The Big Story

It's been a chaotic and eventful—and still not yet close to done—return to schools across Canada. A majority of parents have chosen to return their kids to the classroom. Other have opted for remote learning either by necessity or preference. And then there are the private pods—small bubbles of a few families, taught by a teacher hired to work privately. Of course, having the means to afford private instructions for your kids is a privilege. It's a sign of inequality in education access. And if the pandemic lingers and drives more families to this solution, it could potentially undermine the school system. But should any of that matter to parents whose first job is to keep their children safe in the best environment possible? GUEST: Matt Gurney, National Post, Code 47 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

In a large house, in a very nice area of Toronto, in the 1970s and 80s, there lived a normal family: Mom, dad, kids. Roughly thirty kids, actually, most of them adopted from all over the worlds. Thirty kids with different languages, needs, dreams and personalities. Why did they do it? What happened when they did? What kind of legacy does the Simpson family leave behind today in a city and country they helped build just be being a normal, loving, ever-growing family? GUEST: Nicholas Hune-Brown, 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

When SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy took off from a NASA launchpad this year, it marked a new era of manned spaceflight, one in which private businesses have as much of a stake in success as government space agencies. But have we stopped along the way to think about the ramifications of that? What rules do companies like SpaceX have to follow once they are out on the final frontier? If they break them, who makes sure they pay for it? And as technology evolves at a rapid pace and these partnerships become more common, who or what stops space from becoming the new wild west? GUEST: Michael O'Shea 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

A lot of Canadians are obese. That's a fact. But a lot of the things you think you know about that fact—why they're obese, how they could lose weight, what they need to hear from their doctors—just aren't true. Last month Canada unveiled a new set of guidelines for treating obesity, and the biggest headline among the recommendations was: "No dieting." But the guidelines don't stop there. From an acceptance of surgery as a solution, challenging the biases of doctors and looking at obesity as a science-based problem, they call for a dramatic change in approach to the problem. Will they work? Will we follow them? GUEST: Dr. Sean Wharton 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 was a program created at unimaginable speed under incredible circumstances. And it has helped millions of Canadians. But six months later—two months longer than initially planned—the federal government is ending the Canada Emergency Response Benefit. So what’s next? Expanded EI qualifications, new programs for those who don't qualify for EI and other efforts aimed at supporting workers still impacted by COVID-19. Who qualifies? For how much? How quickly and for how long? And what do you need to prepare to apply? We've got a guide to post-CERB Canadian government help. GUEST: Rosa Saba, business 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

One of the goals of the movement to defund the police is to limit a police force's ability to acquire expensive, military-style equipment. Even if that movement is successful, however, the police have other ways of funding their purchases. It doesn't get much attention, but police foundations across Canada have in recent years used money given to them by corporate donors to help police purchase everything from a patrol boat to an armoured vehicle and a drone program. None of those purchases needed the approval of city hall or the public. None of them was open and transparent. And none of them would have been stopped by defunding the police department. In fact, as defunding the police gains momentum, these foundations will become more attractive to police departments and more outrageous to people who worry about preferential treatment for donors. GUEST: Martin Lukacs 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 already something some people try to avoid—and the thought of spending hours in a courtroom with others, masked or not, doesn't make jury duty any more appealing. But jury trials are returning this month, and so jury questionnaires are already on the way to mailboxes. But what's being done to keep jurors safe? To make it worthwhile for them to serve? And to mitigate that added burden on any disruption to work or home life that comes with COVID-19? Should we be trying to make jury trials function well enough, or take this opportunity to rethink jury duty forever? GUEST: Mark Farrant, CEO of the Canadian Juries Commission 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 practice of solitary confinement in Canada had been found to violate inmates' human rights. The government had been given a year to fix it, and last December, the year was almost up. Since then, a lot has changed in the world. But it seems not a lot has changed in our prison system. And if anything had really changed, we likely wouldn’t know, because the government won’t tell us. It won't even tell the panel it appointed to watch over its work. Why? GUEST: Justin Ling 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 sucks to think about cold weather and flu season when BBQs and beaches are still on the menu, but that’s the life of epidemiologists during a global pandemic. School starts next week. Fall is almost here. We’ve learned a lot about Covid-19 since February but have we used that knowledge to prepare for an inevitable second wave? And when that wave does come, how bad will it be? GUEST: Dr. David Fisman, epidemiologist 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

We're bringing you a special episode of our sister show, Black Tea. In this one, Mel and Dalton talk to Celina Caesar-Chavannes, a former Member of Parliament, about how a lack of political will directly harm Black communities. We hope you'll listen. 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