The Current
CBC Podcasts & Radio On-Demand
Three stories to expand your worldview, delivered daily. Matt Galloway cuts through a sea of choice to bring you stories that transcend the news cycle. Conversations with big thinkers, household names, and people living the news. An antidote to algorithms that cater to what you already know — and a meeting place for diverse perspectives. In its 20 years, the Current has become a go-to place for stories that shape and entertain us. Released daily, Monday to Friday.
The Current is produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada — and has recently recorded live shows about the Canadian election in Surrey and Burnaby BC. And shows to come in Oshawa and the 905, Red Deer, Alberta, Quebec City and Halifax.
Location:
Canada, ON
Networks:
CBC Podcasts & Radio On-Demand
Description:
Three stories to expand your worldview, delivered daily. Matt Galloway cuts through a sea of choice to bring you stories that transcend the news cycle. Conversations with big thinkers, household names, and people living the news. An antidote to algorithms that cater to what you already know — and a meeting place for diverse perspectives. In its 20 years, the Current has become a go-to place for stories that shape and entertain us. Released daily, Monday to Friday. The Current is produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada — and has recently recorded live shows about the Canadian election in Surrey and Burnaby BC. And shows to come in Oshawa and the 905, Red Deer, Alberta, Quebec City and Halifax.
Twitter:
@TheCurrentCBC
Language:
English
Contact:
The Current CBC Radio P.O. Box 500 Station A Toronto, ON Canada, M5W 1E6 (877) 287-7366
Email:
thecurrent@cbc.ca
Episodes
How two parasites are threatening PEI’s oyster industry
11/17/2025
Oyster farmers on Prince Edward Island are stressed. Many have been pulling up more and more dead oysters in their catches. Two parasites are threatening the species and farmers are calling on the federal government for help. We talk to Justin Palmer, the co-owner of JP Oysters near Tyne Valley, PEI.
Duration:00:08:26
Where are we in the fight against climate change?
11/17/2025
We’re in the last week of the climate summit in Brazil, where misinformation and disinformation are a key focus of the conference. It comes against the backdrop of the grim forecast that emissions are not going down quickly enough to avoid climate disaster. We talk to Katharine Hayhoe, Canadian climate scientist and professor in the Department of Political Science at Texas Tech University, about the moment we're in right now in the fight against climate change and whether people are disengaging from the issue.
Duration:00:16:20
Will the Liberals get enough votes to pass the budget?
11/17/2025
Our national affairs panel breaks down today's big vote in the House of Commons: With the Conservatives, Bloc Quebecois and NDP all finding reasons to vote it down, is there a risk this government falls and the country is thrust into another election? Plus, the Prime Minister will hold a call with Canada's premiers who are pressing for more details about the halted Canada-U.S. trade negotiations. We sift through it all with CBC's Chief Political Correspondent Rosemary Barton, Stephanie Levitz of the Globe and Mail and Ryan Tumilty of the Toronto Star.
Duration:00:19:42
John Irving on the power of reading
11/17/2025
Because of Donald Trump, John Irving, the bestselling author is refusing to go to the United States to promote his latest novel, Queen Esther — but he thinks you should read it so you can understand and empathize with the plight of others
Duration:00:24:42
Robert Munsch’s donates personal archive to Guelph library
11/14/2025
Children's author Robert Munsch is donating his personal archive to his hometown library because he doesn't want it stored in some dusty room. He wants the public to get their hands on it, says Guelph Public Library CEO Dan Atkins.
Duration:00:10:51
Fareed Zakaria on MAGA, Trump and backlash politics
11/14/2025
The host of Fareed Zakaria GPS has a theory about the MAGA movement — it was probably inevitable. In his book Age of Revolutions, he argues that the kind of rapid technological and social change we’ve been experiencing over the past 30 years almost always leads to backlash. He spoke to Matt Galloway in front of a live audience at the Rotman School of Management.
Duration:00:46:15
Can Mark Carney balance Canada’s economy and climate goals?
11/14/2025
As the prime minister unveils Ottawa's second list of “nation-building” projects, he continues to signal the direction he wants Canada to take when it comes to boosting the economy and meeting climate commitments.
Duration:00:19:39
Gen Z wants you to know where they are
11/13/2025
Hannah Alper spent much of her teenage and young adult life sharing her location with her friends. But as the years went on, she began to feel it crossed a line and felt more like surveillance than it felt like a kind of care.
