The Decibel

The Globe and Mail

Context is everything. Join us Monday to Friday for a Canadian daily news podcast from The Globe and Mail. Explore a story shaping our world, in conversation with reporters, experts, and the people at the centre of the news.

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1,335 episodes
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Episodes1335

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Oct 28, 2024 · 27 min
‘We could have acted earlier’: Canada’s Immigration Minister
On Thursday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a major reduction in the number of permanent residents the country will admit over the next three years, saying his government had not gotten the balance between labour needs and population growth “quite right.” In 2025 and 2026, the government had initially planned to bring in 500,000 permanent residents – now, they’ve set a target of 395,000 and 380,000, respectively. In 2027, that target is 365,000 permanent residents. This signifies a maj
Oct 25, 2024 · 23 min
How to make a true crime podcast
14 years ago, a young woman disappeared in Edmonton... two years later, police released a chilling recording from the final moments of her life. Ever since she heard it, The Globe’s Jana Pruden hasn’t been able to shake the voices of Amber Tuccaro and the man suspected of killing her, so she took a trip to Amber’s home community of Fort Chipewyan, Alberta to look into the case. Jana joins the show to share how and why she made the second season of In Her Defence: 50th Street, and what she learn
Oct 24, 2024 · 23 min
What a Trump re-election could mean for Canada’s economy
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has said he will impose 10 to 20 per cent tariffs on everything the U.S. imports. This would include, it seems, all of the goods and resources Canada sells to its biggest trading partner. And that kind of tariff wall could have serious effects across the Canadian economy. Adrian Morrow is the U.S. correspondent based in Washington, D.C., for The Globe and Mail. He looked at exactly which parts of the Canadian economy would be hit the hardest, how m
Oct 23, 2024 · 22 min
Why the AFN rejected a $47.8-billion child welfare deal
Last week, the Assembly of First Nations voted to reject a $47.8-billion child welfare deal with the federal government. The agreement would have funded long-term reforms to child welfare for First Nations children on reserve. Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak, the AFN National Chief, urged the chiefs to pass the deal so that it would be in place before the next federal election. Dr. Cindy Blackstock is a member of the Gitxsan First Nation and the Executive Director of the First Nations Child and F
Oct 22, 2024 · 23 min
How the Parliament Hill shooting changed Canada
On October 22, 2014, a man named Michael Zehaf-Bibeau entered Parliament Hill, killing Canadian soldier Nathan Cirillo and catching security off guard. On the 10th anniversary of what was later deemed a terror attack — and with security risks for politicians only growing — the Globe’s national affairs reporter, Kristy Kirkup, joins The Decibel to revisit the events of that day, sharing stories of responders, and explaining how Parliament Hill changed because of it.
Oct 21, 2024 · 24 min
Jupiter’s ocean moon, stranded astronauts and a special asteroid
Ivan Semeniuk is The Globe’s science reporter and today on the show he takes us on a tour of our solar system – and beyond! We start with the news of the Europa Clipper and its search for the conditions of life on a watery moon around Jupiter. Then we talk about Earth’s new mini moon, before catching up with those stranded astronauts on the International Space Station. We end by talking about what the James Webb Space Telescope has taught us about the origins of the universe, before zooming ba
Oct 18, 2024 · 19 min
Trudeau grilled on foreign interference and Indian expulsions
The hearings for the public inquiry into foreign interference led by Justice Marie-Josée Hogue wrapped up earlier this week with testimony from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The Prime Minister said he had the names of Conservative parliamentarians who were engaged in or at high risk of being targeted for foreign interference. Trudeau’s testimony came just two days after the RCMP announced they had evidence of Indian officials’ involvement in homicides, extortion and violent crime on Canadian
Oct 17, 2024 · 24 min
B.C.’s election: a party’s implosion and an unlikely face-off
British Columbia heads to the polls this Saturday, October 19th. It’s been an election campaign full of surprises — from the collapse of one established party, to the meteoric rise of a nearly defunct one. With the ongoing challenges of housing, affordability, healthcare and the toxic drug crisis, polling has BC Conservatives and the incumbent BC NDP in a dead heat. The Globe’s B.C. politics reporter, Justine Hunter, walks us through the province’s unpredictable election, what both the camp
Oct 16, 2024 · 20 min
The rough state of Canada’s emergency care
Emergency rooms across Canada are in a dire state. Wait times in many ERs remain stubbornly high. And in some provinces, the full understanding of how bad the situation has become isn’t even clear – with inconsistent or little data to rely on. For many Canadians, that lack of clarity in emergency situations is a life or death matter. Globe investigative reporter Tu Thanh Ha joins The Decibel to break down the details he and data editor Yang Sun dug up and what story the numbers tell about the
Oct 15, 2024 · 21 min
Behind the gallery wall: the art that museums don’t show you
