The Big Story

It's a problem that predates the pandemic—but eighteen months of a public health crisis has only made it worse. Every day nurses and emergency room staff in Canada face threats and assault from the public they care for. For decades they have suffered mostly in silence. But as Covid-19 has made their jobs even less safe, some of them are finally speaking out.These are critical workers, who are already dealing with exhaustion and burnout. What's being done to protect them? Why is this happening now? And what becomes of the health care system if even more of them give up and walk away?GUEST: Flannery Dean, writing in The Globe and Mail We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at hello@thebigstorypodcast.ca Or @thebigstoryfpn on Twitter

John Tory has a longstanding relationship with Rogers Communications Inc., as a previous executive and as a friend of the late founder, Ted Rogers. Toronto voters knew he would maintain some ties with the company when he ran for office—but the depth and power of those ties went largely unreported—until an internal fight for company control made it obvious that Tory would be a key mediator and decision-maker in the ultimate outcome.What did the public know of this relationship—and what has it only learned now? Where has Tory recused himself and where could conflicts remain? And will the fact that the city's mayor was making six figures from one of Toronto's biggest companies, and the public didn't know, be a re-election issue?GUEST: Jennifer Pagliaro, City Hall reporter, Toronto Star We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at hello@thebigstorypodcast.ca Or @thebigstoryfpn on Twitter

Meth has always been a dangerous drug — but never this dangerous, users and social workers across the continent tell Sam Quinones in his new book. A new production method has made the drug easier to and cheaper to make, allowing it to spread from the Mexican border all the way up to Canada, with devastating effects. Amid the opioid and fentanyl crises, the impact of new meth can be lost among the overdoses, but this drug seems to attack users' minds in a way it hasn't before.How did meth spread so fast and so far? What's different about the meth on the streets today? What is it doing to users, and what is being done to help them? And why can't researchers dig into what's happening in users' brains?GUEST: Sam Quinones, author of The Least Of Us:  True Tales  of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at hello@thebigstorypodcast.ca Or @thebigstoryfpn on Twitter

Most cold cases ... stay cold. For every one that closes, and makes headlines, dozens or hundreds more are left languishing in files and databases. But sometimes, if you ask the right question, to the right person, after enough time has passed, you learn something new. And one new fact can be enough to unearth a bunch more, if you're lucky enough to find the right one.So how do you reheat a cold case? Where do you start? What do you do with something new when you find it? What happens if you approach a decades-old murder with the urgency of breaking news?GUEST: Fil Martino, crime reporter, co-host of Tracking a Killer: The Cold Case Files We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at hello@thebigstorypodcast.ca Or @thebigstoryfpn on Twitter

There are many communities and public health units across Canada where, for one reason or another, vaccination rates lag way behind other population centres. In many places, this happens quietly. In Aylmer, Ontario, it happens very loudly. Aylmer isn’t a big town. And it wouldn’t be particularly notable, except for one man, and one church, and the national and international attention he has brought to it.Why are Henry Hildebrandt and the Church of God Restoration so against public health measures? What has the town done about their refusal to comply with them? How did Hildebrandt turn this small Ontario town into a magnet for prominent anti-vaxxers from across North America and if and when this is all over, what happens to a community that has been fractured?GUEST: Luc Rinaldi, writing for Toronto Life We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at hello@thebigstorypodcast.ca Or @thebigstoryfpn on Twitter

You probably know Bonavista best from the Canadian lyrics to "This land is your land". It's a town of a few thousand people on the far east coast of the country. And it's growing—especially during the pandemic. But it's not alone. Towns, villages and even cities across Newfoundland and all of Atlantic Canada have seen a population boom during the pandemic as newly-freed remote workers relocate to places with space and affordable housing.But are these towns equipped to handle a sudden influx of citizens? Are citizens prepared for life in a small town and everything that comes with it? How do you walk the fine line of needing new residents with the reality of welcoming them all to town without spoiling what you've got?GUEST: John Norman, Mayor of Bonavista, Newfoundland We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at hello@thebigstorypodcast.ca Or @thebigstoryfpn on Twitter

It's one of those crimes with an image — and that image is mostly fictional. The vast majority of victims who end up trafficked in Canada are not abducted by strangers and chained to beds as Hollywood depicts. They are victims of intimate partner violence, often pushed into the industry by a person they know. And it doesn't happen in dark warehouses, but in well-lit chain hotels, like one's you've stayed at on a business trip.Today we'll meet the women fighting to help trafficking victims, learn where and how this crime really happens, and why police charge so few people in these cases. And you'll learn how to recognize a potential trafficking situation when it's right in front of you.GUEST: Cristina Howorun, CityNews, lead reporter on VeraCity: Fighting Traffick documentary We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at hello@thebigstorypodcast.ca Or @thebigstoryfpn on Twitter

Through a so-called "public safety escrow account", Canada's biggest energy company, Enbridge, has payed somewhere in the neighbourhood of $2.4 million to law enforcement agencies in Minnesota, ostensibly to reimburse police for any help provided in 'protecting' the construction of the new Line 3 oil pipeline through the state. While Enbridge claims that there is nothing untoward about the arrangement, others have been sounding the alarm that this sort of arrangement between public and private entities is unethical, and may serve to incentivize the use of violence against demonstrators. And so it begs the question: what exactly is Enbridge paying for? GUEST: Hilary Beaumont, investigative journalist Read Hilary's coverage HERE We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at hello@thebigstorypodcast.ca Or @thebigstoryfpn on Twitter

To the rest of the world, the Mountie in red dress uniform is a symbol of Canada. The world has bought into the myth of the good-hearted, white man who protects the little guys and always gets his man. Even a cursory look at the history of the RCMP would reveal that to be far from the truth—and in-depth reporting over the past decade has made it very clear just how poorly reality compares to the image.But the image endures. Why? How did it come to be so powerful? Why is the RCMP so resistant to reform? And if an ongoing investigation into Canada's largest shooting reveals that their actions made a bad situation deadly, will even that be enough to change things?GUEST: Jane Gerster, journalist and author We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at hello@thebigstorypodcast.ca Or @thebigstoryfpn on Twitter

You've probably heard warnings to start your holiday shopping early this year — this is why. With much of the global supply chain thrown into chaos by a combination of several complicating factors, it's impossible to tell when or if you'll be able to find exactly what you want. But a little shipping inconvenience is hardly the end of the world. What should concern us all about the current situation is what it reveals about the fragility of the systems the world uses to manufacture and move goods with pinpoint efficiency.Has our quest for the most efficient system created a system that can't handle it when something goes awry? What are the implications of that?GUEST: Michael LeBlanc, retailer, host of The Voice of Retail podcast, Senior Retail Advisor at the Retail Council of Canada We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at hello@thebigstorypodcast.ca Or @thebigstoryfpn on Twitter