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PODCAST

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered conversations that matter

Village Media Inc.

In cities and towns across Ontario — and at Queen’s Park and Parliament Hill — our journalists work for you. Their mission is to dig for answers and tell you what they find. This new podcast from Village Media — ‘Closer Look’ — is all about the stories we tell. Every weeknight, hosts Michael Friscolanti and Scott Sexsmith go beyond the headlines with insightful, in-depth conversations featuring our reporters and editors, leading experts, key stakeholders and big newsmakers.

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All Episodes

25:44

Do you play in a lottery group? Keep good records

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered... ·

2025/12/08

Send us a text This lottery winner will need to spend a portion of his prize on a defence lawyer. A 70-year-old Toronto man is facing theft and fraud charges after allegedly claiming a $1-million Lotto Max prize that was actually intended to be split among three people. Ontario Provincial Police say they launched an investigation in September and confirmed that the winning ticket was part of a group play arrangement. For the many Canadians who play the lottery with a group, this case is a tim...

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22:31

How is it even possible to shoplift $1.3M worth of...

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered... ·

2025/12/06

Send us a text Earlier this year, the Retail Council of Canada released an alarming report about a "national crisis" facing its members: skyrocketing rates of theft, violence and organized criminal activity. This week, police in Halton Region added to the long list of examples. Three people were arrested for their role in what the cops described as a “large-scale liquor trafficking operation” that moved more than $1.3 million worth of stolen booze across the Greater Toronto Area. Police say...

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23:01

Your grocery bill is going to keep climbing

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2025/12/04

Send us a text Don’t expect the new year to ring in lower grocery bills. The latest edition of Canada’s Food Price Report, produced annually by several universities, projects that an average family of four will pay close to $1,000 more for food in 2026 than this year — for a total bill of $17,571.79. The report pegs the rate of food inflation at somewhere between four and six per cent, with items such as meat, baked goods and vegetables seeing the biggest price jumps. What’s driving the eve...

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22:39

'500 patients a day? Audit uncovers some fishy...

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered... ·

2025/12/03

Send us a text Hosted by Village Media’s Michael Friscolanti and Scott Sexsmith, and produced by Derek Turner, Closer Look is a new daily podcast that goes way beyond the headlines with insightful, in-depth conversations featuring our reporters and editors, leading experts, key stakeholders and big newsmakers. Fresh episodes drop every Monday to Friday at 7 p.m. right in your local news feed — and on the show’s dedicated website: closerlookpodcast.ca. Of course, you can also find us wherever...

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13:36

Pet raccoon? Don’t trash the idea until you watch this

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered... ·

2025/12/02

Send us a text Raccoons as pets? Don’t laugh. A new study has found that urban raccoons have shorter snouts compared to their rural counterparts — a sign they're heading down the same path of evolutionary domestication that dogs and cats did tens of thousands of years ago. TorontoToday reporter Emma Johnston-Wheeler dug a little deeper into the research, seeking out reaction in a city where the raccoon has risen to the status of de facto mascot. Johnston-Wheeler is our guest on tonight’s epis...

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18:20

What we discovered about the long-term care homes in...

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered... ·

2025/12/02

Send us a text The COVID-19 pandemic exposed a harsh truth about Ontario’s long-term care homes: many were woefully understaffed, a factor that helped fuel the rapid spread of the deadly virus. Doug Ford’s government promised a major overhaul, including this key goal: by the end of 2024-25, LTC homes would have enough staff that each resident would receive an average of at least four hours a day of direct “hands-on care” from nurses and personal support workers (PSWs). As it worked toward t...

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20:23

Your local grocery store won’t be forced to collect...

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2025/11/29

Send us a text Cheers to compromise. Ontario grocers and The Beer Store have reached a tentative deal on a problem that’s been brewing for months: Who is going to collect your empties? As of Jan. 1, grocery stores across the province were supposed to be ready to accept empty alcohol containers — all part of the Ford government’s expansion of booze sales to grocery and convenience stores. Grocers big and small were never keen on the plan, citing increased costs — not to mention the health an...

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21:18

‘Nothing has changed’: New data, same old problems...

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered... ·

2025/11/28

Send us a text Back in September, our podcast featured an emotional interview with Hazel van der Werken, a grieving mother who is on a mission to slash wait times at Ontario emergency departments. Her son, Finlay van der Werken, died from sepsis and pneumonia in February 2024 — after waiting more than eight hours to be treated at Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital. “Everybody knows how bad and how long the wait times are, yet we seem to be complacent because nothing has changed,” Ha...

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30:27

A polar vortex is on the way! Here’s everything you...

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered... ·

2025/11/27

Send us a text If you don’t have your winter clothes ready to go, dig them out. Frigid temperatures are on the way. A polar vortex is expected to unleash a deep chill on most parts of Canada next week, with heavy snow expected in some parts of Ontario. What exactly is a polar vortex? Despite its sinister name, a lot of people don’t actually know. So we asked an expert to help us (and you) understand. David Phillips is a longtime climatologist at Environment and Climate Change Canada, and ar...

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22:36

‘It’s time to admit what you did’: Who was driving...

