Ideas

Homosexuality is illegal in more than half of African countries — a crime punishable by prison sentences. Or in some cases: death. In the past few years, six African countries have made it illegal just to advocate for LGBTQ+ rights. These laws bring up questions of foreign influence, neo-colonialism, and the role the international community could play in nudging human rights on the continent. *This episode originally aired on May 26, 2025.Want another podcast? Ghana and Uganda have some of the harshest laws against LGBTQ+ people in the world. Despite the threats, listen to how podcasters in both these countries are fighting back and reclaiming sexuality.

Uganda and Ghana have the harshest laws against LGBTQ+ people in the world. Despite the threats, podcasters in both countries are fighting back by creating a space where people can have sex-positive conversations and gender inclusivity. IDEAS contributor Nana aba Duncan was in Uganda and Ghana to find out how the safety, privacy, and independence of the medium offer a path to understanding, validation and community.In the past few years, six African countries have made it illegal to just advocate for LGBTQ+ rights. What role should the international community play in nudging human rights on the continent? Listen to The unforgivable crime of being queer in Africa.

When Jay Pitter was eight years old and out shopping with her mother, she began swaying to the music at the mall. 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 Black Public Joy: No Permit Or Permission Required. In her book, she addresses the self-policing Black people can internalise, and reveals how culture, urban planning, and memory shape the way people can access joy in parks, streets, transit, and neighbourhoods.Guest in this episode:Jay Pitter is an award-winning placemaker focused on creating joyful public spaces that foster belonging, prosperity, and cultural memory. She advances this work through cultural planning, policy frameworks, and storytelling. Pitter is also an adjunct urban planning professor and has engaged students at Cornell, Princeton, and MIT, advancing new theories of public joy that connect practice, policy, and pedagogy.

Mae West shocked audiences and infuriated censors for more than 70 years. She was pop culture’s original blonde bombshell sex-symbol comedienne provocateur. But she was more than just a corseted sex pot with an affinity for word play. She was a trailblazer, transgressive, funny, smart, sassy, lively, a genius. And she got away with all of it. IDEAS contributor Lynda Shorten explores the legacy of the eccentric Mae West.Guests in this episode:Linda Hutcheon is a professor emerita of English and comparative literature at The University of Toronto.Ramona Curry is an associate professor emerita of English at The University of Illinois.Pamela Wojeck is a professor of film studies at The University of Notre DameScott C. Miller is a make-up artist and retired undertaker

Rachel Jedinak will never forget the day that changed her life in July 16, 1942. She was eight years old, living in Nazi-occupied France at a time known as les années noires — The Dark Years. Police rounded up Jewish men, women, and children for deportation. Rachel, her older sister and mother were among them. That morning two police offers did something that Rachel considers an act of resistance. The girls were saved. But their mother was not. IDEAS contributor Neil Sandell, based in Nice, France, explores the complicated moral territory of resistance, what it actually meant during the occupation, and maybe means now.

Elon Musk is on the verge of becoming a trillionaire. Right now Musk's wealth is currently around $825 billion US — more than double what it was a year earlier. Only 22 countries currently boast economies larger than Musk’s net worth, but he’s catching up. In the third episode of our series The Billionaire Age we investigate how Musk and his fellow billionaires are trying to take over the world. And if they succeed, what will this mean for the rest of us?Listen to more episodes in this series:Listen to Part One: How did we get here?Listen to Part Two: Disney heiress on the dangers of extreme wealthGuests in this episode:Ingrid Robeyns is a philosopher and economist. She is the chair in Ethics of Intuitions at Utrecht University, and the author of Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth.Lucas Chancel is an economist and the co-director of The World Inequality Lab. He's also a professor at the Paris School of Economics.Gabriel Zucman is an economist and the co-director of The World Inequality Lab. He's also a professor at the Paris School of Economics and the University of California, Berkeley.Nitin Bharti is an economist and lecturer at the University of Western Australia. He is also the South and South-East Asia coordinator at the World Inequality Lab.Lars Osberg is an economics professor at Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. His latest book is The Scandalous Rise of Inequality in Canada.Abigail Disney is an American film producer, philanthropist and social activist. She is a member of Patriotic Millionaires which advocates for higher taxes on the wealthy.Paul Krugman is an economist and the winner of the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.Tim Wu is a legal scholar and professor at Columbia Law School. He is also a contributing opinion writer at the New York Times. His latest book is The Age of Extraction: How Tech Platforms Conquered the Economy and Threaten Our Future Prosperity.Nick Hanauer is an entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He co-authored the book, Corporate Bullsh*t: Exposing The Lies and Half-Truths that Protect Profit, Power and Wealth in America, with Joan Walsh and Donald Cohen. He also hosts the podcast Pitchfork Economics.Guido Alfani is a professor of economic history at Bocconi University in Milan, Italy. His latest book is As Gods Among Men: A History of the Rich in the West.

