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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Jul 21, 2022 · 21 min
The most important revelations from the January 6 hearings
The January 6 Committee hearings have shared several surprising revelations and explosive testimony over the last few months. To make sense of it all, we recap some stand out moments so far in the committee’s efforts to figure out exactly what happened when supporters of then-president Donald Trump stormed the US Capitol. Adrian Morrow is The Globe and Mail’s US correspondent. He’s on the show to share the most important things we’ve learned so far and what to expect now that the hearings are c
Jul 20, 2022 · 19 min
The court case challenging Canada’s public healthcare
On Friday, B.C.’s Court of Appeal upheld a lower court’s decision that access to medical care should be based on need and not the ability to pay. The court sided with the B.C. government’s argument that allowing private care would endanger the public system. For 13 years, orthopedic surgeon and president of Cambie Surgery, Brian Day has argued that patients should have the right to pay out-of-pocket for medically necessary care when wait times in the public system are too long. Even though the c
Jul 19, 2022 · 20 min
What we learned from the Nova Scotia shooter’s spouse
More than two years after Canada’s worst mass shooting, we’ve finally heard from someone who was there at the start. Lisa Banfield, the shooter’s common-law spouse, spoke last Friday at the inquiry into how the RCMP handled the incident. She provided insight into what happened in April, 2020, and described a chilling portrait of intimate partner violence. The Globe’s Greg Mercer tells us about what Banfield witnessed, the shooter’s violent history, and why some of the victims’ families walked o
Jul 18, 2022 · 20 min
Sri Lanka's crisis and its relationship with China
Sri Lanka is in crisis right now. After months of fuel, medicine and food shortages, protestors have taken to the streets – and the homes of the country’s leaders. The now-former Prime Minister’s house was set ablaze. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled to Signapore, then resigned. Normally a good friend and funder of projects under his government, China’s government has gone silent as the former president lost the confidence of the country. But until now, China has spent billions investing in inf
Jul 15, 2022 · 25 min
City Space: How can cities prepare for climate change?
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. Climate change isn’t just coming, it’s here. And cities are uniquely susceptible to its effects because of their population density and infrastructure. So how can they better prepare for the increasingly devastating impacts of the climate crisis? In this episode, we explore the concept of climate resilience — how prepared are cities to anticipate, prepare for an
Jul 14, 2022 · 17 min
Decoding the Bank of Canada’s supersized interest rate hike
The Bank of Canada raised the benchmark interest rate by one percentage point on Wednesday. The surprise move is the biggest hike since 1998. The aggressive increase is larger than economists were expecting. The goal is to cool inflation, which hit 7.7 per cent in May – the highest it’s been in almost four decades. The Globe’s Mark Rendell covers the Bank of Canada. He’s on the show to explain what the central bank is trying to accomplish with this hike, what it means for recession worries and
Jul 13, 2022 · 18 min
Three solutions for airport chaos from a former airline exec
Things are not going well at airports around the world and Canada has taken a particularly bad turn. On Monday, 70 per cent of flights from Canada’s largest carrier Air Canada were delayed – the highest percentage in the world. Duncan Dee is a former Chief Operating Officer for Air Canada. He also worked on a panel that reviewed the Air Transportation Act in 2016, looking closely at what could be improved at Canada’s airports. He’s on the show to talk about what he thinks should be done immedia
Jul 12, 2022 · 17 min
The Rogers outage fallout
On Friday, Rogers’ cellphone and Internet surfaced suddenly stopped working, leaving almost 12 million Canadians disconnected. And it wasn’t just Rogers’ direct customers who were affected — Interac’s debit system for e-transfers and retail payments were out of commission for most of the day, and some emergency services lost their connection too. The Globe’s telecom reporter, Alexandra Posadzki, joins us to talk about what went wrong, how the outage could affect Rogers, and what the government’
Jul 11, 2022 · 17 min
Coping with the coming COVID summer surge
Two and a half years into the COVID-19 pandemic, we may be sick of talking about it – but COVID-19 is not through with us yet. Case counts are higher than the first two pandemic summers, and as staffing shortages become more and more common in hospitals, emergency departments are becoming overwhelmed. And yet; with mask mandates gone almost everywhere, few public health restrictions remain. Wency Leung, the Globe’s health reporter, is on the show to talk about why experts are calling for a retu
Jul 8, 2022 · 26 min
City Space: Hybrid work is here to stay. What will that mean for our downtown cores?
