The Sunday Editionwith Michael Enright

The demands and conditions that Canada's hospitals and health care providers are going to face in the weeks and months ahead will be entirely new territory, according to Halifax physician Dr. Sundeep Chohan. Dr. Chohan has many years of experience in the field of catastrophe medicine, having worked in conflict zones and natural disasters. He argues that the medical response to COVID-19 will call for the skills and approach required in a war zone or humanitarian crisis rather than in conventional modern medicine.

More than 60 per cent of Indigenous people in Canada live off-reserve. Many urban Indigenous organizations worry the people they serve are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 … and could fall through the cracks. Leslie Varley, the Executive Director of the B.C. Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres, discusses her concerns about the impact COVID-19 will have on Indigenous people in Canadian cities.

Hugh Segal has been advocating for a guaranteed annual income for decades, in part because of his own experience growing up poor in Canada. In his latest book, Boot Straps Need Boots: One Tory’s Lonely Fight to End Poverty in Canada, he puts his campaign into historical perspective.

We bring you dispatches from two of Canada’s top novelists — two-time-Giller-winner Esi Edugyan and Giller-nominated Anakana Schofield — about what they’re reading during this time of isolation.

A few years, a man calling himself Brian Bilston scribbled a short poem and posted it on Twitter. He hadn't thought of himself as a poet, but three books and almost 70,000 followers later, he's become known as the unofficial poet laureate of Twitter and the Banksy of poetry. His poems are whimsical, serious, poignant, funny and, sometimes, visual. In these trying times, Bilston shows us that it is possible to find poetry for any occasion, including a pandemic.

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

“We are living through extraordinary times. Most of us are experiencing something we have never seen before. Everything is upended. We can no longer take for granted all those activities we never thought twice about … What was ordinary has become a challenge.”

Dr. Sandy Buchman is keeping a watchful eye on how well Canada's healthcare policy is protecting both patients and the healthcare workers on the frontlines of the fight against COVID-19.

Right now, there are three times as many Indigenous children in care as there were at the height of the residential school system. Justine Kennedy is determined that her brothers won't add to those numbers. 

We asked some lovers of literature — Toronto poet laureate A. F. Moritz, literature professor Rohan Maitzen, graduate student Ariel Leutheusser, novelist Sharon Bala and non-fiction writer Robert Macfarlane — what they're reading during our springtime of isolation and unease.

Author Rebecca Solnit has an enduring fascination with what happens to communities in times of crisis, and what disasters reveal about human nature. With the global spread of the coronavirus pandemic, and its radical impact on our lives here in Canada, Solnit’s research on disasters becomes even more resonant.

“We must do what we can with what we have, respecting, of course, the requirement for self-isolation. I don’t have much, but I do have this balcony, and I am going to stand upon it, to lift up those who are proximate to the highly scenic parking lot over which I look.”

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

“Closure is a commanding word. Schools in this country are closing. The cities, towns and churches of Italy are closed. In fact the entire country is closed. Arenas, baseball parks, community centres — all closed. Broadway is dark. We are facing a silent spring. One that none of us has seen before.”

Canada is contending with a response of unprecedented scale to a public health emergency, and Canadians face enormous disruption to their lives. As events evolve at dizzying speed, Michael Enright speaks with Colleen Flood — one of Canada’s leading experts on public health policy and a Research Chair in Health Law and Policy at the University of Ottawa — about the ethical, legal and civil liberties dimensions of some of the drastic measures to slow the spread of COVID-19.

Yet again, neither Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, nor Blue and White leader Benny Gantz have been able to fashion a coalition government after the third general election within a year. Yossi Klein Helavi, one of the country’s wisest and most even-handed political analysts, discusses Israel’s protracted political gridlock, and the uncertain future of the peace process and two-state solution, as Netanyahu's trial on corruption charges looms next week.

We've all heard the message countless times: you should drink eight glasses of water a day. These days, drinking lots of water is touted as a near-miraculous fountain of wellness — promising everything from clearer skin to better weight control. Dr. William Clark, a kidney specialist at Western University, casts a critical eye on the eight-glasses-a-day formula and where it came from in the first place.

Listen to this week's episode with guest host Peter Armstrong.

Forty-six people have died since riots began between Muslims and Hindus in the Indian capital in late February.

Renewable energy technology offers an object lesson in just how hard it is to be green. As Clare Church, a researcher with the International Institute for Sustainable Development, points out, green energy technologies — from solar panels to high-capacity rechargeable batteries — rely on raw materials like lithium and cobalt. And just like the fossil fuels they're supposed to replace, they have to be dug out of the earth, often with significant environmental and social costs.