Health care is a strange animal. It's something that we Canadians seem to talk about almost constantly, and even when we aren't busy debating the policy merits of its funding levels every election cycle, judging by the steady stream of hit TV-shows that are set in hospitals, from House to Scrubs, there's something about the culture and practice of medicine that has us endlessly fascinated.

But despite all the interest, there's still an incredible amount most of us citizens don't know about the world of medicine. Not just in the science, but in the actually application of it. Sure, many of us have had the experience of going to the ER, or visiting a sick loved-one in a hospital room down a long fluorescent corridor, and yet, when we actually do experience these moments of direct interaction with the system, what goes on around us, and the reasons things occur, can seem completely baffling. What goes on behind those swinging doors? What are the doctors scribbling down? What is the rational that has us, or our family-members passed from one doctor to another?

There are more general issues too within health care we might ponder. Why are the wait times so long? Why is it that despite the best-attempts on the part of our provincial governments, health care costs keep climbing far above the rate of inflation, and all to maintain seemingly the same level of service?

Well fortunately for those of us who have found ourselves flummoxed by these and other questions, we have Dr. Brian Goldman, and the show he hosts White Coat, Black Art.

Airing on CBC Radio One since 2007, White Coat Black Art, delves into this opaque world, demystifies the culture and practice of medicine, and examines some of the debates and issues occurring within the profession today.

In everything from the impacts of the long-hours residents are forced to work, and cases of patient-directed racism in the ER, to the fear of making mistakes as a physician, White Coat is an engaging journey into an area that, like it or not, almost all of us will interact with at some point in our lives, likely spending our final days navigating its bureaucratic and professional embrace.

In addition to hosting White Coat, Black Art, Dr. Brian Goldman can also be heard explaining the latest in health news and science as the resident house doctor on CBC Radio One drive-home programs across the country. He has also found time to author two best-selling books, The Night Shift: Real Life in the Heart of the ER, and most recently The Secret Language of Doctors.

I phoned Dr. Brian Goldman to speak with him about his beginnings in medicine, his path into becoming one Canada's best known health journalists, and to ask him about what he sees as some of the most pressing issues within the medical profession today.

Listen to our interview below or click here: 

 If prestige is taken to be a combination of longevity and high standing, then there’s a good argument to be made that CBC Ideas might just be the most prestigious radio program on the Canadian airwaves. Not only is it one of the longest running programs on CBC Radio – a distinction in which it’s second only to Cross Country Check-up- it is also somewhat of a metaphorical cathedral of public broadcasting in Canada -   the most public of public radio shows if you will. While no program on CBC radio could be dreamed of being produced for profit, CBC Ideas is one that definitely could not be, and like our national parks and libraries, I mean this in the best possible sense. 

Airing weeknights at 9pm Ideas is a university of the airwaves of sorts, and the act of listening could be compared to taking a well-rounded survey course. Using a combination of long-form documentary storytelling, and interviews,  Ideas explores topics which truly run the gamut - from history, and science, to culture, sports, the environment, from Aristotle to Twitter, from poverty to depression - and through it all Ideas makes connections, examines the world around us, and contemplates the big questions.

The program has certainly been around for an impressive length of time - in fact 2015 will mark Ideas 50th anniversary on the air. The show originally premiered in 1965 under the title “The Best Ideas You’ll Hear Tonight” and at the time, a CBC magazine summed up the show aptly as “a series prepared for people who just enjoy thinking.”  It's a description that still holds true today.

Since its founding Ideas has also played home to the Massey Lectures, the legendary lecture series which has served as a platform for some most influential minds of the age to meditate on issues of contemporary humanity, including the likes of Martin Luther King Jr., Doris Lessing, Jane Jacobs, and John Kenneth Galbraith. You can listen to theentire archive of the Massey Lectures online, and I highly recommend you check them out- they're truly a treasure trove of intellectual stimulation

The show has been hosted by Paul Kennedy since 1999, which by itself is a long run. But Kennedy's connection to the program goes back two decades further to 1977 when he first made a documentary for the program called The Fur Trade Revisited.

