A case before the Supreme Court of Canada is challenging Quebec’s law on secularism. Benjamin Berger is a prominent voice in the study of constitutional and criminal law in Canada. In this podcast, he examines the dangers of what secularism hides — and how secularism obscures the impact of religion on our legal and political systems.

Benjamin Berger is professor at Osgoode Hall Law School of York University. He delivered Memorial University’s 2026 Henrietta Harvey Distinguished Lecture.

If journalist Vince Beiser had his way the term 'clean energy' wouldn't exist — it's a misnomer. He argues green energy comes with cost. Sure, solar power or wind power are both better than power from fossil fuels but Beiser points out they are still harmful to the planet and people. "There's no magic solution." Beiser tells IDEAS we need to shift to renewable energy but we also need to recognize it's not a "magic solution" — there is a downside with consequences.

Vince Beiser's book is called Power Metal: The Race for the Resources that Will Shape the Future.

Port cities are where worlds collide. They are a place of cultural, economic, political and religious contact. They've existed for millennia and facilitated the birth of empires and the rise of a globalized economy. Without port cities, our world would look very different. In the first episode of our series on how port cities shaped the world as we know it, UBC journalism professor Kamal Al-Solaylee visits Singapore — a constantly-evolving port city whose maritime roots go back to the 13th century.

“One of your tribe is enough.” That’s what Margaret Rossiter was told when she said she wanted to study female scientists. Nevertheless, Rossiter persisted. She found and documented hundreds of women whose contributions to science had been overlooked, under-credited and misappropriated. Then she made history herself by coining the term “The Matilda Effect” to describe why those women failed to get the credit they deserved.

Who is Matilda? Matilda Joslyn Gage was a suffragist erased from history. She was known as being too radical for Susan B. Anthony. This podcast shares her story.

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 until the day we die. But in his third Massey Lecture, Alex Neve argues the powerful have made human rights a ‘club.’ Visit cbc.ca/masseys for more on this lecture series.

One of the strongest ties between the diaspora and home is music. In Iran, music can be politically contentious.

In Canada, it connects a community to its past and to its future. Days after the bombings began in Iran, Nahlah Ayed spoke to three Iranian-Canadian musicians and composers about the role of music in a time of uncertainty.

"Music can be an escape, can be a consolation... Like if we are the stars and galaxies on the planets of the universe, music is like the dark matter of that universe. It's that gravitational force that we know is there but we can't quite put our finger on it." — composer and pianist Iman Habibi

Guests in this episode:

Tahare Falahati is a Persian traditional singer

Kaveh Mirhosseini is an Iranian composer and conductor

Iman Habibi is a composer and pianist

English philosopher Thomas Hobbes believed that life would be "nasty, brutish and short" without a strong government. IDEAS explores how a new take on Hobbes that includes his writing on the topic of anxiety offers a surprising perspective on the recent American election and democracy. *This episode originally aired on Jan. 13, 2025.

Mathematics is everywhere: a common refrain from high school math teachers. But did you ever think math could be linked to literature? And not just in works from the literary greats of the past but for example Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park. The relationship between math and literature are fundamentally creative, says Sarah Hart, a mathematician and author who speaks to Nahlah Ayed about how these two things that seem so polar opposite are deeply intertwined.

Sarah Hart's book is called Once Upon a Prime: The Wondrous Connections Between Mathematics and Literature.