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Tova wrote into the show expressing frustration with the price of clothes at brick and mortar stores. She wants to shop online but doesn't like the hassles associated with making returns. Tova's email got us thinking about our own evolving shopping habits and what it means for both the economy and the environment. Do we need to reframe how we think about buying clothes?
Jordan talks to Kelly Drennan, the founder of Fashion Takes Action, a non profit organization that's devoted to advancing sustainability in the fashion industry.
Do you have a money problem? Call us and leave a message at 416-935-5935. Or email us at [email protected]. You can also find us on Instagram and TikTok @InThisEconomyPod. Don't forget to leave a call-back number, so we can get in touch.
We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:
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Using glue to stick cheese on a pizza. Drinking urine to pass kidney stones. The past few weeks have been filled with weird, hilarious and definitively wrong answers supplied by Google's new AI Overview. The criticism became so intense that Google has fixed many of the answers manually, but it's still determined to push forward incorporating AI into its responses. Why?
How did AI mess these simple questions up? What has Google lost as it moves forward with its plans? And ... does the company understand what its chief product is actually for, or how people use it?
GUEST: Max Read, author of Read Max on Substack
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Last week, a bombshell report revealed multiple Canadian parliamentarians have, intentionally and unintentionally, worked with foreign agents to interfere in our politics. The revelation sparked furious debate around who these MPs are, what they've done to undermine Canada's interest and whether or not the "traitors"—as many called them—should be named.
Today, we'll bring you on a deep dive into the world of foreign interference, security clearance, intelligence gathering and how to protect Canada's interests while still keeping the public informed. It's not as simple as naming names.
GUEST: Stephanie Carvin, former national security analyst, Associate Professor at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, author of Stand on Guard: Reassessing threats to Canada's National Security
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The CRTC decided last week to levy a tax on the Canadian revenue made by the giant streaming services. This money will ostensibly go towards supporting Canadian creators and improving Canadian content...which is what exactly?
This is where Bill C-11 gets interesting, because streamers already spend a ton of money making content in Canada, or purchasing stories and IP created by Canadians. Much of that won't count, so what will? And who will end up paying for the tax on those services—American corporations or, as some experts have warned, all of us, with rising Netflix prices?
GUEST: Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-Commerce Law at the University of Ottawa
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This weekend saw four Israeli hostages rescued at the cost of at least 200 Palestinian lives. While the world debates the calculus of that manoeuvre, it is either way more lives lost in a conflict overflowing with them. When this began, very few experts could have imagined Israel's bloody response to Hamas' Oct. 7 attacks lasting eight months. But here we are, with ceasefire deals and hostage exchanges having failed every time they've seemed close.
Is there still a way to end the bloodshed? Will there be anything left of Gaza by the time there is?
GUEST: Khaled Elgindy, senior fellow, Middle East Institute; Director of the Middle East Institute's Program on Palestine and Israeli-Palestinian Affairs
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The 1930s was a disastrous time for Alberta, as crops failed and topsoil blew away in the wind. And while the province is not currently at that level today, all signs are pointing towards a period of prolonged drought in the province.
This is a problem even a month of rain can't fix. And every government in the province is having to dramatically rethink how they handle water when it becomes scarce. What does the future hold for Alberta's crops? And what are we doing now to avoid the worst-case scenarios?
GUEST: Tyler Dawson, Alberta correspondent, National Post
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Traditionally, we think of a tip as an acknowledgement of a job well done, usually by someone who performs a service for us. It's become impolite not to tip, of course, but until recently the standards were still mostly understood. Then society began to go cashless...
Over the past few years, tipping has crept into far more transactions than it had previously. Now businesses don't need to rely on tradition, they can simply add a tip prompt to their transaction machines, and presto! Tip creep. This creates confusion, and often resentment, when being asked to tip for handing over some goods across a counter, or ringing up groceries. And it's not the workers' fault—but they're caught in the middle.