Paul Kennedy has called Ideas "the core curriculum of contemporary culture", and I think that’s a very good summary.  I spoke to Paul Kennedy at our studio at CIUT. From how he started at the CBC to an ill-fated canoe adventure down the Mackenzie river, it was a wide-ranging and enjoyable conversation. Listen to our interview below:

One of the central points that has come up in this series – and that has been addressed in a number of the interviews - is that the crisis currently facing the CBC is really two-fold. Yes, it’s about funding, and the repeated budget cuts that have left the CBC short staffed, spread out, and unable to produce the same level of programming it once could. But more generally it’s also due to a loss of philosophy, the guiding sense of what at the end of the day, public broadcasting is all about.

This is true both within the confines of the CBC and for us as a country. Why does the CBC exist? What should its central role be? Is it to attract as many viewers and listeners as possible, or to examine the issues confronting us as citizens? Is it a mix? Whatever your stance, the idea of what the CBC is all about, has become rather muddled over the decades.  

This problem of purpose hasn’t just been occurring in the public sphere either. Take our newspapers and private broadcasters. What were once seen as businesses yes, but different types of businesses - ones which came with responsibilities of public interest - have now in almost every case become merely one part of much larger corporate conglomerates. And in the process, the sense of journalism and media as having greater social responsibilities has largely been lost to the dictates of profit. 

That all of this should happen in an era when arguably it is more important than ever that we have public forums to explore the major issues confronting us as a society -  from climate change and internet surveillance to growing economic inequality - makes the diminishing of these public forums all the more problematic. To paraphrase David Suzuki, how are we as Canadians supposed to deal with the issues we’re facing if we don’t have a forum through which we can explore them?

In this context, Jeffrey Dvorkin has an interesting vantage point from which to examine the problems facing the CBC and to think about the role of public broadcasting. He’s spent his life in broadcasting and has held senior positions at both the CBC and at National Public Radio (NPR) in the United States. For a number of years he was a Managing Editor and Chief Journalist for CBC Radio in Toronto before he moved to America to work for NPR, first as the Vice-President of News and Information, and then as NPR's Ombudsman.

Jeffrey Dvorkin now heads the journalism program at The University of Toronto Scarborough campus, and frequently comments on media issues.

As you’ll hear in our interview, he has some interesting suggestions based on his time with NPR, (and seeing how they dealt with similar challenges) of how the CBC could be potentially re-imagined, both in terms of its funding model, and in how it goes about serving the Canadian public.

Hope you enjoy it. He’s my conversation with Jeffrey Dvorkin. Listen below!

At some point in our lives, most of us have had the unpleasant experience of  having to awake at an excessively early hour of the morning, one that radically departs from our more comfortable routine. It might be to catch a flight, or during a busy time at work, or to go on that promised jog - but whatever the reason, when this groggy inducing torture is inflicted upon us we often can be heard complaining of it being an ungodly hour to be up. "It's uncivilized to be up this early!" we cry. "One simply isn't meant to be up at this time!"

And if this is true for those dreary eyed 5:30am wake up calls, then 3:30am might just be the most ungodliest hour of them all. It's an inconceivable hour to be waking up; a time that represents the very depths of night. An hour so perfectly wedged between being an extremely late night out, or unthinkably earnestly start, that even a city as bustling as Toronto can seem eerily quiet and calm in even its busiest corners. 

But each weekday morning,  3:30am is precisely the ungodly hour that Matt Galloway's alarm goes off. And not long after, once he's finished his short morning routine, he'll gentle close the door of his Toronto home, mount his bike, and ride off in quiet blackness of 4 am as the rest of the city sleeps soundly in their beds.

However, as many Toronto residents will know, the reason Galloway subjects himself to a routine that for most of us would constitute self-inflicted torture, is because of the unique and important role he plays (along with his fellow CBC producers) in the life of  Toronto. For when 5:30am rolls around, Matt Galloway will hit the airwaves across the GTA, as the host of CBC Toronto's morning drive program Metro Morning. And once that ON AIR light goes on, for the next 3 hours, in-between newscasts, traffic & weather updates, tens of thousands of Torontonians will wake up to the sound of his voice, and Metro Morning, in order to connect with the news, politics, events, culture, and debates of the day in Canada's biggest city.