Duration:00:10:46
Pressure on the White House to release full Epstein files
11/13/2025
House Democrats released emails from the convicted sex offender, shining a new light onto the relationship he had with President Donald Trump. The BBC’s North America Correspondent and co-host of the Americast podcast Anthony Zurcher joins Matt Galloway to talk about what’s in the emails and the pressure building on the White House to release the full Epstein files
Duration:00:13:39
How a luxury hotel in Afghanistan tells the story of a nation
11/13/2025
Lyse Doucet, Canadian journalist and the BBC's Chief International Correspondent, takes us inside the Intercontinental Hotel in her new book: The Finest Hotel in Kabul, A People's History of Afghanistan.
The hotel is an Afghan landmark that has seen every chapter in the country's history, and so has its staff. She explains why their stories matter, what they teach us about the country -- and how she hopes these kinds of narratives can help the rest of the world care about Afghanistan.
Duration:00:25:09
Three Conservatives reflect on Pierre Poilievre not reflecting
11/13/2025
After the loss of two MPs, we speak to conservative strategists about Pierre Poilievre's leadership style, and if he should change it. Regan Watts, Erika Barootes, and Ginny Roth, join Matt Galloway.
Duration:00:19:33
How can you improve your and your kids’ smartphone habits?
11/12/2025
Got bad phone habits? We know being on our phones too much isn’t good for us, especially for kids. Yet we all keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. Kaitlyn Regehr, author of Smartphone Nation, explains how our devices are designed to be addictive, and shares practical, effective tips for what parents can do to help kids build healthier habits.
Duration:00:24:21
Flu season is here: What you need to know
11/12/2025
Experts are warning the global spread of an evolving H3N2 strain could mean a difficult influenza season at home, with flu cases now on the rise in Canada. We speak with an infectious disease doctor about why it’s important to get the flu shot, despite a possible mismatch, and to a public health official about regaining the public’s trust around vaccines.
Duration:00:19:46
Me + Viv: How can we navigate human-AI relationships?
11/12/2025
Alexandra Samuel spent the better part of a year taking often helpful advice and direction from an artificial Intelligence bot who she named Viv. Alex came to realize that her personal relationship and sometimes dependency on Viv was dangerous, because Viv had no capacity to understand or feel the uncomfortable parts of being human that are in fact the very essence of being human.
Duration:00:24:21
Minister Anita Anand isn't going to "hide under a rock"
11/11/2025
Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs joins Matt Galloway as the G7 foreign ministers meeting gets underway in Ontario's Niagara region. She defends Canada's approach to relations with the U.S. and policy of engagement with countries like India and China.
Duration:00:19:59
A soldier's letters gives an inside look at the horrors of the Great War
11/11/2025
Lester Harper was a farmer from Pouce Coupe, British Columbia, who found himself on the frontlines of the First World War, in France. Now a new book tells his story, based on hundreds of pages of letters he sent home to his wife Mabel. Brandon Marriott, historian and author of Till We Meet Again, explains how Harper felt about the punishing conditions at the front, the staggering number of men who were killed, and his own brave actions in battle
Duration:00:20:46
How a bear attack story helped this author understand her cancer diagnosis
11/11/2025
Claire Cameron has been obsessed with bears since hearing about a bear attack while she was working in Ontario’s Algonquin Park as a teenager. But when she was diagnosed with cancer, Cameron revisited the details of that attack and the wilderness environment that’s shaped much of her life. She tells Galloway about her new memoir How to Survive a Bear Attack, and what facing death taught her about how to live.
Duration:00:25:59
Susan Orlean: Why being curious gives you a richer life
11/10/2025
Susan Orlean is the best selling author of seven books including The Orchid Thief and The Library Book, and has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1992. On stage at the Vancouver Writers Fest, she talks about being curious about the world, and how that's led her to the most unexpected stories. She tells the stories behind her stories of the American Man at Age 10, being portrayed by Meryl Streep, becoming the patron saint of pandemic drinking, and why ending her marriage made her think of a tire driving over a nail. Her new memoir is titled Joyride.
Duration:00:42:52
How should we rethink the school lunch hour?
11/10/2025
Fighting with your kids over packing a lunch, or worrying about scraping together lunch money could be a thing of the past. The Canadian government has pledged to make a National School Food Program permanent, but not all school boards are putting those funds to lunch, opting for snacks and breakfast programs instead.
Duration:00:19:58
A ceasefire proposal to Sudan's civil war
11/10/2025
Sudan's paramilitary force has agreed to a ceasefire brokered by the U.S. that could bring some relief to the country that's been gripped by conflict for over two years. The Sudanese Armed Forces has not weighed in yet. The UN is calling the conflict one of the worst humanitarian crises of the century. We talk to Professor Kahlid Medini, the Chair of African Studies Program and the Director of the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill about what more Canada should be doing.
Duration:00:08:29