*Please note this schedule is subject to change.
Monday, June 1
IDEAS AT 60: LISTENER STORIES
In early 1965, Canada got a new flag: its now-iconic red maple leaf. Later that year, it got a new radio program: the Best Ideas You’ll Hear Tonight, which soon got shortened to how it’s known now: IDEAS. So in honour of our 60th anniversary, we present a special week-long series of programs that feature listeners recounting episodes that changed their lives in some profound way. To quote from 1960s promotional material: “IDEAS is for people who like to think.” And it still is. In our first episode: a doctor who transformed her working methods after hearing a show about… traffic jams.
Tuesday, June 2
IDEAS at 60: NOVA SCOTIA BOOK CLUB
In early 1965, Canada got a new flag: its now-iconic red maple leaf. Later that year, it got a new radio program: the Best Ideas You’ll Hear Tonight, which soon got shortened to how it’s known now: IDEAS. So in honour of our 60th anniversary, we present a special week-long series of programs. In this episode: a book club in Nova Scotia whose books are actually… IDEAS episodes!
Wednesday, June 3
IDEAS at 60: REVISITING MASSEY LECTURERS
In early 1965, Canada got a new flag: its now-iconic red maple leaf. Later that year, it got a new radio program: the Best Ideas You’ll Hear Tonight, which soon got shortened to how it’s known now: IDEAS. So in honour of our 60th anniversary, we present a special week-long series of programs. In this episode we feature Massey Lecturers from the past decade, who reflect on the impact that giving cross country talks had on them: Payam Akhavan, Sally Armstrong, Ron Deibert, Esi Edugyan, Tomson Highway, Margaret MacMillan, Astra Taylor, Tanya Talga, Jennifer Welsh, and Ian Williams.
Thursday, June 4
IDEAS at 60: MORE LISTENER STORIES
In early 1965, Canada got a new flag: its now-iconic red maple leaf. Later that year, it got a new radio program: the Best Ideas You’ll Hear Tonight, which soon got shortened to how it’s known now: IDEAS. So in honour of our 60th anniversary, we present a special week-long series of programs that feature listeners recounting episodes that changed their lives in some profound way. In this episode of our anniversary series: a listener in Ireland whose wife was terminally ill — and he how he continues to take inspiration from an episode we did on Shakespeare.
Friday, June 5
IDEAS at 60: THE BEST AND WORST IDEAS OF THE LAST SIX DECADES
In early 1965, Canada got a new flag: its now-iconic red maple leaf. Later that year, it got a new radio program: the Best Ideas You’ll Hear Tonight, which soon got shortened to how it’s known now: IDEAS. So in honour of our 60th anniversary, we present a special week-long series of programs. To quote from 1960s promotional material: “IDEAS is for people who like to think.” And it still is. To mark our 60th birthday, IDEAS held a special onstage discussion about the best — and worst — ideas of the last six decades. The highlights — and lowlights — may just surprise you.
Monday, June 8
THE BILLIONAIRE AGE, PT 3 | THE IMPACT OF EXTREME WEALTH ON THE WORLD TODAY
There are more than 3,428 billionaires in the world today. Together they are worth a reported $20.1 trillion — which is up $4 trillion from last year. A wealth defence industry has popped up to defend their fortunes and combat equalizing measures like progressive taxes, which were once the norm. Meanwhile, the middle class is on a steep decline. This episode looks at just how bad things are in today’s Billionaire Age — where oligarchs are buying up media, political influence and fortressing themselves from the rest of society.
Tuesday, June 9
BLACK JOY: JAY PITTER
Jay Pitter has worked around the world to help create spaces where joy, justice, and belonging come alive. Her first book is called Black Public Joy. In it she blends storytelling, research, and deeply personal stories. When she was eight years old and out shopping with her mother at the local mall, Jay began swaying to the music being piped in, and her mother scolded her for it —signalling that it was undignified for a Black person to act that way in public. That incident was the genesis for her book, addressig the self-policing Black people can internalise. She reveals how culture, planning, and memory shape the way Black people — and maybe anyone — can access joy in parks, streets, transit, and neighbourhoods.
Wednesday, June 10
FRENCH RESISTANCE: THE DARK YEARS
France was under German occupation 1940 to 1944. The French call the period Les Années Noires — The Dark Years. It’s a period that tore the fabric of French society. People faced difficult, sometimes impossible choices. Some collaborated, some resisted. Most stood on the sidelines, just trying to survive. IDEAS contributor Neil Sandell lives in France. He digs into what one historian has called the ‘gray moral texture’ of those years.
Thursday, June 11
TBD
Friday, June 12
SEX AND SEXUALITY: PODCASTING IN GHANA AND UGANDA
Politicians in Ghana and Uganda have created some of the harshest laws against LGBTQ+ people in the world. While lawmakers argue in parliament and on talk radio about anti-homosexuality bills, podcasters in both countries continue to make space for sex-positive conversations and gender inclusivity. IDEAS contributor Nana aba Duncan visits both countries and talks to Ghanaian and Ugandan podcast hosts and producers. Private lesbian parties, transgender freedom, elder advice on sexual pleasure and pre-colonial gay traditions are part of the conversation. Despite the threats, their podcasts show how the safety, privacy, and independence of the medium offer a path to understanding, validation and community.