It's an early morning mission I certainty appreciate. Because the reason I have such an earnest belief in the idea of the CBC, is that for me it's a primary way I've stayed in touch with, and have felt connected with the issues, culture, arts, and diverse people of this country. It's how I've learned of the debates facing us as a country, heard of new up & coming bands, been exposed to big ideas, and kept abreast of world events. And what the CBC does for Canada, Metro Morning does for Toronto. It is a microcosm of what makes public broadcasting such a priceless cultural and social resource for the fabric of a community, and the CBC for Canada as a country.

As they put it succinctly on their website, "Metro Morning is Toronto - its face, places, voices and stories." And to that end, each day Matt Galloway will speak to up to a dozen guests, from local politicians, and journalists, to artists, and bring Torontonians what they need to know about life in the city, that day, that week, and that year.

One morning a few months ago, after Metro Morning was off the air for the day, I peddled down to the CBC myself (at a decidedly more godly hour) to speak to Matt Galloway about his love for Toronto, how Metro Morning comes together each, day and what it's like to be the connecting point for life in Canada's biggest city.

Mark Starowicz may not be a household name, at least not in the manner that the public faces of CBC programs such as Shelagh Rogers and Jian Ghomeshi are, but if you've ever watched, listened to, and enjoyed the current affairs programs of CBC radio and television, then you've almost certainly encountered the work and vision of Mark Starowicz.

Starowicz currently heads the documentary unit at CBC television, a position he's held since 1992, and through that role he has been the guiding mind behind some of the most audacious and memorable series that the public broadcaster has produced. To pick two examples, he was the tour of force behind the incredibly ambitious 32-part historical series Canada: A People's History as well as the Greatest Canadian contest which in 2004 saw Tommy Douglas named as the 'Greatest Canadian'  by viewers across the country.

But the impact he's made on the CBC goes far beyond that. Indeed, although it seems rather incredible in retrospect, Mark Starowicz was only a young man in his early 20's when he was tasked (along with a few others) with reshaping As It Happens, and in the process essentially made it into the program we know today.

From there he went on to help create, and then produce, the legendary radio program Sunday Morning, in which he was the guiding light for a young producer named Stuart McLean ("He demanded excellence", McLean recalls of his time at Sunday morning working with Starowicz).  And then in the early 1980's, Starowicz moved to television, where he steered a major revamping of the broadcaster's nightly news lineup, and oversaw the creation of the celebrated news magazine program The Journal.

Behind it all Starowicz is, as you'll hear in the interview, extremely passionate about the  history, philosophy and importance of public broadcasting and the role that it serves in Canadian society.

Over the summer I sat down with Mark Starowicz in a room high up inside the CBC Broadcast Centre in Toronto, to ask him about his early interest in the media, his beginnings with CBC radio, as well as to get his thoughts on the past, present, and future of public broadcasting in this country. As he says in the interview, quoting Graham Spry who is largely considered the founder of  Canadian public broadcasting "Every single generation is going to have to re-fight the battle for public broadcasting in this country... and it's our time."

While not a new epiphany, clearly one of the most incredible things about the era we live in is our changing technology. And not just how rapid technological change has become, but the accelerating rate in which each subsequent wave in technological advancement ripples through society, and becomes commonplace in our lives.

When the latest innovation comes out, there is a flurry of excitement by the press and early adopters, and before long, without us reckoning with the implications, the new device or capability has permeated through society, often utterly transforming how we function day-to-day.

Indeed, our society has become so saturated with relatively new inventions that it is now actually difficult for many of us to imagine how life worked without not only things like the internet and laptops - those by now seem vaguely quaint - but even gadgets like iPads, our Facebook accounts and smartphones, devices that hardly existed in a mainstream fashion as recently as 5-10 years ago. And now, if our smart phone battery dies, or we forget it at home, for many of us there can a sensation verging on a sense of panic. This is not just because of the addictive qualities of these devices, but because we have come to rely on them in almost every facet of our lives, from our entertainment during our commutes, to how we connect to friends and work, and plan our days.

Because these changes have become so impossibly rapid, it’s easy to lose sight of just how much of an impact, how transformational these tools are on our lives and our worlds. And no wonder - we hardly have time to slow down and contemplate the consequences, benefits and drawbacks of each one. But perhaps we should stop to ponder, and ask some bigger questions, because with  the good and glitzy, also comes the bad, the complex, and the unknown. 

