The Sunday Editionwith Michael Enright
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The Sunday Edition for June 28, 2020
Listen to our final episode with host Michael Enright
Personal Essay
'It has been a delight to meet you on the radio' — Michael's essay
"It is one of the hardest calibrations in broadcasting, deciding between what an audience wants and what it needs. In making those choices, we fully realized that not every listener would like them. We knew that in trying to please everybody, you end up pleasing nobody."
Turning the tables: Michael Enright answers questions instead of asking them
In an interview with The Current’s Matt Galloway, Michael Enright talks about hosting The Sunday Edition, some memorable interviews, and what he will miss the most.
Memories and prophecies from frequent guests of The Sunday Edition
What was the world like when The Sunday Edition began 20 years ago? What will it look like in the next 20 years? To answer these questions and take stock of where we are now, Michael Enright calls on friends who have been frequent guests on the program over the past two decades — Cindy Blackstock, Paul Rogers, Adam Gopnik, Margaret Atwood and Robert Harris.
Greetings from listeners and friends of The Sunday Edition
Throughout today's program, you'll hear a series of "audio postcards"; notes of appreciation and farewell from listeners and from people who have been interviewed by Michael over the past two decades. They include Stephen Lewis, writer Esi Edugyan, former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada Beverley McLachlin and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland.
Explore 20 highlights from 20 years of The Sunday Edition
Over its 20 seasons with host Michael Enright, The Sunday Edition has been a weekend ritual for millions of Canadians with its award-winning documentaries and interviews with some of Canada's — and the world's — sharpest minds, greatest writers and most colourful personalities as well as newsmakers at the heart of some of the biggest stories of our times. We present some highlights from 20 years, selected by Enright and the program's producers.
The Sunday Edition for June 21, 2020
Listen to this week's episode with host Michael Enright.
Personal Essay
A COVID-19 confinement chronicle: week 14 — Michael's essay
“From the moment the COVID-19 virus began to spread, we were at war. At least that's what our political leaders told us. In early March, French president Emmanuel Macron fired the opening salvo. In fact, he said “We are at war” six times in one speech. War is a handy metaphor that politicians love. [This] bellicose metaphor [doesn’t] sit well with the British philosopher Nigel Warburton. He argues that the constant war references can embolden political leaders to enact severely restrictive measures as would be appropriate in a real war.”
National child-care strategy will be a lynchpin of economic recovery, says Martha Friendly
Parents struggling to work from home with kids underfoot have realized, as never before, why child-care workers are an essential service. And economists are reminding us that affordable, accessible child care will be essential to reopening and reviving the economy. Martha Friendly, Canada's leading advocate for better child care, joins host Michael Enright to discuss where daycare is failing to meet the needs of Canadian parents and why it’s imperative to have a national child-care strategy.
Video
'Remember me as an artist': The rediscovery of Canadian painter Mary Hiester Reid
Mary Hiester Reid was one of the most accomplished and admired Canadian painters of her time, but when she died, she vanished, almost entirely erased from the canon of Canadian art history Now a new generation of curators, art historians and art lovers are rediscovering her work.
'For them, it was just politics and it was a game': Anita Hill
After Christine Blasey Ford testified that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her, we revisit Michael Enright’s 2006 interview with Anita Hill.
'If loneliness is the disease, the story is the cure,' says award-winning author Richard Ford
Sorry For Your Trouble, Richard Ford’s latest collection of nine short stories, is poignant explorations of loss, death, bereavement and looking back. Ford is the first writer to win the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award in the same year, for his 1995 novel Independence Day.
The case of four missing pages and the only Canadian who met Beethoven
Lower and Upper Canada were British colonies during Ludwig van Beethoven’s later years. That’s when a Quebec City musician named Theodore Molt was granted an audience with the moody maestro. Beethoven kept notes about all his meetings, but CBC Music host and raconteur Tom Allen was intrigued to discover that four pages of notes about the meeting with Molt mysteriously disappeared — a story Allen tells in a “chamber musical” called The Missing Pages, to mark the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth.
The Sunday Edition for June 14, 2020
Listen to this week's episode with host Michael Enright.
Personal Essay
A COVID-19 confinement chronicle: week 13 — Michael's essay
“Poorer countries account for three-quarters of the 100,000 new cases detected worldwide each day. And those numbers likely suggest an undercount. Which means if we truly believe the cliché “We are all in this together,” richer countries should be planning huge humanitarian programs now and looking at issues such as debt forgiveness and financial support.”
Powerful forces will fight the call to defund police departments
It used to be a given that increased spending on police budgets meant increased security — and that police budgets were untouchable. In less than three weeks, though, the Black Lives Matter movement has completely changed the conversation. Speaking to The Sunday Edition's Michael Enright, Robyn Maynard makes the case for defunding and John Sewell explains the forces, as powerful as ever, that are working against change.
Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz on economic recovery after COVID-19
Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz joins Michael Enright to talk about what will be needed after the COVID-19 pandemic is over to rebuild the global economy, whether it will transform capitalism, and the hazards and opportunities that lie ahead.
Rising sea levels threaten marsh ecosystem and key transportation link between Atlantic provinces
Surges in water levels pose a threat to towns, electrical systems and road and rail travel between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, as well as to the rest of Atlantic Canada.
Personal Essay
More than a simple do-si-do: physically-distanced square dancing with Bill Richardson
We now live in an age where fancy footwork is in very high demand. On paths and sidewalks, in supermarkets and stores. Just about anywhere humans encounter each other, we are expected to dipsy-doodle in a way we never have before. It has led to some interesting results, not the least of which is the latest from our very own Bill Richardson.
There's a reason we procrastinate and it's not laziness
Fighting the urge to push something off until later starts with understanding why we want to in the first place, says Tim Pychyl, an associate professor of psychology at Carleton University.
Photographing his mother's dementia made her feel alive again
In Alisa Siegel's documentary, photographer Tony Luciani describes how taking photos of his mother, who is suffering from dementia, brought her a sense of purpose and a feeling of joy. “She was playing again, and to hell with what people think,” he said.
The Sunday Edition for June 7, 2020
Listen to this week's episode with host Michael Enright.
Personal Essay
America's reckoning with racism and police brutality — Michael's essay
“To be honest a lot has changed in 52 years. Mississippi has elected Black mayors and county commissioners. There has been a two-term Black president, something unthinkable in 1968. But the poison remains in the system. It has to be expelled, perhaps in angry demonstrations and broken shop windows, and the wound cauterized. White populations have to stop the reckless and hysterical flight from the inevitable.”
The fire this time: two Black female leaders on protests, inequality and rage
As the United States reels from the violent aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, we look at how the echoes of the rage, riots and burning cities of the 1960s and the legacies of slavery, lynching, segregation and police brutality targeting Black Americans are manifest today. Michael speaks with Elinor Tatum, the publisher and editor-in-chief of The Amsterdam News and legal scholar and author Patricia Williams.
How the spectacle of U.S. racism allows Canada to overlook its own
Canadians have been outraged by the litany of racist violence and police brutality against Black Americans, the explosion of protest, and the inflammatory rhetoric issued from the White House. But Wendell Nii Laryea Adjetey, who teaches history at McGill University, argues that focusing on the scale of racism and violence in the U.S. allows Canadians to feel morally superior and ignore or deny racism and police brutality against Black Canadians.