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. If you’re a white-collar worker, chances are your office setup looks different than it did before the pandemic. After our two-year-long global experiment with remote work, many employees say there’s lots to like about it, with a number of companies now offering hybrid workplaces. All that empty office space is going to have an effect on the rest of our cities. I
Jul 7, 2022 · 19 min
What’s going on inside the Assembly of First Nations?
On Tuesday, First Nations chiefs in the Assembly of First Nations voted against continuing the suspension of National Chief RoseAnne Archibald. Archibald was suspended on June 17, after being accused of bullying and harassment by staff, who she then accused of corruption. Niigaan Sinclair, professor and acting head of Indigenous studies at the University of Manitoba, explains the work of the AFN, how this situation has overshadowed that work, and what role the AFN has – and should have – in adv
Jul 6, 2022 · 19 min
Trudeau, the RCMP and a question of interference
Just 10 days after the 2020 Nova Scotia mass shooting where 22 people were killed, RCMP commissioner Brenda Lucki allegedly pressed senior officers to publicly release information about the kinds of firearms that were used in the shooting. The reason? To help bolster Liberal gun legislation. The commissioner, the former public safety minister, and the Prime Minister all deny there was political interference – but a paper trail strongly suggests that someone is lying. Globe columnist, Andrew Coy
Jul 5, 2022 · 20 min
Tuberculosis in Canada? The story behind a recent outbreak
It’s often thought of as a disease from a bygone era, but in some parts of Canada, tuberculosis is still very much with us. When the hamlet of Pangnirtung experienced an outbreak last year, local health officials were left begging for help to bring in resources to the remote community. Kelly Grant, the Globe’s health reporter, is on the show to talk about the explosion of tuberculosis cases in Nunavut, how nurses begged the territorial government for help, and why delays might have resulted in
Jul 4, 2022 · 20 min
Wild boars are in Canada and it’s no joke
Adaptable, smart and invasive. No we’re not talking about humans. We’re talking about wild boars. With their populations growing and sightings – even around big metropolitan areas – increasing, governments are rushing to find ways to contain them before they wreak ecological and agricultural damage. Jana G. Pruden, a feature writer for The Globe and Mail, discusses what kind of damage these creatures can do and why letting hunters lose on them is not the answer.
Jun 30, 2022 · 22 min
Graduating from pandemic high school
Westview Centennial Secondary School in the northwest of Toronto is celebrating the graduating class of 2022. On Thursday, about 180 students are crossing the stage to get their diplomas. While this is a common rite of passage for teens across the country, these students had anything but a normal high school experience. The pandemic meant online learning, no sports, taking care of younger siblings and little in-person interaction with friends. Westview is also located in Toronto’s Jane and Finch
Jun 29, 2022 · 19 min
The fight to overturn abortion bans in the U.S.
Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on Friday, abortions were immediately outlawed in several states. But this week, the procedures were allowed to resume in Texas, Louisiana and Utah. While this is seen as a win for pro-choice advocates, these measures are only temporary. And, it’s only a matter of time before abortion will likely be illegal in more than half of U.S. states. Rosemary Westwood has been following the battle over abortion rights in the Southern U.S
Jun 28, 2022 · 20 min
Hockey Canada, allegations of sexual assault and a culture of secrecy
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
Jun 27, 2022 · 18 min
The cultural and economic force that is K-pop supergroup BTS
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 the
Jun 24, 2022 · 18 min
Celebrating Pride in small-town Canada
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.
Jun 23, 2022 · 19 min
Was the Emergencies Act the right tool to use against the truckers?
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.