The Decibel
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The Decibel
Context is everything. Join us Monday to Friday for a Canadian daily news podcast from The Globe and Mail. Explore a story shaping our world, in conversation with reporters, experts, and the people at the centre of the news.
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Is smoking making a comeback?
Smoking cigarettes is cool again. Apparently. Social media and accounts online are raving about the habit, turning it into a trend with images from ce...
Carney’s plan for AI in Canada, explained
The federal government released its plan for AI, and it includes a lot of new money ($2.3 billion, to be precise) towards training, adoption and suppo...
Patrolling the Arctic with the Canadian military
As Canada builds out its military, there has been an increasing focus on arctic security. But military strategies that work in the southern part of th...
The recession question
Canada’s economy has stalled. According to Statistics Canada, Canada’s real GDP contracted 0.1 per cent on an annualized basis in the first quarter of...
How alcohol sales explain Canada’s internal trade problem
Interprovincial trade within Canada is complicated. Existing barriers mean that many goods, like alcohol, often can’t be sold across provincial and te...
Unpaid and overworked: labour violations in Canadian trucking
The Canadian trucking industry touches almost every aspect of commercial life — most Canadian products on store shelves made at least some part of th...
A crack in Carney’s Liberal caucus over climate
Liberal MP Steven Guilbeault has announced his resignation from Mark Carney’s government, after stepping down from cabinet last fall.. During his time...
Uncovering FIFA’s costly World Cup demands on Canadian cities
Vancouver and Toronto are getting ready to host FIFA World Cup matches in June and July, and the demands FIFA makes tend to be costly. Requirements fr...
What’s behind the surge in military enlistment in Canada
Canada has been pushing to increase its defence efforts. Earlier this year, Canada reached their NATO defence spending target of two per cent of GDP....
The search for graves at Tk’emlups, five years on
Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation near Kamloops, B.C. was the site of a national reckoning over the legacy of residential schools. On May 27, 2021,...
A reality check on Alberta separatism
Political tensions are rising in Alberta. Last week, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced the province will hold a referendum on whether to hold a...
Deaths raise concerns over selling plasma in Canada
Getting paid for plasma – the yellow-gold liquid part of blood – in Canada is still pretty new. It’s full of protein and antibodies and can be used to...
An interview with Pierre Poilievre
Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, sat down with The Globe’s editorial board for an interview last week. They asked him...
The growing concern over stray drone strikes in Europe
Drones have become a part of everyday life for many Ukrainians. Now, they’re showing up in the airspace of Baltic countries. On Wednesday, people in L...
A week without ultraprocessed foods
Finding the time to cook can be a challenge. The solution for many Canadians looks like using convenient pre-prepared foods. Ultraprocessed foods (UPF...
A big step forward for B.C. mothers subjected to ‘birth alerts’
“Birth alerts” were a controversial practice in several Canadian provinces that allowed hospitals and child-welfare agencies to flag pregnant patients...
Trump in China: Iran war, Taiwan and trade tensions
U.S. President Donald Trump’s visit to China to meet President Xi Jinping this week is full of jeopardy. From tense talks over trade and tariffs, the...
The big business of romance novels
Once relegated to paperback stands in grocery stores, the business of romance novels is hot right now – especially in Canada. In a moment when book sa...
A reality check on hantavirus risk in Canada
This month, the World Health Organization linked a hantavirus outbreak to a cruise ship in the south Atlantic. Since the outbreak, three people have d...
Making sense of a stock market that doesn’t make sense right now
From trade wars to the war in Iran, there has been a lot of geopolitical tension in the world. This can sometimes cause jitters on the stock market, b...
Why are drug deaths rising in Edmonton, but falling elsewhere?
Canada has seen a decline in deaths related to drug overdose the past two years. But the reality at the local level is a little more complicated. In s...
The pressure is on for Canada to meet growing energy demand
The war in Iran has radically changed the way that oil and gas moves around the globe. Since the war began, North American energy exports – such as pe...
Saudi Arabia’s vision for its future is crumbling
Saudi Arabia has spent a decade pouring billions into investments to modernize their finance, entertainment, sports, technology and tourism industries...
Alberta separatist campaign faces legal hurdles
This week marked an important milestone in the separatist campaign in Alberta. After months of getting people to sign their petitions to trigger a ref...
What does Canada gain by hosting the new global defence bank?
Canada has spent the last year shoring up defence spending. Now a new multilateral financial institution, the Defence, Security and Resilience Bank, i...
Canadian professors on how AI is changing education
A big issue hangs over university students and professors, and that’s artificial intelligence. There are some rules and guidelines, but professors are...
A food economist’s case against public grocery stores
Food affordability remains a priority for many Canadians. This week, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government unveiled the spring economic update. It i...
Where your money ends up after a scam
Once scammers successfully steal someone’s money, they need a place to stash it. So they are buying verified Canadian bank accounts in order to launde...
Takeaways from the Liberals’ first economic update as a majority
The Liberals’ spring economic update lays out $54-billion in new spending over six years, including $6-billion towards boosting employment in the trad...
The first Canadian effectively cured of HIV
Only 10 HIV patients worldwide are known to have achieved the milestone of being in prolonged remission. Soon, a Toronto patient will be part of the h...
First, the Alberta health scandal. Then the surveillance began
It began with a whistle-blower alleging government interference in Alberta Health Services’ contracting process and its connections to a medical suppl...
INTERSECT/26: John Bolton on Canadian military defence
Globe columnist Andrew Coyne interviews former U.S. ambassador and national security adviser John Bolton at The Globe and Mail’s INTERSECT/26 forum of...
The Alberta government is accused of gerrymandering
The Alberta government is drawing controversy over electoral politics. They’re being accused of gerrymandering – the practice of redrawing voting dist...
Drones and the future of Canada’s military industry
Robotics and drones are now leading the charge in modern warfare, reshaping battlefields in Ukraine and on the Strait of Hormuz. The Canadian military...
The next step in Carney’s invest-in-Canada plan
The big sell is on. Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government has promised to raise $500-billion dollars of private investment over the next five years...
Big changes in Ontario’s education system
Last week, Ontario introduced new legislation proposing sweeping changes to education in the province – from how school boards are managed, to having...
The violent incidents and menacing texts targeting waste giant GFL
For the last year and a half, the talk of construction sites and Bay Street was about a string of violent incidents targeting GFL, the waste managemen...
Why Canadian movies are having a moment
Earlier this year, a report on domestic box office data for 2025 revealed that Canadian films brought in $13.9 million last year. Compared to $23.5-mi...
Who are the people hacking hackers?
Ransomware attacks have become more prominent in recent years, with major breaches of hospitals, like Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children in 2022, an...
Mark Carney’s majority moment
More than a year after 2025’s federal election, the Liberal Party now has a majority government. Monday’s federal by-elections – a clean sweep for Lib...