The Big Story

About the podcast The Big Story

An in-depth look at the issues, culture and personalities shaping Canada today.

Categories

The podcast The Big Story is embedded on this page from an open RSS feed. All files, descriptions, artwork and other metadata from the RSS-feed is the property of the podcast owner and not affiliated with or validated by Podplay.

Report content

2022
What happened in Kitsault, BC, Canada's most perfect Ghost Town?
Kitsault was a mining town of 1,200 or so people in one of the most remote areas of British Columbia. It opened in 1981. It was empty by 1982. That was its first lifetime. Since then, however, something has happened to Kitsault. Unlike other abandoned towns, Kitsault has been maintained. First by the mining company, later by a private owner. So today it sits, almost perfectly preserved, ready for a small town's worth of people to show up and move in. Will they? GUEST: Justin McElroy, CBC reporter, personal Kitsault investigator
August 12, 2022
19 min
Inside the arms race to develop new psychedelic drugs
There's a lot of money in creating and patenting new drugs. Like, tens of billions of dollars. But the field is crowded, competitive and dominated by large pharmaceutical companies. So some new startups are looking elsewhere. For decades psychedelics have been illegal, taboo and largely considered the drugs of hippies. The past decade, though, has changed that, as psilocybin, ketamine and others have been increasingly used therapeutically. So now the race is on to create brand new psychedelics, that can be approved, patented and ... yup, marketed to you. Welcome to the psychedelic arms race. GUEST: John Semley, writer and researcher (Read John's piece in WIRED, right here.)
August 11, 2022
24 min
What does it take to work as a foreign-trained physician in Canada?
Ontario's health minister wants regulators to figure out a way to expedite the licensing of internationally trained doctors and nurses to help staff the province's ICUs, ERs and long-term care facilities. She hasn't said much about how, but it's a first step. There are thousands of people who would like to work in the province's hospitals, but can't. It takes money, patience and years to become licensed. Why? Why have other countries figured this out but we can't? GUEST: Dr. Shafi Bhuiyan, assistant professor at the Dalla Lana school of Public Health, founder and board member of the Canadian Association of Global Health
August 10, 2022
24 min
A summer that shattered the Canadian hockey myth
The World Junior Championships begin today in Edmonton. And the summer date is not the reason they'll be different this year. The past few months have seen disturbing accusations of sexual assault against several members of two team Canadas — 2003 and 2018. Hockey Canada has spent decades of time and energy turning its world juniors into a Canadian myth, and lots of people have profited from that. These accusations, and revelations from Hockey Canada itself to a government committee have shattered that. Can it ever be put back together? And finally, why did it take so long to get here? It's not as though there haven't been plenty of warning signs ignored along the way... GUEST: Michael Grange, Sportsnet
August 9, 2022
26 min
Island Crime: Finding Amber Manthorne
When 40-year-old Amber Manthorne fails to show up to work on Friday, July 8th, 2022, her friends immediately believe something is wrong. At first, it is thought that Amber is with her boyfriend, Justin Hall, but then Justin surfaces days later, without Amber, leaving more questions than answers. In this episode, host Laura Palmer outlines the timeline of events surrounding Amber's disappearance and sits down with Amber's friend, and family spokesperson, Kristie St. Claire. Listen to the rest of the series here.
August 8, 2022
38 min
How a Canadian telescope found something in space we don't understand
We've known about fast radio bursts (or FRBs) for 15 years now. But nobody had seen one quite like this. A Canadian telescope detected an FRB that not only was much longer than usual, it had a distinct repeating pattern. We learn more and more about the universe every year, and we're finding more and more things we can't quite understand. What are FRBs? Why was this one so special? And what's at the end of the discovery trail? GUEST Marina Koren science writer, The Atlantic
August 8, 2022
19 min
It looks like the Conservative leadership race is over. What does that mean for Canada and the next election?
You may have missed the final Conservative Party of Canada leadership debate Wednesday night. No worries! Pierre Poilievre missed it, too. The frontrunner has such a huge lead according to every report, that he had nothing to gain by attending. How did this race go from competitive to ... not? Will Poilievre be different as CPC leader than he was as a candidate? How will this change both the Conservative party and the landscape of the next election, whenever that is? GUEST: David Moscrop, political analyst, columnist, author of Too Dumb For Democracy
August 5, 2022
26 min
Inside the scandal that could undo 15 years of Alzheimer's research
A seminal 2006 research paper on Alzheimer's has been cited more than 2000 times over the past decade and a half. Its conclusions have informed much of the direction the field has taken since then. And recently an investigation concluded that critical images in the paper may well have been fabricated. Alzheimer's is already something of a mystery of a disease. We know so little about it. And now it appears we may not even know what we thought we knew. What happened? And what does it mean for so many years of work by so many doctors and scientists? GUEST: Charles Piller, investigative journalist, Science Magazine
August 4, 2022
30 min

About the podcast The Big Story

An in-depth look at the issues, culture and personalities shaping Canada today.

The Big Story

About the podcast The Big Story

Categories

What happened in Kitsault, BC, Canada's most perfect Ghost Town?

Inside the arms race to develop new psychedelic drugs

What does it take to work as a foreign-trained physician in Canada?

A summer that shattered the Canadian hockey myth

Island Crime: Finding Amber Manthorne

How a Canadian telescope found something in space we don't understand

It looks like the Conservative leadership race is over. What does that mean for Canada and the next election?

Inside the scandal that could undo 15 years of Alzheimer's research

About the podcast The Big Story

Categories