Brief Remarks

To see modern democracy in action, look no further than Chile. This week on No Second Chances, we’ve landed in South America. Host Kate Graham talks to Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Western University, Dr. Verónica Schild, as well as former President, and current United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet about Chilean politics, the country’s progressive new government, and its roots in a strong feminist movement.

To try to make sense of the occupation of Ottawa’s downtown core on this episode of @Risk, Jodi Butts is joined by University of Toronto assistant professor, Dr. Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, whose work examines the intersections of race, crime and criminal justice, with a particular focus in the area of policing.

There is no reconciliation without economic reconciliation. So why do we tend to shy away from talking about it? Perhaps too few of us understand what economic reconciliation means, beyond mere resource development. On this episode of Everyday Reconciliation, host Elin Miller speaks with Chief Leanne Joe, Transformative Storyteller for Economic Reconciliation with Simon Fraser University and one of sixteen hereditary chiefs of the Squamish First Nation about why economic reconciliation is hard to define, and why every Canadian should care about it.

On this episode of @ Risk, Jodi Butts is joined by Canadian Broadcasting Hall of Fame journalist, entrepreneur, and diplomat, Senator Pamela Wallin, to discuss why the media is you and why that’s maybe not a good thing.

This week on No Second Chances, we touch down in Taiwan. Host Kate Graham talks to the Director-General of New Taipei, Chingyu Yao; entrepreneur and investor, Elisa Chu; Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada's Christina Nakamura; and journalist turned politician Weiwei Chiang on Taiwan’s history, complexity, and how the nation’s first female president actually did get a second chance.

On July 26, 2021, the first ever Indigenous governor general of Canada was sworn into office. Twenty-nine people preceded her in the role. In other words: about time. On this episode of Everyday Reconciliation, host Elin Miller speaks with Her Excellency, the Right Honourable Mary May Simon about her path to Rideau Hall, her plans as governor general, and her lifelong goal of building better understanding between Indigenous people and other Canadians.

Globally, democracy is in recession. In the United States, it is in crisis. In Canada, it is, at best, plodding, complacent, and exclusionary. The social, political, and economic order that so many have taken for granted for so long now faces upheaval. Some believe that shift is long overdue, but alternatives driven by authoritarian populism and other toxic varieties of self-government threaten to usher in something far worse. Regardless, the status quo is untenable. Those who wish to preserve liberal democracy face a challenge: they must find a way to adapt the system in the face of growing counter-pressures and changing technologies, attitudes, and priorities. So, what does the future hold for liberal democracy?  On this episode of Open to Debate, David Moscrop talks with Manuel Hinds, former minister of finance in El Salvador, former division chief at the World Bank, and author of In Defense of Liberal Democracy: What We Need To Do To Heal A Divided America.

On this episode of @ Risk, Jodi Butts is joined by Toronto Star columnist and sportswriter, Bruce Arthur, to discuss why it’s hard to have nice things like sports.

The No Second Chances world tour starts in Denmark, the land of smoorebrod, Borgen, and two female Prime Ministers. On this episode, host Kate Graham talks to political scientist Karina Kosiara-Pedersen, and former Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt about the systems and structures that have helped make Danish politics more accessible, representative, and inclusive.

Diplomacy is key for all nation-to-nation relationships. So why don’t we talk about it hand-in-hand with reconciliation? On this episode of Everyday Reconciliation, host Elin Miller speaks with Deborah Chatsis, former Ambassador to Vietnam and Guatemala, about life in the Canadian foreign service, representing Canada as an Indigenous person, and how we can - and should - approach nation-to-nation relationships within Canada with the same as we do around the globe.

Canada is home to several active nuclear power plants and is the second largest uranium producer in the world. Nuclear energy accounts for roughly 15 percent of the country’s energy production. In Ontario, it meets approximately 60 percent of the province’s energy needs. While the popular image of nuclear power is conditioned by infamous historical events, some climate activists and industry professionals advocate it becoming a larger part of our plan to address climate change. So, we ask: How important is nuclear energy to a low-carbon future?On this episode of Open to Debate, David Moscrop talks with Chris Keefer, ER doctor, founder and director of Doctors for Nuclear Energy, and host of the podcast Decouple.

To lighten the mood a little, host Jodi Butts sits down with Awi Sinha for a fun discussion of corporate governance as seen through the looking glass of Season 3 of HBO’s Succession.

Happy New Year! Before we take off on our virtual world tour, let’s take some time to check in on the home front. On this episode of No Second Chances, host Kate Graham talks to Jacqueline O’Neill, Anjum Sultana, and Melanee Thomas to take stock of the past two years in Canadian politics, and how we can - and must - do better.

The biggest shift in our fight against climate change came when we began putting a human face to the crisis. But that fight is far from over, and most people still don’t appreciate the human cost of our climate emergency. On this episode of Everyday Reconciliation, host Elin Miller speaks with Inuit activist Siila Watt-Cloutier on life in the North, her decades-long work tying human rights to climate activism, and using lessons from a traditional upbringing to turn the Arctic into a model of sustainability for the globe.

No Second Chances is back, and we’re taking the show on the road. Well, sort of. Join host Kate Graham for a (virtual) world tour, exploring what’s worked in countries around the world towards getting women into the top political roles. Hear stories and voices that you may not know yet -- but that we should all be paying attention to. Pack your bags. Our journey starts on January 10, 2022.

On this episode of @Risk, Jodi Butts is joined by contributing correspondent for Science magazine, Kai Kupferschmidt, to discuss the latest science on the Omicron variant, vaccine equity and the legacy of Angela Merkel.

In this final installment of Canada 2020’s post-COP26 conversation series, WWF-Canada’s President and CEO, Megan Leslie, and Vice-President of Science, Knowledge and Innovation, James Snider talk about Canada’s first-ever national carbon ecosystem map, the enormous amounts of carbon stored in terrestrial ecosystems throughout our country, and the essential part carbon storage can play in fighting climate change.

In part three of our post- COP26 series, economist and UN Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance Mark Carney, and Vancity CEO Christine Bergeron talk about reframing the political and economic narrative of climate advocacy, and the challenges of moving towards a net-zero economy. What opportunities exist in the aftermath of COP26? What role must the private sector play in this transition? And what can individuals, organizations, and governments do to champion progress towards essential climate action?

No one ever thinks of law as simple. But too many of us don’t appreciate one particular complexity: there are multiple legal orders that exist across Canada. And most of them are Indigenous. On this episode of Everyday Reconciliation, host Elin Miller speaks with Val Napoleon, an activist, educator, and the interim Dean of Law at University of Victoria, about Indigenous legal frameworks, and how essential they are to self-governance, Indigenous knowledge and culture, and reconciliation.

Everybody loves a trilogy. In March of 2020, host David Moscrop and guest Amanda Watson dug into how folks were managing their lives during the early days of the pandemic. In the spring of 2021, the two checked back to talk about managing anxiety in what was billed, optimistically, as the “late pandemic.” Now, just under two years into this whole thing, the two connect once more to ask: Are we coming undone during the pandemic? On this episode of Open to Debate, David Moscrop talks once more with Amanda Watson, feminist theorist, lecturer at Simon Fraser University and author of The Juggling Mother: Coming Undone in the Age of Anxiety. After this episode, the show is on break until January 18, 2022. We’ll return in the new year to tackle a handful of pressing issues including nuclear energy, disability rights, big data and the state, and more.