Our homes have been stripped of their essential humanity, says Leilani Farha, this year's CBC Massey Lecturer. Today housing has become a commodity — one fuelling the biggest industry in the world. In her lectures, Housing Inc.: A Global Takeover and Our Fight for Home, Farha calls on all of us to envision a new ideology for home — one rooted in dignity, humanity and law. “Home is required for human existence," says Farha, who served as a UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Housing from 2014 to 2020 and is now the global director of The Shift. She speaks with Nahlah Ayed about her 25 years fighting for housing as a human right, the conversation she hopes her Massey lectures will spark and why "home is really everything."

What happens when a human becomes intimately enmeshed with a chatbot? From people who’ve married their bots or who grieve their loved ones with the help of AI, host Victoria Hetherington (author of The Friend Machine) dives into the stories of the people who have invited these digital avatars into their hearts, minds, and even beds. And asks what do we gain and what do we stand to lose? Our intimacy, our resilience, even our grasp on reality? This latest season of Understood looks at who made the decisions that allowed chatbots to move way beyond digital assistants and into the most intimate parts of our lives.Understood takes you deep inside the seismic shifts reshaping our world right now. From online porn and crypto chaos to the rise of tech oligarchs, deepfake AI, and the broken promises of the internet.More episodes of Understood are available wherever you get your podcasts, and here: https://link.mgln.ai/AIxIdeas

Numbers get their due credit in this podcast. Even if we're not aware of them, numbers are essential to how we experience the world. IDEAS explores the most bizarre, surprising, mind-blowing and fundamental numbers in the universe.This panel discussion was recorded live at The Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario.Guests in this episode:Asimina Arvanitaki is a particle physicist and the aristarchus chair in theoretical physics at the Perimeter Institute.Ben Webster is an associate professor in the pure mathematics department at the University of Waterloo, and he’s also an associate faculty member at the Perimeter Institute.Matthew Johnson is a professor of physics and astronomy at York University, and he's also an associate faculty member at the Perimeter Institute.

Alexandria has been the source of invention, innovation, and beauty for millennia — capturing the imagination of Napoleon, the Prophet Muhammad and, of course, Alexander the Great. He envisioned a place that thrived on cultural, intellectual, economic, political and religious exchange. IDEAS examines the big ideas of this port city in Egypt with Islam Issa, author of Alexandria: The City That Changed the World.Part three in our ongoing series about how port cities shaped the world as we know it.Listen to Part Two: How port cities of Elmina shaped the worldListen to Part One: How port cities like Singapore shaped the world

If you inherited $120 million dollars, could you give away 75 per cent of your wealth? Abigail Disney did. She's an heiress to the Disney fortune. The philanthropist, filmmaker and activist offers an insider perspective into the twisted perils of extreme wealth — on society and the human psyche.Listen to more episodes in this series:Listen to Part One: How did we get here?Listen to Part Three: How oligarchs are taking over the world  Guest in this episode:Abigail E. Disney is an award-winning filmmaker, writer, philanthropist, and activist. Her films include The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales, the Emmy Award-winning The Armor of Light — both co-directed with Kathleen Hughes — and Pray the Devil Back to Hell. As a philanthropist and activist, she has championed peacebuilding, gender justice, and systemic cultural change.She is Chair and Co-Founder of Level Forward, an ecosystem of storytellers, entrepreneurs, and social change-makers dedicated to balancing artistic vision, social impact, and stakeholder return. She also founded Peace is Loud, a nonprofit that uses storytelling to advance social movements, and the Daphne Foundation, which supports organizations working for a more equitable, fair, and peaceful New York City.She is currently working on a book about wealth, power, and privilege.

Even if you aren't a fan of Frank L. Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, you know about the Tin man, the ruby red shoes and that the dog is named Toto. The classic story was an instant bestseller in 1900 and its popularity is still going strong with not one but a two-part prequel. For over 125 years, there have been derivative works of Oz, from Broadway musicals, films, comic books and more. IDEAS follows the proverbial yellow brick road to uncover how this seemingly simple story of friendship, self reliance and longing for home continues to speak to us. *This episode originally aired on Sept. 9, 2025.If this episode has left you curious about Matilda Joslyn Gage, the suffragist who was a big influence on Frank L. Baum's feminism, listen to this podcast. There's a reason you likely have never heard of her.

