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.

Subscribe Listen in podnod RSS feed Show website

1,335 episodes
Updated Today

Episodes1335

Newest first

Aug 19, 2022 · 31 min
Stress Test: Tempted to buy a home with siblings or friends? Here’s what you need to know
Most people buy homes with their partners or by themselves. But others are ditching the traditional paradigm. Today, we’re talking about unconventional homebuyers: family members, friends and others that team up to get into the property market. We hear from two sisters who are trying to buy a house together – and who are struggling to get into the market even after joining forces. Plus, Roma speaks with Leah Zlatkin, a mortgage broker at Mortgage Outlet and expert at LowestRates.ca, about what y
Aug 18, 2022 · 18 min
How a warming climate is hurting our sleep
A study from the University of Copenhagen looked at billions of records taken from sleep-tracking wristbands across 68 countries suggests that people are already losing 44 hours of sleep a year because of hot nights. And with record-breaking temperatures happening more frequently because of climate change, Kelton Minor, lead author of the study, tells us the extent of this problem, who is most affected by it, and why it’s so important for people to get a good night’s sleep.
Aug 17, 2022 · 16 min
Taiwan’s bargaining (micro)chip
Recent visits to Taiwan by U.S. House Rep. Nancy Pelosi and a delegation of five U.S. lawmakers earlier this week have set the stage for rising tensions in the Taiwan strait. Beijing claims Taiwan as its own territory and sees U.S. visits as encouragement for Taiwan’s pro-independence movement. But there’s a crucial industry on the self-governing island critical to both China, the U.S. and the entire global economy. Taiwan makes 90 per cent of the world’s advanced semiconductors. The hyper-mini
Aug 16, 2022 · 15 min
Why we need parasites
You’re never far from a parasite, no matter where you are. They’re responsible for illnesses like malaria that cause death around much of the world; the word itself is a derogatory term for something freeloading and disgusting. They’re also very important to the health of ecosystems. Parasite ecologist and University of Washington associate professor Chelsea Wood makes her case for parasite conservation, and why they’re actually beautiful, complex forms of life that need to be protected.
Aug 15, 2022 · 18 min
Why do CEOs get paid so much?
The CEOs of the 100 largest Canadian companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange saw their compensation go up 23 per cent in 2021. Some chief executives took home pay packages that were valued around in the tens of millions of dollars or more. So how do boards of these publicly-traded companies decide on these huge sums? And what do the shareholders of these companies think of it all? David Milstead, The Globe’s Institutional Investment reporter, takes us inside the complex world of executiv
Aug 12, 2022 · 26 min
City Space: From tipping to farming: How we should change the way we think about food
Today we're bringing you an episode of City Space, a Globe and Mail podcast about how to make our cities better, hosted by Adrian Lee. Cities are filled with seemingly endless options when it comes to food. But we’re also increasingly disconnected from what we eat and how it makes its way to our plate. In this episode, we’re taking a look at how the pandemic has given us the opportunity to rethink our relationship with food, both in terms of the restaurant industry and farmed food that fills ou
Aug 11, 2022 · 20 min
The $100,000 curry chicken
With so many ups and downs in headlines and our personal lives, what often brings us together is food. Food has a way of supporting, nurturing and healing. To explore the depths of how food connects us, we cook with chef and author Suzanne Barr. Barr teaches us how to make her famous Caribbean curry chicken and reflects on how the dish that’s so close to her heart helped launch her cooking career, celebrate her Jamaican culture and encourage more women to take charge in professional kitchens. We
Aug 10, 2022 · 17 min
Unearthing our love for the humble potato
Potatoes! They’re affordable, accessible, ultra-versatile, and most importantly, delicious. But a case of potato warts found on two farms in Prince Edward Island last November has wreaked havoc on the local potato economy. The wart led the Canadian government to restrict exports of all P.E.I. potatoes to the U.S. for months. Even though potato warts aren’t unsafe to eat, over 300 million pounds of potatoes were destroyed. Adrian Lee is a content editor at the Globe and Mail’s Opinion section, a
Aug 9, 2022 · 20 min
How supply chains starve us, and how to fix it
In the past two years alone, the number of severely food insecure people doubled to 276 million, according to the UN, because of issues like inflation and supply chain problems related to the invasion of Ukraine. Evan Fraser, professor of geography and director of the Arrell Food Institute at the University of Guelph, continues to stay optimistic despite a global food system long plagued with wealth inequality, political instability and the ongoing climate crisis. He tells us how more people ca
Aug 8, 2022 · 20 min
Octopus: friend or food?
As the global demand for octopus meat rises, a company in Spain is set to open the world’s first ever octopus farm. But scientists and philosophers warn that it would be a mistake to farm these clever cephalopods. By opening the farm, they say, we’d be opening the door to consequences we may not yet even conceive of. Erin Anderssen, a feature writer for the Globe, joins us to talk about what makes the octopus such a compelling character, and why learning about them has challenged the way she thi
