- Voter rights and fights: How Jan. 6 changed American politics
Thursday, January 6th 2022
Guest: Ed Keenan, The Star's Washington Bureau Chief
It has been one year since the insurrection of the U.S. Capitol building by rioters who felt the 2020 election was stolen from former president Donald Trump. Despite the attack failing, the event cast a long shadow over the American political system, as many Republicans continue to push what some call "The Big Lie." As U.S. President Joe Biden gets ready to tackle his voting rights agenda, many experts feel the spirit of U.S. democracy could be at stake.
- The Omicron wave: What numbers to watch
Wednesday, January 5th 2022
Guest: Ed Tubb, assignment editor focused on COVID-19 data
The recent surge of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 has broken the province's testing regime, rendered contact tracing useless and made an already high case count almost impossible to calculate. With warnings about our health care system in danger of being overwhelmed, there is still a lot we can learn by paying attention to the data. The focus needs to be on things like hospitalizations or people in the ICUs to get an accurate picture of how this highly transmissible variant is affecting Ontario.
- A spirited take on Dry January
Tuesday, January 4th 2022
Guest: Christine Sismondo, author of “America Walks Into a Bar” and the upcoming “Cocktails: A Still Life”
Happy New Year! By now, hopefully your hangover from new year celebrations are long gone and you are focusing on the year ahead. One thing that many people do after holiday season is decide to cut alcohol intake for the month of January as a way to reset and refresh. While some people do Sober October, more mark Dry January to abstain from alcohol. How did it get that way? Is a zero-tolerance policy the best way to go? We get some history, tips and advice from someone who’s been thinking about consumption for a long time.
- Boko Haram survivors, Mellissa Fung and the complexity of shared trauma (REBROADCAST)
Thursday, December 30th 2021
We are taking a short break over the holidays and are rebroadcasting some memorable discussions. This episode was originally published February 19, 2021.
In 2008, Canadian journalist Mellissa Fung was abducted while on assignment in Afghanistan. She survived 28 days of torture and captivity inside a hole in the ground. In her new documentary “Captive,” she makes the rare and difficult move to use the lens of her trauma to revisit the story of the Nigerian school girls who were kidnapped and brutalized by Boko Haram militants. Fung speaks to “This Matters” host Saba Eitizaz about the survivors, their struggle to move on and the strange complexity of shared trauma.
Correction – The audio has been updated to reflect that Mellissa Fung was kidnapped in Afghanistan in 2008, not five years ago as stated in the original version of this podcast.
- A four-day work week? (REBROADCAST)
Wednesday, December 29th 2021
We are taking a short break over the holidays and are rebroadcasting some memorable discussions. This episode was originally published July 30, 2021.
GUEST: Professor Jean-Nicolas Reyt, Assistant Professor of Organizational Behaviour at McGill University
A recent study in Iceland involving thousands of workers has brought back the buzz around a shorter four-day work week. As the pandemic has accelerated the movement to work smarter and not longer, we explore the tantalizing possibilities — and potential problems — with a four-day work week in North America.