Thankfully for us, Nora Young has been fascinated for years about the cultural implications of our evolving technology, and as the host and creator of the CBC radio program Spark now in its 7th season,  she has been our guide to grappling with these questions, and reflecting on life in the 21st century.

Spark flips things around, and poses those largely unasked questions of not merely how we are changing our technology, but how our technology is changing us - in everything from how online dating and texting is influencing the nature of our love lives, to the ramifications of us never not being stimulated by our phones, or devices, and having the chance to truly daydream.    

Before coming to Spark Nora Young also was the founding host of Definitely Not The Opera on CBC radio 1 from 1994 to 2002.  I spoke to Nora, at SPARK HQ at CBC Toronto. And many thanks to fellow Spark producer Dan Misener for recording the interview. 

As always, you can subscribe to our podcast in iTunes or through our RSS feed. 

If there's definitely one thing Rich Terfry is not, it is one sided. As the host of CBC Radio 2's afternoon music program Drive, not only does Rich have a full time gig as a CBC broadcaster, each weekday bringing an eclectic mix of music and stories to Canadians across the country, but of course he is also the incredibly talented and prolific hip-hop musician Buck 65. 

One full time job is more than enough for most of us to handle, but since he began hosting Drive in 2008, Rich has managed to not only release several well-received musical albums (including 2011's excellent 20 Odd Years), tour, and perform regularly, but he even found the time to write a book of stories from his life, a project that's slated to be published later in 2014. (For an idea of his talent for storytelling, just read some of his captivating  posts on Facebook)

Growing up in Mount Uniake, a small town in rural Nova Scotia, from a young age Rich was drawn to the arts. But it wasn't until a budding and promising career in baseball came crashing down (the result of an unfortunate break and a few injuries), that he really turned to music as a potential career and full-time outlet. It is a pursuit that he has devoted himself to for now over two decades, and it's seen him tour the world, be lauded by Radiohead, release some 20 records, and collaborate with a huge array of Canada's best known artists, including the likes of Feist, Gord Downie, and Jenn Grant.

As you'll hear in the interview, Rich is a compelling storyteller, full of amazing anecdotes from his life, and is tremendously honest with his experiences. During our conversation he speaks about his early - and mostly secret - infatuation with the arts growing up, his beginnings as a musician during the Halifax-pop explosion of the 1990s, and some of the exhilarating ups, and heartbreaking downs that he's faced over his multifaceted career as a musician and broadcaster.

Hope you enjoy it. Listen to our interview with Rich Terfry below, and remember to hear all of our interviews simply subscribe to our podcast in iTunes.

If you follow news around the CBC or have been listening to this series, you’ll know that these are exceptionally uncertain times for Canada’s Public Broadcaster.

After decades of being whittled away by budget cuts under successive Liberal and Conservative governments, the corporation has become so threadbare that when it was cut by an additional $115 million a year in 2012, it was forced to shutter bureau’s, cancel shows, and even introduce ads on CBC Radio Two, something that many say endangers the very spirit of public radio in this country.

Add to that the loss of NHL hockey broadcast rights to Rogers on the television side, and the gap in both prime-time programming and revenue that will follow as a result, and things have never been more bleak for the CBC - a distressing reality for those of us who care about public media, and feel that the CBC plays an invaluable role in this country as one of the few spaces we have as citizens to discuss the ideas, debates, and questions confronting us as a country.

But as the adage goes, in crisis lies opportunity, and that is certainly the belief of  Wade Rowland, the author of a short, and passionately persuasive book, called Saving the CBC.

And that title ‘Saving the CBC’ is not meant as an exaggeration, or metaphor, but rather an accurate description of just how high the stakes have become. Rowland believes that it is no longer a matter of decades,  but mere months, that will determine whether the CBC is around in anything more than name in Canadian society. 

Already one of the central tenants and predictions of Rowland’s book, that the CBC will likely lose NHL rights to one of its giant and enormously profitable private sector competitors, has come true. But though worrying, for Rowland this loss also present an opportunity for the CBC to re-think and re-focus on its mandate as a public broadcaster and the role it should serve in Canadian society.   

The book cogently lays out the context and factors behind the dire straights that the CBC currently finds itself in, and while the picture is certainly grim, the book also offers hope - that the CBC can once again become a true public service broadcaster, and serve as an invaluable social and cultural institution  for future generations of Canadians. Or at least it can if Canadians, who care about the CBC and believe in public broadcasting, seize this opportunity and mobilize to make their voices heard.

