Guests: Jennifer Pagliaro, crime reporter, and Alyshah Hasham, City Hall reporter With so many high profile and violent crimes in Toronto in the past year, public safety has become an important issue in the mayoral byelection. Many feel like the city is less safe, but how does that align with the actual numbers and data? Crime isn’t equal across the city but to discuss how best to deal with it, we should start with what is actually happening to decide the best ways to combat it. This episode was produced by Paulo Marques and Raju Mudhar.

Guest: Mike Flannigan, chair in Predictive Services, Emergency Management and Fire Science at Thompson Rivers University Canada is on fire from coast-to-coast. As a wildfire burns on northern Vancouver Island, Alberta was in a state of emergency for most of May. As seasonal fires began shockingly early in Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia relied on weekend rain to contain flames that forced thousands to evacuate. It has been a dynamic and dramatic situation. Experts say the fire season is starting earlier and going later with hotter, dryer weather thanks to climate change. Adding to that, 50 per cent of these fires are actually started by people, accelerating an already challenging problem. The situation has many desperately wondering what will it take to make them stop. The bad news is, they won’t. It comes down to having resources to manage them and a shift in government approach from reactive to proactive. Audio Sources: CBC News/TikTok, CBC/The National This episode was produced by Brian Bradley and Paulo Marques

Guest: David Suzuki, world-renowned geneticist and environmentalist Before the Paris Agreement, before the Kyoto Protocol, before even the UN Climate Convention was signed in Rio, world-renowned geneticist and environmentalist David Suzuki was ringing the alarm bell and saying that climate change is a “matter of survival.” In this episode, Suzuki joins “This Matters” guest host and climate reporter Marco Chown Oved to discuss the state of today’s environmental movement and where it needs to go. Audio sources: CBC This episode was produced by Alexis Green, Marco Chown-Oved and Paulo Marques

Toronto Star columnists Emma Teitel and Edward Keenan co-host this episode of “This Matters” to discuss how Ana Bailão, Brad Bradford, Olivia Chow, Mitzie Hunter, Josh Matlow and Mark Saunders performed at the Toronto Star-United Way sponsored debate at the Ted Rogers School of Management, a part of Toronto Metropolitan University. It was moderated by Keenan and held May 31. This episode was produced by Alexis Green, Edward Keenan, Emma Teitel. Audio source: CP24

Guests: Scott Reid, advisor to former prime minister Paul Martin and political analyst with CTV, speaks with guest host Edward Keenan Exactly 21 years ago, Scott Reid’s boss, then Finance Minister Paul Martin, delivered a speech on the need to give cities a new source of revenue. It was regarded as the new deal for cities, and a speech Reid recalls led to Martin’s departure from Jean Chrétien’s cabinet. Now all these years later, as Reid and guest host Edward Keenan agree, Toronto needs to demand a new deal that acknowledges Toronto is different than any other city in Canada. Reid, a “lifelong political hack,” talks through how mayoral candidates should approach it as a campaign issue to win a mandate and how it might work out in practice to create leverage if anyone won the election on that message. Audio source: CSPAN, Canadian Question Period, June 3, 2002