Being a part of a clinical drug trial can pay very well—up to several thousand dollars. And a lot of people need that cash and are desperate to take part. 

But when someone's desperate for that money, they'll cut a lot of corners: lie to be accepted, fail to report adverse reactions or other complicating factors and skip the mandatory recovery time between trials. When that happens, it can throw everything off, including the data that Health Canada may be relying on in order to approve these drugs for all of us to use...

GUEST: Rob Cribb, director of the Investigative Journalism Bureau, investigative reporter at the Toronto Star

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For this weekend's look back, we're revisiting an episode from June 2023 about the level of noise we've become accustomed to in our daily lives, and the effect it's having on us. 

We hope you enjoy! 

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You know how sometimes you notice that it's eerily quiet? That's because we're so accustomed to the background noise of life in a city of any size, that sudden silence catches our attention. From cars and trucks to neighbours and kids, modern appliances to incessant TV, music or videos, we rarely have a silent waking moment.

New research is beginning to discover exactly what that's doing to us, and the results are fascinating. It's not just us, either. When the world's water traffic mostly stopped during the first month of Covid lockdowns, the absence of the usual noise actually changed the way some sea creatures communicate... so what does a noisy world do to us all?

GUEST: Bojan Furst, writing in The Walrus

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It's one of the most iconic photographic portraits in world history—and it hangs in one of the most famous buildings in the Canadian capital. At least it did, until it was stolen...

The story of The Roaring Lion theft involves international intrigue, world history, careful detective work and one of this country's most renowned artists. But most of all, it's a riveting heist tale that spans from Canada to Europe, and who doesn't love one of those?

GUEST: Brett Popplewell, author, reporter, associate professor; writing in The Walrus

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Typically, a broken water main does not plunge a city into weeks of critical water shortages and a state of emergency. But the pipe that broke on June 5 wasn't a typical water main. Now, almost two weeks later, the city is estimating another three to five weeks for full repairs, and until then Calgarians are under water restrictions.

How did the break happen, and could it have been prevented? Why will repairs take so long? What might happen if the city gets close to running out of water? And will the Calgary Stampede, due to start on July 5th, still go on as scheduled?

GUEST: Kerry Black, Assistant Professor and Canada Research Chair, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Calgary

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It's been a sign of spring for well over a century—baseball players heading down south to meet their teammates, toss around a few balls and play some meaningless games. In the grand scheme of things, not much about Spring Training matters, but it's still become a symbol of rebirth, and the end of winter, to millions of North Americans.

This year, more than ever, we need things to look forward to. We need things that promise better days to come. And the return of baseball, and the sun, and the real chance of a contending Blue Jays team, offers that.

GUEST: Stephen Brunt, Sportsnet

(Stay tuned at the end of today's episode for the sounds of spring.)

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It's tax season! If you took any form of government COVID-19 relief this year, you've probably got all sorts of questions about how that impacts your return. If you didn't, but you worked from home, you might be eligible for deductions you haven't even considered.

As tax season begins, the pros are being swamped with questions from anxious Canadians. We asked one of those pros to clarify the confusion she hears from clients, debunk the most common misconceptions about the CERB, and share her best tips for navigating the most complicated tax year in recent memory.

GUEST: Shannon Lee Simmons, The New School of Finance

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Since the 2008 financial crisis, the single-family rental industry has exploded in the United States, with massive companies buying up as many single-family homes as possible, and renting them out en masse. What that means is that millions of Americans now have megacorporations as their landlords—and that's going about as well as you'd expect.

And here's the kicker: One of the largest of these companies is doing hundreds of millions of dollars in business with a Canadian government pension fund. This means that hundreds of thousands of Canadians are seeing their retirement savings grow as Americans lose their homes during a pandemic...

GUEST: Richard Warnica, business feature writer, The Toronto Star

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Provinces are rolling out their vaccination plans for the general public, and they all seem pretty similar. After the initial push to vaccinate frontline health-care workers and residents of long-term care facilities, programs will proceed by age groups, starting with the 80+ cohort. It makes sense, as the elderly are most at risk from COVID-19.

