The Current

With fewer colds and flus, ER doctors used to care for fewer patients in the summer. Not anymore. Patients are waiting longer than ever. We hear from Dr. Noam Katz in Winnipeg and Dr. Brittany Ellis in Saskatoon about what their patients have been dealing with all summer and what needs to change.

Trump's executive order renaming Lake Ontario has caused a stir, but experts say the controversy is distracting from more serious threats facing the Great Lakes. We speak with McMaster University professor emeritus Gail Krantzberg about how the Trump administration’s rollback of environmental protections is putting the lakes’ water quality and security at risk. We also speak with Western Michigan University professor Daniel Macfarlane about how weakening Great Lakes governance could threaten Canada’s water sovereignty.

For the past four decades, world renowned biologist Nalini Nadkarni has risked her life studying trees. In 2015, she fell from a 50-foot bigleaf maple tree in the Olympic Peninsula. She tells The Current host Matt Galloway what her recovery from that catastrophic fall taught her about resilience and trees.

These are unnerving times, sitting here at the beginning of September in 2026. The US-Iran war continues… Ukraine is heading into its fifth winter of a full-scale war with Russia. Under Donald Trump, the United States has taken a hammer to norms and institutions at home and abroad. Margaret MacMillan says a new world order is coming, why we aren’t ready for it and how we can adapt.

While the trade war continues to heat up, the Made-in-Canada movement is surging. We speak with former CBC broadcaster and social media influencer, Tod Maffin, about his online Canadian marketplace, Main Street Canada. We also speak with Jacquelyn Corbett, owner of the Toronto-based children' s clothing brand, Mini Mioche, and Ashley Chapman, the COO of Chapman's icecream, about the challenges ahead, and how they are shifting away from their American customers and suppliers.