If you were to spend an afternoon wandering around an art museum, you’d see hundreds of pieces, if not thousands. But the reality is, what you see on display is only a small percentage of a museum’s holdings. Depending on the institution, anywhere from 95 to 99 per cent of the artwork it owns is in storage – and according to a 2019 report, many of those storage spaces are so full that experts say the artworks may be at risk. Kate Taylor is the Globe’s visual arts critic. She’s on the show to e
Oct 11, 2024 · 35 min
Introducing ‘In Her Defence: 50th Street’
Amber Tuccaro was 20 years old when she disappeared in Edmonton in August 2010. She was never seen alive again. But she left an important clue: a chilling recording of what appears to be the final moments of her life, and the voice of the man who may be her killer. Hosted by The Globe and Mail’s Jana Pruden, ‘In Her Defence: 50th Street’ retraces the final days of Amber’s life, explore her home, the Indigenous community of Fort Chipewyan, Alberta and asks serious questions of the police investi
Oct 10, 2024 · 19 min
Why Gen Z is lonely and what they’re doing about it
What does it mean to be connected in the world today? Gen Z – the cohort born between the late 1990s and the early 2010s – has been inundated by social media and smartphones, but they’ve also been hampered by years of social distancing in the pandemic. So, what effect has that had on them in terms of their social connections? The Decibel spoke to several Gen Zers, including Globe reporter Pippa Norman on what life is like – their hopes, anxieties and the way they want to push back against ster
Oct 9, 2024 · 24 min
Everybody’s a food critic. Is anybody good at it?
At all but a handful of publications, restaurant critics are a relic of bygone days. In their place, the food influencer has risen up in popularity. Seen mostly on platforms like Instagram and Tik Tok, influencers take their audience along for the ride at all sorts of restaurants, from high-end to casual dining… but unlike old school critics, they don’t necessarily adhere to standards like paying for their meal or remaining anonymous, which helped critics paint a full – and sometimes critical –
Oct 8, 2024 · 21 min
Life for Palestinians one year after
This is the second part of a two-episode special looking at the rippling effects of a year of war in Israel, the Gaza Strip and Lebanon. In this episode, Mark MacKinnon, The Globe and Mail’s senior international correspondent, talks about the scale of destruction in Gaza, how people are surviving there and what future Palestinians see for themselves. Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at thedecibel@globeandmail.com
Oct 7, 2024 · 23 min
One year after Israel’s ‘Black Saturday’
The Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, killed nearly 1,200 Israelis and saw 250 people kidnapped. It also sparked one of the largest wars in the Middle East in a generation. A year of Israel’s ground attack and air strikes on the Gaza Strip has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, causing mass displacement as fears of a wider war continue to develop. In the first of a two-episode feature on this sombre anniversary, the Globe’s senior international correspondent Mark MacKinnon captu
Oct 4, 2024 · 24 min
Why won’t Justin Trudeau step down?
Justin Trudeau’s poll numbers have been bad for a while. The Liberals have lost two crucial by-elections and are trailing behind the Conservatives in seat projections. They just lost the support of the NDP. The shine seems to have completely come off the nine-year-old government. And yet Trudeau remains defiant. Why? The Globe’s Shannon Proudfoot set out to determine why, in the face of increasingly long odds, some politicians can’t seem to read the writing piling up on the wall. She spoke to f
Oct 3, 2024 · 18 min
On board a Canadian warship in the Pacific
Canada’s Navy has been expanding its presence in the Pacific, as tensions with China rise, leaving vital trade routes in potential danger. At the same time as they recommit their efforts to the region, the military as a whole faces issues around funding and recruitment, raising questions about its future direction. The Globe’s Asia correspondent James Griffiths spent a week aboard The HMCS Vancouver as it engaged in war games in the West Pacific, to learn more about Canada’s evolving naval str
Oct 2, 2024 · 23 min
How Israel’s strikes on Lebanon create new frontlines
On Tuesday, Iran fired hundreds of missiles into Israel following weeks of increasing Israeli aggression on Hezbollah. This week, Israel began ground raids and hit central Beirut in a strike. These attacks have killed hundreds in Lebanon and driven millions from their homes. Thomas Juneau is an associate professor of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa who specializes in the Middle East. He’s on the show to talk about what we can make of these escalations, and when we
Oct 1, 2024 · 24 min
How a little known bank is trying to build big things in Canada
The Canada Infrastructure Bank has been around since 2017, and originally it was meant to help build huge infrastructure across the country. In fact, one person involved in its launch promised you’d be able to see some of the infrastructure from space. But those massive projects never materialized and that put the whole bank at peril until it changed course recently. Adam Radwanski, who covers climate policy for The Globe and Mail, explains how this bank is trying to change its reputation and
Sep 30, 2024 · 15 min
Canada is taking on the Taliban over women’s rights
Canada has joined three other countries in a legal process to hold the Taliban accountable for discriminating against women by enacting increasingly oppressive laws. These range from barring them from education beyond the sixth grade, to a ban on women’s voices being heard in public. Globe reporter Janice Dickson talks about what life is like for women in Afghanistan now, how this legal challenge is expected to work and the significance of this attempt to hold the Taliban to account. Question