But what if there was another factor that could guide our plans to where shots would do the most good? Ontario's COVID-19 Science Advisory Table has published a new report that offers evidence that simply using age is not the best way to save lives and stop the spread of the virus. But will health units take their advice, if it means prioritizing at-risk neighbourhoods over wealthy ones?

GUEST: Peter Jüni, member of Ontario's COVID-19 Science Advisory Table

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Even without a global pandemic, we're spending less and less time just doing nothing. The urge to check our phone every 20 minutes is the same urge that leads us to online shopping and bread making and ... anything else to distract us from our current predicament.

But what if we could learn to turn our boredom into a strength? If we could train ourselves to once again sit quietly in the moments we get to ourselves? It's no secret the past year has taken a toll on our mental health. But can we help ourselves by embracing the stillness forced upon us?

GUEST: Mark Hawkins, author of The Power of Boredom

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Temperatures are rising everywhere. Severe weather is becoming more common. And climate disasters are becoming an increasing part of our lives. So it can feel like we're hurtling off a cliff.

But in the past few years, we've also made incredible progress on reducing emissions, renewable energy and other efforts—so much so that the grimmest of possible futures is much less likely to occur. It can feel like a naive question to ask, but are we turning a corner in our fight to save the Earth?

GUEST: David Wallace-Wells, author of The Uninhabitable Earth

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What if your face could serve as your passport and identification? Does that sound convenient, or incredibly creepy and invasive? As advances in technology spread from pilot programs to wider use at borders around the world, there's very little governing what agencies can and can't do with the data they capture. And there's almost no way for us to opt out—at least, if we want to ever visit the United States again.

How far can this technology go? What can it be used for? Are there any regulations in place to protect you? And just how much of our body's unique signature are we prepared to hand over, anyway? Where does this end?

GUEST: Hilary Beaumont, freelance investigative reporter

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The social media giant is currently negotiating with the Australian government—which is a big improvement from last week, when Facebook was blocking all links from Australian news media. In Canada, the federal government has indicated it will follow Australia's lead in taxing Facebook and distributing the revenue to struggling news media. Facebook has no plans to let that happen and has shown it will do whatever it takes to keep its ad money for itself.

Why does this fight matter? How nasty could it get? And who would even decide what qualifies as "news" on the platform anyway? Welcome to the first volley in what could be a long war.

GUEST: Jesse Hirsh, metaviews.ca

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You remember it, even if you've forgotten how to pronounce it. Oumuamua was a cigar-shaped object that passed through our inner solar system and mystified plenty of scientists. It didn't fit any of the categories we have for space debris, comets or meteors. So what was it? Where did it come from? When will we find more?

A new book by a Harvard University astrophysicist makes the case that Oumuamua was proof of intelligent life beyond Earth. And as we build more powerful instruments, he says, it will only be the first of many we'll find.

GUEST: Avi Loeb, Harvard University, author of Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth

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Today we meet the woman who can win over a crowd of cowboys in one of Canada's whitest places. All while telling jokes about systemic racism. She is one of the only Black women comics in Alberta, maybe the only one in Calgary. But she wields her power on, and off, the stage to make her province a better place.

Guest: Adora Nwofor

You can watch the documentary on Feb. 22 at 10 p.m. EST on CityTV or on-demand later at CityNews.ca.

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Richmound, Saskatchewan thought they'd have seen the last of the so-called "Queen of Canada" by now. It's been almost a year since Romana Didulo and her followers moved into an empty school in the tiny prairie town. And they're still here.

Nearly a year of living next door to a dozen or more conspiracy theorists who promise public executions does some strange things to a small community. When everyone knows everyone, and everybody has to pick a side, what happens? Nothing good.

GUEST: Rachel Browne, investigative journalist (Read Rachel's story in The Walrus.)

