Ideas

CBC Discover & Learn
CBC Discover & Learn

IDEAS is a place for people who like to think. If you value deep conversation and unexpected reveals, this show is for you. From the roots and rise of authoritarianism to near-death experiences to the history of toilets, no topic is off-limits. Hosted by Nahlah Ayed, we’re home to immersive documentaries and fascinating interviews with some of the most consequential thinkers of our time. With an award-winning team, our podcast has proud roots in its 60-year history with CBC Radio, exploring the IDEAS that make us who we are.  New episodes drop Monday through Friday at 5pm ET.

  1. 8 hr ago

    The Billionaire Age Pt 4 | How democracy can beat back the oligarchs

    Feeling despair over the threats to democracy coming out of The Billionaire Age? Let alone the predictions we'll see 10 trillionaires within three years. Well, there are concrete solutions. Relatively straightforward ones. Thinkers from Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman, to Dutch philosopher Ingrid Robyens to self-described oligarch and American venture capitalist Nick Hanauer say democracy can win over oligarchy. Listen to episodes in this five-part series, The Billionaire Age: Listen to Part One: How did we get here? Listen to Part Two: Disney heiress on the dangers of extreme wealth Listen to Part Three: How oligarchs are taking over the world Guests in this episode: Ingrid Robeyns is a philosopher and economist. She is the chair in Ethics of Intuitions at Utrecht University, and the author of Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth. Gabriel Zucman is an economist and the co-director of The World Inequality Lab. He's also a professor at the Paris School of Economics and the University of California, Berkeley. Nitin Bharti is an economist and lecturer at the University of Western Australia. He is also the South and South-East Asia coordinator at the World Inequality Lab. Lars Osberg is an economics professor at Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. His latest book is The Scandalous Rise of Inequality in Canada. Paul Krugman is an economist and the winner of the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. Tim Wu is a legal scholar and professor at Columbia Law School. He is also a contributing opinion writer at the New York Times. His latest book is The Age of Extraction: How Tech Platforms Conquered the Economy and Threaten Our Future Prosperity. Nick Hanauer is an entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He co-authored the book, Corporate Bullsh*t: Exposing The Lies and Half-Truths that Protect Profit, Power and Wealth in America, with Joan Walsh and Donald Cohen. He also hosts the podcast Pitchfork Economics.

  2. 1 day ago

    How Iqaluit's learning institute gave a generation of Inuit adults a path back to Inuktut

    Younger generations in Nunavut today are less likely to grow up immersed in Inuktut. At a language school in Iqaluit, Inuit adults who didn’t grow up speaking Inuktut now have the chance to learn it as a second language at the Pirurvik Centre. By learning the words for kinship terminology, they’re also discovering things about their families they never knew. *This episode is the first in a two-part series on language revitalization. It originally aired on March 24, 2025.

  3. 2 days ago

    How Indigenous art makes truth visible

    “Truth telling is profoundly visual. Art created by Indigenous peoples is not mere expression — it is cognitive, ceremonial, and political," writes Gerald McMaster in Art,Truth and Reconciliation. His book is the first of its kind, featuring Indigenous visual responses to Canada’s residential and day school system: from the drawings of children in the schools themselves, to the art of survivors, and to their descendants, who are carrying the story forward. McMaster says art does the work that words cannot — "bearing witness, restoring dignity, and refusing silence.” Guest in this podcast: Gerald McMaster is a curator, artist, scholar, and author, Art, Truth and Reconciliation. Emma Hassencahl-Perley is an artist, and Curator of Indigenous Art at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, in Fredericton, NB. Adrian Stimson is an artist and residential school survivor and thriver. Mark Atleo is an elder, a fisherman, an artist, and a residential school survivor.

