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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1,334 episodes
Updated Friday

Episodes1334

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Dec 29, 2021 · 28 min
City Space: Who are public spaces – like parks or transit systems – designed for?
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. Public spaces are often the best parts of a city. But during the pandemic, many of us started to realize how our public spaces, like parks, weren’t quite working for us. In this episode, we hear from three experts: Adri Stark, project manager at Park People and one of the authors of the 2021 Canadian City Parks Report; Leslie Kern, the author of Feminist City: C
Dec 23, 2021 · 22 min
Small acts of kindness
A stranger helps a woman keep her new Christmas tradition alive. People come together to make sure their community fridges are full. A group of neighbours celebrate 500 nights of thanking frontline workers. During the pandemic doldrum, it’s been easy for many of us to feel isolated and down. But the stories on today’s episode of The Decibel capture heartfelt moments, little acts of kindness and remind us about the power of community.
Dec 22, 2021 · 20 min
A new way to eliminate 40% of poverty
Al Etmanski has spent his life working to help improve life for Canadians with disabilities. Now, the federal government is considering establishing a fund to help top-up disability benefits that are offered by the provinces and territories. If established, around one million people could be lifted out of poverty. Globe and Mail feature writer Ian Brown speaks with Al about the proposed fund, why poverty among disabled people has been ignored for so long, and Al’s long career as a parent activi
Dec 21, 2021 · 15 min
Esi Edugyan on the Black stories Canada forgot
Esi Edugyan is known for her books of fiction. She’s a two-time winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize for her novels Half-Blood Blues and Washington Black. In her most recent book, she’s turned to the world of non-fiction. Out of the Sun: On Race and Storytelling is a collection of essays drawn from her 2021 CBC Massey Lectures, devoted to bringing a richer context to black histories and other stories about race that often go untold. Decibel producer Sherrill Sutherland sat down with Esi to fin
Dec 20, 2021 · 19 min
How Omicron is different
The holidays are here and so is the Omicron variant of COVID-19. Science reporter Ivan Semeniuk on what the latest science says about how Omicron is different from other variants like Delta, in three important ways: its transmissibility, how well it can escape the vaccines we have now, and how sick it can make us.
Dec 17, 2021 · 19 min
It’s been a great year (for books)
It’s the perfect time to escape into a book. Arts editor Judith Pereira and Western Arts Correspondent Marsha Lederman on the book trends this year, the silver lining of the pandemic’s effect on independent booksellers, and what you should cozy up and read.
Dec 16, 2021 · 15 min
A quieter ‘patriots only’ election in Hong Kong
This weekend, Hong Kongers head to the polls to elect their government. Well, to elect 20 of the 90 seats in their Legislative Council – and from a roster of candidates carefully vetted by the Communist Party of China in Beijing. The Globe’s Asia correspondent James Griffiths tells us how Hong Kong’s normally boisterous election has been quieted by the new national security law, and why it’s still going ahead despite critics calling it a sham.
Dec 15, 2021 · 19 min
Why this doctor is trying to find you rapid tests
Case counts are rising in many parts of the country as Omicron becomes the dominant variant of COVID-19. As some regions reintroduce public health restrictions, there’s a growing call to make rapid tests (also called rapid antigen tests) more widely available. The availability and cost of these tests varies across the country – anyone can buy them online, but at a fairly steep price compared to the free ones available at libraries across Nova Scotia. Dr. Dalia Hasan started COVID Test Finders t
Dec 14, 2021 · 16 min
An Ethiopian journalist reports on the ‘secretive war’
Two years ago, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. But for over a year now, a civil war has raged in Ethiopia between the federal government and the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front. Throughout the conflict, reports emerged of violence against civilians being committed by all sides, including horrific sexual assault. Lucy Kassa is an Ethiopian freelance journalist investigating these attacks, speaking to women and girls victimized by soldiers on both sides of the
Dec 13, 2021 · 15 min
Putting a price on how nature protects us
What is the price of a wetland? A forest? A river? How can you even go about assessing the value of natural habitats? How do you factor in the watershed’s ability to mitigate flooding? What’s the price of all that carbon a forest sucks up? Governments in Canada are starting to grapple with these questions, especially in face of climate change and increasing extreme weather events. Environment reporter Kathryn Blaze Baum explores the nascent world of eco-assets, or natural assets, and looks at t
Dec 10, 2021 · 22 min
A Mountie, a residential school and a cover-up