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Remember when flour disappeared for a brief moment as we stocked up for the pandemic? It wasn't because we bought up all the flour in the world. Companies were just struggling to mill it, package it, and transport it to us as quickly as we were using it. Take King Arthur Flour, one of the oldest companies in the United States. It saw sales skyrocket by 2,000 per cent. When demand started to shoot up, their mills had the flour to replenish supply but had run out of packaging. So how did they cope? And will the unprecedented demand for flour continue in 2021?

Guest: Meghan McCarron

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In February 2020, RCMP officers raided Wet’suwet’en camps along the route of the $6.6 billion Coastal GasLink pipeline in northern B.C that plans to transport natural gas through Indigenous territory. Police arrested dozens of Indigenous people, including seven matriarchs gathered to pray for missing and murdered Indigenous women, who refused to cede their land for development. The events led to protests of solidarity across the country but little has changed in the time since. So how do the people of Wet'suwet'en carry on? And what happens next in the clash between the oil and gas industry and Indigenous communities?

Guest: Freda Huson
Host: Fatima Syed

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The history of every Canadian city isn't always what we think it is. We stumble upon some of it, on plaques in parks or benches across our cities but a lot of it remains unknown, especially the contributions of Black Canadians. This is the story of Oakville, Ontario, a predominately white, affluent neighbourhood that was shaped by 400 Black people who escaped slavery through the Underground Railroad in the mid 1800s. Through their entrepreneurial work, they shaped the city into what it is today. What other Canadian cities have similar unknown histories? And do we do enough to recognize those who really help create and shape the cities we live in?

Guest: Genelle Levy

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In a breakaway from the pains of the pandemic, today we bring you the sappiest Canadian love story we could find. She was a master's student visiting London, searching for someone to see her favourite show with. He already had tickets. It was love at first sight. Ten months later they were engaged. Yes, the pandemic forced them to cancel their big 200-member transatlantic wedding, but a quiet elopement and a perfect first dance in their living room somehow made things even more special.

Guests: Sharmin Rahman and Tom Goldsmith

Host: Fatima Syed

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As new variants of Covid-19 spread around the world, we're all a little worried about the strength of our masks. New guidelines are now emerging from various health agencies around the world recommending that everyone should double-mask: that's a cloth mask over a medical mask. So how do we best do that? Is it a sure-fire way to keep us safe from the aerosol transmission of Covid-19? What's the difference between a mask and a respirator? And how can we know if the masks we’re buying are the real deal or counterfeit products?

Guest: Dr. Jennifer McDonald

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Earlier this month, Toronto City Council approved a plan to build its own high-speed broadband network. It’s an ambitious idea that will be tried out in three low-income neighbourhoods. The goal: to combat rising internet prices at a time when access to a good internet connection is becoming an essential need. Will it work?

Guest: Vass Bednar
Host: Fatima Syed

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In June 2020, Canada established its COVID-19 vaccine task force. The federal government recruited 11 vaccine and infectious disease experts from across the country. The task force helped make more purchasing agreements than any other country in the world, but along the way they also learned the missteps we took in our vaccine strategy. Yesterday we looked at how the Canadian government scrambled to secure millions of vaccines. Today we ask what could Canada have done to get vaccines more quickly?

Guest: Dr. Alan Bernstein
Host: Fatima Syed

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Canada's efforts to secure vaccines started with a phone call between a trade commissioner in Boston and a senior member of Moderna. In the weeks and months that followed, the federal government has scrambled to secure the most doses per person than any other country in the world. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau assured us the vaccines are coming, but they're not coming as quickly as we expected. Is this another government failure? Or is this, like the pandemic, just another extremely complicated thing out of our control?

Guest: Nick Taylor-Vaisey, Maclean's

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In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, Ryerson's school of journalism emailed students asking how to improve their program. Students responded by creating a petition demanding a Black-Canadian reporting course; over 3,000 people signed in mere hours of its release. It was the first course of its kind but will definitely not be the last. Black educators are hoping the summer of racial reckoning will mean that Canadian youth will learn about a history that has long been ignored.