Aug 5, 2022 · 30 min
City Space: How online shopping is changing our city streets – and what comes next
With e-commerce largely replacing brick-and-mortar stores, how we shop is having real, physical effects on how our cities work. So in this episode, we’re looking at all things retail: As consumers, have we become addicted to convenience? How are businesses able to offer us even quicker delivery times than ever before, sometimes within even 15 minutes – and what is that doing to our main streets? What is the “last mile,” and why is it so important for making sure we’re taking care of the environm
Aug 4, 2022 · 18 min
You have Monkeypox questions. We have (some) answers.
Monkeypox cases are climbing worldwide. In July, the World Health Organization declared the virus a “Public Health Emergency of International Concern.” And in Canada, as of Aug. 3, there are almost 900 cases, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada. With this worrying news, many people have questions. The Decibel put a callout on social media to find out what our listeners wanted to know about the disease. To get answers, we asked The Globe and Mail’s health reporter, Wency Leung, who’s
Aug 3, 2022 · 18 min
Are we actually heading into a recession?
New GDP numbers in the U.S. have set off the latest set of worries about whether we’re heading for a recession, even if Canada’s numbers aren’t that bad. Globe and Mail journalist David Parkinson has been covering business and financial markets for more than three decades. He explains how recessions are defined, which economic indicators we should be watching and just how worried people should be.
Aug 2, 2022 · 14 min
Scammers are taking advantage of the overheated rental market
This year alone, rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Canada went up almost 14 per cent on average – and many rental markets, like Calgary or Guelph, Ont. are even hotter. Experts point to those priced out of buying a home thanks to inflation, and university students finally able to resume class on campus during the pandemic. All of this creates the perfect environment for scammers to swoop in. Globe reporter Patrick Egwu, who almost fell victim to a rental scam himself, tells us how these scams
Jul 29, 2022 · 34 min
Stress Test: Retirement might look different for Gen Z and millennials. Here’s how to plan for it
Today we're bringing you an episode of Stress Test, a Globe and Mail podcast about personal finance, hosted by Rob Carrick and Roma Luciw. We’re talking retirement – why it’s changing, and how to plan for it. We hear from Vicky (25), Irina (34) and Brent (36), who each have different visions of retirement and what they’re doing – or not doing – to plan for it right now. Plus, Rob speaks with Shannon Lee Simmons, a Toronto-based certified financial planner whose core clients are millennials and
Jul 28, 2022 · 21 min
Outrage over Hockey Canada’s fund to settle sexual assault claims
Hockey Canada told federal hearings Wednesday that it has paid $8.9 million since 1989 to settle 21 cases of alleged sexual assault, with the bulk of that money, $7.6 million, coming from a special fund built through registration fees that wasn’t disclosed to parents and players. Grant Robertson’s investigation into the National Equity Fund exposed it publicly, and thanks to two days of parliamentary hearings, we now know a lot more. Grant explains how this fund functions and how it allowed Hoc
Jul 27, 2022 · 16 min
Why Canada is violating its own Russian sanctions
Canada is getting heat for granting a Montreal company an exemption from Russian sanctions. The company fixes turbines used in the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which supplies natural gas from Russia to Germany. Ukraine is not happy with Canada, saying that granting this exemption sets a “dangerous precedent” that will only “strengthen Moscow’s sense of impunity”. But Germany pushed hard for this decision because the pipeline in question supplies more than 50 per cent of the country’s natural gas. Me
Jul 26, 2022 · 15 min
Why bonds might be more important than stocks
The bond market moves three times as much money as the stock market. But it’s boring. The “sure thing” with a steady if modest return and low risk. So we hardly ever hear about it. But in this unprecedented economic era, where supply chain woes meet inflation and the threat of recession during a global pandemic, even the bond market has suffered. To demystify the world of bonds, The Globe’s feature writer Ian Brown is here. He speaks to us about how bonds work, how they play into today’s econom
Jul 25, 2022 · 18 min
Should the Pope reverse a 500-year old Church law on his trip to Canada?
It is largely anticipated that Pope Francis will deliver another apology to Indigenous people while in Canada this week. But are there actions he could take while here to further reconciliation? Many Indigenous people would like the Pope to publicly renounce the Doctrine of Discovery. Bruce McIvor is one of them. He is a lawyer, a historian and the author of Standoff: Why Reconciliation Fails Indigenous People and How to Fix It. He explains what this doctrine is, how it went from a papal edict
Jul 22, 2022 · 28 min
Stress Test: How TikTok changed the vibe of personal finance advice
Today we're bringing you an episode of Stress Test, a Globe and Mail podcast about personal finance, hosted by Rob Carrick and Roma Luciw. Gen Z and millennials are getting a lot of their money advice from TikTok, where personal finance videos have more than 5.8 billion views. In this episode, we look at why the social media platform is resonating, how to use it effectively and what advice you should be wary of on the app. We hear from a 25-year-old TikTok user from Mississauga, Ont., about how