About the Show

The Current is a meeting place of perspectives, ideas and voices, with a fresh take on issues that affect Canadians today. Our team of journalists--based in every major region of the country--think locally and globally. We bring new insight to stories that Canadians are talking about now, and we uncover stories they'll be talking about next week and next year.

We don't just talk about the issues. We poke and prod them and look at them from new angles, shedding light on what needs to be exposed and taking delight in the surprising twists and turns our stories take. Nothing's off limits--politics, business, culture, justice, science, religion--if it's pertinent to Canadians, it's on the Current agenda.

Host Anna Maria Tremonti is our focal point. Her wealth of experience and journalistic savvy bring depth and sharpness to The Current as it unfolds from coast to coast to coast.

 

About Us


Lisa Ayuso - Associate Producer

Lisa Ayuso formerly known as the Clockwatcher to Workology fans has been keeping busy at The Current since 2003. She started at the CBC in 1999 at This Morning and since then has worked on Workology, Richler on Radio, Sounds Like Canada as well as other CBC radio projects. As a Toronto performer, she was a member of Pretty, Porky and Pissed Off and the co-founder of The Corporate Wetnurse Association. Lisa is a loving fan of Dolly Parton.

Willy Barth - Senior Producer/Studio Director

Since 1997 Willy Barth has worked as the morning senior editor for This Morning, in charge of final script edit, line-up, production value and studio direction. He has worked closely with hosts Michael Enright and Shelagh Rogers in the early morning hours to add radio value to the program. Willy co-ordinated and produced all This Morning remotes over the past five years. Before that, Willy was Peter Gzowski's remote producer whenever Peter took Morningside on the road. Willy directed Peter's last program in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. Willy has been with CBC Radio since 1980 and has worked in both network and regional locations.

Sujata Berry - Producer

Sujata Berry has been a producer with the CBC since 1993. She became a full time member of The Current team in 2011 after doing numerous shorter stints on the show. Prior to that she's worked in television news in Toronto, Vancouver and Charlottetown and as a documentary and feature interview producer at The National. She's won awards for her journalism at the CBC's Investigative Unit and for developing a website to commemorate the lives of the Canadians who perished in the Haiti Earthquake in 2010. She has a Masters of Journalism from Carleton University in Ottawa.

Josh Bloch - Associate Producer

Josh joined the CBC in 2010. Before embarking on a career in journalism, he worked in the arts and human rights including running a social justice arts festival in Toronto, co-creating a theatre project with PEN Canada's writers in exile network, and directing plays written and performed by youth in care.

Howard Goldenthal - Producer

Howard has been an investigative journalist with the CBC's the fifth estate since 1991. He has won numerous awards for journalism including the Justicia award and sharing the Michener award as part of a team that investigated the wrongful laying of sex abuse charges against members of a foster family in Saskatoon. Some of his other investigations included the Airbus Affair, the infiltration of neo-Nazis into the Canadian Airborne before it was disbanded, and the presence of Somali war criminals in Canada. He was a finalist this year for an International Emmy for a documentary examining the plight of animals in movies. 

Kathleen Goldhar - Acting Senior Producer

Kathleen is one of the original producers at The Current. Her CBC Radio career began in 1999 in Winnipeg where she worked as a reporter and associate producer in Winnipeg. She returned home to Toronto as a producer with National Radio News and As It Happens. Before moving to radio, she worked as a print reporter at the Whitehorse Daily Star and The Vancouver Sun, and as a student intern at the Toronto Star.

Shannon Higgins - Associate Producer

A graduate of Ryerson University's journalism program, Shannon fell in love with radio co-hosting Rude Awakenings -- a weekly campus morning show. Shannon has been pitching stories for The Current since an internship in 2009. She spent 2010 as Editor-in-Chief of The Eyeopener, managing the most award-winning student newspaper in Canada and drinking too much beer. That year The Eyeopener won two Canadian University Press JHM Awards for Excellence in Student Journalism for best feature writing and labour reporting.