Guest: Eternity Martis
Guest host: Fatima Syed

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Over the past several years, vulnerable men have been disappearing from communities around Vancouver Island. They walk away, and then they are never seen again. Are they running? Have they gotten lost, and perished in the woods? Is there something more sinister happening? The host of Island Crime: Gone Boys, which launches on Monday, has spent months investigating the case, speaking to the families, authorities and experts in criminology. What did she find? What happens next?

GUEST: Laura Palmer, host of Island Crime (You can hear the trailer and subscribe for free to S2 of Island Crime right here.)

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We're coming up on the show's six year anniversary, and so we wanted to revisit the first episode we ever released to  show just how far we've come in that time. We hope you enjoy! 

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau managed to green light recreational marijuana in Canada, but there is still a lot to get done before legalized weed makes its way into the hands of Canadians. Maclean's Ottawa bureau chief, John Geddes, explains how the Liberals kept their landmark promise and what will happen next.

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It could be a sign of the oncoming resource apocalypse. It could be a useful tool to determine the market value of regional water reserves. It could just be an experiment that goes no further than a small part of California. Or it could be the first domino to fall on the march towards commodifying the basics of life.

Either way, water futures are now being traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. And as one of the most water-rich countries on the planet, it's critical that Canada is paying attention.

GUEST: Diane Dupont, Economics Professor, Brock University; co-author of Running Through Our Fingers: How Canada Fails to Capture the Value of its Top Asset.

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One of Joe Biden’s first actions as President of the United States was to cancel the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline. And one of Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s first reactions to Biden taking office was to get really mad about that.

Alberta had a lot of money invested in this pipeline being built. They were counting on it for a lot of jobs. It’s no wonder Kenney was angry. But, considering that the Premier of a Canadian province’s anger is unlikely to shake the resolve of the new leader of the free world...it's fair to ask: What is Alberta’s Plan B? And how is the province prepping for a world far less reliant on oil and gas?

GUEST: Jason Markusoff, Maclean's

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The past 12 months have seen a flood of scientific misinformation on social media. Some of it is lies for profit. Some of it is myths and hoaxes for engagement. And a whole lot more of it is just unintentionally wrong—complex science parsed by scared amateurs in the middle of a terrifying pandemic. But it all gets attention—a lot of attention.

A new group aims to meet this bad information where it lives. Not in papers and journals and books, but in social media posts and threads and DMS. Science Up First hopes to create an army of fact-wielding social soldiers to do battle with info that needs debunking. But they'll be fighting an uphill battle every step of the way.

GUEST: Science Up First co-founder Timothy Caulfield, Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy, University of Alberta

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A man in Montreal was found dead in a portable toilet. The shelter he often used had been temporarily closed for overnights due to a Covid-19 outbreak. The Canadian winter puts those without homes in danger every year—but Covid-19 has made it impossible for them to access many of the resources that can be lifesaving.

How did the system fail Raphaël André? How are advocates fighting to prevent further deaths? Have we learned anything during this horrible year that could help us solve the problem? And, simply, why hasn't more been done?

GUEST: Jake Kivanc (You can read Jake's reporting here.)

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He goes by Real Dr. 6ix. He has 140,000 followers on Instagram, where he posts before and after photos of his clients—and also graphic videos of surgeries he performs. And this is where the ethical trouble starts. There is a whole subculture of influencer surgeons who take their followers inside the operating room. Their patients sign waivers giving them permission, but some of them feel pressured, or feel that once they were on the table, the doctor went too far.

What kind of rules govern this new promotional space? Does Real Dr. 6ix cross the line? What punishment is he facing, and how far is too far for reality surgery on social media?

GUEST: Katherine Laidlaw

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The investors came from Reddit. They came in droves. They bought GameStop stock and sent it soaring. They cost massive hedge funds hundreds of millions of dollars. They sent shockwaves through the markets. Now a full-fledged mania is underway, with several other stocks in play as well.

How did all this happen? Is it a fluke? A new strategy that will change the game? Will the people who have the power on Wall Street take steps to shut it down? And what happens if and when these bubbles burst?