Monday, June 15
MORAL INJURY
“Moral injury” has long been associated with the trauma of war. Soldiers have talked about committing or witnessing acts that transgressed their deeply held moral beliefs leading to years of struggling with anger, guilt, shame, and feelings of betrayal. But moral injury as an idea has expanded in recent years to also include the distress caused by a break between one’s moral ideas and the reality one lives in. It’s now become an everyday experience for billions of people around the world to consume real time experiences of violence, grief, war, and genocide through screens from thousands of kilometres away, and experience moral upending. Is there a way to think about mass moral injury and its repercussions?
Tuesday, June 16
TBD
Wednesday, June 17
HOUDINI’S DEATH-DEFYING MYSTERY
Dua Lipa namechecked him in a 2023 dance hit, and she’s not alone: escape artist Harry Houdini remains a cultural reference point, despite having died a hundred years ago. And that’s pretty much what he would have wanted. The turn-of-the century magician was an oddly modern guy: a producer of superhero-style spectacles, a brilliant self-marketer, and a mass of psychological contradictions. Biographer Adam Begley, magician and historian David Ben, and theatre performer Katie Bender unlock his myth.
Thursday, June 18
WOMAN OF LABRADOR: ELIZABETH GOWDY
In 1920 when Elizabeth Goudie was 18 years old she began a new life as a trapper’s wife in central Labrador. For five months of the year her husband was away on the trapline and Elizabeth had to survive on her own. She raised children, hunted, practiced medicine, made clothing, fixed houses and more. Then the Second World War brought the world to Labrador, and with it cars, radios, the wage economy, and an entirely different way of life. Her memoir Woman of Labrador is the first book published by a Labradorian. She wrote intimately and frankly about both the “old life” of Labrador and the new. Host Nahlah Ayed revisits this ‘watershed text’ of Labrador literature, and the lessons about change, peace and survival it still holds today.
Friday, June 19
TBD
Monday, June 22
NUMBER SERIES: 13
Has there ever been a number more maligned in western culture than 13? So feared, it’s got its own horror-film franchise. So infamously unlucky, a good many of us avoid it en masse. And so synonymous with the awkward transition from childhood to puberty, it has spawned countless cringe-inducing coming-of-age stories. In this documentary, IDEAS explores what we know — and don’t know — about how 13 got such a bad rap, why the superstition surrounding it persists and what 13 might be able to teach us — if we’re willing to put aside our apprehensions.
Tuesday, June 23
NUMBER SERIES: 12/60
Description coming soon.
Wednesday, June 24
NUMBER SERIES: 27
If three is a magic number, is three to the power of three — 27 — an order of magnitude more magical? Perhaps not. But 27 can be a particularly pivotal and tumultuous age in the human lifespan. It’s held up as the year of peak performance in many sports, but it’s also been seen as a cursed age for pop and rock stars, exemplified by the so-called 27 Club of artists like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse — all of whom died at 27. This documentary looks at the stories of the 27 Club and research into elite athletes to ponder what happens to creativity and physical capacity when people are in their mid-to-late 20s — and why the music industry is a dangerous business for psychologically vulnerable 20-somethings.
Thursday, June 25
NUMBER SERIES: 33,000 AND THINKING LIKE A MACHINE
The number series continues with “33,000 foot-pounds a minute.” That’s the number inventor James Watt gave to the capabilities of a horse when trying to market his new and improved steam engine. The engine was a big success, saving horses from the drudgery of manual labour. A similar process is underway with Artificial Intelligence, but are we the horses, or the steam engine?
Friday, June 26
NUMBER SERIES: 4
From the medicine wheel to the building blocks of DNA, humankind has long viewed the number four as a source of stability and structure. In ancient Greece, it formed the base of the Pythagorean Tetractys, representing the foundation of the universe itself. But depending who you ask, the number four is also a bit of a troublemaker: a stepping stone to realms like the fourth dimension that confound our expectations. IDEAS explores the many ways that the number four helps us understand the universe — both by making the rules, and by breaking them.
Monday, June 29
CANADIAN SHIELD COMEDY
Canadians didn’t like Donald Trump’s threats to annex Canada and make it the 51st state. To the point where comedian Mike Myers made his famous “elbows up” gesture on Saturday Night Live’s anniversary special. And later appeared in a political ad for the Liberals. And given the preponderance of Canadian comedians and comedy writers, you have to wonder: is comedy a kind of cultural Canadian Shield, helping us to define who we are, and who are not? Host Nahlah Ayed has an onstage discussion with three comedians at the Stratford Provocations festival — Deb McGrath, Martha Chaves and Brittlestar (Stewart Reynolds) — to riff on that very question.
Tuesday, June 30
MARIAN ENGEL’S 1976 NOVEL, BEAR
It’s a novel so strange, shocking and surreal that it’s hard to describe. At the surface, Bear is about a woman who develops a sexual relationship with a bear. And though the 1976 novel earned Marian Engel a Governor General’s award, it’s been largely forgotten. IDEAS contributor Melissa Gismondi brings Bear to life and explores its mystery, meaning and relevance today. *This episode originally aired on Jan. 4, 2021.
