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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.

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All Episodes

03:16

Introducing the podcast, Arachnid: Hunting the Web's...

This Matters ·

2025/05/28

This Matters is pleased to share a new podcast from the Toronto Star, TVO Podcasts, the Investigative Journalism Bureau and Piz Gloria Productions, Arachnid: Hunting the Web's Darkest Secrets. What if the worst thing that ever happened to you plays out countless times on anonymous computer screens all over the world? Every day, tens of millions of images of child sexual abuse circulate on global online platforms. The proliferation of these images is getting worse as AI technology and deep fakes

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23:04

Sticker shock in the restaurant seats

This Matters ·

2025/05/20

Guest: Karon Liu, Toronto Star food reporter When one Toronto restaurant introduced a $25 cauliflower dish more than 10 years ago, it caused a bit of a stir at its eye-popping price. When Star reporter Karon Liu recently noticed the price of the same dish was now $41, it sent him to look at the steeply rising cost of meals out. It’s a trend driven by food inflation, wage inflation, rent inflation and a host of other factors. And for many diners, it means eating out is becoming less and less of an

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19:03

Breaking down Ontario's big spend budget as Trump's...

This Matters ·

2025/05/16

Guest: Queen’s Park Bureau Chief Robert Benzie Ontario just dropped its biggest budget ever — $232.5 billion — and looming over every dollar of it is the shadow of Donald Trump, his tariffs, and an uncertain economic future. This year’s budget also includes a new $5 billion “Protect Ontario” fund to shield businesses and jobs from the escalating trade war with the U.S. But behind the big numbers lie bigger questions like a $14.6 billion deficit, no major new housing initiatives despite a worsening

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19:16

What Mark Carney’s new cabinet reveals about his...

This Matters ·

2025/05/14

Guest: Star National Columnist Susan Delacourt Prime Minister Mark Carney has unveiled his first cabinet. On Tuesday, ministers were sworn in at Rideau Hall to a trimmed down and reorganized cabinet, with 28 full members and 10 second-tier members, known as secretaries of state. Carney’s campaign promise was bold change and a post-Trudeau pivot. Now that the lineup is out, the question is how much of it signals real transformation? Is this a true reset or does it look like a strategic rebrand? The

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14:20

Inside Mark Carney's high stakes visit to Washington

This Matters ·

2025/05/07

Guest: Ottawa Bureau Chief Tonda MacCharles Prime Minister Mark Carney’s visit to Washington this week was his first face-to-face meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump since being elected to office. A lot hangs in the balance, at a time when Canada’s relationship with its largest trading partner is being put to the test. While Carney made headlines with some bold statements and viral moments with Trump, the real story was the critical test of the Liberals political mandate and Canada’s position

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21:01

How the end of a pilot program for migrant food...

This Matters ·

2025/05/05

Guests: Star reporters Nicholas Keung and Ghada Alsharif During the pandemic, they were called essential. Migrant workers who packed our meat, picked our produce, and kept grocery shelves stocked. In return, many were offered a pathway to permanent residency through a federal pilot program. Now, that door has quietly closed. The Agri-Food Immigration Pilot is being phased out by the federal government. And with it, thousands of low-wage food workers are once again left in Canada’s continuing cycle

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16:37

The growing price of keeping Toronto festivals safe

This Matters ·

2025/05/02

Guest: Star city hall reporter Mahdis Habibinia After the recent devastating vehicle attack at Vancouver’s Lapu Lapu Day festival, Toronto organizers are raising fresh concerns about soaring security costs and the mounting pressure to keep people safe, especially with the city’s peak festival season around the corner. Toronto has been grappling with these fears for years, particularly after the 2018 van attack on Yonge Street. Since then, efforts to improve safety and crowd control have been

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20:27

New report reveals how Ontario schools restrain and...

This Matters ·

2025/04/30

Guest: Shawn Pegg, Director at Community Living Ontario A new report by Community Living Ontario exposes a disturbing reality faced by children with disabilities in Ontario schools. Based on interviews with over 500 parents and caregivers, it details how students, some of whom are as young as five, have been locked in rooms, physically restrained, or sent home because schools couldn’t meet their needs. Despite nearly $4 billion in annual special education funding, families and advocates say the

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19:17

What we learned in the final days of the 2025...

This Matters ·

2025/04/25

Guest: Ottawa bureau chief Tonda MacCharles We’re heading into the final stretch of a charged federal election campaign that’s shaped not just by a critical point in affordability, housing and healthcare but also by global events and Trump’s looming shadow. With election results just around the corner, on Monday; the political mood seems restless.The Star’s Ottawa bureau chief Tonda MacCharles unpacks the political climate, key turning points shaping this campaign and what might come next as the

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17:34

How not to get digitally duped this election

This Matters ·

2025/04/21

Guest: Toronto Star reporter Alex Boyd As Canada heads toward a federal election, the online information landscape is getting messier, more manipulated, and harder to recognize in real time. From repurposed Facebook groups to shady digital operations selling conspiracy-laced content and merch, these tactics are designed to grab attention and slowly shift public opinion. We talk about the strange case of the local buy and sell group in Hamilton, that morphed, almost overnight, into a far-right

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20:28

Two years later Canada's biggest gold heist is still...