Ancient history just got an upgrade. Forget the ruins, empires and great thinkers of the Classical period and make way for escaped slaves, subversive pirates, and freethinking religious sects. These nonconformist communities rejected hierarchy and political order in favour of creating a more equitable society.Author, religious scholar and historian Christopher Zeichmann offers an alternative lens on the Greco-Roman era in his book called Radical Antiquity: Free Love Zoroastrians, Farming Pirates, and Ancient Uprisings.

North Korea is no place for evangelical Christians today. But when journalist Jonathan Cheng peeled back decades he found out Christianity is at the heart of the Kim family’s rise to power and continuing dynasty. Cheng has spent 15 years and two trips to North Korea to piece this all together. His book is called Korean Messiah.Jonathan Cheng is the China bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, and was previously the Korea bureau chief, running coverage of the Korean peninsula, including politics and society in both North and South Korea.

If you want to hear what a laughing rat sounds like this podcast is for you. From why the sound of laughter triggers us to join in, to how a laughing yoga class starts, to the difference between AHA and HAHA in science, IDEAS contributor Peter Brown takes us on a joyride to reveal the mystery of laugher. Will this podcast make you laugh? Most likely. But it's better than catching a cold. *This episode originally aired on Nov. 4, 2020.

Africa is a centre of world history — a fact that's been deliberately obscured, says journalist Howard W. French. In this talk based on his book, The Second Emancipation, he explores the surprisingly early seeds of 20th century Pan-African thought, and how Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana went from reluctant student to influential leader of a free Ghana.Howard W. French delivered the Black History Month lecture at University of Toronto's New College. French was is a former New York Times bureau chief based in Shanghai. He now teaches journalism at Columbia University and is also the author of Born in Blackness.

From Joan of Arc to Kim Kardashian, and Davy Crockett to Donald Trump, celebrity culture has deep and wide roots. Famous people who elicited Kardashian-level feelings of love and hate in the public were present centuries ago — long before screens and social media. Though, as we find out in this podcast, they all share similar qualities. *This episode originally aired on June 30, 2022.Irina Dumitrescu is a writer, co-host of the LRB podcast Encounters with Medieval Women, and a professor of Medieval English at the University of Bonn.Sharon Marcus is author of The Drama of Celebrity and the Orlando Harriman Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University.

Heated Rivalry, Love is Blind or Boyfriend on Demand all underline the global appetite for passionate swooning. But let’s not forget the source for all of it: the romance novel. It may have a reputation problem but sales in 2023 reached 39 million copies or romance fiction globally — ringing in at $1.5 billion dollars. The books and readership continue to evolve as popularity increases. What is it about romance novels that women are drawn to? Is it unhealthy escapism, harmless fun or a kind of opiate? IDEAS looks back to a 1992 episode called Paperback Love to understand the enduring acclaim of romance novels.

In the days before her medically-assisted death, journalist Elaine Dewar made it her mission to finish writing her book revealing ignored history. For more than three years, the author investigated how Canada's health care system cruelly mistreated Indigenous people — including forcing them to use segregated hospitals. Dewar's extensive research uncovers not only a shameful past, but that our collective obliviousness to it all was deliberately manufactured.

For thousands of years, estuaries were central to Indigenous agriculture on the West Coast. Then, when colonists arrived, they diked many of these ecosystems to create western farmland. Now, Cowichan Tribes is working with a group of scientists and conservationists to restore an estuary as an ecosystem and a food system — and the project has sparked an unexpected controversy. At the heart of the debate are two questions. What does agriculture really mean? And when the waters start to rise, do we work with them, or against them?This is the second and final part of this series, What the River Wants to Be. Listen to Part One.Guests in this podcast:Tom Reid is the West Coast Conservation Manager for the Nature Trust of BC.Jared Qwustenuxun Williams is a passionate traditional foods chef who works with elders and knowledge holders to keep traditional food practices alive. Dr. Jennifer Grenz is a Nlaka’pamux scholar and a member of the Siil'na'mut Ken Elliott is a Cowichan elder and plant knowledge keeper who has worked in habitat restoration for decades. With his wife, he runs Ken Elliott's Native Plant Nursery.Nava Sachs is a graduate student at UBC conducting research with the Indigenous Ecology Lab.Kim Lagimodiere is the acting Marine Projects Manager at the Lulumexun Lands and Natural Resources department of Cowichan Tribes. She is also the coordinator of the S-hwuhwa'us Thi'lut Kw'atl'kwa (Thunderbird Protecting the Ocean) program.Dr. Bethany Coulthard is the acting director at the Lulumexun Lands and Natural Resources department of Cowichan Tribes.Dr. Lenore Newman is the Director of the Food and Agriculture Institute at the University of the Fraser Valley. Erica Gies is the author of Water Always Wins: Thriving in an Age of Drought and Deluge and an independent journalist who covers water, climate change, critters, and more from Victoria, British Columbia, and San Francisco, California. 

