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PODCAST

This Matters

The world is changing every day. Now, more than ever, these questions matter. What"s happening? And why should you care? This Matters, a daily news podcast from the Toronto Star, aims to answer those questions, on important stories and ideas, every day, Monday to Friday. Hosts Saba Eitizaz and Ed Keenan talk to their fellow journalists, experts and newsmakers about the social, cultural, political and economic stories that shape your life.

news documentary

All Episodes

17:42

Coles notes on the books nominated for 2023’s Giller...

This Matters ·

2023/10/18

Guest: Deborah Dundas, books editor The 2023 Scotiabank Giller Prize, Canada’s prestigious literary award, will be handed out on Nov. 13. Five books were shortlisted last week from a longlist of twelve, picked out of more than a hundred books that were submitted across the country. Star books editor Deborah Dundas walks us through the most buzzworthy books and gives great recommendations to add to our holiday reading and gift lists. This episode was produced by Paulo Marques, Brian Bradley and Saba

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24:46

Is Toronto’s ice time policy freezing out girls’ hockey?

This Matters ·

2023/10/16

Guest: Amy Laski, founder of the Tween Girls Hockey League The city’s policy for allocating recreational permits for sports facilities favours tradition. Long-term permit holders get renewed year after year. That’s great for building up those leagues, but leaves any newcomers, including those trying to serve girls and others who feel left out of the existing sports culture, scrambling to try to find a way in. Hockey mom and league founder Amy Laski outlines her struggle to get the city to

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20:03

Ozempic: when game-changing medicine becomes a trend

This Matters ·

2023/10/11

Guest: Dr. Sasha High, internal medicine and obesity physician Ozempic has been all over the news and social media as it has been hailed as the miracle drug for weight loss. As it is a trend among A-list celebrities, it’s also found itself surrounded by controversy. Experts say Ozempic is a medicine, not a TikTok trend and needs to be taken with the advice of your doctor. Last year, Ozempic hype and reported off-label use led to a shortage of the drug in certain regions for people who needed it,

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23:13

‘I had to go through the discomfort of being wrong’:...

This Matters ·

2023/10/10

Guest: Lydia Greene, student nurse For a long while, Lydia Greene would forgo many vaccines for her and her children, believing them akin to poison. A mother of three and a former quality-control chemist for a pharmaceutical plant, Greene called herself an anti-vaxxer. But when COVID-19 put vaccine safety into the spotlight, she decided to dig deeper into the research and concluded she might actually be wrong. She talks to “This Matters” about how she got from there to here, what it was like to

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28:14

Toronto is the raccoon’s city. We just live in it

This Matters ·

2023/10/06

Guest: Amy Dempsey, feature writer Less than a century ago, a single raccoon raiding a garbage bin was front-page news in Toronto, while today the trash pandas are everywhere. Feature writer Amy Dempsey, who documented how the creatures outsmarted the city’s waste-bin engineers, takes a closer look at our love-hate relationships with these animals, the city’s frustrated attempts to control them and how and why they’ve made themselves at home in Toronto (and invited themselves to join Amy’s

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22:05

Author Michael Lewis on the rise and fall of ‘King of...

This Matters ·

2023/10/04

Guest: Michael Lewis, journalist and author In 2019, Sam Bankman-Fried set up a crypto exchange called FTX. Over the course of two years, as the price of crypto skyrocketed, so did his fortune, until it was estimated at as much as $26.5 billion U.S. SBF, as he became known, was feted by celebrities from football star Tom Brady to comedian Larry David. Then, in November 2022, it all came crashing down. SBF was accused of diverting $8 billion of investors’ money from FTX to his hedge fund Alameda

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25:56

Canada-India diplomacy: The view from Ottawa and New...

This Matters ·

2023/10/03

More than a week ago Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made an unprecedented move. He accused Indian government agents of involvement in the death of exiled Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil; an accusation that New Delhi has denied strongly and dismissed as “absurd.” Since then, both countries have been in a diplomatic showdown, including tit-for-tat expulsions of each other’s diplomats. The tensions have spiralled since then with travel advisories for citizens on both sides,

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39:59

Inside the celebration as the Blue Jays clinch a...

This Matters ·

2023/10/02

The Blue Jays clinched a playoff spot on Sunday and will start the Wild Card series agains the Minnesota Twins on Tuesday. The Star's baseball podcast Deep Left Field has gone daily for the playoff run, so This Matters guest host Mike Wilner brings you this clinch episode. You’ll hear from Blue Jays (and Deep Left Field regulars) Kevin Kiermaier and Jordan Romano, along with Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and Matt Chapman. You’ll also hear John Schneider’s post-game speech to the team. And we answer your

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45:11

The Yonge-Dundas Square peg, Eglington Crosstown,...

This Matters ·

2023/09/29

Hosts: Toronto Star columnists Edward Keenan and Emma Teitel In this episode: The week that was in Toronto and beyond: Including questions about whether the Eglinton Crosstown will be built in any of our lifetimes (and whether they’ll let us know if it is), the fallout from the celebration of a Nazi soldier that ruined what should have been a good and meaningful day for the federal government, Olivia Chow’s measures of progress in Ottawa and at Queen’s Park, and Emma Teitel’s theory about why we’re

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19:37

Are apologies and a resignation enough?

