and Saba Eitizaz
What would you like to hear on Toronto Star podcasts? Let us know in this survey and you can enter to win a $100 gift card.
-
Guests: John Degen, novelist, and Peter Gorman, Deputy People's Warden at St. Anne's
On June 9, a catastrophic four-alarm fire destroyed St. Anne's Anglican Church in Toronto's Little Portugal neighbourhood. The flames turned valuable paintings that were embedded into the very structure to ashes, including the only know religious artwork made by Canadaâs famed Group of Seven. With the loss of St. Anne's, Canada has lost a historic site, but the community that built its life around the church has also lost its emotional and spiritual sanctuary. In this episode, two men deeply connected with St. Anne's church talk about what was lost; not just from a historical and cultural perspective but a deeply human one.
Audio sources: Global News
This episode was produced by Paulo Marques and Saba Eitizaz
-
Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
-
Guest: Satirical conspiracy theory leader Peter McIndoe
It all started when Peter McIndoe, a self-described âobnoxious teenager,â went to a womenâs march and scrawled the most random phrase he could think of on a sign: âBirds Arenât Real.â When asked by people around him what he meant, he improvised a whole back story, someone posted a video of him online, and a fake movement was born. He spent a couple of years zigzagging across the U.S. in his van, playing the part of a conspiracy leader, doing interviews and leading crowds of his followers in chants. Many of his fans were in on the joke, while others â including some journalists â did think he was serious. He joins âThis Mattersâ to talk about the challenge of staying in character as a conspiracy leader, how he thinks these movements get sparked, what sustains them. He also talks about why those reasons may not be what you think.
What would you like to hear on Toronto Star podcasts? Let us know in this survey and you can enter to win a $100 gift card.
-
Guest: Ben Spurr, city hall bureau chief
Can you imagine Toronto without its public transit lifeline? A TTC strike might be looming for the first time in almost 16 years as thousands of transit workers might soon walk off the job and on to the picket line this Friday. Despite months of negotiations on job security, wages and benefits, the TTC management and the union representing about 12,000 workers seems to be in a deadlock. City hall bureau chief Ben Spurr explains the stakes on both sides and what this could mean for Torontonian's commute on Friday.
Audio sources: CBC News
This episode was produced by Paulo Marques and Saba Eitizaz.
What would you like to hear on Toronto Star podcasts? Let us know in this survey and you can enter to win a $100 gift card.
-
Guest: David Miller, former mayor of Toronto
Former Toronto Mayor David Miller was always an advocate for the environment. But in the nearly 14 years since he left office heâs become one of the worldâs great networkers for climate solutions, bringing together mayors from 96 cities to share policy ideas, programs and practices. In this episode of âThis Matters,â Miller discusses why municipal governments are best positioned to rapidly deploy climate solutions and the ways heâs seen mayors make outsized impacts far beyond the boundaries of their cities by âhackingâ their position to reduce emissions.
What would you like to hear on Toronto Star podcasts? Let us know in this survey and you can enter to win a $100 gift card.
-
Guest: Shawn Micallef, contributing columnist and author of âStroll: Pyschogeographic Walking Tours of Torontoâ
In 2010, journalist Shawn Micallef first published his book of observations, suggestions and civic history gleaned from years of wandering around the city and paying close attention to what he saw. In the 14-years since, as Micallef became a freelance columnist for The Star, the book has been a perennial local favourite, running through several press runs. This week, a new, updated edition launches, for which he re-walked all of the terrain and revised to note how the city has changed in small and large ways. From the ravines to and entirely new neighbourhood, he talks about what one can learn about a city, and how you can grow to both love it and demand change from it, just by strolling around.
What would you like to hear on Toronto Star podcasts? Let us know in this survey and you can enter to win a $100 gift card.
-
Guests: Journalists Samira Mohyeddin and Christopher Curtis
Student protests that first erupted across the United States have now spread northward, igniting across Canada, including campuses at University of Toronto, McGill University, University of British Columbia and University of Alberta among others. The students say they want to end a war thatâs claimed more than 34,000 Palestinian lives, according to local officials, destroyed or damaged every university in Gaza and displaced hundreds of thousands of people. The recent Israeli offensive against Gaza began after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants which killed almost 1,200 Israelis with dozens still held hostage. The students are specifically calling for universities to cut all financial and academic ties with any Israeli company or campus that supports the military or illegal West Bank settlements based on international law. In this episode we take a look at what's going inside the University of Toronto and McGill University campuses through the eyes of two independent journalists, Samira Mohiyeddin and Christopher Curtis, co-founder of The Rover, who have been reporting from within the encampments.