This Matters ·

2025/04/17

Guest: Toronto Star crime reporter Peter Edwards It’s like a Netflix show in real life. A truck driving off with $24 million in gold and cash, stolen from a hangar outside Pearson International Airport in a crime so smooth it left everyone stunned. Now, two years later the investigation trail spreads across four countries from Canada to the U.S. to Dubai and India. Some of the suspects have fled and it doesn’t like they’re coming back. Neither is the gold. On its two-year anniversary we unpack

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29:59

A screening room of our own

This Matters ·

2025/04/15

Guests: Jack Blum and Sharon Corder, co-founders of National Canadian Film Day Over the past few months, the president of the United States has done more to solidify a sense of Canadian identity than anyone in the past few decades.Suddenly Canadians are examining grocery labels to see what’s made here, looking at their investment portfolios to see if their dollars are working here, and an entire election has turned into a celebration of Canadian patriotism. But perhaps nowhere has U.S. domination

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29:45

We can, sort of, bring back the woolly mammoth. But...

This Matters ·

2025/04/11

Guest: Kate Allen, Toronto Star climate change reporter When the movie Jurassic Park was made in 1993, the technology at the heart of its plot — bringing ancient giant animals back from extinction — was in the same category as time travel and warp drives: science fiction. This week it seems it may be closer to being just plain science. After a company named Colossal Biosciences stunned the world by announcing it had overseen the birth of three dire wolves, a species of oversized white wolf known to

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22:49

Is Canada's immigration dream broken?

This Matters ·

2025/04/07

Guest: Toronto Star senior immigration reporter Nicholas Keung For years, Canada’s immigration system was held up as a glowing model on the global stage. But what was once seen as a solution— to labour shortages, economic slowdown and an aging population—is now being blamed for everything from the housing crisis to collapsing healthcare. In today’s episode, we try to wade through the numbers, the policies and the politics behind a dramatic shift in how Canadians view immigration and how it went from

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29:59

‘Torturing us as payback’: How Ontario jail guards...

This Matters ·

2025/04/04

Guest: Brendan Kennedy, investigative reporter at The Star On Dec. 20, 2023 a guard was assaulted by an inmate at Maplehurst Correctional Complex in Milton, Ontario. The inmate was then immediately removed from the facility. Two days later, jail guards in full riot gear carried out a violent, mass strip search of 192 inmates – none of whom were involved in the initial incident -- in a coordinated, collective punishment that spanned 48 hours. A judge has called it a gross display of power, something

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19:13

A Liberal candidate's controversial comments, an...

This Matters ·

2025/04/02

Guest: Toronto Star reporter Raisa Patel Liberal candidate Paul Chiang's remarks suggesting a political opponent could be handed over to Chinese authorities for a bounty has fuelled outrage, an RCMP probe and a political firestorm for the Liberals ahead of an election. Initially Liberal leader Mark Carney was seen as supporting him held back from dropping Chiang as a candidate Markham-Unionville. As backlash grew, and pressure mounted, it was Chiang who ultimately stepped down himself. This episode

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21:12

Why Canada must brace for U.S. interference in the...

This Matters ·

2025/03/31

Guest: Toronto Star reporter Allan Woods Donald Trump and Prime Minister Mark Carney just had their first call since Carney took office, and by all accounts, it was productive. But also, the fact that this call is making headlines is just another sign of how much Trump and the U.S. will loom over Canada’s upcoming election. From Trump’s political influence and the spread of disinformation to the idea (his own) that his presidency actually helped keep the Liberals in power; this election is shaping

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37:29

Grandpa, what did you do in the trade war?

This Matters ·

2025/03/28

Guest: Ken Greenberg, urban designer and co-founder of Elbows Up Toronto “This is not a trade war,” Charlie Angus said to a packed crowd at a church this week, “it’s an attack on who we are as people.” A lot of Canadians have been feeling that recently, as U.S. President Donald Trump not only imposes tariffs on us, but talks about taking our country over. The response in the public is like something few of us have seen, a swelling patriotism. But a lot of us have also been feeling a sense that while

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32:12

A life spent undercover with terrorists trying to...

This Matters ·

2025/03/27

Guest: Michelle Shephard, former Toronto Star reporter and co-author of “Code Name: Pale Horse: How I Went Undercover to Expose America’s Nazis” Scott Payne spent his career deep undercover in the drug trade, criminal networks and among racist terrorists — and despite some harrowing close calls that saw him stripped naked and almost exposed, he lived to tell the tale. The woman he told it to — former Star reporter Michelle Shephard, who co-wrote a new book with Payne — sits down with This Matters to

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19:40

Why a retired college president’s $1M payout is...

This Matters ·

2025/03/25

Guest: Toronto Star journalist Janet Hurley Ontario’s colleges and universities are facing a financial crisis. Millions in deficits, staff layoffs, and program cuts have become the norm. In the midst of all this, at George Brown College, one expense is fuelling controversy. A former president receiving over a million dollars in retirement payouts while the college suspends programs and tightens its budget. It has renewed a bigger conversation about administrative growth, executive compensation,

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1,101 results

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