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered... ·

2025/11/26

Send us a text This week, the OPP announced a major development in an unsolved mystery that devastated a small community in northern Ontario. As reported by TimminsToday, police say they’ve identified the specific pickup truck believed to have been involved in a hit-and-run incident that killed a young woman in Moose Factory, Ont., more than two years ago. The victim was 21-year-old Loni Chum. A beloved daughter and sister, she was walking home from a friend’s house on the early morning of ...

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29:59

In trade war with U.S., Canada is winning the battle...

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered... ·

2025/11/25

Send us a text When it comes to our lingering trade war with the United States, reassuring headlines are hard to find. But here’s one silver lining: Turns out Donald Trump has been quite a boon to the Canadian tourism industry. While international travel to the U.S. is way down — in part because many Canadians are hesitant cross the border these days — tourism spending on this side of the 49th is on the rise. According to Destination Canada, the busy summer season saw a total revenue increa...

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39:49

Dalton McGuinty has a book full of advice for every...

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered... ·

2025/11/22

Send us a text Whatever your opinion of Dalton McGuinty, this much is difficult to dispute: the man knows a thing or two about leadership. He was Ontario’s Liberal leader for 16 years, including a full decade as Premier (2003 to 2013). And long before that, McGuinty grew up as one of the eldest in a house of 10 children. He learned at a young age some of the most important virtues of leadership, including patience, compromise and teamwork. Now 70 and long retired from public life, McGuint...

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21:22

Why communities everywhere are banning candy tossing...

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered... ·

2025/11/21

Send us a text We cover a lot of different issues on this podcast: some extremely serious, some much lighter. Today’s topic can fall on either end of the spectrum, depending on your viewpoint. Should candy tossing be outlawed at community parades? There was a time, not long ago, when local parades were a literal rain shower of candy chucked from floats. But after a few tragic accidents — including the 2018 death of a four-year-old girl during a Christmas parade in Nova Scotia — many organiz...

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22:04

Cloned meat could be coming to a grocery store near...

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered... ·

2025/11/20

Send us a text Would you buy a steak or pork chop that came from a cloned animal? In the new year, you might end up doing just that — without even knowing it. Health Canada has introduced new regulations that will remove cloned meat from the agency’s “novel foods” category, which means meat from cloned animals won’t need to be labelled. The move raises a whole lot of juicy questions. Is cloned meat safe to eat? Shouldn’t producers be forced to tell us what we’re eating? Do we even nee...

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25:06

Why we’re asking you to help fund our investigative...

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered... ·

2025/11/19

Send us a text If you follow Ontario politics, you’ve no doubt heard of the Skills Development Fund (SDF). One of the Ford government’s signature initiatives, the multi-billion-dollar program doles out taxpayer dollars to companies and organizations that provide training programs and other support for workers. Premier Doug Ford has called it “the best investment we’ve ever done in the province.” But the Skills Development Fund has been at the centre of a political firestorm during the...

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21:53

How fraudsters cashed in on the legacy of a beloved...

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered... ·

2025/11/18

Send us a text Spanning many years, the scheme grew into one of the largest art frauds in Canadian history: thousands of fakes bearing the forged signature of renowned Indigenous painter Norval Morrisseau. When police first revealed the fruits of Project Totton back in 2023, eight suspects were arrested and more than 1,000 alleged ripoffs were seized. At the time, investigators believed the total fraud surpassed $100 million. In a Barrie courtroom last week, the final suspect learned ...

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23:10

50-year mortgage? Don’t bank on Trump’s big idea...

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered... ·

2025/11/15

Send us a text U.S. President Donald Trump is floating a controversial idea to help more Americans achieve home ownership: 50-year mortgages. On the front end, such loans would lower people’s monthly payments by stretching out the principal over a much longer period. But in the end, the interest payments would be way higher — more than double the amount forked over during a typical 30-year mortgage. North of the border, Trump’s proposal raises the obvious question: Should Canada consider al...

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41:01

This Ontario man says ChatGPT sent him spiralling...

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered... ·

2025/11/14

Send us a text Leery of AI chatbots? This podcast episode definitely won’t dispel your fears. OpenAI, the company that created ChatGPT, has been slapped with multiple lawsuits alleging the wildly popular chatbot has a glaring dark side: it plunges users into AI-fuelled delusions, mental health crises, and even suicide. One of the plaintiffs is a Canadian: Allan Brooks of Cobourg, Ont., who claims ChatGPT convinced him he’d created a novel mathematical theory that could hack sophisticated en...

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23:37

Another day, another record-breaking fentanyl bust

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2025/11/13

Send us a text It’s true what they say: records are meant to be broken. Over the summer, the Ontario Provincial Police announced the largest fentanyl seizure in the force’s history: 38 kg, or more than 380,000 street doses of the lethal drug. The massive bust was the result of Project Golden, a multi-jurisdictional investigation that spanned 11 months and multiple communities. Today, the force announced an even bigger bust: 46 kg of fentanyl taken off the streets in Windsor, all part of an ...

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30:40

Why Canada got publicly shamed for having so many...

Closer Look - Insightful, credible, unfiltered... ·

2025/11/12

Send us a text It’s definitely not something to be proud of. This week, Canada was officially stripped of its “measles elimination status” by the Pan American Health Organization — marking the first time in 27 years that our country was deemed not to be free of the highly contagious disease. Public health experts were hardly surprised by the announcement. For more than a year now, an outbreak of the virus has spread to several provinces, including Ontario, leading to more than 5,000 confirm...

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204 results

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