The Big Story

Have you found yourself joking about drinking your way through quarantine? You are, anecdotally and statistically, not alone. We know more people are reporting increased use of substances—but we still imagine there's a world of differences between people living with substance use disorders and those of us chasing boredom with beer. Why is that? What's happening in our minds when we turn to our favourite vices to pass the time? What do we need to know about substance use, both among people who may be struggling to find a place to live and those of us with more privilege and more money to use to cope? GUEST: Gord Garner is the executive director of the Community Addictions Peer Support Association, and lives with a substance use disorder himself. 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

Employees returning to work is a positive sign in our battle against COVID-19, but it's also scary, and raises a lot of questions. Is my workplace safe? What is my employer required to do to make it safe? What do I do if I don’t think it is? What if my daycare is still closed and I don’t have childcare? What if I’ve been temporarily laid off—do I get my job back now? What if my office is safe, but I don’t have a safe way to get to it? Am I allowed to keep working from home, or can my company force me back? Today, a primer, from an employment lawyer who is in the thick of this right now. GUEST: Lindsay Scott, Paliare Roland and Pro Bono Ontario 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

Every bottom-trawling fishing boat off the coast of British Columbia has an independent observer on board. The observers monitor the catch and protect against overfishing and environmental harm. But when they do that, they're the only person on the boat with the power to report the captain and crew and cost them fines or perhaps their jobs. And many of them say they've been pressured to ignore violations, to the point where some have felt unsafe and have overlooked things they knew were going wrong. This is the story of the investigation that turned up an ugly practice happening way out at sea... GUEST: Jimmy Thomson, 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

Schools in parts of Quebec reopened this week—though they look different. And other parts of the country will likely be considering this move soon. And as this happens we still don't know exactly how children contribute to the spread of COVID-19. Nor do we know how they're impacted by it. There are a couple of efforts underway to change that in Canada, if we can gather enough data quickly enough to report it. And even though we're doing all we can, we also won't really know how this virus behaves in kids until they're back in their natural element...which means school. So what happens next? And what do we need to be aware of? GUEST: Kelly Grant, national health 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

You know the timeline we've been quoted every time a COVID-19 vaccine is discussed: 12-18 months. But how accurate is that? What if we get lucky? What if we really, really don't? When you see news of a new vaccine entering a trial, how should you react? What percentage of vaccines that enter trials actually end up working? And if we do find a vaccine, how can we possibly make enough for more than seven billion people, and get it to them across the world? GUEST: Robert Van Exan 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 seen the stories and images from around the world. Hospitals built in China in 10 days. Convention centres turned into temporary Covid-19 care centres. A medical train moving patients around France. When healthcare systems become overwhelmed, solutions are needed quickly—and they need to be executed in a span of days or weeks, not months. Canada has avoided that drastic situation thus far, but if the virus spikes in the fall, officials will have a plan to create temporary hospitals wherever they're needed. This is the story of how that plan came together. GUEST: Kenny Smith, Temporary Healthcare Creative. 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 there was one thing almost all governments—liberal, conservative, whatever—agreed upon when disaster struck, it was the need to get money into people's hands quickly. And in Canada right now, millions of people are receiving $2,000 per month from their government. This isn't universal, but it's a huge step towards a policy that has been fought for and fought against for decades, and not always by the people you'd assume would be for it or against it. So what is a Universal Basic Income? Where did the idea come from? How does it work and what would it take for us to give it a real chance at fighting poverty in the next few years? GUEST: Max Fawcett, writer and 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

Well, you probably shouldn't call them that. They may kill—but they don't intend to murder, which is what passes for good news in 2020. Since a New York Times headline vaulted the asian giant hornet onto the list of everyone's nightmares last weekend, it may seem like a new plague is almost upon us. But these hornets—at least a few of them—have been in Canada since last year. So what have we learned about their behaviour? How did they get here? What is British Columbia doing to find and extinguish them? How big a threat are they, really, to humans and to our ecosystem? GUEST: Paul Van Westendorp, provincial apiarist for British Columbia 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

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