Ideas

CBC

IDEAS is a place for people who like to think. If you value deep conversation and unexpected reveals, this show is for you. From the roots and rise of authoritarianism to near-death experiences to the history of toilets, no topic is off-limits. Hosted by Nahlah Ayed, we’re home to immersive documentaries and fascinating interviews with some of the most consequential thinkers of our time.

With an award-winning team, our podcast has proud roots in its 60-year history with CBC Radio, exploring the IDEAS that make us who we are.

New episodes drop Monday through Friday at 5pm ET.

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Yesterday · 54 min
Dispatches from Canada's housing crisis
2026 CBC Massey Lecturer Leilani Farha believes the only way to really understand the housing crisis is to visit people in their homes. This fall, she’s been travelling the country doing exactly that. Ahead of the broadcast of her lectures, Housing Inc.: A Global Takeover and Our Fight for Home, she sits down with Nahlah Ayed to share excerpts from her conversations.
Wednesday · 54 min
Canada's original anti-Fascist army
Vimy, Dieppe and Normandy are places that hold profound and enduring meaning for many Canadians. But few have heard of Brunete, Teruel and Fuentes de Ebro — battles that saw Canadian volunteers facing Nazi bullets and bombs during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, just before the outbreak of the Second World War. In 1965, CBC researcher Mac Reynolds spoke with volunteers to understand why they defied Canadian law to put their lives on the line to fight fascism in a country not their own. Th
Tuesday · 54 min
Writer Adam Gopnik on the evolution of antisemitism into anti-urbanism
The current wave of anti-elitism and anti-urbanism we're seeing from authoritarian leaders and their followers may seem to have erupted out of nowhere. But for New Yorker writer and former CBC Massey Lecturer Adam Gopnik, what we see now stems from historic antisemitism. *This episode originally aired Feb. 18, 2025
Monday · 54 min
The journalist who became a pawn in Putin’s game
The 2023 detainment in Russia of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich made international headlines. Two years post-release, he’s taken the story back in a book: This Cursed Beautiful Land. He discusses journalism, freedom and international law at the 2026 Graeme Gibson Talk, along with fellow writers Carol Off and Philippe Sands.
November 6 · 54 min
How to spot a slow-motion coup
In the wake of the U.S. midterm elections, Kim Lane Scheppele is relieved that the electoral process ran smoothly. Yet she believes there is still reason to fear for the health of American democracy. She argues that not all government coups require long knives, tanks, kidnapped politicians, renegade army officers or even clear illegality. There’s such a thing as “constitutional” coup, says the Princeton politics professor. This type of coup gradually overcomes safegua
November 5 · 54 min
The suffragist who was too radical for Susan. B. Anthony
You likely have never heard of Matilda Joslyn Gage. Gloria Steinem calls her “the woman ahead of the women who were ahead of their time.” Matilda worked side by side with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton to get women the vote in the United States and co-wrote the history of the women’s movement with them. IDEAS producer Dawna Dingwall looks into why the towering figure was erased by her peers, and the work that is being done to write Matilda back into history. *This episode origina
November 4 · 54 min
Understanding our genes to help our minds
For thousands of years, genetic inheritance was an observation in search of a theory. While some once thought of genetic code as fate, we now know that our genes are in a complex dance with each other and the world around us. Dr. Jehannine (J9) Austin, head of the department of medical genetics at the University of British Columbia, delivered the 2026 Boehm Lecture in Public Health and Healthcare, called "Our Wellness Codes." They spoke about how genetic counselling can help reduce risk of il
November 3 · 54 min
What good is philosophy?
"What is good?" is at the heart of philosophy. Asking the question helps us move toward answers about inclusivity, equality, and who gets a voice at the table. Last year, The Munk School at the University of Toronto hosted philosophers and writers and put philosophy to the test. When it comes to the good, they asked, what good is philosophy? *This episode originally aired on Sept. 8, 2023.
November 2 · 54 min
Why hope needs rage and love
In a world swirling with crisis upon crisis, historian Kevin Gannon contends that, even in our darkest days, hope persists. It might be far in the background sometimes, but it's always there. Gannon also argues that hope cannot exist without the oxymoronic twinning of love and rage.
October 30 · 54 min
How Houdini fought the misuses of magic
Magician Harry Houdini crusaded against for-profit psychics and séances in the years before his death. He deplored the tools of his own art being used to exploit grief, says author David Jaher. Now those same tools are being used in politics, marketing, and scams, say psychologists Massimo Polidoro and Alice Pailhès.
October 29 · 54 min
Why 'body horror' helps us confront the fears within us
