The Case for Small Wins on Canada Day Eve

The Case for Small Wins on Canada Day Eve

The show lands on Canada Day Eve with good news from three cities and a question worth sitting with: what if the most useful thing you can share today is something small? A first Colombian recipe attempt that smelled great. A bathroom renovation closing in on the finish line. A two-day work week that nobody asked for but everyone quietly needed. Then the cats versus dogs debate gets a full airing, with social media numbers, Google search results, Nyan Cat, and a three-legged orange cat named Spec who apparently acted like a dog. Listeners who are having a hard time finding their own good news today get a reminder that sometimes it helps to borrow someone else's for a few minutes. Topics: Good News Tuesday, cats versus dogs, Canada Day, home renovation, Colombian cooking Originally aired on 2026-06-30

NEW - Good News, a Loyal Dog, and a Cat With No Comment

The good news tonight comes in three flavors. A Phoenix school resource officer who rented a movie theater for kids who'd never been, then turned to the adults in the room and asked why they weren't doing the same. A dog named Daisy who walked out of a crash in BC's Okanagan, spent three days alone in the woods, and went back to the wreck to wait. And Larry the cat, who has outlasted another British prime minister and kept his job without being asked. The cats versus dogs loyalty debate runs underneath all of it, with texts coming in, Ryan O'Donnell promising to find a cat that waited for its owner, and nobody quite willing to call it. Listeners get three genuine good news stories and one argument that was never going to end cleanly. Topics: Good News Tuesday, dog loyalty, Larry the cat, school resource officer, Okanagan crash Originally aired on 2026-06-30

SHIFTHEADS: Why Cats Got a Bad Reputation (And Kept It)

Thirty percent of people don't like cats. Only five percent feel that way about dogs. Rod Phillips has spent years figuring out why, and the answer goes back further than most people expect. Phillips, a historian at Carleton University and author of Cats: A History, makes the case that cats haven't changed in thousands of years. What changed is what people decided they meant. The Middle Ages turned them into devil's accomplices. Walt Disney named his most famous cat Lucifer and went on record saying he didn't like cats because you can't tell them what to do. The bias didn't start there, but it stuck there. The conversation comes down to one distinction that reframes everything: dogs attach to people, cats attach to place. Once that lands, the grouchiness, the ignoring you, the walking away mid-eye-contact, all of it starts to make a different kind of sense. Topics: history of cats and humans, cat behaviour explained, cats versus dogs, medieval cats witchcraft, Rod Phillips Cats a History GUEST: Rod Phillips Originally aired on 2026-06-30

NEW - Why Newfoundland Starts Canada Day With the Dead

In Newfoundland, Canada Day doesn't begin with fireworks. It begins with Memorial Day and the memory of a generation of young men sent over the top at Beaumont-Hamel, France, one hundred and ten years ago tomorrow. The Royal Newfoundland Regiment numbered eight hundred going in. The field between the trenches was maybe three hundred meters wide. Most of them never made it across. This conversation puts that history into the present tense, from a new Danger Tree built by Memorial University engineers and installed at the battlefield on the eve of the anniversary, to the story of a Christmas Day truce when soldiers on both sides put down their rifles and played soccer in no man's land. It is heavy material for Canada Day Eve, and exactly the right kind. Topics: Memorial Day Newfoundland, Beaumont-Hamel, Danger Tree, Royal Newfoundland Regiment, Canada Day history GUEST: Tim Powers Originally aired on 2026-06-30

Shiftheads - Booze and Reviews: Three Canadian Movies. Three Canadian Drinks. Go!

Film critic Richard Crouse builds a Canada Day weekend watch list from the ground up: three Canadian films, each with a drink to match. Goon pairs with a Bloody Caesar, invented in Calgary in 1969 and consumed by Canadians over 400 million times a year. Richard walks through the recipe and the history, including why he draws the line at horseradish in the straw. A History of Violence, David Cronenberg's darkly violent Toronto-shot thriller starring Viggo Mortensen, gets the Toronto Cocktail: rye whiskey, Fernet Branca, maple syrup, Angostura bitters, and an orange twist expressed over an open flame. And Strange Brew, the Bob and Doug McKenzie classic about a mind control plot inside a brewery, gets the only drink that makes sense: a cold Canadian lager. Three movies, three drinks, one very Canadian long weekend. Topics: Canadian movies Canada Day, Booze and Reviews, Bloody Caesar cocktail, Goon film, Strange Brew GUEST: Richard Crouse | http://richardcrouse.ca [http://richardcrouse.ca] Originally aired on 2026-06-30