The Big Story

Last week the Canadian Association of the Chiefs of Police announced their support for decriminalizing the personal possession of illicit drugs. Drug use and addiction, they said, is a public health issue. And simple possession should be treated with health and social service resources, rather than through the criminal justice system. It’s an idea researchers and people who work in addiction have hammered away at for decades. But it's still a shocking position for the association representing police chiefs across the country. So why now? And what does this mean for drug policy in Canada? GUEST: Justin Ling, investigative reporter. GUEST HOST: Sarmishta Subramanian 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 can joke as much as we want about it, but the reality is that we all go to the bathroom, every single day. It’s a basic human need. Yet many cities are failing at providing accessible public toilets for everyone. What will it take for politicians and city planners to take the issue seriously and address the underlying discrimination and inequality? Which cities are doing it right? How has the pandemic highlighted the need for accessible public washrooms? Could this be a turning point? GUEST: Lezlie Lowe, author of No Place to Go: How Public Toilets Fail Our Private Needs GUEST HOST: Sarmishta Subramanian 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 the entire country went into lockdown a few months ago, it meant kids would be staying home and most of their parents would be too. But now, as businesses reopen and people start going back to work, parents are wondering where their kids are supposed to go. With Labour Day fast approaching, are we doing all that we can to ensure a safe full return to school and protect the educational rights of children? If not, how many parents will have to leave the workforce to provide for their kids? And can you take a wild guess as to which parent that responsibility will usually fall on? GUEST: Lauren Dobson-Hughes, gender and international health consultant. Read her opinion piece here. GUEST HOST: Sarmishta Subramanian 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 nearly a single week, three global hot spots ushered in some dramatic changes. Russia made a constitutional amendment allowing Vladimir Putin to add 16 additional years to a 20-year run. China put into effect new security law, stripping Hong Kong of its autonomy and shuttering the democracy movement. And in Israel, a looming annexation plan could take over as much as 30 percent of the West Bank. Why did all this happen now? Did the global pandemic play a part? Did an America in free fall encourage it? And what will it do to the peace and balance of power on the world stage? GUEST: Mark MacKinnon, senior international correspondent for The Globe and Mail. GUEST HOST: Sarmishta Subramanian 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 just a few weeks away from the return of the NBA, NHL and MLB. The NFL plans to join them soon afterwards. It could be a wonderful few months for sports fans ... but it's also unnecessary, risky and could end very, very badly. How badly do leagues, players and networks want the games to return? What happens as more and more players test positive? What do we know about how the plans are working so far? What would it take to shut down a single team, or a whole league? What if someone dies? It's a grim but real possibility. GUEST: Donnovan Bennett, Sportsnet 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

If Canada is going to keep COVID-19 under control, contact tracing and tracking will have to play a huge part in it. You hear about contact tracing in every interview or article about controlling the virus—but how does the process actually work? Who are the people tasked with the often difficult job? How do they deal with people who are scared or angry to hear from them? How many cases can be missed before an outbreak looms? And as Canada prepares for a second wave...do we have enough of them to handle what's coming? GUEST: Aaron Hutchins, Maclean'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

There's another public outcry about Facebook! Shocking, right? But this time over 800 companies are putting their advertising dollars behind it, in an attempt to force the social media giant to confront hate speech and white supremacy on its platform. Will it work? Is there a dollar amount big enough to force Mark Zuckerberg to back down? And how much of a role will Facebook play in the upcoming U.S. election? Are we in for a repeat of 2016? GUEST: Jesse Hirsh, Futurist, Metaviews.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

The organization was supposed to distribute more than $900 million in student grants, but the reaction when the deal was announced was immediate and intense. There's now an ethics investigation and WE has walked away from the plan. What happened? Why did the Liberals agree to this, and what should they have known about the organization before announcing it would be handling nearly a billion dollars of taxpayer money? GUEST: Jesse Brown, Canadaland 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

Warning bells were sounding. Some of the country's leading scientists were writing urgent emails to politicians and public health units. There was an emergency coming. It was going to get bad. We should take action now. Still, Canada waited to take steps such as closing borders, securing PPE and planning for a massive wave of COVID-19. Compared to our neighbours to the south, we've handled the crisis fairly well—but what could we have done with an extra month to plan? How many lives and millions of dollars could we have saved? Who sounded the warnings, and who listened? And who didn't? GUEST: Robyn Doolittle, 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

It's clear from the politicization of masks in the United States, and the mandatory mask policies being enacted in Canada, that we're not seeing enough voluntary compliance to impact the spread of COVID-19. So who's to blame? And how do we get where we need to be to curb the virus? Messaging on masks has been abysmal since the early stages of the pandemic, so you can't simply blame people for not complying now. And the shaming and shunning of non-mask wearers isn't what's needed to convince everyone to buy in to something that represents a huge change in everyday behaviour. So what kind of messaging works? Well, we actually do have a pretty good idea... GUEST: Dr. Julia Marcus, epidemiologist and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School; writer at The Atlantic 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