The Big Story

Over the past two months, several programs worth billions upon billions of dollars were rolled out to Canadian people and businesses faster than we could have imagined. So...do they work? How many people have needed them? How are they being tweaked on the fly? And why do opposition parties say they either don't do enough or need to be scaled back? After the initial burst of "We're All In This Together"—the politics as usual is returning to Parliament Hill, albeit virtually. And that may not be a bad thing, because as the first wave of COVID-19 dies down and we plan for the second, it's worth taking a hard look at what worked and what didn't. 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

OK, maybe it's not necessarily flour, but surely there's been something missing from your shopping list since COVID-19 struck. You might be surprised to know that there haven't actually been any shortages. There's still more than enough flour, toilet paper, bread and milk to go around...it's just a matter of adjusting massive supply chains to get it to you where you need it. Today we'll walk you through how Canada's food supply chains work, why they've had to adjust and how they've worked remarkably well given the circumstances. GUEST: Michael von Massow, University of Guelph 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

All of the psychoactive recreational drugs you can name are illegal in Canada. But if you're smart enough to make a new drug yourself? Well, it's not on the banned list yet. This is the story of a strange but fascinating ingredient called MEAI, the substance its inventor created, called Pace, and the inventor himself, who is also strange but fascinating. It's also a story about recreational drugs, and the push to legalize them as research becomes more expansive. (It's also not a story about COVID-19, because you deserve one this week.) GUEST: Jonah Brunet, The Walrus 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 order for us to go back to day-to-day lives that are even close to normal, we’re going to have to be able to track contacts of people who test positive for COVID-19—and we’re going to have to be able to do that unbelievably quickly. Right now, we don't have the capacity to do that on a large scale. And if we don't promptly hire an army of health workers to do it manually, we will have to look to technology. Using surveillance to track citizens in the interests of public health, though, is an incredibly slippery slope. What would it look like? Who would have access to the data? How could people who don't want to participate opt-out? Is this even possible in a democracy? Should it be? These are the questions we need to think about before an emergency leaves us with no time to figure out the details. GUEST: Jesse Hirsh, research and futurist, writer at 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

In the days after Canada’s worst mass shooting, there were dozens of questions we couldn’t answer. The list started with things as basic as "How many victims?" and "Who were they?" It ended with the biggest one of all: Why? Police were clear that there would be no quick, neatly reported answers to anything. Now two weeks later, we know more, but not enough. We know Who and What and Where and, mostly, How. That’s what we can lay out for you today. The why, though? We might never know. GUEST: Greg Mercer, Atlantic Canada 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

This is a report from the front lines, and it's about both tragedy and triumph. When the COVID-19 crisis began, Canadian ICU doctors looked at their colleagues in Italy and Spain and feared that would happen here—that they would have to make horrible choices about who to treat and who to let die. That hasn't happened, in part because all of Canada came together to stay home and flatten the curve, and in part because we've been learning. About the virus. About how to treat it. About which strands of red tape to cut to free doctors up to do their jobs more efficiently. And a lot of those lessons will help us as this continues. GUEST: Dr. Michael Warner, medical director of critical care at Michael Garron Hospital 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 sounds like a first-world problem: "What if people can't visit their second homes?" But behind the stereotype there are hundreds of thousands of people facing tough choices. People who flee cities for rural areas in the summer are not exclusively rich folks off to a lakefront mansion, and the communities people visit on hot summer weekends depend on that influx of cash to get businesses through the winter. So with Victoria Day weekend approaching, what guidelines have been given to people who own cottages? To people who live year-round in the communities visitors frequent? What happens if small towns are overrun with city visitors, or if those visitors never show up at all? We're about to find out. GUEST: Matt Gurney, National Post 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

Ontario and British Columbia discovered their first cases of COVID-19 just one day apart. B.C. was the first province to report community transmission. But since early March, while the virus numbers skyrocketed in Ontario and Quebec, B.C. kept the pandemic largely under control. How? What did B.C. do that other large provinces didn't? Who is Dr. Bonnie Henry, the provincial health officer who has become a rock star in her adopted province? How much of this was preparation, how much reaction and how much luck? And what happens if the curve starts to bend upwards again? GUEST: Liza Yuzda, legislative reporter in Victoria, B.C. for NEWS1130 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

All the reports say that, so far, Canada's strategy is working. The curves from province to province are beginning to flatten. That's thanks to Canadians isolating themselves for almost two months now. But how long can this high level of cooperation keep up? The weather in many parts of the country is getting warmer, we're already seeing some tiny protests, and if some people start bending and breaking the rules, how will we collectively respond to that? What do we need from governments and health officials to convince us to keep it up, but also give us enough hope that people won't be tempted to start finding ways around the rules? GUEST: Dr. Caroline McDonald-Harker, Sociologist at Mount Royal university, Director of the Centre for Community Disaster Research 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 figured you might have exhausted your first choices and the obvious options by now—and with at least a few more weeks to go of self-isolation and sheltering in place, we wanted to make sure that you had something to take your mind off things. So we gathered up viewing types from across the spectrum, and put them to our media expert, who keeps tabs on what's available everywhere as part of his job. Whether you want to binge old rom-coms, miss sports dearly or want a jump on seeing things that will win awards next year, we've got a recommendation for you. GUEST: Norm Wilner, senior film writer for NOW Magazine, host of Someone Else's Movie and NOW WHAT? 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