The Decibel

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced $800-million in funding for Indigenous-led conservation efforts at COP15, the biodiversity conference happening in Montreal. The Thaidene Nëné Indigenous Protected Area and national park is considered a success story in Indigenous-led conservation. It was established in 2019 after decades of discussion and negotiation between the federal and territorial governments and the local Lutsel K’e Dene First Nation.Addie Jonasson was part of those negotiations. She tells us why this park is so important to the local wildlife, and its significance to the Indigenous peoples, and how this park could serve as an example for conservation efforts in Canada.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at thedecibel@globeandmail.com

Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, was arrested in the Bahamas on Monday. U.S. prosecutors charged Bankman-Fried with eight counts of fraud and conspiracy. He’s now in a Bahamian prison and could be extradited to the U.S. The company was founded in 2019 and went from being worth US$32-billion to bankrupt in mid-November.Along the way, FTX built up a lot of hype and attracted a lot of investments worldwide. That included support from both Kevin O’Leary and the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan, which invested US$95-million in the company. The Globe’s technology reporter, Temur Durrani, explains what he learned about how the fear of missing out got so many to buy in.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at thedecibel@globeandmail.com

Neil Doef was 17 when his life changed. As a promising young hockey player, he was competing at an international tournament when he was paralyzed. For the last seven years, he has been engaged in a lawsuit trying to get financial help from Hockey Canada and its insurer.Grant Robertson, senior writer for The Globe and Mail, shares Neil’s story and addresses the questions Neil’s case raises about how Hockey Canada decides to use money from its National Equity Fund.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at thedecibel@globeandmail.com

With its splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on Sunday, Artemis 1 marked the successful completion of the first step in a new era of space travel to the moon. It comes 50 years after the last astronaut bounced along the lunar surface.Now, the goal is to make moon travel more routine and sustainable. Science reporter Ivan Semeniuk explains how NASA hopes to do this in the next decade, along with help from international partners like Canada, and what hurdles it’ll have to overcome to make the entire Artemis program as successful as its predecessor Apollo.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at thedecibel@globeandmail.com

Myanmar has been in a state of chaos since February 2021 when the military staged a coup following a democratic election. Thousands of people have been killed in this civil war, and the UN estimates that around a million people have been displaced in the country.Siegfried Modola, a photojournalist and documentary photographer, spent weeks inside Myanmar for the Globe traveling with one of the rebel forces. That gave him a rare look into what’s going on in the country, the state of the civil war and what it means for the population.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at thedecibel@globeandmail.com

Healthcare systems across the country are under strain yet again, and this time children seem to be bearing the worst of the combination of influenza, RSV, and COVID-19. Health officials would like people to voluntarily mask to help stop the spread, but people across Canada seem to have given up on them.Dr. Kim Lavoie is a psychologist at UQAM, Canada Research Chair in Behavioural Medicine, and co-director of the Montreal Behavioural Medicine Centre. She’s on the show to explain why people just aren’t masking the way they used to.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at thedecibel@globeandmail.com

The federal government paid $4.6-billion in COVID-19 benefits to ineligible recipients, and another $27.4-billion of payouts should be investigated to see if they met the program’s eligibility. That’s according to an Auditor-General report released on Tuesday. It says that while Ottawa did a good job quickly delivering money to Canadians, they’re doing a poor job identifying who needs to pay the money back.The Globe’s deputy Ottawa bureau chief Bill Curry explains what we know about where the money went, and why billions of dollars are at risk of going uncollected.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at thedecibel@globeandmail.com

Canadians have already seen the cost of groceries grow by over 10 per cent this year, and costs are expected to keep rising. A bag of the humble romaine lettuce can cost as much as $13. Now, experts are projecting that food costs for the average Canadian family will go up by $1,000 in 2023.This week, the Committee of Agriculture held a hearing with representatives from major grocery retailers to discuss why prices are so high right now. Food reporter Ann Hui breaks down what we learned about the confluence of factors that are making grocery bills so hefty.Questions? Comments? Ideas? E-mail us at thedecibel@globeandmail.com

Two years ago, Helen Naslund was sentenced to eighteen years in prison for killing her husband, Miles, in 2011. They married young, in the early 1980s – he was twenty, and she was seventeen. He abused her and their three children for decades.Today on the Decibel, Globe feature writer Jana Pruden shares Helen’s story and unpacks how the justice system treats women who have been abused.For help with controlling behaviour or intimate partner violence, call the Assaulted Women’s Helpline at 1-866-863-0511. In Quebec, call SOS violence conjugale at 1-800-363-9010.Watch for The Globe’s podcast series about Helen Naslund’s story, coming in 2023. Questions? Comments? Ideas? E-mail us at thedecibel@globeandmail.com

Joseph Boyden. Michelle Latimer. Carrie Bourassa. There has been a growing list of people who are accused of pretending to be Indigenous.Jean Teillet is a lawyer who was commissioned by the University of Saskatchewan to write a report about the issue of Indigenous identity fraud and to determine how postsecondary institutions can identify fraudulent applicants.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at thedecibel@globeandmail.com