The Big Story

This is the second episode of Small Town Week, a five-part series in which we examine big problems facing small communities.Canada’s health care system has been stressed for many years, but the pandemic pushed the threadbare system past its breaking point.And nowhere else has our capacity for care—in everything from family doctors to walk-in clinics to hospitals—been tested more than rural areas, and small towns. Emergency rooms in smaller areas have cut back hours, or closed temporarily, often due to a lack of either doctors or nurses. But now Minden, Ontario’s emergency room is closed for good.Is Minden’s ER the first of more to come? What happens to a town when its primary centre of medicine evaporates? What other options are there for care, in both Minden and other communities like it?GUEST: Emily Stonehouse, Editor of The Minden Times 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

Welcome to Small Town Week, a five-part series in which we examine big problems facing small communities.Access to affordable housing is not just an issue in large cities across Canada anymore—small communities are also struggling to provide affordable places for the people who need them. And perhaps nowhere is that crunch felt harder than Canada’s north. Everything costs significantly more there, from groceries to basic supplies to houses.To address the high cost of living, Nunavut relies heavily on an already overwhelmed public housing framework. But it wasn’t always that way. For many years, people in the area that would eventually become Nunavut were regularly building their own homes to live in.So why did that stop? And would bringing it back offer a glimpse of a way out of the crisis we’re facing?GUEST: David Venn, journalist formerly based in Iqaluit, wrote this series for Nunatsiaq News 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've known for decades the world is warming, so it shouldn't come as a shock when some records get broken along the way. But what has set off alarm bells among the scientists who study our changing climate recently is just how fast it's happening, in ways that don't match up with any previous models. From ocean temperature to sea ice, forest fires to heat domes and the world's daily average temperature record being broken at least twice just this week, warning lights are flashing.Is this truly the tipping point for our climate crisis? What does that even mean in this context? And as the bad news rolls in, is there another tipping point coming—a moment in which we collectively realize we can't survive without massive change?GUEST: Catherine Abreu, Executive Director of Destination Zero 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 isn't about streaming services, like Spotify or Netflix, that rent you endless content for a monthly fee. It's about digital copies of art that you've purchased via a link or button that indicates a paid transaction. In many cases, the companies that sold them to you ... haven't, really.Earlier this year, this became abundantly clear when e-books by authors like Roald Dahl or Agatha Christie were changed to make certain phrases less offensive. Whether you agree with those changes or not, they were applied to all e-books that updated automatically. And if you read the fine print, the control publishers have over your purchases doesn't stop there...GUEST: Reggie Ugwu, pop culture reporter, The New York Times 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

Last week three people were stabbed inside a classroom at the University of Waterloo. The class dealt with philosophy of gender issues, and the attacker reportedly asked about the subject before drawing a knife.For quite some time now anti-feminist and anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric has been growing harsher and more violent. Was it only a matter of time until something like this happened in Canada? How does a simple word like 'gender' become a red flag to disturbed individuals? What's stochastic terrorism and what can we do to stop it?GUEST: Dr. Shana MacDonald, Associate Professor of Communication Arts at the University of Waterloo; author of this analysis in The Conversation 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

As awful as Canada's legacy of residential schools is, there are some in this country who don't want to believe it. In recent months, there's been a rise in attempts to use linguistic missteps on the part of journalists or Indigenous leaders to "expose" what minimizers claim is a lack of proof that thousands of children died at these schools.The case hinges on the difference between terms like "anomalies", "unmarked graves" and "remains" used when sites are explored with ground-penetrating radar. So how do the searches at the school sites work? What, precisely, has been found there? And if we know there are remains in the ground, why haven't more of them been exhumed? GUEST: Niigaan Sinclair, professor of Indigenous studies at the University of Manitoba 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 here. It's become a part of summer in most areas of Canada. It's bad for you. What exactly makes wildfire smoke harmful to breathe? And what about the mental health impact of hazy skies and a darkened future?If we're going to live with this we need less speculation, and more science and solutions. Here they are.GUEST: Dr. Courtney Howard, emergency physician; Vice-Chair of the Global Climate and Health Alliance      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

Let's say you've been victimized by romance fraud. You are humiliated and embarrassed beyond belief, but you have evidence to prove the fraudster is guilty. So, you turn that information over to the police and hope there will be charges, maybe even a conviction.The truth is, in Canada, these cases are difficult to pursue, often leaving perpetrators free to go with a slap on the wrist and victims shocked and traumatized. But romance fraud is on the rise with more and more losses being reported each year. So, what can the authorities do about it? How do we change our system to stop fraudsters? And how can we rewrite the narrative to better support victims? 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 you're held "on remand" it means you haven't been convicted of a crime yet, but also that you can't secure bail or a judge's release. Practically, it means you go to jail, and stay there while your case crawls through the courts.In some provinces there are thousands more people on remand in jail than there are convicted criminals serving jail time. It leads to crowding, illness and sometimes death. Should a person who hasn't been convicted ever die in jail? How is this system supposed to work, and what's led to its current state?GUEST: Geena Mortfield, court and crime reporter for the Brandon Sun; writing in The Walus 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

Nine days ago, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, was killed in a targeted daylight shooting in a crowded area outside of a Sikh temple in Surrey, BC. Nijjar was a well-known community leader and pro-Khalistan activist who the Indian government has previously accused of terror offences— allegations he vehemently denied.His activism and controversial past have spawned many theories about who may have done this and why, but more than a week after his death, the public has seen little evidence to substantiate those rumours. Meanwhile, a community is in mourning, and they took to the streets on Sunday to demand answers.So what, if anything, can we say for certain at this point? And could this horrific crime spark further violence?GUEST: Sonia Aslam, reporter, CityNews Vancouver 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