Wade Rowland spent decades in the broadcasting field himself, and held senior positions at both CTV, as well as the CBC -  where he was a senior executive in the network’s television news division. 

You can find his book Saving the CBC here, or visit his website for more articles he's written on the CBC and public broadcasting.

I spoke to Wade Rowland at the CIUT studios in Hart House at the University of Toronto. And just a note, the interview was originally recorded in August, before the NHL rights were awarded Rogers, which is why in the interview it’s still an open question. 

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" that is how Chris Boyce - Executive Director of Radio & Audio at CBC English -  puts it when asked to describe the outlook of Canadian public broadcasting and specifically CBC Radio at the moment.

It is certainly a succinct way to capture what is in many respects a picture of extremes at Canada's public broadcaster. On one hand, things are looking better than ever for the Mother Corp. In terms of engagement, CBC radio is actually enjoying the largest share of audience it has had at almost anytime in its history, and with programs such as Q doing so well both across Canada and even south of the border, more people than ever are interacting with and listening to the content of CBC radio. On the programming side, things have been so strong that the CBC was even honoured this year with the Broadcaster of the Year Award at the prestigious New York Festivals International Radio Awards.

And yet, at the same time, the CBC is also facing what is one its bleakest periods in its over 75 year history. In the 2012 Federal Budget, the CBC was singled out for some of the harshest cuts of all government departments, and its annual appropriation was slashed by 11% or $115 million a year. The move forced the thread-bare corporation (which was already the second lowest funded public broadcaster of any industrialized nation in the world) to cancel shows (such as Dispatches), lay off staff, close departments, and perhaps most worrisome of all, introduce ads on CBC radio 2.

CBC radio has been ad free for the past 40 years, and the fact that the move is expected to only raise approximately $10 million a year, shows just how desperate things financially have become at the CBC- there's simply no where left to cut.

Thankfully if anyone can give Canadians insight into this complex picture and of good and bad news at CBC radio and speak to the challenges CBC is facing, it would be Chris Boyce, who oversees both programming and administration at CBC Radio and Audio.

Before taking on his current role as Executive Director, Chris Boyce spent several years as the head of Program Development at CBC Radio, and during that time played a key role in the creation of such notable and long-lasting programs as Wiretap, Q, Spark, and The Age of Persuasion.

I spoke to Chris Boyce about his life in broadcasting, the current state of CBC Radio, the effects of the budget cuts, and the difficult decision to introduce ads on CBC Radio Two. Listen here:

Ever since he emerged in the national consciousness in the early 1990s with a series of one-man stage shows and his role on This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Rick Mercer has been delighting Canadians and keeping us laughing with his quick wit, playful demeanour and his bitingly satirical take on the Canadian political system.

In fact, it’s almost hard to fathom given his primary comedic fuel is politics (not exactly the sexiest of topics) but Rick Mercer might just be the closest thing we have in Canada to a truly home grown celebrity: someone who is known and beloved by millions of Canadians from coast to coast to coast, but who has never sought-out fame elsewhere and who – asides from a spate of coverage in the U.S. press following the run away success of his Talking To Americans special in 2001 - is relatively unknown outside of the country.

His program, the Rick Mercer Report on CBC Television, in which he gets into improbable adventures, meets remarkable and eccentric characters from all across our country, pokes fun at the politics of the day, and delivers his trademark rant, is now in its 11th season and regularly draws in more than a million viewers an episode. In fact, The Rick Mercer Report is consistently the most watched Canadian comedic series on television.

And although he uses politics as his primary source for humour, it is also something (as comes through in his rants) that he cares deeply about. With a level of earnestness that almost comes as a surprise, Rick wants Canadians to be more actively engaged with the politics of our land. But as one might expect his life also contains no shortage of  outlandish but seemingly fitting anecdotes - including the fact that while he was the student council president of his high school outside of St. John's Newfoundland, he never ended up graduating with his diploma.  

In our interview Rick sheds light on his formative years  growing up in Newfoundland, how his keen and early interest in politics developed, his thoughts on the role of satire in a democracy, and why he considers the current crackdown on science by the Conservative government so pernicious.

Listen to the interview here, or subscribe to the podcast in iTunes!