The Decibel The Globe and Mail

Westview Centennial Secondary School in the northwest of Toronto is celebrating the graduating class of 2022. On Thursday, about 180 students are crossing the stage to get their diplomas. While this is a common rite of passage for teens across the country, these students had anything but a normal high school experience. The pandemic meant online learning, no sports, taking care of younger siblings and little in-person interaction with friends. Westview is also located in Toronto’s Jane and Finch neighbourhood – one of the hardest hit by COVID-19.

The Globe’s education reporter Caroline Alphonso is joined by Decibel producer Sherrill Sutherland as they spend a day at Westview to find out how they feel about graduating. They bring us some of their stories of triumph, struggle and hope which all made up their pandemic-era high school experience.

Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on Friday, abortions were immediately outlawed in several states. But this week, the procedures were allowed to resume in Texas, Louisiana and Utah. While this is seen as a win for pro-choice advocates, these measures are only temporary. And, it’s only a matter of time before abortion will likely be illegal in more than half of U.S. states.

Rosemary Westwood has been following the battle over abortion rights in the Southern U.S. for the past six years. She’s the host of Banned, a podcast about the Mississippi case that led to the overturning of Roe v. Wade. She’s on the show to explain how the U.S. got to this point, the people behind the fight on both sides of the issue and what their plans are now that Roe v. Wade is gone.

A woman alleges she was sexually assaulted by eight Canadian Hockey League players in 2018. The public did not hear about this until 2022, after TSN broke the news that Hockey Canada settled a civil lawsuit with the woman. Now the government has cut off funding for the national organization until more details of their investigation are provided to a parliamentary committee.

So, how is it that an alleged gang sexual assault was kept silent for that long? Taylor McKee is an assistant professor of Sports Management at Brock University, where he studies the intersection of sport and society, as well as the history of violence in hockey. He tells us how hockey has built a culture of secrecy and what that means for a sport deeply connected to Canadian identity.

The superstar K-pop group BTS announced recently that they are taking a temporary break as a group and pursuing individual projects. This moment was a big deal for their millions of fans worldwide, the company that brings in billions of dollars managing them and for South Korea, which considers its members cultural ambassadors for the country.
Hannah Sung, co-founder of Media Girlfriends, host of the podcast At The End of the Day and BTS fan, explains what makes this group so popular and why they’re so influential.

Today, Pride celebrations in big cities include parades and parties which attract millions of participants around the world. But for many smaller cities and towns across Canada, public Pride events are relatively newer, smaller and sometimes hard-won.
Chelle Turingan is the co-director of the documentary Small Town Pride. They join us to talk about the joys and challenges queer folks face in small Canadian towns and how, despite it all, they manage to organize Pride events.

Feb. 14, 2022, marked the first time the government has had to invoke the Emergencies Act. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did so in response to the continuing trucker convoy protests. And in doing so, he also automatically launched a review into that decision.
The committee looking into the government’s justification for using the Act is about to take a summer break, but in the last few months it has grilled a number of senior cabinet ministers, including Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland. Senior Political Writer Campbell Clark looks at what we’ve learned so far and explains why this has been a frustrating exercise in democratic accountability.