GUEST: Mike Eppel, Sr. Business Editor, 680 News, CityNews

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Sometime soon, if all goes well, we'll have four or even five approved vaccines for Covid-19. Do they work differently? Is there a "best" one, and will some Canadians hold out for that brand? How many eligible people are opting out of the early doses? Are reports of allergic reactions and even deaths following vaccination worth worrying about? And what happens when rich people try to jump the queue?

GUEST: Sabina Vohra-Miller, masters in clinical pharmacology, co-founder of the Vohra Miller Foundation

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He was known to have a fascination with the markets, court documents reveal. So when a retired officer began inviting others to join an investment group, many of them went along. And some of them saw a return on their money. For a while. What happens next offers a glimpse inside Ponzi schemes, internal investigations and how the police can be taken for a ride just as easily as anyone else.

GUEST: Kevin Donovan, Chief Investigative Reporter, Toronto Star (Read Kevin's reporting on the case right here.)

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Good morning. It’s Monday. It’s January. It’s cold. It’s dark. There’s a pandemic. If you have been following public health guidelines in many parts of the country, you probably went, roughly, nowhere this weekend. And saw nobody. And now it’s back to work.

What responsibility do employers have for helping their employees with their mental health? What's the business case for taking it seriously? How can we all help our friends and coworkers make it to the spring with their mental health intact?

GUEST: Liz Horvath, Manager, Workplace Mental Health at the Mental Health Commission of Canada

You can find the mini-guide on MHCC’s COVID-19 Resource Hub.

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On his first day in office, President Joe Biden cancelled a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, keeping a campaign promise to Americans but bitterly disappointing Albertans and many Canadian politicians. It may be a relief to have a more stable US President in charge, but Biden wasn't elected to help Canadians.

What does the new administration mean for Canada-U.S. relations? For trade? For foreign affairs, especially with China? And for Canada's chances at climbing out of a recession and into a greener economy?

GUEST: Cormac Mac Sweeney, Parliament Hill Reporter

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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 hello@itepod.ca. 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.

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There were no mass arrests, military tribunals or public executions. Donald Trump went to Florida and Joe Biden went to the White House and nothing 'Q' said actually happened. So once Biden was inaugurated, what did the QAnon army do? What happens to a movement when ... nothing happens? Where do the followers, who have thrown away family and friends, credibility and cash, go from here? And should we pity them, or laugh and gloat?

GUEST: Justin Ling

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Joe Biden will be sworn into office today, hopefully without incident. But in the United States, proponents of democracy are analyzing how close their own came to collapsing. When one party, or even just one powerful politician, decides to disregard norms that have always held fair elections together, it creates stress on a system not designed with bad actors in mind.

So how safe, by comparison, is our democracy in Canada? What checks and balances exist here that don't exist in the US? How could determined parties or politicians attempt to undermine democracy? And how much depends not on laws but on a collective belief in the democratic process?

GUEST: Stewart Prest, political scientist

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Covid-19 devastated long-term care facilities across the country in the Spring of 2020. But over the summer months, many provinces found ways to reinforce the places that care for our most vulnerable. Ontario, however, did not. What did Quebec and other provinces do to mitigate the impact of the second wave on long-term care residents? Why didn't Ontario follow suit? What's being done now? And will anyone be held accountable for this systemic failure?

GUEST: Cynthia Mulligan, CityNews

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Yes, it's worse in America. But it's not great here, either. The past few years have seen an alarming rise in hate groups in Canada—and there's nothing on the horizon that appears set to slow it down. It's a recipe for the sort of violence we've seen in Washington recently, and have seen on our own soil more frequently in recent years.

So what does defuse the growth of white supremacy? What can governments do to curtail the kind of polarizing anger that leads to reactionary violence? And what can we do, each of us, when we see people we know who may be taking the first steps down a road that leads to conspiracy theories, hate and violence?

GUEST: Shakil Choudhurt, Anima Leadership

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We're now 10 months into a global pandemic and solidly into its second wave. And across the country, many workers are still not staying home when they're sick—because they simply can't afford to.

