The Globe and Mail

•

Channel • 17 Shows

Society & Culture

Society & Culture

Updated weekly
Investing

Investing

Updated weekly
News

News

Every two weeks
Daily News

Daily News

Updated daily
Technology

Technology

Updated weekly
Investing

Investing

Every two weeks
Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship

Updated 01/11/2016

26 FEB

They ditched Canada's big cities for a cheaper lifestyle. How did it work out?

It’s been five years since the pandemic lockdowns began. As they dragged on, people working in cramped condos began craving more space – and began relocating to smaller cities, towns or rural areas, where housing was cheaper. So how did it work out for them? In this episode, we check in with guests from previous seasons to discuss their moves, whether it was good for their financial situation and if they’d ever think about moving back. We reconnect with a former pro hockey player who we met in Season 3. He relocated from Toronto to St. John, New Brunswick in the first year of the pandemic. We also hear from a B.C. woman who we spoke with in Season 9. She left her life in Vancouver for the coast of Spain.

26 Feb

•

23 min
1 APR

How Frederick G. Gardiner shaped modern Toronto, for better or worse

If you drive in Toronto you know the name “Gardiner”. The waterfront expressway was named after the man who dominated Toronto politics at a crucial point in its history: Frederick Goldwyn Gardiner, or “Big Daddy” as he was known. In 1953 Gardiner became the first chair of Metropolitan Toronto, a trailblazing experiment in two-tier municipal governance that brought Toronto and 15 surrounding towns together, until full amalgamation in 1998. But Gardiner’s legacy is a complicated one, and his reign left tensions between urban and suburban Toronto baked into the city’s physical fabric and governance. In this episode we look at why, more than 40 years after his death, the City of Toronto is still reckoning with his vision.

1 Apr

•

38 min
23 JAN

How the L.A. wildfires could increase Canadian insurance rates

The wildfires in Los Angeles have caused massive devastation over the past two weeks and may end up being the most expensive natural disaster in U.S. history. That will likely increase insurance rates, not just in the United States, but also in Canada. Salman Farooqui writes for the Globe and Mail’s Report on Business. He explains why American disasters could affect Canadians’ insurance premiums, and how Canada’s insurance industry is adapting to record levels of extreme weather damage. You can find the Impact Centre for Climate Adaptation’s resources on reducing risks to your home from climate change events: https://www.intactcentreclimateadaptation.ca/ Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at thedecibel@globeandmail.com

23 Jan

•

19 min
18 MAR

Can money buy you happiness? It’s complicated

For decades, economists have studied the question of whether getting richer makes you happier – and exactly how much money tips the scales. In the world happiness rankings, richer societies tend to fare better than poorer ones, and within societies richer people do, in fact, report being happier. However surprising new research reveals that people in non-industrialized communities are just as satisfied as people in the richest countries. Garvia speaks with McGill University associate professor Chris Barrington-Leigh about the study he co-authored and what it reveals about our society’s push for more money.

18 Mar

•

22 min
16/04/2024

Will the cost of hosting the FIFA World Cup pay off for Toronto?

The men’s 2026 FIFA World Cup is coming to Canada. Out of 106 games, Toronto will host just six. The city is facing a bill of $380 million or more for things like security and a stadium expansion. Huge sporting events like this are sold as being good for the hosts, boosting tourism and local business while also leaving a legacy of better transit. So does hosting a successful sporting event mean accelerated city building? What kind of legacy makes hosting worthwhile? We’re asking what Toronto has got itself into, by telling the story of two pivotal Olympic Games hosted in Canada, so that we can see what was good, what was bad and what was a boondoggle.

16/04/2024

•

43 min
25 MAR

Canada is slipping in global happiness rankings. Should our policymakers care?

Tips to be happier often read like a self-help menu: make friends, meditate, spend time in nature. But governments are increasingly looking at happiness as a collective goal. There’s even a ‘World Happiness Report’ that ranks well-being across nations. A decade ago Canada ranked fifth in the report, but over the last 10 years has slipped to 18th. Garvia speaks with Felix Cheung, who worked as a researcher on the Canadian and World Happiness report, and is an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. They discuss why our collective happiness matters, the decline in youth happiness, and how our society can improve everyone’s well-being.

25 Mar

•

23 min
11/12/2024

The ‘miracle drug’ some dog owners regret using

Librela, a new drug to treat arthritis pain in dogs, was approved for use in Canada in 2021. In some cases, it was described to owners as a “miracle drug”, with no side effects other than potential soreness and swelling at the injection site. Some owners describe their dogs seeming happier and more comfortable. But others have reported adverse reactions, including lethargy, disorientation, vomiting, and even death. Zoetis, Librela’s parent company, says Librela is safe and was rigorously tested. Susan Krashinsky Robertson is a business reporter for the Globe. She spoke to eight people whose pets’ health declined after taking Librela. She’s on the show to talk about the promise of Librela, and what she heard from pet owners and veterinarians about the drug. Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at thedecibel@globeandmail.com

11/12/2024

•

24 min
12/02/2024

China sets its sights on the Arctic

A new report about Chinese companies registering in Russia’s Arctic highlights China’s “no limits partnership” with Russia, and its interest in developing mining and shipping in the Arctic that is melting due to climate change. Senior parliamentary reporter Steven Chase explores the implications for Canada, which has its own claims to sovereignty over the North Pole, the Northwest Passage, and the large swaths of the Arctic seabeds that could be mined. Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at thedecibel@globeandmail.com

12/02/2024

•

19 min
17/12/2024

AI Has Mastered Chess, Poker and Go. So Why Do We Keep Playing?

The board game Go has more possible board configurations than there are atoms in the universe. Because of that seemingly infinite complexity, developing software that could master Go has long been a goal of the AI community. In 2016, researchers at Google’s DeepMind appeared to meet the challenge. Their Go-playing AI defeated one of the best Go players in the world, Lee Sedol. After the match, Lee Sedol retired, saying that losing to an AI felt like his entire world was collapsing. He wasn’t alone. For a lot of people, the game represented a turning point – the moment where humans had been overtaken by machines. But Frank Lantz saw that game and was invigorated. Lantz is a game designer (his game “Hey Robot” is a recurring feature on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon), the director of the NYU game center, and the author of The Beauty of Games. He’s spent his career thinking about how technology is changing the nature of games – and what we can learn about ourselves when we sit down to play them. Mentioned: “AlphaGo” “The Beauty of Games” by Frank Lantz “Adversarial Policies Beat Superhuman Go AIs” by Tony Wang Et al. “Theory of Games and Economic Behavior” by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern “Heads-up limit hold’em poker is solved” by Michael Bowling Et al. Further Reading: “How to Play a Game” by Frank Lantz “The Afterlife of Go” by Frank Lantz “How A.I. Conquered Poker” by Keith Romer “In Two Moves, AlphaGo and Lee Sedol Redefined the Future” by Cade Metz Hey Robot by Frank Lantz Universal Paperclips by Frank Lantz

17/12/2024

•

36 min
03/12/2024

Toxic culture, systemic spying alleged at Canada Soccer

An investigation by The Globe and Mail found that spying was an ingrained part of the celebrated women’s national team rocked by scandal at the Paris Olympics. But the revelation of a spying program uncovered many other problems inside the Canada Soccer organization. Globe reporters Nancy Macdonald and Greg Mercer explain what their investigation found, how the scandal has affected players and what Canada Soccer is doing to address allegations. Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at thedecibel@globeandmail.com

03/12/2024

•

23 min

In-depth audio journalism from Canada's national media organization, from daily analysis of the most important stories of the day, to in-depth commentary and investigative series.

Provider