The Sunday Editionwith Michael Enright

The story of a royal couple giving up their titles, privilege and castle has caused seismic reactions around the world. A little over 100 years ago, an Italian noble family landed in a small town in British Columbia, the history of which is still coming to light. 

We’ve been ingrained with the idea that the path to losing weight is to eat less and exercise more. Jennifer Kuk says it’s not that simple. She is a professor in the department of kinesiology and health science at York University who says there are social, environmental and genetic factors at play.

In the age of #MeToo, #TimesUp, Harvey Weinstein and countless sexual predators, it can be hard to have a nuanced and open conversation about sexual misconduct in all its varieties without people becoming angry or defensive. But that's exactly what one of Canada's funniest and most talented playwrights — Hannah Moscovitch — encourages, with her provocative new play Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes.

There are far more than 50 shades of grey, for the record. It may be no peacock as colours go, but grey is no less expressive than its more flamboyant cousins on the colour wheel. Author Megan Flaherty recently wrote an essay called “Ode to Grey” in The Paris Review — an appreciation of the world's most underestimated hue.

Listen to this week's episode with host Michael Enright.

"The carnage of pedestrian deaths in our major cities and towns continues unabated. Last year, Toronto saw 40 deaths. Pedestrians are struck by cars at a rate of three a day. In one four-and-a-half hour period in 2018, 17 pedestrians were hit by cars. Last year set a record of pedestrian deaths in Montreal — 24. In BC, there were 49 pedestrian deaths. What is especially galling about these numbers is the fact that these terrible deaths were preventable.”

In her latest book, Linda McQuaig argues that Canada was built by massive public investment in railways, energy, medicare and public spaces — and that in the last 25 years, governments have been on a privatization crusade. Contrary to prevailing political and economic opinion, McQuaig believes Canada should be expanding — not shrinking — publicly-funded projects. Urgently.

Mikhail Rykov is a computer engineer who grew up in the Soviet Union, playing banned cassettes and his guitar. After the Soviet Union collapsed, he made his way to Canada and eventually to Jerry Golland's ESL classroom in Ottawa. The two men found a "secret chord" that still connects them. David Gutnick's documentary is called "All of Us Are Sputniks.”

The playwright and actor shares how he began writing and the influences on his work.

Seventeen years after the U.S.-led invasion that ended Saddam Hussein's regime, peace, prosperity, stability or good government still have yet to come to the Iraqi people. And now they find themselves in the middle of the US-Iran conflict. Yanar Mohammed is an Iraqi-Canadian feminist who was in the thick of anti-government protests that filled Baghdad's streets last year, and she knows well the fears, frustrations and hopes of Iraqis as they nervously await Iran's and the U.S.'s next moves.

Listen to this week's episode with host Michael Enright.

Lawyer Amanda Ghahremani talks about the federal government’s obligations to Iranian-Canadians who lost loved ones, and the role it can and should play in investigating the plane crash. She specializes in international criminal law, access to justice and redress for survivors of atrocity crimes, and makes the case for reinstating diplomatic relations with Iran.

Ervand Abrahamian, perhaps the pre-eminent historian of modern Iran, argues that the U.S. killing of Qassem Soleimani has strengthened the hand of Iran’s theocratic government. He says the fallout from the assassination will include more anti-Western hardliners and right-wing populists being elected in Iran’s upcoming elections.

For several days, it looked like Donald Trump’s decision to assassinate Iranian General Qassem Soleimani had the effect of quelling anti-government sentiment inside Iran. But now that Iranian authorities have admitted that their own military shot down an airliner and killed dozens of their own people, all that has changed, according to Nader Hashemi, an Iranian-Canadian political scientist and the Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Denver.

In a special one-hour broadcast on the 40th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution, The Sunday Edition explores why Iranians rose up against the shah in 1979, and what became of their dreams for a freer, democratic nation under Ayatollah Khomeini.

The food industry is excited over new gene-edited products altered to have longer shelf life or produce less fat. But it will have to avoid the pitfalls of GMO foods, the last foray into genetic engineering, which were a financial success, but a public relations disaster. Ira Basen's documentary is called The Splice of Life.

Publishers are struggling to meet the burgeoning demand for audiobooks of Canadian titles. We speak with Ann Jansen, who left CBC Radio in 2017 to become the director of audiobook production at Penguin Random House, the largest publisher in the country. And Canadian actors Braden Wright and Tess Degenstein share the challenges and joys of audiobook narration.

John Crosbie, who died on Friday, was one of the most prominent and trusted — and certainly most colourful — cabinet members of Brian Mulroney's governments and served as the Lieutenant Governor of Newfoundland from 2008 to 2013. We’ll pay tribute with excerpts from Michael’s 1997 interview with him.

Listen to this week's episode with host Michael Enright.

"The American researcher Paul Zak has spent a career studying how the brain reacts to certain chemical releases. He discovered that the neurochemical oxytocin when delivered and synthesized by the brain makes us more compassionate, more generous and more sensitive to the needs of others. He calls it our 'moral molecule.' It also makes us react by crying."

The U.S. assassination of Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani has the entire region on edge, while the rhetoric on all sides becomes more bellicose. British security expert Paul Rogers discusses the escalating conflict and its broader security and geopolitical implications.