Just Asking

Stock markets bounced back this week thanks to the tariff truce between the U.S. and China after plunging to record lows last month. The markets are being closely watched through all the tariff turbulence - but what does it all mean for your finances? Our experts will broke it all down for us. Aravind Sithamparapillai is a financial planner and Preet Banerjee is a personal finance expert.

The man behind the world's most notorious website for non-consensual, AI-generated porn of real people is a hospital pharmacist from just outside of Toronto according to a CBC investigation. His site, MrDeepFakes, was the world's most popular site for "deepfake" porn, hosting tens of thousands of non-consensual and sometimes violent fake videos and images of celebrities, politicians, social media influencers and private citizens, including Canadians. To answer your questions about deepfakes, Just Asking spoke to two guests. Hany Farid is a professor at the University of California and a member of the Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Lab. Suzie Dunn is a professor of law at Dalhousie University, specializing in technology.

The new leader of 1.4 billion Roman Catholics is, for the first time, an American. The former Cardinal Robert Prevost is now Pope Leo XIV, the 267th man to hold that office. To answer your questions about the new Pope, Just Asking was joined by two guests. Father Darren Dias is the Executive Director of the Toronto School of Theology at University of St Michael’s College. Mark McGowan is a professor of history at University of Toronto, who specializes in the history of the Catholic Church in Canada.

The federal NDP was nearly wiped off the electoral map in the recent federal election. Jagmeet Singh stepped down as party leader after the New Democrats dropped to seven seats, and lost official party status. So where does the NDP go from here? Just Asking was joined by two guests to talk about what's next for the party. Jordan Leichnitz is a former NDP senior strategist. David McGrane is a professor of political studies at the University of Saskatchewan.

Have you ever been in a "sort-of" relationship? If you're more than friends but not quite partners, if the definitions are fuzzy and the commitments are loose, you might be in a "situationship". For some people, situationships are liberating because there are no labels and no expectations. For others, a situationship is an anxiety-causing waiting game. To answer all your questions about situationships, Just Asking spoke to two guests. Jessica Maxwell is an assistant professor at McMaster University whose research focuses on interpersonal relationships and sexuality. And Jen Kirsch is a relationship expert and journalist.

Apparently just over half of Canadians play video games according to industry numbers. And the games themselves have evolved from two-dimensional, simplistic adventures to three dimensional worlds with complicated moral choices that can suck up hours of your time. To answer your questions about video games and your relationship with video games, Just Asking brought out three guests. Chelsea Rodrigues is a counsellor who focuses on problem technology use at Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare centre in Windsor. Samantha Stahlke is a former game developer and instructor at Ontario Tech University. And Jake Uskoski is recovering from a video game disorder and tells us why he quit playing games, but still makes them for fun.

The federal election is Monday, April 28. But there's still a daily barrage of announcements, attack ads and press conferences. To provide you with more information before you vote, Just Asking spoke to two guests. Chris Cochrane is an associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto. And Laura Osmond is the parliamentary correspondent for The Logic.

With Canadians heading to the polls in a matter of days, it's time for a bit of an Election 101. How does our system actually work? What is first-past-the-post? And what do MPs actually do once they are elected? To answer all your Canadian election questions, Just Asking was joined by two guests. Andrea Perrella is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Wilfrid Laurier University. Tari Ajadi is an assistant professor of political science at McGill University in Montreal.

Making friends can be tough no matter how old you are. But once you get out of school and don't have classmates to fall back on, your pool of potential friends shrinks. So what do you do? Just Asking spoke to two friendship experts. Aaron Karo is the co-host of the podcast, "Man of the Year". Danielle Bayard Jackson is a friendship coach and author.

Just Asking has been on the air for just over a year now! To celebrate, we reached out to some of the people who have called in for advice to see whether we were able to solve their problems. Take a listen!