- How police use private donations to buy big-ticket items
Thursday, September 3rd 2020
One of the goals of the movement to defund the police is to limit a police force's ability to acquire expensive, military-style equipment. Even if that movement is successful, however, the police have other ways of funding their purchases. It doesn't get much attention, but police foundations across Canada have in recent years used money given to them by corporate donors to help police purchase everything from a patrol boat to an armoured vehicle and a drone program.
None of those purchases needed the approval of city hall or the public. None of them was open and transparent. And none of them would have been stopped by defunding the police department. In fact, as defunding the police gains momentum, these foundations will become more attractive to police departments and more outrageous to people who worry about preferential treatment for donors.
GUEST: Martin Lukacs
We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:
Through email at [email protected]
- Would you do jury duty in a pandemic?
Wednesday, September 2nd 2020
It's already something some people try to avoid—and the thought of spending hours in a courtroom with others, masked or not, doesn't make jury duty any more appealing. But jury trials are returning this month, and so jury questionnaires are already on the way to mailboxes.
But what's being done to keep jurors safe? To make it worthwhile for them to serve? And to mitigate that added burden on any disruption to work or home life that comes with COVID-19? Should we be trying to make jury trials function well enough, or take this opportunity to rethink jury duty forever?
GUEST: Mark Farrant, CEO of the Canadian Juries Commission
We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:
Through email at [email protected]
- Inside the Trudeau government’s own-goal on solitary confinement
Tuesday, September 1st 2020
The practice of solitary confinement in Canada had been found to violate inmates' human rights. The government had been given a year to fix it, and last December, the year was almost up.
Since then, a lot has changed in the world. But it seems not a lot has changed in our prison system. And if anything had really changed, we likely wouldn’t know, because the government won’t tell us. It won't even tell the panel it appointed to watch over its work. Why?
GUEST: Justin Ling
We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:
Through email at [email protected]
- Winter is coming. Are we ready?
Monday, August 31st 2020
It sucks to think about cold weather and flu season when BBQs and beaches are still on the menu, but that’s the life of epidemiologists during a global pandemic.
School starts next week. Fall is almost here. We’ve learned a lot about Covid-19 since February but have we used that knowledge to prepare for an inevitable second wave? And when that wave does come, how bad will it be?
GUEST: Dr. David Fisman, epidemiologist
We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:
Through email at [email protected]
- A Sip of Black Tea
Saturday, August 29th 2020
We're bringing you a special episode of our sister show, Black Tea. In this one, Mel and Dalton talk to Celina Caesar-Chavannes, a former Member of Parliament, about how a lack of political will directly harm Black communities. We hope you'll listen.
We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:
Through email at [email protected]
