On May 1st the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion will begin commercial operations.  It marks the end of a 12 year saga that included protests, legal challenges and the purchase of the pipeline itself by the federal government.  When Ottawa stepped in to buy TMX six years ago, it had an estimated price tag of $7.4 billion dollars. Today the cost has grown to $34 billion dollars.  As the polarizing project nears the finish line, CBC producer Allison Dempster visits communities along the...

Mary Kajumba needed money to make a better life for her daughter. So, with the help of a placement agency she left her home in Uganda, and went to Iraq where she got a job as a restaurant cleaner. It wasn’t long after she realised she was in trouble. Mary says she found herself working 18 hour days, sharing cramped accommodation with 30 other workers and never getting paid.  But then, help came from an unexpected place. Voice memos, from a man in Vancouver who was working for an anti...

Over the past near-century, Academy Award categories have come and gone. In the silent film era there was an award for Best Title Writing. You know, the written cards that summarized the “dialogue”? Oscar worthy.  This year’s 96th Academy Awards broadcast saw Oscars handed out in a whopping 23 different categories, from the big wins like Best Picture, to awards for behind-the-scenes expertise in costuming and score. But one group of people thinks there should be yet another added to that...

On October 23rd, 2023 Bob Hallaert, a man with a history of intimate partner violence, shot and killed Angie Sweeney days after she broke up with him. They’d been together for about three years.  What happened that day didn’t just shatter the Sweeney family, it shattered Sault Ste Marie. And many believe what happened to Angie could have been stopped.  Intimate Partner Violence is at a record high in Canada. On average, a woman is killed by an intimate partner every six days in this...

Public washrooms are few and far between in Canada. When nature calls, it’s often a scramble to find a coffee shop or mall restroom that's accessible. In Montreal this is certainly the case, but it wasn’t always so. The city used to boast a decent network of public washrooms, constructed before the Second World War. Where did they go? And why, to this day, do we have so few public washrooms in Canada? On this week's Storylines, CBC Montreal's Ainslie MacLellan uncovers the answers. This...

In 2014, Shams Erfan was pulled off a bus by members of the Taliban who accused him of being a traitor. A bystander intervened, saving his life, but Shams knew he was no longer safe in Afghanistan.  This threat set Shams on a treacherous 8-year journey. He hoped to find a safe haven in Indonesia. Instead, he spent years stuck in a refugee prison camp. When he finally reached Canada, Shams vowed to help bring others like himself to safety—and he found the people who could help him do it.  On...

When Russia invaded Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy put out a call to foreigners with combat experience to come and help. Paul Hughes, a former marksman and paratrooper with Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, went.  Paul has been in Ukraine ever since, where he founded HUGS: Helping Ukraine, Grass Roots Support. Run out of a garage through donations and volunteers, HUGS mostly helps fix army vehicles and distribute food and supplies to Ukrainians. But when Paul got a call...

24 Sussex Drive. That Ottawa address has been the official residence for the prime minister since the 1950s, but Canada’s current one doesn’t live there because the house is in disrepair.  Workers have already removed  asbestos, mould and rodents, but it’s estimated it will cost millions more to make the building habitable—and secure. Critics call the languishing home an “embarrassment” to a G7 nation. And so far, no politician has been willing to make the decision to either fix it or tear...

It’s been 12 years since Widlene has seen her son. She had to leave the little boy in Haiti with family after she was targeted by gang members. The plan was to get out, find somewhere safe, make a home there, and have her son join her. So when she was granted asylum in Canada, Widlene believed her fight would be over.  Instead, it was only just beginning. Asylum seekers are supposed to be able to bring their dependent children to Canada once their claim has been approved. But critics say...

You might associate sommeliers (wine experts) with fancy restaurants and snooty attitudes, but Canada’s Best Sommelier is as likely to be found traipsing the backwoods in steel toed boots and a cowboy hat, as in a MICHELIN starred restaurant in a three piece suit.  It all depends on what he’s up to: is he harvesting maple syrup at the sugar shack he runs with his family? Or is he representing Canada as he competes for the title of World’s Best Sommelier in Paris?  This week on Storylines,...

The Great Bear Rainforest on BC’s coast is a spectacular place. Rugged mountains and old growth forests stretch all the way to Alaska. It was here that nearly a decade ago a group of coastal First Nations decided to halt most of the logging in their territories. And in the areas where they did log, they would do it differently. But ten years on the plan hasn’t gone quite as expected… And it’s left the First Nations with a difficult question: can they sustain sustainable logging?

Not long after Russian troops invaded Ukraine, Sasha Skochilenko walked into a grocery store in St. Petersburg, Russia. She reached into the pocket of her puffy winter coat, and pulled out a sheet of sticker price tags where she’d printed information she was learning about the war. Information she wasn’t getting from Russian state media. She placed the tags on a few shelves, and left. But these small tags were about to change the trajectory of Sasha's life. On this week's Storylines, Julia...

