The Big Story

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

It's a gigantic update to Quebec's language laws, which have been part of the cultural fabric of the province for 50 years—and the proposal even goes so far as to update Canada's constitution. But does Bill 96 actually protect French in Quebec? Does it help newcomers learn and use the language? Will it make it easier for badly-needed immigrants to Canada to choose to settle there? And does taking such measures to protect French do a disservice to the many Indigenous languages that are at risk of disappearing across the country? GUEST: Toula Drimonis, CULT MTL.com 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 the federal government announced a tentative plan to announce a less-tentative plan for a July border reopening in the coming weeks. What we do know: It'll be fully-vaccinated Canadians only who can skip the quarantine, and there will still be plenty of checks and balances. What we don't know: Almost everything else. After 15 months of near total shutdown, there are millions of Canadians anxious to see family they have missed, take a long-delayed vacation or even just catch a Jays game in Buffalo or Seattle. How easy will it be to do that? When should they count on being able to travel? GUEST: Charlie Pinkerton, Deputy Editor, iPolitics.ca 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 Disney+ launched its newest Marvel show, Loki, this week, it came with a marketing campaign: "Wednesdays (when new episodes of Loki will be released) are the new Fridays (when Disney previously released new episodes of Marvel and Star Wars shows)." The campaign means that Disney is choosing not only to release new episodes weekly, rather than all at once, they are actively using the weekly release model as a selling point. The past year has seen a departure from the practice of 'bingable' shows that began in 2013 with Netflix's House of Cards. It's not often that disruptors eventually reject their own premise and take on the tactics of the traditional businesses they're trying to replace. But this appears to be one example of just that. We'll go inside the rise and fall of the binge watch. GUEST: Norm Wilner, Sr. Film Writer, NOW Magazine 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