- Are you ready for a late summer federal election?
Thursday, June 24th 2021
Too bad, you're likely getting one anyway! Over the past few weeks there have been unmistakeable signs that the governing Liberals as well as opposition parties are getting ready to send Canadians to the polls—whether they want to go or not. From fundraising to renting rooms, passing bills that will look great in campaign literature and reminding voters how long they waited for their vaccines, it's pretty clear that the machines are revving up.
So why now? What will a federal election in a country still recovering from Covid look like? Are the Liberals planning this because they think they can come back with a majority? And will there be room for any issues beyond the pandemic?
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 [email protected]
- What do you do when you’ve been blamed for a Covid outbreak?
Wednesday, June 23rd 2021
One year after being singled out—first by Premier Blaine Higgs, then by members of his own community—as "Patient Zero" for a New Brunswick Covid-19 outbreak, Dr. Jean-Robert Ngola is still putting his life back together. Last May an outbreak in Campbellton, NB, was blamed by Higgs on an "irresponsible medical professional", and online Dr. Ngola was identified less than an hour later.
Since then he's been suspended, had charges filed, then eventually dropped. He's asked for and been refused an apology. He's left Campbellton, and now lives in another province and is still wondering where he might be if the premier had been patient and waited for proper tracing to occur.
GUEST: Judy Trinh, CBC's The Fifth Estate
We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:
Through email at [email protected]
- What happens when police won’t ID a murder suspect?
Tuesday, June 22nd 2021
Usually, when someone is charged with murder, their name is all over police statements, and then all over the media. But when police neglect to release that information—and some forces have been doing that more and more frequently—the murder itself can go missing. From the media, from the conversation, and eventually from the statistics kept that guide community safety policies.
Why have police begun withholding the name of people accused of murder, and what are the ramifications for the criminal justice system and vulnerable communities?
GUEST: Alyshah Hasham, Toronto Star courts reporter
We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:
Through email at [email protected]
- Here’s the thing about vaccine lotteries: They work.
Monday, June 21st 2021
When Alberta announced last week it would join several U.S. states in offering the chance of life-changing prizes to citizens who get their Covid-19 vaccine, they were chasing a simple truth: For some reason, we tend to value the remote chance of a big reward far more than the certainty of a small one.
This is something that governments and companies are proving true right now as they try all sorts of things to help everyone get vaccinated and get life back to normal. And it begs the question: If it works for vaccines, what else could governments entice us to do by dangling a lottery lure? And what's happening in our brains when we do it?
GUEST: Adam Rogers, senior correspondent at WIRED
We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:
Through email at [email protected]
- How Medicine Hat became Canada’s first certified ‘zero homeless’ city
Friday, June 18th 2021
Across Canada, in every municipality, there are people experiencing homelessness. It happens everyday. But what really matters is what happens to those people after they become homeless.
Homelessness can quickly become a cycle, a self-fulfilling prophecy, a chronic condition. And in many places policy treats it that way, creating benchmarks for people to clear before they qualify for assistance, or tracking people living on the streets as numbers instead of names. What if there was a better way? What if that better way was actually easier and cheaper? And what if it was not some far-left Canadian municipality leading the way, but a conservative stronghold in Alberta?
GUEST: Jaime Rogers, Manager of Homeless and Housing Development, Medicine Hat Community Housing Society
We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:
Through email at [email protected]
