Chatter that Matters

Happy Father's Day.
Did your father ever try to bottle liquid manure, only to watch it explode in the sunlight while sitting in a store window display?
Did he ever bet the family's fortune on a machine he believed could extract gold from sand?
Did he buy horses before figuring out where to keep them, then decide the house would do?
Did he lose the rent, the car, the business, and occasionally the plot, but somehow never lose his love for his children?
Welcome to the unforgettable world of Dacker.
In my Father's Day special, I sit down with Lori Thicke, author of Dreamer's Daughter: Surviving My Childhood and Raising My Father.
Lori was only ten when her mother left. From that moment on, she and her younger brother Brad were raised by their father, a war veteran, salesman, dreamer, schemer, serial entrepreneur, and eternal optimist.
Dacker's ideas were often outrageous. His timing was questionable. His plans were usually missing a few important pieces. But his love for his children was never in doubt.
Lori's story takes us from Kirkland Lake to Paris, from childhood chaos to a life of purpose, including her role in helping create Translators Without Borders. Along the way, she searches for understanding of her father, her mother, her childhood, and ultimately herself.
This is a Father's Day episode with houses burning down, a car taking out three brand-new yachts, the Count and Countess of Albania staging a coup from Dacker's kitchen, plenty of humour, and a whole lot of heart.
Because sometimes the most imperfect fathers leave behind the most unforgettable stories and the most unquestionable love.
And at the end of the episode, I offer a personal tribute to my own dad, and to all fathers, the ones who are here, the ones we miss, and the ones who did their best with what they had.
 
To buy Dreamer's Daughter:  https://www.indigo.ca/products/dreamers-daughter-surviving-my-childhood-and-raising-my-father

Not long ago in Canada, who you loved could cost you everything. 
Betty Baxter knows this because it happened to her.
Betty was an elite athlete, an Olympic captain, a pioneering coach, and one of the rare women leading at the highest levels of international sport. Her athletes trusted her. Her program was working. Her future was bright.
Then, on a cold November night in 1981, Betty was told to drive to a roadside motel between Ottawa and Montreal. Inside, three of the most powerful men in Canadian volleyball were waiting. They did not ask about her athletes, her results, or her vision.
They asked one question.
"There are rumours that you are gay. Do you deny that?"
Betty's answer was stunning in its courage. "I am the same person I have always been."
Soon after, Betty was pushed out of the sport she loved.
But this is not only a story about prejudice, power, and what was taken from her. It is also a story about what Betty did next.
She became an activist, a human rights advocate, a builder of community, and a champion for women in coaching, fairness in sport, and every person who has ever been told they do not belong.
Betty's story reminds us that Pride began as courage. As risk. As people standing up when standing out could cost them everything.  This is Betty Baxter's story - and it matters.
And stick around as I then chat with Eric Turner and Isadore Chung about Pride, belonging, representation, and why respect must be more than words on a page.
 
To buy Outspoken - Betty Baxter's book:  https://five.libsyn.com/show/episodes/new

Robin Devine has spent her life knocking on doors, sometimes literally, and finding opportunity on the other side. Raised by her grandmother, Robin learned early that hard work, honesty, courage, and instinct could take you places credentials could not.
As a little girl, she sold lilacs and rhubarb door to door. As a young woman, she walked into an advertising agency with no portfolio, no experience, and talked her way into a job. By twenty-three, she was selling Checker automobiles out of a broken-down garage, turning old taxis into reverse status symbols.
What follows is a remarkable conversation about grit, reinvention, and seeing value where others see nothing.  Her energy and passion are contagious as she shares her life story from advertising to automobiles, from Expo 86 to Canadian Tire, from Russian generals to Bestselling Books, Food banks, Shelters, and a Canada Watch she proudly markets with proceeds helping those in need.
This episode is timeless.
It is about agency and refusing to wait for permission.
 
 
You can also help support Canada's Food Banks and Shelters, by purchasing a special edition Canadian Watch.  https://www.timeisticking.ca/

Leslie Bradford-Scott grew up inside a story so spectacular it felt unreal. Her father drove a Rolls-Royce. A promoter, he brought Pink Floyd and Paul Anka to Hamilton, moved through a world of million-dollar diamonds, and lit up every room he entered.
Then the story cracked.
At twelve, Leslie came home to the police on the lawn. At fifteen, she had a gun pressed against her arm. At sixteen, she lost her brother, the one person who made her feel less alone.
Trying to outrun her father's shadow, Leslie joined the Coast Guard to save lives and fight crime, only to find corruption there, too. Later, she married a man who felt familiar in the worst possible way: charming, dangerous, and destructive.
But Leslie kept moving. She wrote screenplays on Post-it notes while selling cars, built a business from a farm, and reinvented herself again and again.
Years after his death, her father's 175,000-word prison manuscript surfaced, reopening everything she thought she had buried.
Was he a villain, a victim, a con man, a hero, or all of the above?
This is a gripping conversation about crime, family myth, buried truth, and what happens when the story that shaped you collapses. Leslie's lesson is unforgettable: where you are born, and whom you are born to, may shape you, but they do not get to define you.
As she says, "My entire life, I didn't feel I mattered. And now I know that I matter."
And then please stick around for an important announcement about Chatter that Matters.
 
 
To buy Leslie's book: https://www.amazon.com/Liars-Playbook-Memoir-Family-Crime/dp/1668069393

Some episodes entertain. Some inspire. And some remind us what it means to be human.
This is one of those episodes.
Bailey Gee was born with the most severe form of spina bifida. Her life became a cycle of surgeries, pain, bullying, isolation, a wheelchair, and battles with mental health that often left her wondering if life was worth fighting for.  Every day she prayed to be happy.
Then one day, happiness found her.
A random YouTube search introduced Bailey to Cesar De La Rosa, whose music and stage presence became an unexpected light during one of the darkest periods of her life. What started as fandom became friendship, healing, and hope.
In this deeply emotional episode, Bailey shares her journey through disability, loneliness, and resilience. Cesar reflects on the responsibility artists carry when their work touches lives in ways they never imagined. The conversation also features Paralympian Joel Dembe, who challenges us to rethink disability, accessibility, and what it truly means to be seen.
And thanks to RBC Avion, Cesar will meet Bailey for the first time. This is a story about pain, music, humanity, and the unexpected angels who help us find the light.