Why don't so many businesses offer their employees paid sick days? Why haven't provincial governments mandated that they do? Why do critics say the federal government's attempt at paid sick leave is woefully inadequate? And why are we having this conversation almost a year into this pandemic?

GUEST: Stefanie Marotta, The Globe and Mail

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Most of us have spent the past year closer to home than ever before. And for a lot of Canadians part of that process has involved realizing just what their neighbourhood does and doesn't have. Maybe it's time to rethink how we create neighbourhoods, in order to maximize livability in our towns and cities. Maybe there's an easy formula we can follow to start doing that right now....

GUEST: Alex Bozikovic, staff columnist and architecture critic, The Globe and Mail

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Our host would be fine with never seeing another Donald Trump tweet ever. But is that fair? Is it a slippery slope? Social media companies, and other service providers, have the right to refuse service to anyone breaking the rules they promised to abide by — but not even the most left-wing voters would pretend that Trump is the only politician or person flouting those regulations.

Why would Facebook and Twitter finally remove Trump now? Should they have done it years ago? What precedent are they setting? And when we look back at this week in the years to come, will we be able to say it has changed anything about the way politics are done on the Internet?

GUEST: Jesse Hirsh, metaviews.ca

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Our parents warned us that the Internet could harm us—from stalkers to kidnappers, pedophiles, the dangers of too much screen time and countless other things—but did they heed their own lessons? Boomers lead the pack as the generation most likely to share disinformation, and over the past few months we've seen some of the results play out in real time.

How can those of us who grew up online help the people we love who didn't learn the nuances of the way algorithms try to seduce them? Help them tell the difference between reliable and sketchy news reports? Help them understand exactly how and why social media wants them to be so angry? Can we help our parents stay safe online the way they once tried to do for us?

GUEST: Bonnie Kristian, The Week

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Ridership is down by more than half, while costs to keep vehicles clean and employees and passengers safe are higher than ever before. Covid-19 has put an incredible strain on transit agencies across Canada.

But at the same time, has the pandemic begun to change how we operate public transit—perhaps not with a break-even mentality but as a moral obligation to get Canadians where they need to go? Might more funding become available to run different routes at different times and ease crowding? Or will politicians back off as soon as the pandemic begins to ease?

GUEST: Ben Spurr, Transportation Reporter, Toronto Star

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At the time it seemed like it might be the worst disaster of 2020. When Flight 752 was shot down in Iran, 176 passengers and crew, including 55 Canadians, were killed. In the months to come, the cries for answers would be drowned out by the rise of Covid-19, leaving the victims' loved ones still searching for answers and justice.

What can be done to get them the concrete information that might give them closure? What does justice look like? What's it like when the world forgets a tragedy that you live with every day?

GUEST: Hamed Esmaeilion had family on Flight 752

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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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The world watched as an angry mob stormed the US Capitol Wednesday. It was a scene few imagined we'd ever see—but it was also, somehow, inevitable. In the weeks since the election Donald Trump had been broadcasting his desire for his followers to take action. Then they did.

The mob was cleared. Joe Biden's win was certified and it appears there will be a peaceful transfer of power. But what does an early-January insurrection attempt portend for US and global politics in 2021? And how safe are we in Canada from the sort of angry political uprising we just watched our neighbour grapple with?

GUEST: Balkan Devlen, senior fellow at McDonald Laurier Institute, Superforecaster for Good Judgment, Inc.

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The past year has been hard on all of us—but especially for those to whom we entrust our children. From a rush to online learning with schools closed, to a hasty back-to-school plan that was followed by rising Covid-19 numbers in schools, to the uncertainty of not knowing when or how they'll be able to teach their students this winter...many educators are close to giving up.

How can we keep our education system functioning while also protecting our kids, our families and the people we need to teach them? What have we learned about our education system that could help us adapt in the future? And what happens to it if enough teachers decide they simply can't take it anymore, and leave the public system for private schools?

GUEST: Inori Roy

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