Audio sources: CBC News, Samira Mohyeddin, Christopher Curtis, Lance McMillan
This episode was produced by Julia De Laurentiis Johnston, Paulo Marques and Saba Eitizaz
With files from Marco Chown Oved
What would you like to hear on Toronto Star podcasts? Let us know in this survey and you can enter to win a $100 gift card.
-
Guest: Toronto PWHL season ticket holder and superfan Connie Hamers
At the inaugural game of Torontoâs professional womenâs hockey team, Connie Hamers had front-row seats, and immediately took a liking to the play of rookie Emma Maltais. By game two, sheâd labelled her section âEmma Nationâ and began bringing team swag she made (or had made) herself â signs, team roster reference lists, mini-sticks, hockey cards â to games to distribute freely to others sitting around her. She travelled with the team to other cities, founded a social media fan group, and quickly became one of the most well-recognized and liked people in attendance at games. As the team prepares for its first-ever playoffs, she sits down with fellow season ticket holder Edward Keenan to discuss a first-place finish for the team, the astonishing MVP-calibre performance of Natalie Spooner, what she loves about Maltais, why she has put so much time and energy into supporting and helping promote the team, and what sheâs looking forward to in the playoffs. Plus, Hamers shares how she left her âEmma Nationâ mark in places around the U.S. and Canada.
What would you like to hear on Toronto Star podcasts? Let us know in this survey and you can enter to win a $100 gift card.
-
Guests: Jasmine Eastmond, Tristan Kim and Kristin Rushowy
The Ontario government has announced a crackdown on cellphones and vaping in schools, new regulations that are being seen as some of the toughest in Canada. According to Education Minister Stephen Lecce, the new government policy for cellphones, with some exceptions, is out of sight, out of mind. With this new move to ban cellphone use in classrooms, Ontario has joined a global movement with similar restrictions being imposed in the UK, Australia, France and some Scandinavian countries. There are many questions about enforcement and effectiveness, chief among them: how are teachers going to keep young people away from their phones in an increasingly digital ecosystem?
Audio sources: CP24
This episode was produced by Paulo Marques and Saba Eitizaz. With files from Emily Fagan
-
Guest: Betsy Powell, courts reporter
After the death of police Const. Jeffrey Northrup, the trial of Umar Zameer for first degree murder galvanized attention (and political rage) in the Toronto area. Now that heâs been found not guilty, people are left with questions about a prosecution that always seemed to be based on flimsy grounds. Reporter Betsy Powell covered the case for the Star from its beginnings to its conclusion, and spoke one-on-one with Zameer following the verdict. Now on âThis Matters,â she shares her overview of the case, how the judge had expressed skepticism all along and the rare apology that judge issued to the defendant. We also share Zameerâs own reflections on the trial from Powellâs interview.
What would you like to hear on Toronto Star podcasts? Let us know in this survey and you can enter to win a $100 gift card.
-
Guest: Sophie Grégoire Trudeau
Even before Sophie GrĂ©goire Trudeau married Prime Minister Justin Trudeau she was an advocate for mental health, openly sharing her personal struggles with eating disorders. She discusses her new book. She shares those struggles afresh, along with tales of her parents, her schooling, her relationships, in her new book, âCloser Together: Knowing Ourselves, Loving Each Other,â which she describes as a personal journey toward empowerment.
-
We asked three published, award-winning Toronto poets to weigh in on Swiftâs literary merit at a listening party on the albumâs release day. The assignment: dissect three new songs as though Swift were a writer workshopping new pieces.
Guests: Sanna Wani, a poet and poetry editor whose latest book, âMy Grief The Sun,â was released in 2022; Jody Chanâs most recent volume of poems, âimpact statement,â came out earlier this year and they are an artist-in-residence at the University of Torontoâs Queer and Trans Research Lab; Adam Dickinson, an author of four books of poetry and a professor in the Department of English language at Brock University.
-
Guests: Leena Usman, Pino Buffone and Kris Rushowy
In what could be a landmark lawsuit in Canada, at least five major Ontario school boards are taking some of the largest social media companies to court over their platforms like Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok, alleging they have been designed in a way thatâs almost ârewiringâ the way children behave. The allegations have yet to be proven in court, and there is no set date for when they will be heard, but they are now joining a wave of U.S. school districts doing the same. We find out more about this lawsuit and examine the implications for online safety, digital responsibility and the future of social media regulation. Plus, Gen-Zer Leena Usman shares her lived experience of what it's like on the social media front lines.
