The Big Story

A special episode of the Big Story looks at what has happened in sports over the past 48 hours and asks a question: If it isn't business as usual, and talking won't get things done, what will? GUEST: None. 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 lived most of your life with rising income inequality. The rich steadily get richer while the rest of us just try to keep up. It’s difficult sometimes to keep in mind that it wasn’t always this way; that this is a choice we made—maybe not us, but the people we put in power. What Covid-19 has done to steadily rising inequality is, basically, the equivalent of throwing gas on a fire. We're getting dangerously close to a tipping point. What happens when we reach it? GUEST: Bruce Livesey, investigative reporter and writer 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

He loves Top Gun, but he admits he's not Maverick. He courted the social conservative vote, then turned around and made a play for moderates. He wants a more inclusive Conservative Party of Canada, but he won't budge on the carbon tax. How did Erin O'Toole pull off the upset victory? What's his vision for the party he now leads? Where did he come from and is he just boring enough to put a real scare into Justin Trudeau and the Liberals? GUEST: Marie-Danielle Smith, Maclean's (Read Marie-Danielle's profile of O'Toole right 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

It's perhaps the worst news you can imagine getting—and the only way to make it worse is to get it via videoconference in the midst of a pandemic. COVID-19 has forced sudden changes to the medical system, and created a flood of new health questions for anyone at risk. But do we have the answers? How do we give patients the care they need for life-threatening illnesses, and the support they need to fight through them, when we're still learning about a new virus? GUEST: Anne Borden, writer, host of Noncompliant. 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 past six months have featured a lot of speculation about what the pandemic has done to the average workday for those lucky enough to have a job that can be done at home. Now we have some real data on how the lives of millions of workers have changed. Are we working more or less? Are our meetings getting longer? What are we missing about the office? How can companies adapt to what their workforce needs? And which strategies that we're learning now will stick around? GUEST: Jeff Polzer, Professor of Human Resource Management, Harvard Business School 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

Anne With An E is a reimagining of Lucy Maude Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables tales. It ran for three seasons, and then got cancelled. And the fans took it personally. This isn’t a conversation about Anne With An E, though, it's a conversation about what happens when popular culture becomes a political identity. GUEST: John Semley 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

Since Monday, the nation’s federal government has seen a high-profile resignation, a historic appointment, a prorogation of parliament in the middle of a pandemic, the release of 5,000 pages of documents concerning the government’s latest scandal, the promise of a reset and the threat of a fall election. Just another lazy August weekend in Ottawa. So why did the Liberals prorogue parliament? What will happen when it returns? Did Bill Morneau resign or was he fired? And what will Chrystia Freeland include in what is expected to be an ambitious plan for economic recovery? 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

You probably first heard it from the mouth of a losing coach or player—but that's not where it came from. You may have noticed that US President Donald Trump used it to brush off 150,000 dead Americans, and everything that happened afterwards. It's a phrase that means almost nothing, yet is used to describe everything. So why has it become so ubiquitous? When we say "It is what it is", what are we trying to convey? How versatile is it and how much depends on who's using it? And when we do use it, what precisely is the "it" we're referring to? GUEST: Miles Klee, MEL 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

In most places, restaurants can reopen for indoor dining—with a whole lot of restrictions. But with limited seating available, it's going to be impossible for most places to sustain their business on diners alone. And most of us don't feel great about going right back to a restaurant anyway. So...what next? As awful as COVID-19 has been for the hospitality industry, it has merely accelerated some longtime trends like to move to delivery and takeout, the phenomenon of Ghost Kitchens and other, more creative, ways of doing business. So what will the restaurants that survive the pandemic look like when life returns to normal? GUEST: Corey Mintz, food 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

Tracy Moore took over as host of Cityline 12 years ago, the first black woman to host a Canadian daytime lifestyle show. The reaction to her debut was…ugly. But 12 years later, Tracy is still here, and has been talking fashion and health and recipes and everything else you’d expect for more than a decade. But now, she’s also talking about anti-racism and white supremacy. On a lifestyle show. In a space that’s traditionally been considered out of bounds for anything political or uncomfortable. So how is that working out? GUEST: Tracy Moore, host of Cityline 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