- We’re (finally) starting to teach Black history in Canada
Monday, February 8th 2021
In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, Ryerson's school of journalism emailed students asking how to improve their program. Students responded by creating a petition demanding a Black-Canadian reporting course; over 3,000 people signed in mere hours of its release. It was the first course of its kind but will definitely not be the last. Black educators are hoping the summer of racial reckoning will mean that Canadian youth will learn about a history that has long been ignored.
Guest: Eternity Martis
Guest host: Fatima SyedWe love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:
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- Men have vanished on Vancouver Island. What happened to them?
Friday, February 5th 2021
Over the past several years, vulnerable men have been disappearing from communities around Vancouver Island. They walk away, and then they are never seen again. Are they running? Have they gotten lost, and perished in the woods? Is there something more sinister happening? The host of Island Crime: Gone Boys, which launches on Monday, has spent months investigating the case, speaking to the families, authorities and experts in criminology. What did she find? What happens next?
GUEST: Laura Palmer, host of Island Crime (You can hear the trailer and subscribe for free to S2 of Island Crime right here.)
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- What does it mean when water is traded as a commodity?
Thursday, February 4th 2021
It could be a sign of the oncoming resource apocalypse. It could be a useful tool to determine the market value of regional water reserves. It could just be an experiment that goes no further than a small part of California. Or it could be the first domino to fall on the march towards commodifying the basics of life.
Either way, water futures are now being traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. And as one of the most water-rich countries on the planet, it's critical that Canada is paying attention.
GUEST: Diane Dupont, Economics Professor, Brock University; co-author of Running Through Our Fingers: How Canada Fails to Capture the Value of its Top Asset.
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- With no Keystone XL pipeline, what’s Alberta’s Plan B?
Wednesday, February 3rd 2021
One of Joe Biden’s first actions as President of the United States was to cancel the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline. And one of Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s first reactions to Biden taking office was to get really mad about that.
Alberta had a lot of money invested in this pipeline being built. They were counting on it for a lot of jobs. It’s no wonder Kenney was angry. But, considering that the Premier of a Canadian province’s anger is unlikely to shake the resolve of the new leader of the free world...it's fair to ask: What is Alberta’s Plan B? And how is the province prepping for a world far less reliant on oil and gas?
GUEST: Jason Markusoff, Maclean's
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- A team of experts plan to battle science disinformation head on
Tuesday, February 2nd 2021
The past 12 months have seen a flood of scientific misinformation on social media. Some of it is lies for profit. Some of it is myths and hoaxes for engagement. And a whole lot more of it is just unintentionally wrong—complex science parsed by scared amateurs in the middle of a terrifying pandemic. But it all gets attention—a lot of attention.
A new group aims to meet this bad information where it lives. Not in papers and journals and books, but in social media posts and threads and DMS. Science Up First hopes to create an army of fact-wielding social soldiers to do battle with info that needs debunking. But they'll be fighting an uphill battle every step of the way.
GUEST: Science Up First co-founder Timothy Caulfield, Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy, University of Alberta
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