Voices from the ground: a glimpse inside Canada's student encampments

Guest: Shawn Micallef, contributing columnist and author of “Stroll: Pyschogeographic Walking Tours of Toronto” In 2010, journalist Shawn Micallef first published his book of observations, suggestions and civic history gleaned from years of wandering around the city and paying close attention to what he saw. In the 14-years since, as Micallef became a freelance columnist for The Star, the book has been a perennial local favourite, running through several press runs. This week, a new, updated edition launches, for which he re-walked all of the terrain and revised to note how the city has changed in small and large ways. From the ravines to and entirely new neighbourhood, he talks about what one can learn about a city, and how you can grow to both love it and demand change from it, just by strolling around. What would you like to hear on Toronto Star podcasts? Let us know in this survey and you can enter to win a $100 gift card.

Guests: Journalists Samira Mohyeddin and Christopher Curtis Student protests that first erupted across the United States have now spread northward, igniting across Canada, including campuses at University of Toronto, McGill University, University of British Columbia and University of Alberta among others. The students say they want to end a war that’s claimed more than 34,000 Palestinian lives, according to local officials, destroyed or damaged every university in Gaza and displaced hundreds of thousands of people. The recent Israeli offensive against Gaza began after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants which killed almost 1,200 Israelis with dozens still held hostage. The students are specifically calling for universities to cut all financial and academic ties with any Israeli company or campus that supports the military or illegal West Bank settlements based on international law. In this episode we take a look at what's going inside the University of Toronto and McGill University campuses through the eyes of two independent journalists, Samira Mohiyeddin and Christopher Curtis, co-founder of The Rover, who have been reporting from within the encampments.  Audio sources: CBC News, Samira Mohyeddin, Christopher Curtis, Lance McMillan This episode was produced by Julia De Laurentiis Johnston, Paulo Marques and Saba Eitizaz With files from Marco Chown Oved What would you like to hear on Toronto Star podcasts? Let us know in this survey and you can enter to win a $100 gift card.

Guest: Toronto PWHL season ticket holder and superfan Connie Hamers At the inaugural game of Toronto’s professional women’s hockey team, Connie Hamers had front-row seats, and immediately took a liking to the play of rookie Emma Maltais. By game two, she’d labelled her section “Emma Nation” and began bringing team swag she made (or had made) herself — signs, team roster reference lists, mini-sticks, hockey cards — to games to distribute freely to others sitting around her. She travelled with the team to other cities, founded a social media fan group, and quickly became one of the most well-recognized and liked people in attendance at games. As the team prepares for its first-ever playoffs, she sits down with fellow season ticket holder Edward Keenan to discuss a first-place finish for the team, the astonishing MVP-calibre performance of Natalie Spooner, what she loves about Maltais, why she has put so much time and energy into supporting and helping promote the team, and what she’s looking forward to in the playoffs. Plus, Hamers shares how she left her “Emma Nation” mark in places around the U.S. and Canada. What would you like to hear on Toronto Star podcasts? Let us know in this survey and you can enter to win a $100 gift card.

Guests: Jasmine Eastmond, Tristan Kim and Kristin Rushowy  The Ontario government has announced a crackdown on cellphones and vaping in schools, new regulations that are being seen as some of the toughest in Canada. According to Education Minister Stephen Lecce, the new government policy for cellphones, with some exceptions, is out of sight, out of mind. With this new move to ban cellphone use in classrooms, Ontario has joined a global movement with similar restrictions being imposed in the UK, Australia, France and some Scandinavian countries. There are many questions about enforcement and effectiveness, chief among them: how are teachers going to keep young people away from their phones in an increasingly digital ecosystem? Audio sources: CP24 This episode was produced by Paulo Marques and Saba Eitizaz. With files from Emily Fagan

Guest: Betsy Powell, courts reporter After the death of police Const. Jeffrey Northrup, the trial of Umar Zameer for first degree murder galvanized attention (and political rage) in the Toronto area. Now that he’s been found not guilty, people are left with questions about a prosecution that always seemed to be based on flimsy grounds. Reporter Betsy Powell covered the case for the Star from its beginnings to its conclusion, and spoke one-on-one with Zameer following the verdict. Now on “This Matters,” she shares her overview of the case, how the judge had expressed skepticism all along and the rare apology that judge issued to the defendant. We also share Zameer’s own reflections on the trial from Powell’s interview. What would you like to hear on Toronto Star podcasts? Let us know in this survey and you can enter to win a $100 gift card.

Guest: Sophie Grégoire Trudeau Even before Sophie Grégoire Trudeau married Prime Minister Justin Trudeau she was an advocate for mental health, openly sharing her personal struggles with eating disorders. She discusses her new book. She shares those struggles afresh, along with tales of her parents, her schooling, her relationships, in her new book, “Closer Together: Knowing Ourselves, Loving Each Other,” which she describes as a personal journey toward empowerment.

  We asked three published, award-winning Toronto poets to weigh in on Swift’s literary merit at a listening party on the album’s release day. The assignment: dissect three new songs as though Swift were a writer workshopping new pieces. Guests: Sanna Wani, a poet and poetry editor whose latest book, “My Grief The Sun,” was released in 2022; Jody Chan’s most recent volume of poems, “impact statement,” came out earlier this year and they are an artist-in-residence at the University of Toronto’s Queer and Trans Research Lab; Adam Dickinson, an author of four books of poetry and a professor in the Department of English language at Brock University.

Guests: Leena Usman, Pino Buffone and Kris Rushowy In what could be a landmark lawsuit in Canada, at least five major Ontario school boards are taking some of the largest social media companies to court over their platforms like Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok, alleging they have been designed in a way that’s almost “rewiring” the way children behave. The allegations have yet to be proven in court, and there is no set date for when they will be heard, but they are now joining a wave of U.S. school districts doing the same. We find out more about this lawsuit and examine the implications for online safety, digital responsibility and the future of social media regulation. Plus, Gen-Zer Leena Usman shares her lived experience of what it's like on the social media front lines.  This episode was produced by Saba Eitizaz and Paulo Marques. What would you like to hear on Toronto Star podcasts? Let us know in this survey and you can enter to win a $100 gift card.

Guest: Salman Rushdie, author It has been almost two years since celebrated author Salman Rushdie was attacked on a stage in Erie, New York as he was about to deliver a lecture. In an assault that lasted 27 seconds, a knife went through his right eye and optical nerve, while wounds to his tongue, neck and hand left him a changed man. Salman shares details of the attack — and his recovery — in his new memoir, “Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder.” As interviews for the book are in full swing, Salman tells The Star that any fears of being onstage had long faded. What would you like to hear on Toronto Star podcasts? Let us know in this survey and you can enter to win a $100 gift card.

Guest: Anuradha Dugal, Vice President Community Initiatives at the Canadian Women's Foundation Equal Pay Day is recognized internationally as a day of action, calling on stakeholders to advance women’s economic activity. It symbolizes how much longer women have had to work to catch up to what their male colleagues have earned in the previous year. Showing that women in Canada have worked nearly 16 months to earn what men make in 12. The needle hasn't budged on gender pay inequity in almost three decades. And no one is minding the gender pay gap. We take a look at why, and what it will take to change things.