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In the grips of a deadly emergency, Canada's health care system stood on its head. It's what the people who sign up to save lives do. But after three years of fending off both a virus and systemic problems, our capacity is at an all-time low. ERs are closing—some temporarily, some permanently. Family doctors in some places are impossible to find. In Lethbridge, AB there is precisely one OB-GYN for the entire community's pregnancy needs. The anecdotes are endless, and that doesn't even count general burnout.

Ahead of a Premiers meeting next month, the Canadian Medical Association issued a call Monday to the leaders of the provinces: Work together and start fixing this mess. Money alone won't get it done, but spending it the right way just might. So where are the problems, and what are the opportunities?

GUEST: Dr. Alika Lafontaine, President of the Canadian Medical Association and rural anesthesiologist

A policy in New Brunswick that took 10 years to create, and was implemented by a Conservative government three years ago, is now being “reviewed” by that same government. Policy 713 was designed to provide safety for LGBTQIA+ kids in public schools, from washroom use to students being able to change their names or pronouns without parental contact. Premier Blaine Higgs has been vague about what that review actually entails, and phrases such as “parents have a right to know” have been used.

Thus far, while the homophobia and transphobia driving anti-LGBTQIA+ legislation in the United States is definitely present in Canada, our governments have not allowed it space in policy. The review of Policy 713 in New Brunswick is the first real test of whether we'll go down the same road, and it comes at the beginning of the most politically fraught Pride month in years...

GUEST: Dale Smith, parliamentary press gallery journalist, national columnist for Xtra

We love hearing from our listeners. If you'd like to offer feedback, suggest an episode topic or have a question about this episode or any other, you can find The Big Story on Twitter @thebigstoryfpn, you can email us at hello@thebigstorypodcast.ca, and you can call and leave a voicemail at 416-935-5935.

If you're a newer listener to The Big Story, you may not know aboutThe Gravy Train, a podcast we released in 2019 chronicling the meteoric rise, and tragic downfall of Toronto's most notorious mayor, Rob Ford.

With Toronto in the midst of its first wide-open mayoral race since 2010, we thought now would be an opportune time to revisit this narrative, which captures a moment in politics with some striking similarities to what we're seeing in the city today.

We'll be dropping an episode in this feed every Saturday for the next two months leading up to election day, but they're all available in The Gravy Train feed if you prefer to binge them.

Enjoy!

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ORIGINAL SHOW NOTES

The whole world was talking about whether or not Toronto’s mayor smoked crack. You might think that the mayor would change his behaviour following the headlines about his drug use. But he didn’t. We know this because the police were watching him with a secret investigation named Project Brazen II.

Last week it was The Little Mermaid. The week before that, the tenth Fast and Furious movie. Soon, it will be Spider-Man and then Barbie's turn. Until the next comic book movie shows up. Reboots, remakes and familiar characters can sometimes feel like the only things on screen. They're not, of course. They just get all the marketing money.

What began as a profitable sideline for Hollywood has come to consume the entire industry in a search for intellectual property. It's not about a lack of ideas, though, it's just about one thing: The hunger for more. This is the story of how the venture capital mentality is destroying movies.

GUEST: Jacob Oller, movies editor, Paste Magazine

They were born in the early days of Facebook. Now they're becoming adults and have spent the past few years realizing just how much of their lives their parents turned into content—in many cases, embarrassing, humiliating content. And they don't own or control any of it.

Some of these kids have convinced their parents to remove it. In some cases it has fractured the relationship. Some of them have even gone to court to try to get control of their baby pictures back, or in the cases of influencers, to recoup some of the money their parents made with them. And as the kids of YouTubers and TikTokers grow up, the problem will only get bigger. So what rights do kids have to privacy when their parents' post?

GUEST: Kate Lindsay, culture writer and cofounder of Embedded. She wrote this piece for The Atlantic.

Canadian households owe more in debt than the total of Canada's GDP. That's first among the G7 and near the top of all the world's developed countries. And as the cost of living increases, if we can't afford to service that debt, things could get bad, quickly.

How did we get ourselves into this situation? Why do we see household debt as a moral failing instead of the product of the country's economic realities? What's to blame for skyrocketing debt, and what could curtail it? And why do we spend so much time thinking about if a government can balance its budget, and so little thinking about how they can help balance ours?

GUEST: Jim Stanford, economist and director of the Centre for Future Work