Five questions for Matt Galloway, the new host of The Current
Matt Galloway takes over as host of national morning current affairs show on Monday
Matt Galloway joins The Current on Monday — so we wanted to help Canadians to get to know our new host.
We joined Galloway at the crack of dawn recently, to accompany him on his early morning commute and ask what excites him about his new gig.
He talked about getting to know Canadians, helping a divided country talk to each other, and why he'll be bringing his skates as the show ventures from coast to coast to coast. Read more of what he told us below, and scroll down to check out the video of our chat.
What's the best thing about getting up this early?
The best thing about the morning is the stillness of the space and the time that you're in. We live really busy lives and … it doesn't matter where you are, it seems like you're kind of busy all the time. The great thing about getting up early in the morning is it's quiet. The downside of it is, it's really early in the morning, and you don't get enough sleep sometimes.
The benefit of The Current, compared to the program I was doing before — it doesn't sound like I'm sleeping in — but I can sleep in until 5:00 in the morning, which means that you don't have to go to bed super early. But you can get up early enough that you can get that peace and quiet of an early morning.
And that's the thing that I love. It's just a bit of space for myself before everybody else wakes up. It's being selfish in the best possible way.
What are you looking forward to about working on The Current?
The best thing about The Current is that it's a national morning radio show and that sounds obvious, but the amazing thing about it is that you have listeners who are all across the country listening to the same thing at the same time.
Someone in the West can explain something to somebody in Quebec. Somebody in Newfoundland can be talking to somebody in Halifax, and they will learn something from people in the North. It's a national conversation.
That's the real potential of a program like this: it's a thread. It's something that can bring people together.
Who is Matt Galloway — what do you want Canadians to know about you?
That's a good question! I'm somebody who is curious about everything, I read and ingest as much information as humanly possible. My whole default is asking people questions. I want to know something that I don't know. I want someone to tell me something that's going to make me kind of lean forward and be more interested in something, that maybe I would have dismissed otherwise.
That's the thing that I most want Canadians to know about me, is that I'm just interested in them.
And what's one thing Canadians may not know about you?
I used to play hockey and now I don't play hockey, but I'm trying to learn how to skate again — and I want to skate on wild lakes across the country.
I've been doing this in the city where I've been skating on ponds and rivers. Everywhere I go, I try and do this. Wherever I travel, I take my skates with me. That's the thing I'm going to try and do when I travel across the country, skate in as many places as possible and embrace the winter that is inevitable in Canada.
As you step into the new role, what kind of stories are you excited to tell?
I grew up listening to radio in this time-slot, from Morningside to This Morning to The Current, and I'm excited to continue in that tradition.
Part of that history is also getting out and meeting Canadians. We're in this beautiful building, but the country is outside. And so I want to get out and meet Canadians and take the show out on the road, and be out in your community talking to you about the stories that matter.
The stories that I'm most excited about telling on The Current are the stories that will help connect the country. We're in a really divided period right now where people are sort of talking at each other, and not to each other. And I think there's a neat opportunity to have people in some ways tell their stories to each other, and learn from each other. And that's the thing that I'm most excited about.
Written and produced by Padraig Moran and Andrew Nguyen.