The Decibel
Channel Details
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.
Recent Episodes
1353 episodes
Navigating Canada’s fertility industry
A growing number of Canadians are struggling with fertility, and the business helping people make babies is booming. The global fertility services mar...
At its core, the Canada-U.S. trade dispute is about autos
The auto sector is at the heart of trade discussions between Canada and the U.S.
Canada’s auto sector has been hit hard over the past year with...
Canada hits U.S. with retaliatory tariffs
The Canada-U.S. trade war is in full effect.
On Tuesday, the federal government announced retaliatory tariffs against the United States. U.S. st...
Canadian businesses prepare for long-haul trade war
After trade talks broke down between Ottawa and Washington, U.S. President Donald Trump implemented 50-per-cent tariffs on $28-billion dollars worth o...
Why Canada’s biggest paid plasma collector has paused operations
Plasma is the golden fluid part of the blood and it’s used to make life-saving medications for people with immune deficiencies. In Canada, plasma dono...
Skinny, Inc. Part 3: Body image in the age of Ozempic
The first episode of Skinny Inc. was all about the science behind GLP-1s, and the second episode was about the business, from the pharmaceutical compa...
Carney’s tricky trade balancing act
Canadians braced for new tariffs on Wednesday. Instead, U.S. President Donald Trump said he would hold off on 50 per cent tariffs for three more days...
Foreign actors target Alberta’s separatist referendum
New research from the University of Regina and the University of Alberta provides evidence that Russian content farms and right-wing U.S. influencers...
The fate of ship crews stuck in the Strait of Hormuz
More than 6,000 ship workers, including some Canadians, have been stranded in the Persian Gulf — some in the Strait of Hormuz — since the war in Iran...
Ticks are spreading more than just Lyme disease
Canada is in the middle of one of its worst seasons for ticks. The tick population and tick-borne diseases are climbing year-over-year, and it’s not j...
Skinny, Inc. Part 2: The big business of Ozempic
GLP-1 medications to treat diabetes, obesity and several other illnesses have exploded in popularity since Ozempic was approved for use in Canada back...
What it’s like to flee the B.C. wildfires
Summerland, B.C., has been devastated by the Bald Range wildfire. More than 20,000 people have evacuated, and by Wednesday, it had burned 178 square k...
Luluemon’s fight to stay on top of athleisure
For years, the Canadian athletic-wear brand Lululemon both pioneered and dominated the athleisure retail market. It turned workout gear into a status...
Canadian banks are going big on AI
Canadian banks are leaning heavily into AI adoption. More than 30 per cent of finance and insurance firms are using AI, compared to just 1.5 per cent...
Making Halifax into Canada’s defence city
Steeped in military and naval history, Halifax is increasingly used as the backdrop for announcements of defence investment. The city is poised to ben...
Skinny, Inc. Part 1: The Canadian connection to Ozempic
Dr. Daniel Drucker’s research helped pave the way for Ozempic, the blockbuster GLP-1 class drug. The endocrinologist has been researching the effects...
How Gen Z says ‘oui’: Meet Quebec’s young sovereigntists
With a Quebec provincial election on deck this fall, and the Parti Québécois leading in the polls, there’s a good chance Quebec will hold another refe...
Canadian NATO intern accused of spying
A Canadian woman has been arrested and accused of spying for a third country during her internship at NATO’s headquarters in Belgium. The woman had a...
Inside ‘Davos on the dock,’ the invite-only Muskoka conference
The Dock has been around since 2015. It’s an invite-only conference where tech, business and political leaders gather to talk. This year it was at a b...
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...
Ontario’s failed bid to expand Toronto’s island airport
Billy Bishop Airport, located on the western edge of the Toronto Islands, just south of downtown, has long been the subject of controversy. There was...
What’s up with Canada’s condo market?
The Canadian condo market is crumbling. As prices continue to plummet, thousands of condo units sit empty and unsold in Vancouver and Toronto – two of...
Why chicken is so expensive right now
First, beef prices went sky-high. Now, the price of chicken is getting more expensive — and Canadian chicken production is struggling to keep up with...
The Odyssey and IMAX’s Canadian roots
When’s the last time going to see a movie was a cultural event? Director Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey has people flocking to theatres for its star-...
How much AI music is in your playlist?
What does it mean to create music? Would you be able to tell if the sounds you were listening to weren’t made or sung by a human? Artists and supporte...
Trump’s gamble on a Depression-era tariff law
U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 50-per-cent tariff on more than 500 Canadian goods effective next month. This is far from the first...
What Canada can learn from Indigenous fire practices
Nearly 900 wildfires are burning across Canada, and early estimates suggest Ontario is experiencing its worst wildfire season on record. In Northwest...
Decoding Mark Carney’s strategic narrative about Canada
One of the key jobs of a prime minister is to help build out the story of what is Canada. And while Mark Carney was considered a political neophyte wh...
The resistance to AI data centres in Canada
There are several development projects underway for AI data centres in Canada, with plans for many, many more. The Canadian government is behind these...
Pitch and Power: How the ’90 World Cup captured England’s heart
Pitch and Power is The Globe and Mail's World Cup podcast.
In the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher’s England was a country under strain, marked by indus...
Another crucial strait that could strangle the global economy
A lot of attention has been given to the Strait of Hormuz amid Iran’s closure in response to attacks by the U.S. and Israel. But another key strait in...
How much forest management matters in wildfires
Evacuation orders are under way in communities in northwestern Ontario, as more than 140 wildfires rage in the region. Meanwhile, smoke from the fires...
What Canada gave up to (hopefully) open the Gordie Howe bridge
A new deal between Canada and the U.S. resolves issues around the Gordie Howe International Bridge, which is now set to open on July 27. The bridge –...
The Bishnoi gang and the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar
The 2023 murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, B.C., led to a major diplomatic rift between Canada and India. Mr. Nijjar was a prominent Canadian...
The reasons Canadians aren’t taking their paid vacation
A lot of Canadians struggle to take their allotted, paid vacation days, according to new research, meaning those days go unused. It’s not just interna...
Pitch and Power: Italian agony, psychology of the penalty kick
In the heat of USA ’94, Roberto Baggio carried the nation of Italy on his shoulders— and then saw it all slip away from twelve yards. This episode exp...
To ban or not to ban: Canadian teens weigh in on social media
Decisions in two landmark trials in the U.S. found social media companies responsible for harms to youth on their platforms, earlier this year. They f...
Why Canada’s banks are doing so much better than the economy
Canada’s Big Six banks are doing very well financially – their stocks are up an average of 62 per cent over the past year. In previous years, five or...
The new pipeline push in Canada
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has been front and centre of two pipeline proposal announcements in the past week. First, she and Prime Minister Mark C...
Why copper theft is on the rise and costing millions
The value of copper has sky-rocketed in the last number of years. The pink orange metal has been in high demand for data centres, telecommunications s...