So where did tip creep come from? How much and when should you tip now, and what are the forces at work behind this dynamic?
GUEST: Corey Mintz, food reporter, author of The Next Supper
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In pop culture, pre-nuptial agreements (or pre-nups) are usually talked about as something that protects a rich person from marrying a gold digger. But these days, most of us don’t have much gold to dig for; that said, there are still things couples need to think about before combining finances.
Jordan talks to Georgina Carson, a family lawyer and partner at Carson, Chousky and Lein to get the low-down on marriage and cohabitation contracts, and find out what steps couples should take when they start to think about sharing bank accounts, property and debt.
Do you have a money problem? Call and leave us a message at 416-935-5935. Or email us at
You can also find us on Instagram and TikTok @InThisEconomyPod. Don’t forget to leave a call-back number so we can get in touch.
We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:
Through email at [email protected]
Or by calling 416-935-5935 and leaving us a voicemail
Or @thebigstoryfpn on Twitter
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Scientists are very careful about throwing around words like 'breakthrough' or 'cure'—especially when it comes to diseases like ALS that are so devastating to their victims. But the past few months have seen an incredible sense of optimism around research being done by a team at Western University, who seem to have found a way to prevent the cell death that is the core of the disease.
How did they make this discovery? How does it work so far in experiments? And why is this step turning heads around the entire medical world?
GUEST: Dr. Michael Strong, professor of neurology at Western University's Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry; Arthur J. Hudson Chair in ALS Research
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On Wednesday the Bank of Canada lowered its key interest rate for the first time in four years, after months spent at a 20-plus year high. The cut was just a quarter-point, but it could be a signal that easier economic times are on the way for millions of Canadians struggling with servicing their debt.
So what does this latest cut mean right now, and what might it mean in the future? And is this the start of a trend, or could the bank decide to walk it back later this year?
GUEST: David, senior economist for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ National Office
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Heat pumps could fundamentally shift the way we heat and cool our homes, but high costs and misconceptions about their performance in cold weather have served as barriers to their mass adoption in North America.
So how do they work? How effective could they be in reducing carbon emissions? And what's being done to make them more attainable for the average household?
GUEST: Matt Simon, Senior staff writer, WIRED
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There are some large companies in Canada that have a history of breaking environmental laws. But the framework for fining them can be complex, and often struggles to make the larger businesses feel serious financial ramifications.
How does this system work? Or does it? How could we adapt it for a world in which the pursuit of profits that cause environmental harm will become more and more dangerous?
GUEST: Ben Collison, PhD student at Dalhousie University, writing for The Conversation
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It's been decades since the Conservative party played any real role in British Columbia's legislature. But that might be changing. With a little over four months to go before the next provincial election, they BC Conservatives are neck and neck with the NDP to form the next government, at least according to polls?
Is it a mirage? A sign of a serious shift in the electorate? Or an indication of pure frustration and anger with the current government, so much so that anyone else, even a party that has spent decades in the province's political wilderness, will do?
GUEST: Andrew MacLeod, Legislative Bureau Chief, The Tyee
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Over the next few weeks, we'll be revisiting some of our favourite episodes from the catalogue. If you're new to the show, we hope you enjoy hearing these for the first time, and if you've been with us a while, enjoy this trip down memory lane!
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ORIGINAL SHOW NOTES:
It's not easy to make yourself notorious among the more than 40,000 McDonald's franchises in the world—but Ottawa's Rideau Street location accomplished it. From dangerous violence, to drug use, general chaos and viral incidents that became world famous (like the raccoon fight...) the recently closed restaurant earned the moniker given to it by a former police chief.
But the story of this McDonald's isn't just one of crime and online fame. It's a story about public space and who gets to use it, how a city changes at night, what resources we offer to people who need them and how every city's downtown is changing right now. Today, the rise and fall of the most famous McDonald's in Canada.
GUEST: Amy Dempsey, senior writer, Toronto Star
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Cheap. Entitled. Greedy. Those are just a few things that come to mind when one thinks about a landlord. But have you ever considered becoming one?