It's safe to say right now the majority of us are feeling the pinch. Grocery and fuel prices are on the rise and the income gap between the wealthy, and everyone else, continues to grow. And yet, aside from the U.S., Canada is the strongest economy of the G7. A prosperous country doesn't necessarily translate to a fuller wallet for its citizens. Host Nahlah Ayed and panelists discuss how 'prosperity' should be defined and how that can be achieved.Guests in this episode:Hon. Lisa Raitt is a former Conservative cabinet minister, who now co-chairs the Canadian Coalition for a Better Future.Zita Cobb is a Fogo Island entrepreneur, founder of Shorefast which supports local economies and community development.Kaylie Tiessen is the chief economist at the Shield Institute.

A young generation of thinkers is trading in the bread and butter of social media branding — lifestyle, beauty, and consumption — for intellectual content. They focus on the big questions to help followers think about a world where they can't find jobs, are overloaded with debt, and see violence everywhere. It's the kind of education money can't buy.Guests in this episode:Isabella Segalovich (@interstellar_isabellar)Ahmad Sanhouri (@conflictechoes)Louisa Munch (@louisamunchtheory)

The Dirty Thirties might seem like the distant past but according to IDEAS contributor and professor Evan Fraser now is the time to heed the lessons about what worked to save farmers and agriculture. He argues the Dust Bowl should serve as a warning of compounding crises that lie ahead. But Fraser adds it also serves as a guide to solutions that could help us muddle through as the world lurches into another chapter of environmental, political and economic upheaval.Guests in this episode:Evan Fraser is a geography professor and director of Arrell Food Institute at the University of Guelph.Pamela Riney-Kehrberg is a distinguished professor of history at Iowa State University.Robert McLeman is a professor of geography and environmental studies at Wilfrid Laurier University.

What does an IDEAS producer do when he notices that shipwreck stories keep appearing in his life? He embarks on a journey to try and figure out what’s going on, why shipwrecks might be on people's minds. Matthew Lazin-Ryder dives into the history of shipwrecks — and how they are a constant metaphor in our lives. *This episode originally aired on Sept. 24, 2025. If you like this podcast, you might be interested in Matthew Lazin-Ryder's documentary The Never-ending Fall of Rome — a hole in time where he finds out politicians, activists, and intellectuals can dump any modern anxiety they wish.

Marsha Lederman is a child of Holocaust survivors. She lives with the fear that one day someone will take her and her son like the Nazis did with her parents and their parents. "This is ludicrous," she told herself many times. But then she saw how people celebrated the October 7th attacks and watched how antisemitism showed up in the circles she felt most at home.This spring to mark Holocaust Memorial Day, Lederman and child Holocaust survivor Jeanette Goldman shared their stories on Zoom at the University of Toronto's Regis College — an online event due to security reasons. They spoke about what true solidarity means today as antisemitism continues to rise in Canada. Lederman says: "We cannot allow antisemitism to stop us from speaking about antisemitism of all things."Guests in this episode:Jeanette Goldman is a retired federal judge and a child Holocaust survivor.Marsha Lederman is a journalist, daughter of Holocaust survivors, and author of Kiss the Red Stairs: The Holocaust Once Removed, and October 7th: Finding the Humanitarian Middle.Mary Jo Leddy is a Catholic theologian, author, activist, and founder of Romero House in Toronto.Bertha Yetman is a Regis College Alumnus, and organizer of “Remembering the Holocaust.”

Rome fell, because of... divorce. Or was it immigration? Maybe moral decay. IDEAS producer Matthew Lazin-Ryder explores the political history of 'the fall of Rome' — a hole in time where politicians, activists, and intellectuals can dump any modern anxiety they wish. *This episode originally aired on Jan. 11, 2024.

IDEAS is a place for people who like to think. We value curiosity and deep conversation. And we work hard to bring you the ideas that shape and re-shape our world. No topic is off-limits. New episodes drop Monday through Friday at 5 pm ET.