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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

19:58

Renovictions and tenant rights: How the city is...

This Matters ·

2022/08/15

Guest: Abi Bond, Executive director of Toronto’s Housing Secretariat Rents are rising at record rates across the country. While the pandemic brought rent costs down and created higher vacancies, now the rental market is surging because there is a lack of supply. Landlords are also using tactics like renovictions to get tenants out. The City of Toronto recently tabled a new report that looks at ways to help renters and fight against renovictions. Toronto’s top housing official joins “This Matters” to

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19:21

905 politicians behaving badly

This Matters ·

2022/08/12

Guest: Noor Javed, staff reporter Controversial politicians in Brampton, Richmond Hill and Mississauga have caused several issues for the municipal governments in those communities recently. While the reasons are very different, there has been all kind of political manoeuvring, lawsuits filed and city council meetings disrupted or cancelled. One issue this exposes is the lack of mechanism to punish or remove an elected official from office, other than voting them out in the next municipal election

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21:27

Internationally trained medical staff could help...

This Matters ·

2022/08/11

Guest: Dr. Makini McGuire-Brown, chair of International Physicians of Ontario With emergency rooms closing due to staff shortages and a critical lack of family doctors across the country, many internationally trained doctors who have immigrated to Canada are asking why it’s so difficult for them to practice medicine here. From a lack of residency positions to programs that help them transition to our health care systems, these doctors say a valuable human resource is not being tapped as the health

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16:18

Politics of public space: Cyclists and High Park

This Matters ·

2022/08/10

Guest: Ben Spurr, City Hall reporter at The Star. There’s a bike fight brewing in High Park. After some park users complained too many cyclists are speeding through the park, police kicked off ticketing blitz. Tensions and activity escalated so much that in one incident, a police car hit a cyclist. Cycling advocates feel that riders are being unfairly targeted and this has been a waste of police resources. What it definitely shows is another fight in the city where pedestrians, cyclists and drivers

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19:30

Sexism in skilled trades: Meet a woman bringing change

This Matters ·

2022/08/09

Guest: Kayla Bailey, project manager Ontario Building and Construction Tradeswomen Many women working in the trades sector like construction, say they have faced hostility, sexism and harassment on the job often without recourse. It’s happened enough that the provincial trades council has made a new committee that seeks to address the issues women face regularly, and also look for long-term strategies on improving this sector and making it more welcoming for women. That’s crucial in a sector facing

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20:44

The metaverse is coming. What does that mean?

This Matters ·

2022/08/08

Guest: Matthew Ball, author of “The Metaverse: And How It Will Revolutionize Everything” Many of the world’s biggest companies are investing heavily in, and betting big on, the metaverse. There are different visions of what the metaverse might look like depending on who’s speaking, but regardless it will be the next big evolution of the internet as how we interact with it becomes more immersive. It will all take time because there are several challenges and technologies that need to mature before it

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21:42

Nancy Pelosi has left Taiwan, but the crisis is just...

This Matters ·

2022/08/05

Guest: Joanna Chiu, staff reporter U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi became the highest-ranking American official to visit Taiwan in 25 years earlier this week. The visit lasted only 19 hours but was long enough to infuriate the Chinese government. Hours after Pelosi landed, Beijing announced unprecedented military drills off the coast of Taiwan. The standoff continued on Friday, with China suspending dialogue with the U.S. on a range of issues from climate change to military relations to cross

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18:28

How the B.C. coast is a cruise ship dumping ground

This Matters ·

2022/08/04

Guest: Anna Barford, Canadian Shipping Campaigner with Stand.earth While cruise ship lines took a hit during the pandemic, business is back in full swing. Cruise ships are floating cities on the water and generate all kinds of waste. Surprisingly, U.S. rules around dealing with such waste are much more stringent compared to Canada where we have lax regulations. According to a recent report from Stand.earth and B.C.-based West Coast Environmental Law, ships travelling along the Canadian West Coast

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18:58

If routine Pap tests are becoming a thing of the...

This Matters ·

2022/08/03

Guest: Olivia Bowden, staff reporter There has been global momentum to end Pap tests for cervical cancer and replace them with less intrusive and more effective HPV testing. As countries around the world and even some provinces in Canada start this transition in reproductive health care, medical professionals say Ontario is lagging far behind. The stakes go well beyond comfort. Star reporter Olivia Bowden explains why Ontario has delayed making the change and what it says about how we talk about the

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18:58

What the Nova Scotia shooting reveals about survivors...

This Matters ·

2022/08/02

Warning: This podcast contains graphic content Guest: Farrah Khan, manager of Consent Comes First at Toronto Metropolitan University The inquiry into Canada’s worst mass shooting has put a spotlight on how survivors of intimate partner violence often face anger and backlash. After Lisa Banfield was brutally assaulted and held captive by her common-law husband one night in April 2020, 22 people were killed as he went on a murderous shooting rampage. Countless people were impacted by devastating

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17:18

Housing correction: How far will the market fall?