According to data collected by the Canadian Real Estate Association, the current average cost of a house in Canada is just over $700 thousand dollars. Simultaneously, the cost of renting remains at an all-time high. Buying a house that has a basement unit, or something you can rent out to help cover your mortgage, might seem like an appealing option. But is it really that easy?
Jordan speaks with Nelda Schulte, a landlord coach and author of "Canadian Landlords Handbook" to find out the hidden reality of rental properties.Do you have a money problem? Call us and leave a message at 416-935-5935. Or email us at [email protected]. You can also find us on Instagram and TikTok @InThisEconomyPod. Don't forget to leave a call-back number, so we can get in touch.
We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:
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The debate around Canada's Medical Assistance in Dying legislation is exhaustive, and there is no shortage of opinion out there from doctors, advocates, experts and academics, as well as first-person testimonials from terminally ill people who are availing themselves of the system. One of the perspectives often missing in that debate, however, are disabled people, many of whom say they feel the system pushes them towards using MAiD by making them feel like a burden on society.
Today, using a text-to-speech program, we present one of those opinions, a woman who is leading a charge to preserve some MAiD-free spaces within the Canadian health care system, where disabled people can seek treatment without the spectre of assisted death near them.
GUEST: Gabrielle Peters, disabled writer, policy analyst and the co-founder of Disability Filibuster
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Welcome to a fascinating little corner of contract and competition law that could leave a lasting impact on Canada's grocery industry. Last week, the competition bureau revealed it was investigating the parent companies of two of the country's largest grocers in relation to controls they have applied to their lease agreements.
These sorts of controls are common in all sorts of agreements—but the bureau alleges that Loblaws and Sobeys are using them in an unfair and anticompetitive manner, so it's begun a process that could ultimately see them taken to court. Exactly what is the bureau looking at? How much power does it have in this situation? And how much might Canadians learn about the inner workings of our grocery giants?
GUEST: Jennifer Quaid, Associate Professor at the University of Ottawa's Faculty of Law, specializing in corporate accountability, competition and business regulation
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A couple of years ago, angry Taylor Swift fans filed a lawsuit against Ticketmaster, after a presale event for her tour went haywire and resulted in millions of disappointed fans. That lawsuit is still before the courts. But it's one thing to have Swifties suing you, and another to face the United States Department of Justice, who also sued Ticketmaster's parent company Live Nation last week, alleging that the company is a monopoly and accusing it of several practices that combine to give it unfair control of the live music industry.
Live Nation is a giant corporation. The US DoJ is one of the world's most powerful government agencies. The two entities are on a collision course, and in the middle are millions of music fans, wondering if this lawsuit might finally do something about ever-rising concert prices and fees.
GUEST: Joel Khalili, business reporter, WIRED
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Aiden Pleterski was charged with fraud a couple of weeks ago. On the face of it, it's a simple charge, but the story behind those charges is one that could only happen in the world of cryptocurrency. Pleterski, a native of Whitby, Ontario, built a reputation as the 'Crypto King' and is alleged to have been living lavishly on investors' money.
Now there are handfuls of lawsuits, allegedly tens of millions in missing money and a tangled web of angry investors. How did this all go down? How did Pleterski allegedly defraud investors? And why were investors handing their money to a kid barely out of high school in the first place?
GUEST: Jennifer Pagliaro, crime reporter, The Toronto Star
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The internet changed nearly everything about real estate. Now buyers can see all the listings, everywhere; they can learn the price histories and estimated values of houses they look at, and can see the minute details of those houses before ever visiting them or retaining an agent. But one thing never did change: they still can't easily see an agent's commission.
But a settled lawsuit in the United States and two more in the courts in Canada are preparing to change that and then we'll learn just how much of the market this simple but incredibly opaque part of the industry influences the whole thing.
GUEST: Murtaza Haider, professor of real estate management at Toronto Metropolitan University
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