This Matters

Nov 15 2024 1010 ep. 22 mins 1.1k

This Matters Podcast artwork

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.

News Society & Culture

Copy RSS

Subscribe on Podcast Addict

It's Taylor Swift's Toronto. We just live here

Nov 15 2024 36 mins

Guest: Toronto Star reporter Mark Colley and contributor Aisling Murphy In this episode, This Matters looks at the Tay-Tay-takeover of Toronto, in which the pop star’s six concerts over 10 days have been estimated to bring in as many as a half a million tourists and pump hundreds of millions of dollars into the economy. Reporter Mark Colley provides some perspective on the phenom

Trump returns, stronger than ever

Nov 06 2024 34 mins

Guest: The Toronto Star’s Richard Warnica, reporting from Washington, DC In this episode, This Matters returns from hiatus with a special episode on the U.S. Election. Knowing all that they know about Donald Trump — after the court convictions and the insurrection and the threats and open bigotry, and after a campaign in which he sometimes seemed increasingly undisciplined —

Trump’s triumphant convention (and tedious speech)

Jul 19 2024 49 mins

Guest: The Toronto Star’s Richard Warnica, reporting from the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin Less than a week after a would-be assassin wounded former U.S. President Donald Trump, he accepted his party’s nomination to run for president again on a stage in Wisconsin. In between, he selected a vice-presidential candidate, created a new political fashion tr

Moments after the attempted assassination of Trump, conspiracy theories went viral

Jul 18 2024 23 mins

Guest: Alex Boyd, Toronto Star reporter The investigations continue into what drove 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks to open fire last weekend, at former president Trump’s campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, before being shot dead by a Secret Service sniper. But moments after the shooting, social media platforms were flooded with conspiracy theories with both right and left

After the Trump assassination attempt

Jul 17 2024 32 mins

Guest: Allan Woods, Toronto Star global and national affairs reporter On the weekend, a 20-year-old gunman opened fire at a Donald Trump campaign rally, apparently injuring the former president, killing a bystander, and injuring two others. Toronto Star reporter Allan Woods wrote this week about the history of political violence and assassinations in the U.S., and about what that h

Toronto (sports) the bad: The conclusion

Jul 11 2024 78 mins

Bruce Arthur and Dave Feschuk take a final tour through Toronto's recent sports history. They touch on the bean-counting days of the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan and Rogers to the more ambitious days of Bell and Rogers, with Larry Tanenbaum in between. They muse on the bad old days of the Leafs, Raptors and Jays to the current era of Brendan Shanahan, Masai Ujiri, and Mark Shapir

The Shanaplan in Shambles

Jul 10 2024 87 mins

Guest: Legendary sports broadcaster Dave Hodge, formerly of TSN and Hockey Night in Canada Hosts: Bruce Arthur and Dave Feschuk When Brendan Shanahan took over the helm of the Maple Leafs in 2014, he vowed not to repeat the sins of various predecessors accused of rushing the team-building process. Shanahan insisted he would exercise patience. But after eight post-season runs in

Rebuild in Raptorland

Jul 09 2024 58 mins

Guest: Toronto Star basketball writer Doug Smith Hosts: Bruce Arthur and Dave Feschuk Five years ago, Masai Ujiri was among the most coveted executives in all of pro sports, his masterstroke trade for Kawhi Leonard landing the Raptors their first NBA title. In the five years since, the franchise has won one playoff series while languishing through less-than-inspiring moments that

The Blue Jays' decade of playing it safe

Jul 08 2024 61 mins

Guest: Former Toronto Star baseball columnist and Blue Jays PR director Richard Griffin Hosts: Bruce Arthur and Dave Feschuk Mark Shapiro could have been the perfect president of the Toronto Blue Jays. In the eight years since he took over for Paul Beeston, Shapiro has successfully convinced Blue Jays ownership to spend big money on the team, not to mention hundreds of millions

Alice Munro's family kept a terrible secret for decades. Now they want the world to know

Jul 08 2024 29 mins

Guest: Deborah Dundas, opinion section editor at the Toronto Star A chilling revelation has surfaced almost a month after the death of Canada's literary giant, Alice Munro. Andrea Skinner — who is Munro’s daughter — has revealed in the Toronto Star that her stepfather Gerald Fremlin sexually abused her when she was nine years old. She was only able to tell her mother in a le