In 1957, a lone Mountie in northern B.C. heard rumours about sexual abuse of boys who attended the Lower Post residential school. The Mountie and a group of Kaska Dena children brought the sexual predator to trial, but intimidation of witnesses derailed the case. Fast forward decades later, to mark Canada’s first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, the Lower Post Nation burned the former residential school to the ground. The Globe’s Patrick White was there to watch the flames. While inv
Dec 9, 2021 · 17 min
Why global powers fear Russia’s preparing to invade Ukraine
Ukraine and U.S. intelligence officials, as well as online sleuthers, have noticed a buildup of Russian troops along most of the border separating the former Soviet country from Russia. It has sparked worries that an invasion may be imminent and we could see a repeat of 2014, when Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula. Senior International Correspondent Mark MacKinnon recently travelled to Kyiv to talk to Ukraine’s defence minister and get a sense of how concerned people are of the possibility o
Dec 8, 2021 · 14 min
Boosters, breakthroughs and another COVID-19 winter
In December of 2020 there was a lot of hope in the air as the first shots of the COVID-19 vaccine were administered in Canada. Fast forward a year and more than 75 per cent of the population is considered fully vaccinated with two doses. But with the Delta variant still dominant and public health officials on high alert about the new Omicron variant, another shot of the vaccine is being recommended by the National Advisory Committee on Immunization. That means a third dose of the vaccine could s
Dec 7, 2021 · 20 min
November’s big job boom and what it means for Canada’s economy
The experts said there’d be about 38,000 jobs added to Canada’s labour force in November. So when Statistics Canada announced that that number was actually 154,000, people were left scratching their heads. Especially since this news comes at a moment when Canada is facing a labour shortage. So what’s going on? And just how good is this news, actually? Economics reporter for The Globe and Mail Matt Lundy digs into the new labour numbers, explains what experts think is causing this surge and what
Dec 6, 2021 · 18 min
Gun laws 32 years after the École Polytechnique mass shooting
It has been 32 years since the École Polytechnique massacre, which left 14 women dead and spurred a debate about gun control in Canada. Progress on this file has been mixed, with various pieces of legislation over the decades that have made some efforts to prevent more mass shootings but stopped short of full-on bans of certain weapons. The Globe and Mail’s Patrick White clarifies which guns are legal, how our gun laws compare to those in the U.S. and what gun-control advocates would like to se
Dec 3, 2021 · 18 min
The business case for being bilingual
The debate over the place and importance of the French language in Canada erupted into the corporate world after Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau gave a speech, mainly in English, in Montreal, and afterward said it was “testament” to the city that he hasn’t needed to learn French in the 14 years that he has lived there. His comments caused a cascade of criticism from politicians and ended up having a ripple effect for other English-speaking CEOs. Now Michael Rousseau is vowing to learn the langu
Dec 2, 2021 · 19 min
Why this was the moment for Barbados to leave the monarchy
Barbados has moved on to a new future after the country declared itself a republic and replaced Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state with its recently elected president, Sandra Mason. The land was colonized by Britain 400 years ago, eventually becoming a slave society where hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans were brought to work on plantations growing tobacco, cotton, and sugar, among other crops. And while this moment was met with joyous celebration – and pop star Rihanna became, of
Dec 1, 2021 · 14 min
Why conversion therapy is still legal in Canada
A bill first introduced in March 2020 is back in Parliament, as its backers try for the third time to put conversion therapy in the Criminal Code of Canada. And this time, the bill would ban the practice for adults as well as children. Globe Parliamentary reporter Janice Dickson has the latest on the effort to effectively ban the disgraced practice that purports to change people’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
Nov 30, 2021 · 19 min
Omicron is here. Don’t panic – yet
Last week the world learned about Omicron, the new COVID-19 variant. It was first detected in Southern Africa and many countries quickly tightened restrictions on travellers arriving from the region and imposed travel bans. The World Health Organization declared Omicron “a variant of concern” because of the very large number of mutations that could pose a high global risk of infection surges. The Globe’s Science Correspondent Ivan Semeniuk tells us what is currently known about the new variant
Nov 29, 2021 · 14 min
What’s stopping people from buying cannabis-infused drinks
Many producers and investors had high expectations that cannabis-infused drinks would offer new and existing users a new way to get high. Some predicted hundreds of millions of dollars in annual sales from this type of product. But so far, reality hasn’t lived up to the hype, as THC drinks struggled to break into an extremely competitive and regulated market with only mellow sales. The Globe’s business reporter Irene Galea looks into what those problems are and what they could mean for the futu