Ideas
Kanalaren Xehetasunak
Ideas
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 immersiv...
Atal Berriak
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What water can teach us about hope in hard times
In an era of political polarization and fatigue from ongoing crises, hope is critical. But it's not something you have; it's something you do, argues...
Why spirituality is central to Indigenous mathematics
Indigenous math isn't just about numbers and equations, it involves culture, spirituality and more. Math professor Edward Doolittle, a Mohawk from Six...
How '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 b...
How to change minds and find common ground
In 2024, 'polarization' was Merriam-Webster's word of the year. That division still grows, making it increasingly difficult to connect to one another....
Why yellow traffic lights were invented to be ambiguous
The yellow traffic light is a perfect example of imperfection — with intention. While driving you have to think fast. Do you speed up or stop, whether...
The 'dangerous' promise of a techno-utopian future
Tech billionaires are on a mission to make the stories of science fiction a reality: space colonization, human/machine bio organisms, and living forev...
Open your gift: a podcast of nonfiction recommendations
This isn't a wrap or best of 2025 kind of list. This IDEAS podcast is packed full of all kinds of recommendations from our smart, insightful contribut...
Your tomatoes have a backstory and it’s not always pretty
In fact, author and journalist Marcello Di Cintio argues Canadians are complicit. After four years investigating the lives of migrant workers, he foun...
Bringing a farm — and its philosophy — back to life
Growing up with food insecurity, Julian Napoleon yearned to be a farmer. His great-grandparents once farmed on the Saulteau First Nations reserve in n...
Pt 2 | Architect Frank Gehry on how to exit life
There’s a constant mantra Frank Gehry would always hear from his mentors who have since died – “Don’t you dare ever stop working.” It’s a sentiment he...
The architecture that brought Frank Gehry to tears
Rebel architect Frank Gehry believed architecture IS art. He strived to evoke emotion in every design. Last Friday, Gehry died at 96 but he never stop...
The best — and worst — ideas of the last six decades
Sometimes the universe hands us a gift. Over the past year, our podcast listeners spent a total of 526,915 hours listening to our program. That's 21,9...
How IDEAS saved a listener from sending a regrettable email
"IDEAS is often a surprise" says Cathy Pike. It's why she's been a longtime listener. To our delight, IDEAS was there for her just at the right time....
CBC Massey Lecturers reveal how the talks changed them
This podcast features an all-star, and bestselling, lineup of CBC Massey Lecturers from the past decade:
Payam Akhavan (2017) and...
Harvard historian tells IDEAS host "I love you!"
That's not something you expect to hear in an interview. But the Harvard historian and author of All That She Carried, Tiya Miles did not hesitate to...
How an IDEAS episode on traffic changed a doctor's practice
Not many people like to think about traffic but Joanna Oda says this very topic on IDEAS in 2005 permanently changed the way she views medical care as...
How music transports the Afghan diaspora to their homeland
For Afghans, listening to a traditional song can bring them back "home." In 2021, when the Taliban seized power again in Afghanistan, orchestras disba...
Why cities are targeted in wartime (updated)
In 2022, IDEAS explored how the brutal strategy called "urbicide" — the intentional killing of a city — is used in war to destroy residents' sense of...
Why hospitals stopped being hospitable
Hospitality — and hospitals. Two words that share a root, but whose meanings often seem at odds with each other. IDEAS traces the historical roots of...
How guest-host power dynamics shape migration
In ancient Greece, hospitality (or xenia) was seen as a sacred moral imperative. Someone who defied the obligations placed on both host and guest risk...
Can you ever truly return home again?
At age 11, writer Andrew Lam fled Vietnam during the Fall of Saigon. Nearly 45 years later, he returned to a radically different city. He believes "yo...
Massey Lecture Part 5 | A human rights agenda for Canada
In more than 40 years on the front lines of international human rights Alex Neve has heard Canada described as ‘the land of human rights’ — and seen t...
Massey Lecture 4 | How people power makes human rights real
Eleanor Roosevelt once said that universal human rights begin in “small places, close to home — so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any...
Massey Lecture Part 3 | Human rights don’t have to be earned
Our inherent human rights belong to us from the moment we are born. There is nothing we need to do to earn them, and they are supposed to apply to us...
Massey Lecture 2: The six years that remade human rights
The ideals behind the concept of human rights — such as the sacredness of life, reciprocity, justice and fairness — have millennia-old histories. Afte...
Massey Lecture 1: Renewing the promise of human rights
Universality is the core promise of human rights: these rights extend to everyone, everywhere. But above all else, this is where we have failed. In hi...
Buttons give the illusion of power but hide the consequences
Whether mechanical or digital, a button delivers the promise of power — but it's far from simple. The small and mighty technology has a riveting histo...
The people who inspire Alex Neve to fight for human rights
When he was eight, 2025 CBC Massey Lecturer Alex Neve watched his mother fight for daycare in Alberta. It’s shaped how he thinks about human rights. A...
How overlooked veterans make history in their own words
There’s history, and then there’s oral history. And when it comes to the impacts of war on those who fight them — oral history opens doors to the past...
Why Canadian veterans are conflicted about Remembrance Day
Remembrance Day. Every year we are called on to remember, to reflect on the sacrifices of those who fought in Canada’s wars. Veterans of those wars ha...
Why Canadian veterans are ambivalent about Remembrance Day
Remembrance Day. Every year we are called on to remember, to reflect on the sacrifices of those who fought in Canada’s wars. Veterans of those wars ha...
Not a war story. This is about what comes after for veterans
Even when wars end, they go on — transforming the people who fought them, their families, and even society. A former war correspondent interviewed mor...
What it takes to become a ruthless tyrant
Look back about 3,000 years and you will find the playbook on authoritarianism remains pretty much the same as it is today. Back in the 5th century BC...
First historian Herodotus knew the power of story
For someone who died more than 2,400 years ago, Herodotus's voice is still very much alive. "He knows the way [a good story] can elevate but also corr...
Hope lies in knowing that "we've changed the world before”
Political analyst Rachel Maddow and author/activist Rebecca Solnit are sharp observers of Trump 2.0. They both share a common ground: opposition to an...
How mind-bending theories could solve mysteries in physics
Physics has been full of astonishing discoveries over the past century. But they open up even bigger mysteries that scientists are working feverishly...
To fix America's caste system, acknowledge it exists: author
The true story of America is that it was built on a caste system comparable to India’s, says Pulitzer-prize-winning American journalist Isabel Wilkers...
Mexican fiction turns drug kingpins into vicious vampires
There’s a burgeoning genre of fiction coming from Mexico — stories that merge socio-political history and the impact of drug-related violence with fan...
Can democracies survive the attacks on the rule of law?
Even in some of the world’s sturdiest democracies, leaders are deliberately undermining courts to weaken checks on their power. In many cases, the jus...
This lawyer turns real legal cases into page-turners
War criminals, Nazi fugitives, and a viable threat to American democracy — sounds like a classic page-turner but author and lawyer Philippe Sands isn'...