The Sunday Edition — August 26, 2018
On this week's episode with guest host Laura Lynch:
'He didn't have a choice' - How depression cost Gerald Le Dain his Supreme Court post
Gerald Le Dain was a brilliant legal thinker, best-known for his four-year public inquiry into the non-medical use of drugs. He was appointed to Canada's top court in 1984, but in just four years he was out. Resigned, was the official reason, but it's far from the whole truth. Now, for the first time, judges, court clerks, and those closest to Le Dain, are telling the story of how one of Canada's greatest legal minds was forced off the Supreme Court of Canada. Bonnie Brown's documentary is called One Judge Down; it first aired in January.
Convinced that Canadian beer is better than American beer? Think again!
Beer expert Stephen Beaumont talks to Michael about water quality, alcohol content and flavour. Steven's most recent book is Best Beers: The Indispensable Guide to the World's Best Craft and Traditional Beers.
They've been called "the ghost rapes of Bolivia"
Canadian writer Miriam Toews has examined the ethos of her Mennonite faith in her writing before. In her new novel, she takes on a shocking true story of crime and tragedy within a reclusive conservative community, and imagines how the normally silent victims gain the courage to speak out and take back their lives. Her new novel is called Women Talking; Miriam Toews is Laura's guest.
Landing pages, overlays and sticky bars - a bluffer's guide to the very latest 'tech talk'
There's no quicker way to sound 'dumb' than to be clueless about technology and its language. Ira Basen is our bluffer's guide to Valley Talk. Silicon Valley, that is.
A fateful thirty-year-old choice, re-imagined and lived anew
Helen Leask's essay is called, The Train, Re-Taken.
A scathing indictment of Canada's prisons, after 30 years working 'down inside'
For more than three decades, Robert Clark worked in Canadian penitentiaries, at all levels of security. He interviewed hundreds of prisoners, his life was threatened many times, and his job took a personal toll. He says our institutions are brutal and corrupt, and our prison system does little to prevent recidivism. Clark's tell-all memoir is called Down Inside: Thirty Years in Canada's Prison Service.
'Unbuttoned: A History of Mackenzie King's Secret Life'
During his lifetime, Canada's 10th prime minister was viewed as sober, serious and competent. But when his diaries were made public after his death, the world learned that William Lyon Mackenzie King communed with prostitutes, the spirit world and his deceased mother. Michael talks to author Christopher Dummitt.