This episode was produced by Saba Eitizaz and Paulo Marques.
What would you like to hear on Toronto Star podcasts? Let us know in this survey and you can enter to win a $100 gift card.
-
Guest: Salman Rushdie, author
It has been almost two years since celebrated author Salman Rushdie was attacked on a stage in Erie, New York as he was about to deliver a lecture. In an assault that lasted 27 seconds, a knife went through his right eye and optical nerve, while wounds to his tongue, neck and hand left him a changed man. Salman shares details of the attack â and his recovery â in his new memoir, âKnife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder.â As interviews for the book are in full swing, Salman tells The Star that any fears of being onstage had long faded.
What would you like to hear on Toronto Star podcasts? Let us know in this survey and you can enter to win a $100 gift card.
-
Guest: Anuradha Dugal, Vice President Community Initiatives at the Canadian Women's Foundation
Equal Pay Day is recognized internationally as a day of action, calling on stakeholders to advance womenâs economic activity. It symbolizes how much longer women have had to work to catch up to what their male colleagues have earned in the previous year. Showing that women in Canada have worked nearly 16 months to earn what men make in 12. The needle hasn't budged on gender pay inequity in almost three decades. And no one is minding the gender pay gap. We take a look at why, and what it will take to change things.
-
Guest: Olivia Chow, mayor
News over the last couple of weeks around city hall has been heavy on tax worries and mix-ups â thousands of bills sent out for vacant home taxes for occupied properties and concerns about a proposed stormwater fee. Mayor Olivia Chow explains what she thinks went wrong and how she plans to fix it (and âstart from scratchâ on the vacant home system). She also discusses her plan to deal with the growing number of homeless encampments in parks that have spread around the city, recent Toronto Police Association criticism of her about a letter some councillors signed, provincial and federal announcements on housing, and what the city should be doing about dangerous dogs. Plus, Chow shares how she herself had to appeal a vacant home tax bill on her own house.
What would you like to hear on Toronto Star podcasts? Let us know in this survey and you can enter to win a $100 gift card.
-
Thousands of property owners across the city got bills this week for vacant home taxes applying to homes they live in. Today, hosts Ed Keenan and Emma Teitel try to understand the comprehensive fiasco in the implementation of the policy. They also talk about the much-feared ârain taxâ that will now go back for further study, about Prime Minister Justin Trudeauâs attempts to announce his way out of his problems and what to do about dangerous dogs in Toronto. Plus, it is IIHF World Womenâs Championship time!
What would you like to hear on Toronto Star podcasts? Let us know in this survey and you can enter to win a $100 gift card.
-
Guest: Nicholas Keung, immigration reporter
The federal government is scaling back on the number of temporary residents and foreign workers in Canada while trying to boost access to permanent residence for those already here. Earlier, similar curbing measures were introduced for international students as well. While the government is framing these new, more restrictive immigration measures as a solution to a burgeoning housing and affordability crisis and to rein in population growth, there are also some concerns that immigrants have become scapegoats for domestic problems. So what are the new rules for foreign workers in Canada and what will they mean for Canadians and prospective Canadians?
This episode was produced by Saba Eitizaz and Paulo Marques.
What would you like to hear on Toronto Star podcasts? Let us know in this survey and you can enter to win a $100 gift card.
-
Guests: Sheila Wang and Morgan Sevareid-Bocknek, investigative reporters
They're called âlunch hour facelifts,â cosmetic touch-ups without the surgery. But if you are rethinking your lunch plans, you might want to think again. A recent Star investigation found a lot of these procedures are not as advertised. Across Canada, spas and medical clinics are offering the popular medical procedure marketed as a safe, minimally invasive treatment. But as service providers compete for customers on TikTok and Instagram, showing supposedly incredible results, some of them are making misleading claims about the quality and effectiveness of the threads they use on patients and soft-peddling the potential risks.
This episode was produced by Saba Eitizaz and Paulo Marques.
What would you like to hear on Toronto Star podcasts? Let us know in this survey and you can enter to win a $100 gift card.
-
Guest: Toronto Star climate reporter Kate Allen
Canada is the leader in maple syrup production and Quebecâs maple syrup producers maintain a strategic reserve stockpile that in recent years held over 100 million pounds of the sweet stuff, but levels have this year dwindled to less than 7 million pounds. Star reporter Kate Allen wrote a feature on this topic and explains how the explanation has something (surprisingly) to do with the pandemic, something (interestingly) to do with successful marketing, and something (maybe) to do with larger climate trends. And she answers the question on all of our minds: Are we going to run out anytime soon?
- Laat meer zien