  4. 3 days ago

    How to Defeat Authoritarianism | Bashar al-Assad's Syria

    In 2000, Bashar al-Assad became president of Syria, also known as the authoritarian "Kingdom of Fear" that his father Hafez al-Assad had created three decades earlier. The younger Assad continued and intensified the use of imprisonment, torture and surveillance as tools of domination. His crackdown on a pro-democracy revolution turned into a 13-year civil war. Nahlah Ayed and panelists discuss what we can learn about the rise and collapse of authoritarianism from Assad’s rule and the 2024 collapse of his regime.   Listen to other episodes in our series, How to Defeat Authoritarianism: How to Defeat Authoritarianism | Benito Mussolini's Italy How to Defeat Authoritarianism | Idi Amin's Uganda How to Defeat Authoritarianism | Augusto Pinochet's Chile Guests on this podcast: Basilios Zeno is assistant professor in the Department of Political Studies at Trent University in Canada. His work combines research, advocacy, and policy work on forced migration and asylum, legal violence, social movement, and interpretive decolonizing methodologies.  Marie-Joelle Zahar is a professor of political science at the University de Montréal. She has served multiple terms as a mediation expert, in fact, still serving in that role, for the United Nations, including as senior expert in the office of the Special Envoy for Syria in 2017.  Abdulrahman Matar is a Syrian-Canadian writer and journalist, a novelist, poet, and a painter. He is the founder and director of the Seagull Cultural Forum and executive director of the Syrian Writers Association. He was arrested five times and spent nearly 10 years in prison as a result of his writing and his positions on issues of freedom and human rights. Tareq Yousbasi is a journalist and a producer at the CBC of Syrian origin, who assisted with live translation.

  5. 6 days ago

    When words get in the way, vocal improv saves the day

    Would you 'doo-be-doo' if you know it would help bridge divides? Try vocal improvisation — singing sounds, rhythms and melodies. PhD graduate Erwan Noblet teaches the practice and says it's a great way to open up and connect at another level being together. He believes the human voice has the power to communicate creatively when it's released from everyday verbal tasks. We asked three former politicians from different political parties to communicate through vocalization, without words. Their conversation may inspire you to take on vocal improv. *This episode originally aired on Jan. 6, 2026 and is part of our ongoing series Ideas in the Trenches, which showcases fascinating new work by Canadian PhD students. Guests in this episode: Former Conservative MP Lisa Raitt Former Liberal premier of Ontario Kathleen Wynne Former NDP MP Peggy Nash Erwan Noblet has a PhD in critical studies in improvisation

  6. 24 Sept

    Lamarck was wrong about evolution. Was he right about life?

    French scientist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck is mostly remembered for being wrong. He published an early theory of evolution, before Charles Darwin. His claim was that animals were in charge of their own evolution. That didn’t hold up. But author Jessica Riskin argues maybe it’s time to redeem Lamarck, a little bit. Riskin says that we should give animals — and humans — some credit for our own progress. Guest in this episode: Jessica Riskin is a historian of science at Stanford University, and author of The Power of Life: The Invention of Biology and the Revolutionary Science of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck.

  7. 23 Sept

    Known for her sharp wit, Dorothy Parker was also an activist

    She’s famous for her caustic quips and her love of cocktails, but there was a lot more to Dorothy Parker than her time at the famed Algonquin Round Table. The icon of New York in the 1920s spent decades in Hollywood as a screenwriter, won awards for her short stories and was a committed social activist, who ended up being blacklisted because of her ties to communist causes. She was also a war correspondent. Guests in this episode: Kevin Fitzpatrick is the founder and president of the Dorothy Parker Society. Michelle Dean is a screenwriter, critic and author of Sharp! The Women who made an Art of Having an Opinion. Nina Miller is a former English professor at Iowa State University, and the author of Making Love Modern: The Intimate Public Worlds of New York's Literary Women. Ellen Meister is a novelist and the author of Dorothy Parker Drank Here and Farewell, Dorothy Parker. Gail Crowther is a researcher, writer and the author of Dorothy Parker in Hollywood.

  8. 22 Sept

    What it's like to travel as a blind person

    Blind life is an individual experience. But from neighbourhood walks to international travel, blind people want momentum, adventure, and a sense of place, like everyone else. This podcast features an artist and a scientist imagining bolder ways forward. Guest in this episode: Alex Bulmer is a Blind writer and theatre artist. Her play Perceptual Archaeology or How to Travel Blind, is included in the collection Rebellious Bodies and Radical Acts. She is at work on a multimedia project called May I Take Your Arm. Joshua Miele is a Blind scientist, inventor and a MacArthur Fellow who’s designing accessibility tech from inside the experience of disability. He's also the author of Connecting Dots: A Blind Life.

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About

IDEAS is a place for people who like to think. If you value deep conversation and unexpected reveals, this show is for you. From the roots and rise of authoritarianism to near-death experiences to the history of toilets, no topic is off-limits. Hosted by Nahlah Ayed, we’re home to immersive documentaries and fascinating interviews with some of the most consequential thinkers of our time. With an award-winning team, our podcast has proud roots in its 60-year history with CBC Radio, exploring the IDEAS that make us who we are.  New episodes drop Monday through Friday at 5pm ET.

Information

  • Channel
    CBC Discover & Learn
  • Creator
    CBC
  • Years Active
    2006 - 2026
  • Episodes
    237
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    Copyright © CBC 2026
  • Show Website
    Ideas

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