The Big Story

Right now, the Bank of Canada is working on a "digital loonie" that will replace cash at some point in the future. Governments around the world are either following suit or way ahead of us. While banks have been giving their customers access to digital wallets for years, cryptocurrencies are attempting to corner the market on the next generation of money. The only thing that's clear to everyone is that actual cold, hard cash is not long for this world—with all the benefits and inequalities that will include. So in the race to become the next go-to source of currency ... who's winning? GUEST: Michael Doyle, freelance journalist and reporter 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

Last week, Core Development Group announced its intention to spend a billion dollars buying family homes in hot markets across Canada and converting them to rental units. On the surface, this would seem to bring badly needed family rentals into markets that are in desperate need of them—but there's a lot more going on here than just that. What does a billion dollars in corporate money do to an already overheated housing market? Will these rental units be affordable for families that have been priced out of home ownership? How does a condo developer plan to become a landlord at a cross-Canada scale? And why do so many housing advocates warn this will set a dangerous precedent? GUEST: Rachelle Younglai, Real Estate Reporter, 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

Her real name is Romana Didulo, and over the past few months her following has grown to tens of thousands. And she's putting them to use in real life—handing out cease and desist "orders" to authorities and businesses across the country. The penalty she promises for not complying and removing all Covid-19 restrictions is death. Obviously, Didulo's claims are ridiculous, and completely false. There's zero truth to anything associated with her. But when organizations that work to combat extremism see a new figure rise to prominence and begin to immediately take their goals off the internet and into the streets ... they get very worried. GUEST: Peter Smith, journalist, Canadian Anti-Hate Network 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

Too bad, you're likely getting one anyway! Over the past few weeks there have been unmistakeable signs that the governing Liberals as well as opposition parties are getting ready to send Canadians to the polls—whether they want to go or not. From fundraising to renting rooms, passing bills that will look great in campaign literature and reminding voters how long they waited for their vaccines, it's pretty clear that the machines are revving up. So why now? What will a federal election in a country still recovering from Covid look like? Are the Liberals planning this because they think they can come back with a majority? And will there be room for any issues beyond the pandemic? GUEST: Cormac Mac Sweeney, Parliament Hill Reporter 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

One year after being singled out—first by Premier Blaine Higgs, then by members of his own community—as "Patient Zero" for a New Brunswick Covid-19 outbreak, Dr. Jean-Robert Ngola is still putting his life back together. Last May an outbreak in Campbellton, NB, was blamed by Higgs on an "irresponsible medical professional", and online Dr. Ngola was identified less than an hour later. Since then he's been suspended, had charges filed, then eventually dropped. He's asked for and been refused an apology. He's left Campbellton, and now lives in another province and is still wondering where he might be if the premier had been patient and waited for proper tracing to occur. GUEST: Judy Trinh, CBC's The Fifth Estate 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

Usually, when someone is charged with murder, their name is all over police statements, and then all over the media. But when police neglect to release that information—and some forces have been doing that more and more frequently—the murder itself can go missing. From the media, from the conversation, and eventually from the statistics kept that guide community safety policies. Why have police begun withholding the name of people accused of murder, and what are the ramifications for the criminal justice system and vulnerable communities? GUEST: Alyshah Hasham, Toronto Star courts reporter 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

When Alberta announced last week it would join several U.S. states in offering the chance of life-changing prizes to citizens who get their Covid-19 vaccine, they were chasing a simple truth: For some reason, we tend to value the remote chance of a big reward far more than the certainty of a small one. This is something that governments and companies are proving true right now as they try all sorts of things to help everyone get vaccinated and get life back to normal. And it begs the question: If it works for vaccines, what else could governments entice us to do by dangling a lottery lure? And what's happening in our brains when we do it? GUEST: Adam Rogers, senior correspondent at WIRED 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

Across Canada, in every municipality, there are people experiencing homelessness. It happens everyday. But what really matters is what happens to those people after they become homeless. Homelessness can quickly become a cycle, a self-fulfilling prophecy, a chronic condition. And in many places policy treats it that way, creating benchmarks for people to clear before they qualify for assistance, or tracking people living on the streets as numbers instead of names. What if there was a better way? What if that better way was actually easier and cheaper? And what if it was not some far-left Canadian municipality leading the way, but a conservative stronghold in Alberta? GUEST: Jaime Rogers, Manager of Homeless and Housing Development, Medicine Hat Community Housing Society 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

The months-long blockade at Fairy Creek is something of a tipping point for the province's NDP government's attempt to balance its environmentalism and its logging interests. Before his party was re-elected, Premier John Horgan pledged to follow a report with recommendations to protect B.C.'s old-growth forests, of which only three percent remain. Almost a year later, none of the recommendations have been acted upon and the blockade that has led to hundreds of arrests shows no signs of stopping. Will the province agree to a deferral? Will that buy it time to figure out a solution? Logging vs. the environment is a decades-old fight in the province, but the government has run out of time to find a solution that pleases everyone. GUEST: Sarah Cox, B.C. Investigative Reporter, The Narwhal 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

That's not hyperbole. Many Americans (and Canadians, and citizens around the world) hoped that once Donald Trump was out of office, and Joe Biden became president, the country would experience a snap-back towards political normalcy. That hasn't happened. And driven by their fears of being ousted by Trump's base, Republicans around the country are continuing to push the United States towards the brink. How did this happen? When did Trumpism become the entire identity of the Republican party? Can America wake up to the threat posed to its most crucial institutions, or is it already too late? GUEST: Peter Wehner, contributing writer at The Atlantic, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Peter has worked in the three Republican presidential administrations previous to Trump's. 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