Liz Hoath - Producer (Vancouver)

Liz has worked with CBC Radio for close to 20 years.  She's been a producer, host and reporter in Inuvik, Whitehorse, Prince George and now Vancouver.  These days, her favourite assignments involve heading out into the field with a recording device to produce documentaries that range from the experience of living in the heart of the oil sands to what it's like to get branded.    

Carole Ito - Radio Technician

Carole has worked in live current affairs radio forever ... working on Morningside, As It Happens and This Morning before coming to The Current.

David MacQuarrie - Writer

David MacQuarrie has worked on and off -- mostly on --  with the CBC for more than 30 years. He's been a television reporter in St. John's Newfoundland, Ottawa, Beijing and since 1990, Toronto.  During his time in Toronto, he has produced, lined up and written the local television newscast, worked with Newsworld and written for CBC.ca  He now writes and writes and writes for The Current. He is frequently the translated voice of agitated gentlemen who do not speak English. He plays a frankly annoying theremin.

Pacinthe Mattar - Associate Producer

Pacinthe came to the CBC in 2009 after a lifetime of growing up between the suburbs of North York,  the heat of Saudi Arabia, and the humidity of Dubai, where she began as a contributor to a career magazine published across the Middle East. A graduate of Ryerson's Master of Journalism programme, Pacinthe created a documentary on the niqab that has since been screened at various venues in Toronto. She started as an associate producer with CBC Newsworld, and moved to As It Happens in February of 2011, where she helped cover the uprisings across the Arab world including her native Egypt, occasionally providing on-air translation for Arabic interviews and bursting into a mess of happy tears of joy when Hosni Mubarak resigned. She joined The Current in August of 2011.

Jennifer Moroz - Executive Producer

Jen is an award-winning reporter, writer and producer who has worked in print, television and radio.  A native of Montreal, she headed south of the border for journalism school and ended up staying for nine years.  For most of that time, she was a staff writer for The Philadelphia Inquirer, covering everything from municipal affairs to regional transportation, state politics to national immigration issues.  She made the leap back home to Canada - and into TV - as a producer, specializing in political interviews, for The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos on CBC Television. She later served as a senior writer on the show - as well as providing the voice for The Bio. Jen decided to check out radio next, and came to The Current on temporary assignment in May 2010.  She liked it so much, she stayed.

Kristin Nelson - Producer (on maternity leave)

Before coming to the CBC in 2007, Kristin earned degrees in international development, political science and journalism. She also worked with a non-profit organization in Johannesburg, South Africa, and freelanced for The Toronto Star and This Magazine.

Lara O'Brien - Producer

After studying both in Canada and Europe - Lara began her journalism career at the CBC working for Newsworld in 2004. Soon after she delved into the land of radio - with an internship at The Current. Lara likes to cover international news for The Current.

Cathy Simon - Senior Producer (Vancouver)

Cathy Simon has been a producer with CBC Radio since 1987. Originally from Montreal, she has been based in Quebec City, Iqaluit and Vancouver. Her work has also taken her to meet people and hear their stories in cities, towns and in between in several provinces and territories across the country, as well as in India.

Idella Sturino - Part-Time Producer

Idella Sturino has been a producer with The Current since its inception. Before joining CBC Radio, she worked as a producer for CBC Newsworld's counterSpin and counterSpin Sunday with Avi Lewis. Prior to that, she worked as a reporter and editor for The Canadian Press in Toronto and Montreal. She has also worked at This Magazine and the now-defunct Shift magazine.

Joan Webber - Documentary Producer (Vancouver)

Joan Webber has been with CBC since 1996. During that time she has worked as a reporter, and a radio producer for local and national programs. At The Current Joan has  produced programs and documentaries from places such as Iqaluit, Cuba, Mexico, and Russia. She has won a variety of awards for her journalism including a Gabriel award for a documentary she produced about a nun living inside a Tijuana prison. Prior to Joan's career with CBC, she worked for The National Film Board where she created and operated a NFB documentary rep theatre in Saskatoon.

Gord Westmacott - Producer

Gord Westmacott is a producer with The Current. He came to CBC Radio in the spring of 2002 and spent three years at As It Happens before joining The Current. Before that, he worked at counterSpin on CBC Newsworld, Studio 2 on TVOntario and the London Free Press.