This Matters ·

2023/09/28

On this episode: Guest host Althia Raj talks with Bernie Farber, the founding chair of the anti-hate network, the former CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress Last week, the Speaker of the House of Commons, Anthony Rota, invited Yaroslav Hunka, a 98-year-old constituent, to come to Ottawa and hear Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s address. Rota introduced him in the House as a Ukranian who'd fought the Russians during World War Two and was proud to support the troops again. Hunka received two

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27:28

Doug Ford’s summertime blues

This Matters ·

2023/09/27

Guest: Toronto Star Queen’s Park Bureau Chief Robert Benzie In this episode: Doug Ford’s foray into a mayoral election he promised to stay out of was just the start of a summer where nothing seemed to go right for his government and where the Greenbelt swap scandal exploded — costing his government cabinet ministers, senior staff members, and oodles of popular support. The Star’s Robert Benzie details how the summer sun scorched Ford’s popularity, and discusses the mood in the government caucus and

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23:29

Truth, reconciliation and sustaining the land

This Matters ·

2023/09/26

Guest: Brandi Morin, French/Cree/Iroquois journalist from Treaty 6 in Alberta Indigenous people have been on the frontlines of fighting to protect and sustain the land and environment for years. They warn that the west’s supposedly eco-friendly climate strategy is also a repeat of history. Resources needed for sustainable alternate energy such as mineral mining continues the practise of extracting from the earth, threatening Indigenous lands and people. One of these new frontlines is Nevada’s remote

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49:38

Ford’s week is a case of ‘surprise, not surprised’...

This Matters ·

2023/09/22

Guests: Martin Regg Cohn, Queen’s Park columnist In this episode, columnist Martin Regg Cohn joins to tackle the avalanche of news coming from Queen’s Park including Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow’s visit (and common ground with the premier), the debate for Liberal party leadership hopefuls and Premier Doug Ford reversing his earlier reversal on Greenbelt protections. All of that, plus what you can learn in the bleachers at a youth sports game. This episode was produced by Edward Keenan, Sean Pattendon

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37:38

A history of violence and other Toronto mayoral stories

This Matters ·

2023/09/20

Guest: Mark Maloney, author Mark Maloney is the author of the book “Toronto Mayors,” which profiles all 65 people who’ve held the city's top job. He joins “This Matters” to talk about the rogues gallery of scandalous scoundrels in our past, share who he considers the Mount Rushmore of best (and most beloved) mayors and give his thoughts on the city’s recurring state of explosive growth and underfunded infrastructure. This episode was produced by Edward Keenan, Paolo Marques and Julia De Laurentiis

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22:27

Why Hanlan’s Point is important to Toronto history

This Matters ·

2023/09/19

Guest: Ed Jackson, community historian Hanlan’s Point is known as Toronto’s clothing-optional beach, but it has deeper significance as a historically queer space and has recently been recognized for its place in city history. The beach in the Toronto Islands was the site of Canada’s first Pride celebration in 1971 and a place, just outside of the spotlight, that was quietly known for decades as a safe gathering spot when it was not safe to be out elsewhere. It has some ugly history too, including

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24:45

How the London terror trial will test Canada’s...

This Matters ·

2023/09/18

Guest: Wendy Gillis, crime and policing reporter Chilling testimony has been delivered in the ongoing trial of the man accused of killing four members of a Muslim family in 2021. For Canadian Muslims, it’s a reopening of old wounds and a litmus test of Canada’s anti-terrorism laws. Four members of the Afzaal family were killed just over two years ago in London, Ont., when the accused allegedly struck and killed Salman Afzaal, 46, Madiha Salman, 44, Salman’s mother Talat Afzaal, 74, and Yumna

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23:23

‘If I can finish it, I will’: the inside story of...

This Matters ·

2023/09/15

Guest: Bill Vigars, author of “Terry & Me” It was 43 years ago when Terry Fox dipped his leg in the Atlantic Ocean and embarked on a run across the country to raise money for cancer research. He ran 5,373 kilometres in 143 days before his cancer would return and end his run in Thunder Bay, Ont. Fox’s dream of raising $1 for every Canadian would be realized, though. Canadians and others around the world run annually in his place and have raised over $850 million dollars for critical research. Bill

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43:19

Toronto’s mayor keeps making the case for cash, plus...

This Matters ·

2023/09/14

Guests: Edward Keenan and Emma Teitel, columnists Mayor Olivia Chow spoke with John Baird, the former federal minister of foreign affairs, and they agreed Toronto needs a new deal. So far the federal government hasn’t played along, but maybe a scandal plagued Premier Doug Ford could be convinced to play along? Keenan and Teitel also discuss the Conservative party’s indulgence of anti-woke pandering, the late arrival of cellular service on the TTC, the late departure of the prime minister from a

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21:40

Unleashed and barking mad

This Matters ·

2023/09/13

Guest: Katie Daubs, senior writer At a time when reports of dog bites and complaints about dog behaviour are on the rise, a motion at city council will review rules for dog off-leash areas. Senior writer Katie Daubs has looked at the bitter fights and challenges of enforcing rules about beloved city pets, and she joins “This Matters” to talk about the lack of resources (and the culture of disobedience) around the issue in Toronto. This episode was produced by Edward Keenan, Julia De Laurentiis

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20:03

The shows must go on: SAG, WGA tiff puts new light on...

This Matters ·

2023/09/11

Guest: Peter Howell, movie critic This year’s Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) kicked off last Thursday with relatively less buzz. As the red carpets rolled out for the annual festival, organizers, film directors and movie buffs are all grappling with the absence of the usual number of big movie stars due to Hollywood’s ongoing strike by writers and actors, its largest in decades. TIFF is also facing the loss of Bell as its lead sponsor at the end of this year. The show must go on. This

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1,105 results

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