"We are the monsters" — that's the premise for the genre of film known as body horror — movies that fixate on monstrous and grotesque changes to the body. There have been good body horror films and bad ones, but "The Fly" starring Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis was perhaps the most consequential. The movie captured anxieties around bodily autonomy and physical decay, just as the AIDS epidemic was becoming catastrophic. Forty years later, body horror is back with films like "The Substance" and
October 28 · 54 min
How being curious and confused drives scientific progress
Math may be the language of the universe, and brilliant minds and technology may have unlocked many of the secrets of the universe. But the pursuit of knowledge and insight always starts with the same thing: curiosity. Asimina Arvanitaki, a groundbreaking researcher with the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ont., reprises a talk she recently gave in her native Greece about the role of curiosity has played in the history of scientific discovery and in her own passion fo
October 27 · 54 min
Why background music is everywhere
Erik Satie’s music is everywhere: in advertisements, coffee shops, and elevators. His iconic compositions like Gymnopédies have been streamed millions of times and become staples of background music worldwide. But Satie’s relationship to "background music" goes far deeper than simply having a knack for writing it. Over a century ago, he began composing what he called "furniture music" – pieces designed to fit into an environment just like a table, or chair. It was the beginning of a backgroun
October 26 · 54 min
What's for dinner in 2050?
For most of human history there was one problem with our food: there wasn’t enough of it. But the food system we built to solve that problem — the one capable of feeding eight billion people — is responsible for a third of greenhouse gas emissions. It’s also made poor diet the leading cause of early death globally — ahead of smoking. Producer Mitchell Stuart spent a year asking: what should we be eating instead?
October 23 · 54 min
How the Humanities can pull down the screens between us
From the earliest days of cinema to our era of streaming, zooming, and scrolling, the screen has become a central part of our lives -- so central that it actually impedes our lives, erasing our bodies, and to hiding from one another. Kim Nelson, film professor and director of the Humanities Research Centre at the University of Windsor, argues in a public talk that remaining connected entails protecting and treasuring the enduring wisdom of the humanities -- literature, history, philosophy, ar
October 22 · 54 min
AI as the new Delphic Oracle?
For more than a thousand years the Oracle of Delphi sat on a stool at the ‘navel of the universe.’ Under a mystical trance, she would offer cryptic predictions of the future. People would wait months, even years, for their chance to ask the Oracle for guidance on matters ranging from reproductive challenges, to family tiffs to when and how to wage war. While the ritual around her remains shrouded in mystery, her predictions were – strangely – always right. Today our urge to p
October 21 · 54 min
The 2,000-year-old travel list to complete before you die
More than 2,000 years ago, someone sat down and wrote a travel bucket list for the ancient world — suggesting must-see places that we now call The Seven Wonders of the World. It was kind of a Lonely Planet guide of its time, and included the Pyramid of Giza, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the lighthouse of Alexandria, and the Temple of Artemis, among others. Historian Bettany Hughes brings monuments and archaeological discoveries back to life in her book,"The Seven Wonders
October 20 · 54 min
How a natural catastrophe 8,000 years ago may have fueled Brexit
For the first two billion years, the Earth didn't have oxygen. That's just one of the many fascinating details Peter Frankopan reveals in his book, "Earth Transformed: An Untold History." The Oxford professor of global history takes us on a multi-million year tour, illustrating the breathtaking ways climate has shaped the Earth and human civilization. How the collapse of a sediment shelf 8,000 years ago isolated what's now Britain from Europe, and its potential influence on the Brexit vote in
October 19 · 54 min
How the Moon shaped humanity — and defined life on Earth
Without the Moon, the Earth would be unrecognizable. Across the eons, it has shaped our seasons, our calendars — and even the evolution of life itself. Producer Annie Bender traces our nearest neighbour's powerful influence over humanity — and the planet we call home. Guests in this podcast:Charlie Duke is a retired NASA astronaut who walked on the Moon as part of the Apollo 16 mission.Rebecca Boyle is a journalist, historian an
October 16 · 54 min
Tech billionaires are betting on a coming Apocalypse
Authors Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor want to stop apocalyptic end-of-the-world thinking and its fantasies about colonizing other planets. “We love it here… we want to stay,” they say. They diagnose today's fascism as having an “Armageddon Industrial Complex,” whose main agents are apocalyptic fundamentalists, ethnonationalists, and tech billionaires fixated on creating a super-intelligence at any cost. In their book “End Times Fascism and the Fight for a Living World,” Klein and Taylor explor

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