SHIFTHEADS: The Skies Over Thunder Bay Turned Burnt Orange

NEW - Fewer Mouths to Feed Means Smaller Steaks, Same Price

Populations are shrinking. Appetites are shrinking too, thanks to GLP-1 drugs. Food Professor Dr. Sylvain Charlebois lays out what happens when an entire industry built on more people eating more food suddenly has neither. Charlebois walks through the workaround already forming: smaller portions marketed as premium, priced the same as what they replaced. A four-ounce steak sized for someone on a weight loss drug, sold at what a full steak used to cost, is one version of where this goes if the industry defaults to old habits instead of rethinking who it's actually feeding. There's a harder question underneath it. When the person filling a cart with craft dinner to stretch a grocery budget gets left behind by an industry chasing a shrinking, wealthier customer, what does that split look like at checkout. Charlebois doesn't let the industry off easy on this one. Topics: GLP-1 drugs, grocery prices, food industry, calorie economy, demand chain management Originally aired on 2026-07-15

SHIFTHEADS: The Skies Over Thunder Bay Turned Burnt Orange

Ash falling from the sky. Homes smelling like campfires from the inside. A town called Collins evacuated by boat as flames closed in. This is what forest fire season actually looked like on the ground this year, told through the voices of the people who lived through it. The reporting pulls together on-the-ground accounts from across Ontario, including firsthand descriptions from Thunder Bay of skies turning burnt orange by mid-afternoon and temperatures swinging by ten degrees once the smoke rolled in at night. It also tracks the federal response as Ontario requested outside help fighting fires that outpaced the crews available to handle them. Then the numbers get stranger. This year's national fire count sits at a fraction of where it stood in 2011, and even further below decades before that. What that gap actually means, and why the smoke has felt this much worse anyway, gets laid out plainly. Topics: forest fires Canada, wildfire smoke, Thunder Bay, Ontario wildfires, wildfire statistics Originally aired on 2026-07-16

NEW - The Last Space Shuttle Flew the Same Year Vancouver Burned

NASA closed out thirty years of space shuttle missions the same year Vancouver's streets filled with flipped cars after a Stanley Cup Game 7 loss. 2011 packed in more than it gets credit for, and laying it side by side makes that obvious fast. Stephen Harper won a federal majority that spring. Jack Layton led the NDP into official opposition for the first time in the party's history months later. Meanwhile people were still sharing music through file-sharing sites that don't exist anymore, and an iPhone in Canada was still something not everyone had. One listener's message cuts through the nostalgia entirely: a stepson starting 25 months of chemo that year, treatment so severe it required two hip replacements afterward. He's cancer-free today, building a career as a sous chef, a reminder that behind every throwback year are real people who lived through it. Topics: 2011, space shuttle, Canadian politics, Vancouver riots, technology in 2011 Originally aired on 2026-07-16

NEW - Flying for Free Isn't Dead. It Just Got Harder

Four years of saving points. One redemption. And the taxes and fees still took a $900 bite out of a flight that was supposed to be free. That's the moment most people quietly give up on the whole idea. Patrick Sojka never did. He's built a specific combination of cards and programs that gets a flight to zero dollars, taxes and fees included, and it has nothing to do with hoarding points for years. It comes down to which two tools you pair, and most flyers only ever use one. There's also a fare-class habit almost nobody checks before booking, and it's costing people money in the exact opposite direction they'd expect. Sojka walks through both, live, with real numbers from real flights. Topics: flying for free, travel rewards, credit card points, Aeroplan, WestJet points Originally aired on 2026-07-16

Shiftheads - The Bridge Deal Where Nobody Gets Paid Until Debt Clears

A $6 billion bridge, a private partner, and a new rule that changes the usual math entirely: no profit until the debt gets repaid first. Tim Powers breaks down why this Gordie Howe Bridge deal reads differently than the profit-first agreements Canadians are used to seeing. Powers walks through the accounting sleight of hand that could reshape how the debt actually looks on paper, from asset valuation to depreciation, and why a complicated deal might work in the Prime Minister's favour by being hard to challenge in a soundbite. He argues political support around Windsor may shield the deal from serious pushback regardless of the fine print. The conversation also drifts back to 2011, when Jack Layton led the NDP into official opposition for the only time in the party's history, before cancer cut his tenure short within months. Powers reflects on what Canadian politics might look like today had Layton had more time. Topics: Gordie Howe bridge, Jack Layton, Stephen Harper, Canadian politics, infrastructure deals Originally aired on 2026-07-16