For years, thousands of kids with roots in Canada, the U.K., the U.S. and beyond lived under the Islamic State’s so-called caliphate. Some were taken there by their parents. Others were born there. But after the war against the Islamic State was won, many of these children still remain in limbo. They wait in detention camps, run by the group which helped defeat ISIS – the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. On this week's Storylines, four years after the fall of the Islamic State, Poonam...

The federal government estimates that on average 27 people a day in this country are diagnosed with brain tumours. Among the most aggressive is Glioblastoma (GBM). According to Brain Cancer Canada, people with GBM have a life expectancy of 15-18 months. So when David Cormican was told that his father’s tumor was the “size of a baseball” the family started looking for something—anything—that would extend Michael’s life. That’s how they joined the thousands of Canadian families who go abroad,...

Is Newfoundland and Labrador English dying? No b’y, but it is changing! From dropping an 'h' to adding an 's', Newfoundland and Labrador accents are among the most recognizable regional accents in Canada. But while some features of those accents may be in decline, linguist Paul De Decker says younger generations are finding creative ways to keep them alive. On this week's Storylines, Caroline Hillier sets out on a talking tour of Newfoundland and Labrador to find out how the accent is...

Is Newfoundland and Labrador English dying? No b’y, but it is changing! From dropping an 'h' to adding an 's', the Newfoundland and Labrador accents are among the most recognizable regional accents in Canada. But while some features of those accents may be in decline, linguist Paul De Decker says younger generations are finding creative ways to keep them alive. On this week's Storylines, Caroline Hillier sets out on a talking tour of Newfoundland and Labrador to find out how the accent is...

The Marefat School in Kabul, Afghanistan earned an international reputation for being a place where democracy, freedom, and education could flourish. But when the Taliban took over the country in August 2021, many of the female teachers and students had to flee for their lives. On this week's Storylines, Leisha Grebinski follows the harrowing story of Maryam Masoomi a music teacher who—with the assistance of a small human rights group called 30 Birds—fought to get her students to safety.

Green burials are a growing trend in after death planning. On this week's Storylines, Caroline Hiller visits graveyards across the country, exploring how some people are reducing their carbon footprint from beyond the grave.

In 2016, Adrian Ma received a truly thoughtful gift from his uncle. A gift he proceeded to put in his closet where it remained for the next seven years. It was a bottle of The Glenlivet Special Jubilee Reserve—a rare scotch whisky that sells for upwards of $3000. Adrian is a whisky guy… but this is, by an almost absurd degree, the most expensive bottle of booze in his collection. That’s exactly why he’s so frozen on what to do with it. Should he sell it? Or keep it in his closet...

For Kent Hoffman it was a surreal delight to produce an interview with the famed American mentalist 'The Amazing Kreskin'. But what really surprised Kent was when a few months later he received a Christmas card from Kreskin. And another Christmas card the next year... and the year after that…. and every Christmas since. It turns out that Kreskin sends out thousands of holiday cards, every year, to people he hasn’t spoken to in decades. On this week’s Storylines, Kent seeks out other...

A two-part episode following Canadians desperate to get their families out of Gaza. PART 1. A decade ago in Gaza, Mohammed Fayad worked for the UN in the education and IT departments. He fled Gaza as a refugee bound for Indonesia, but had to leave his family behind. Years ticked by and he watched his kids grow up through videos. His ex-wife, the kids’ mother, eventually had to flee too. So the kids came under the care of Mohammed’s brother. Then finally, just over a year and a half ago,...

It’s fairly well known that some Canadians fought with the American armed forces in Vietnam, but fewer know about Canada’s official peacekeeping role there. But between 1954 and 1973, close to 2000 Canadians went to Vietnam to observe and safeguard peace accords. Erin Moore’s grandfather, Doug, was one of them. He wrote dozens of letters home documenting the realities of the war. Erin still has his letters. They reveal a demanding and at times impossible mission, being carried out by young...

As a family physician, Dr. Melissa Lem knew she couldn't stay silent on the health dangers of climate change. But when she spoke out against the use of fossil fuels, the backlash was more vitriolic and personal than she ever expected. She's not alone. From death threats to sexual intimidation and sinister phone calls, Dr. Melissa Lem, Tzeporah Berman, and Judy Wilson have paid a high cost for their climate advocacy work. It’s a trend that has alarmed human rights organizations like...

Over more than half a century, Canada welcomed close to 3,000 South Korean children, orphans, to be adopted by Canadian families. But new information is emerging that those adoptions aren’t all that the Canadian government – or adoptive families – thought they were. Journalist Priscilla Ki-Sun Hwang investigates the stories of adoptees Kelly Foston and Kim McKay.