This Matters ·

2022/07/29

Guest: Jacob Lorinc, business reporter As prices fall and listings get pulled off the market, experts are projecting a historic correction to come for the Canadian housing market. There already was limited supply, but the confounding thing is that with rising inflation rates, housing affordability will remain a challenge for many people despite lower home prices. Now the two big questions are: How long will it last and how far will the market fall? This episode was produced by Alexis Green, Paulo

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17:45

Thousands of Afghans are waiting for Canada’s help....

This Matters ·

2022/07/28

Guests: Mohammed, Afghan human rights activist, and Nicholas Keung, immigration reporter Nearly one year after the U.S. and NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban takeover, thousands of Afghans are still trapped in the country, waiting for Western visas. Many of them are in danger precisely because they were allies of the West and now face repercussions at the hands of the Taliban. While Canada made a commitment to resettle 40,000 Afghans through a special immigration program, Star sources

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17:42

What will it take for the Pope’s apology to mean...

This Matters ·

2022/07/27

Guest: Brandi Morin, freelance journalist Pope Francis is in Canada this week on a pilgrimage of penance, meeting the survivors of the residential school system in which the Catholic Church played a major role — a forced assimilation of Indigenous peoples that destroyed families, cultures and created a legacy of trauma. Brandi Morin, an award-winning French, Cree, Iroquois journalist from Treaty 6, has been bearing witness as her own life is intertwined with the brutal history of the schools. We

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23:13

Monkeypox is a global health emergency. We talk to...

This Matters ·

2022/07/26

Guest: Len Tooley, evaluation director at the Community-Based Research Centre With more than 16,000 recorded cases in 75 countries so far, the World Health Organization has declared the monkeypox outbreak as a global health emergency. Five people have died worldwide since the outbreak began in May. Len Tooley is one of the 681 Canadians who have contracted monkeypox in the last two months. He says the community of gay and bisexual men currently most at risk have been largely left in the dark by

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19:44

Planes, blame and airport shame: Pearson’s problems...

This Matters ·

2022/07/25

Guest: Richard Warnica, feature writer Toronto Pearson International Airport has just been named the worst airport for delays in the world. The ranking comes after months of media reports of long lineups, cancelled flights, lost luggage and traveller horror stories of being stuck here. It has gotten so bad that polls show people will not travel until some of the problems are sorted out, but no one is sure when that might be. This episode was produced by Brian Bradley, Matthew Hearn and Raju

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23:17

Summer of strikes: Looking at the labour movement now

This Matters ·

2022/07/22

Guest: Larry Savage, professor of Labour Studies at Brock University With organizing efforts underway at Starbucks, Amazon, Apple and many more employers, unions and the labour movement are having a moment. Unions are fighting for higher wages and benefits for workers as workplaces try to return to normal after COVID-19 and sky high inflation makes for a higher cost of living. With a tight job market, workers should have some leverage but as economic signs point toward things like a recession, the

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21:56

Scorching weather signals crisis point: is Canada...

This Matters ·

2022/07/21

Guest: Blair Feltmate, University of Waterloo’s Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation This week has seen yet another in climate firsts as a scorching heat wave has swept across the globe. As Britain recorded its hottest-ever temperature at 40.2 C on Tuesday, things weren’t any better in Europe with sweltering temperatures and wildfires raging across several countries including Portugal and France. Here in Canada, accelerating climate change means that higher temperatures are on the horizon for us too

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20:53

What the new ‘strong-mayor’ plan means for municipal...

This Matters ·

2022/07/20

Guest: Robert Benzie, Queen’s Park Bureau Chief The Ontario government is going to give enhanced powers to the mayors of Toronto and Ottawa. Described as being similar to U.S. style “strong-mayor” systems, it’s an idea that has been discussed for years as a way to quickly push the mayor’s authority and potentially expedite things like financial matters and appointments. But critics say Premier Doug Ford is once again messing with a municipal election right after it has gotten underway, just like he

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17:32

Panic buttons and peril: the new reality for Canadian...

This Matters ·

2022/07/19

Guest: Alex Ballingall, Toronto Star reporter In recent months, and in the wake of alarming killings like the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, some Canadian politicians say fear of violence has become a regular hazard of the job. We take a look at the tense political climate that’s forcing public officials to amp up their security, what this means for the future of politics in this country, and where all this rage is coming from. This episode was produced by Saba Eitizaz,

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20:07

How Canada's top three supermarket chains are making...

This Matters ·

2022/07/18

Guest: Marco Chown Oved, Toronto Star reporter A Star investigation has found that Canada’s three largest supermarket chains are actually making money from inflation. Grocery prices have been rising faster than overall inflation because of the disruption of labour, supply chain and manufacturing costs, and a war in Ukraine, but there’s another factor driving prices up — profit. A deep dive into the financial statements of Loblaw Companies Ltd., Empire Company Ltd. (which owns Sobeys) and Metro Inc

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1,105 results

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