Latest podcasts
- Hockey Canada, allegations of sexual assault and a culture of secrecy
Tuesday, June 28th 2022
A woman alleges she was sexually assaulted by eight Canadian Hockey League players in 2018. The public did not hear about this until 2022, after TSN broke the news that Hockey Canada settled a civil lawsuit with the woman. Now the government has cut off funding for the national organization until more details of their investigation are provided to a parliamentary committee.
So, how is it that an alleged gang sexual assault was kept silent for that long? Taylor McKee is an assistant professor of Sports Management at Brock University, where he studies the intersection of sport and society, as well as the history of violence in hockey. He tells us how hockey has built a culture of secrecy and what that means for a sport deeply connected to Canadian identity.
- The cultural and economic force that is K-pop supergroup BTS
Monday, June 27th 2022
The superstar K-pop group BTS announced recently that they are taking a temporary break as a group and pursuing individual projects. This moment was a big deal for their millions of fans worldwide, the company that brings in billions of dollars managing them and for South Korea, which considers its members cultural ambassadors for the country.
Hannah Sung, co-founder of Media Girlfriends, host of the podcast At The End of the Day and BTS fan, explains what makes this group so popular and why they’re so influential.
- Celebrating Pride in small-town Canada
Friday, June 24th 2022
Today, Pride celebrations in big cities include parades and parties which attract millions of participants around the world. But for many smaller cities and towns across Canada, public Pride events are relatively newer, smaller and sometimes hard-won. Chelle Turingan is the co-director of the documentary Small Town Pride. They join us to talk about the joys and challenges queer folks face in small Canadian towns and how, despite it all, they manage to organize Pride events.
- Was the Emergencies Act the right tool to use against the truckers?
Thursday, June 23rd 2022
Feb. 14, 2022, marked the first time the government has had to invoke the Emergencies Act. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did so in response to the continuing trucker convoy protests. And in doing so, he also automatically launched a review into that decision.
The committee looking into the government’s justification for using the Act is about to take a summer break, but in the last few months it has grilled a number of senior cabinet ministers, including Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland. Senior Political Writer Campbell Clark looks at what we’ve learned so far and explains why this has been a frustrating exercise in democratic accountability.
- What to know about monkeypox’s spread
Wednesday, June 22nd 2022
Monkeypox, an endemic disease for a number of Central and West African countries, is having its largest outbreak outside of that region. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are over 2,500 cases of the disease in 37 countries.
Canada’s share of that is 168, as of June 17th when numbers were last released by PHAC. Yap Boum from Doctors Without Borders tells us about monkeypox in Central and West Africa. Then Helen Branswell, senior writer at STAT News, whose beat is infectious diseases, updates us on how monkeypox’s spread is different in Europe and North America, and why the World Health Organization might label it a “public health emergency of international concern” at its meeting Thursday.