This Matters
The world is changing every day. Now, more than ever, these questions matter. What’s happening? And why should you care? This Matters, a daily news podcast from the Toronto Star, aims to answer those questions, on important stories and ideas, every day, Monday to Friday. Hosts Saba Eitizaz and Ed Keenan talk to their fellow journalists, experts and newsmakers about the social, cultural, political and economic stories that shape your life.
- Update frequency
- every 3 days
- Average duration
- 22 minutes
- Episodes
- 1077
- Years Active
- 2020 - 2025
Two Michaels return. Where does that leave Canada and China?
Guests: Joanna Chiu and Jeremy Nuttall, Toronto Star reporters covering Canada-China relations
After nearly three years, Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, have been freed from Chinese dete…
Vaccine certificates are the law in Ontario. Here’s how they’re working
Guest: Rosa Saba, Toronto Star business reporter
A vaccine certificate system is now the rule of law in Ontario. Customers will have to show proof of vaccination in many public spaces and businesses,…
Facebook’s relationship with its own research is complicated
Guest: Will Oremus, tech journalist for the Washington Post
It has been a very bad few weeks for Facebook, the world’s largest social network, whose platforms also include Instagram and WhatsApp. Thr…
The election is over. Now where will Trudeau's Liberals take Canada?
Guests: Heather Scoffield and Susan Delacourt, Toronto Star Ottawa bureau
Climate, affordability, housing, child care, the economy, health, race relations, guns, reconciliation: today on “This Matter…
Déjà vote: Unpacking the election
Guests: Gerald Butts, former Trudeau campaign strategist and principal secretary, and James Moore, former MP and minister of industry
After calling a $600 million federal election, the results are ba…
The state of the race
Guests: Tonda MacCharles, Toronto Star Ottawa bureau, and Clifton van der Linden, CEO of Vox Pop Labs (makers of The Signal, the Star’s poll aggregator)
Polls suggest opinions are mixed and this coul…
Fact checking the leaders on the campaign trail
Guest: Lex Harvey, who has been fact checking the party leaders on the campaign trail for The Star
Are Canada’s leaders being honest on the campaign trail? Fact checking leaders has become en vogue o…
How candidates say their party will address racism
Guest: The Star’s political reporter Raisa Patel
Many say race wasn’t really a top-of-mind election issue until last week’s federal leader’s debates, and the conversation remained at surface-level, …
Affordability, housing and recovery: what are the parties promising?
Guest: Heather Scoffield, the Star’s Ottawa bureau chief and economic columnist
Affordability is at a crisis level in Canada. From sky-high housing and rental costs, to childcare, to cellphone bills …
Temperature check: Comparing platforms on climate change
Guest: Alex Ballingall, Ottawa based politics reporter joins to talk climate change in the election.
As wild fires burn in Western Canada, it seems like a day does not go by without further news abou…
In battleground ridings, what does the federal election campaign look like? A Star roundtable discusses
Guests: Host Althia Raj sits down with the Star’s Heather Scoffield, Richard Warnica an Jeremy Nuttall
After four weeks of campaigning, the federal party leaders head into the home stretch. Polling p…
Two journalists from opposite hemispheres discuss a post-9/11 world
Guest: Michelle Shephard, a journalist, author and filmmaker who was the Star’s national security reporter for nearly 20 years
Everyone who is old enough has some kind of memory of where they were an…
Data shows Canadians are running out of empathy as the pandemic runs on
We’re almost towards the end of the second year of the pandemic and, not surprisingly, the data shows that we’re not at the best version of ourselves anymore. A recent Angus Reid poll has revealed su…
Why some medically fragile kids can’t return to school because of a nursing shortage
Guest: Omar Mosleh, Toronto Star reporter
After more than a year of COVID anxiety, lockdowns, working from home and helping kids with online learning, this is back to school week in the GTA. But as m…
Fear and loathing on the campaign trail ’21
Guests: Susan Delacourt, Toronto Star national political columnist and Grant LaFleche, investigative reporter for the Star and St. Catharines Standard
Forget the election issues. The biggest story of…
From being burned at the stake to digital abuse, it’s not you. It’s the patriarchy (Rebroadcast)
This is a rebroadcast of an episode first aired on December 2, 2020.
Social media harassment is about more than words. It is violence and it is dangerous. We’ve witnessed a lot of ugliness during th…
Back to School: students, symptoms and screening guides
Guests: Jennifer Yang and Megan Ogilvie, Toronto Star health reporters
Back to school is almost here, kicking off the return of morning COVID screening for parents with their kids. With more data now…
Everything you need to know about Ontario’s vaccine passport plan
Guest: Rob Ferguson, Queen’s Park reporter at The Star
After months of debate, Ontario has revealed details of its vaccine passport program. Called late and inconsistent by critics, Premier Doug Ford…
The debate and ethics of vaccine boosters
Guest: Kenyon Wallace, investigative reporter for the Toronto Star
Amidst a growing fourth wave, the spread of the Delta variant and questions over how long immunity lasts, a number of nations around…
Lessons lost: An Afghan educator shares his story
Ali Raza Yesa is an Afghan educator and founder of the Star Educational Society, a network of language schools across Afghanistan. With the West now withdrawn from Afghanistan, he has left his homela…