CBC Toronto's Make the Season Kind raising money for local food banks
CBC Toronto is throwing a party Friday morning to celebrate the holiday season and raise money for food banks across the Greater Toronto Area.
Make the Season Kind is our special day of live broadcasting and welcoming the audience down to the broadcast centre.
David Common and the Metro Morning team will take the Glenn Gould Studio alongside a number of fabulous musical guests, including: William Prince, Zenesoul, Peter Dreams and Katie Tupper.
Tickets for Metro Morning 's show are sold out, but you can watch live in the player above from 6 to 8:30 a.m. ET or head on down to the broadcasting centre and watch in our building's atrium, where there's plenty going on — and yes, some coffee and treats.
All of Friday's programming is being done for one goal: to raise money for local food banks at a time when the need is greater than ever. CBC News has reported extensively on food insecurity in the region and the challenges food banks face in feeding tens of thousands of people. So far, we've raised about $75,000 and we're looking forward to seeing that tally go up as the day goes on.
Of course, you're also welcome to bring some non-perishable food items.
Later in the day, we've got more live specials.
You can meet some of your favourite CBC TV and Radio hosts from 8:30-9 a.m.
Later, catch Laugh Out Loud, featuring comedians Ali Hassan, Martha Chaves and Ryan Dillon.
At noon, Mattea Roach will be doing a live version of Bookends.
And at 3 p.m. Here and Now, hosted by Ramraajh Sharvendiran, rounds out the day with more beautiful music from Anjulie, The Free Label and AHI.
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CBC
08-05-2025
- CBC
Madeleine Thien's new time-bending novel is haunted by her father's story
Madeleine Thien is one of Canada's most acclaimed storytellers. Her novel Do Not Say We Have Nothing received both the Giller Prize and the Governor General's Literary Award in 2016, telling the story of musicians during the Chinese Cultural Revolution and its aftermath. Now, she returns with her latest novel, The Book of Records, which continues her exploration of history, memory and the political forces that shape individual lives. "As Madeleine has said herself, she doesn't see history as separate from the present moment," said Mattea Roach in the introduction to their interview on Bookends. "With this story, she questions the very nature of time, asking, 'How do we engage with great thinkers of the past, and what can they teach us about how to live now?'" Set 100 years in the future, The Book of Records follows Lina, a young girl from China, and her ailing father as they seek refuge in a place called "the Sea," where time has collapsed. In this world, voyagers and philosophers from centuries past coexist with migrants from around the globe. Lina grows up with only three books, each chronicling the lives of famous voyagers throughout history. Over time, these figures come to life as her eccentric neighbours, eventually becoming her friends. Thien joined Roach on Bookends to discuss the personal connection she feels to the fantastical world she has created, and what it means to exist in a place that blurs past and present. Mattea Roach: What would it mean for a building to be made of time, as Lina's father explains to her, because it's a very metaphysical concept? Lina's father describes it to her as a piece of string that keeps folding over itself, like a constellation knot. And really, what it is, is a crossroads of history. In some ways, it's the way that we hold history inside ourselves. It's the way that many centuries, many ideas, many philosophers, many words inhabit the space of our bodies. In a way, everyone has a kind of "Sea" within themselves. As a novelist, one tries to imagine what that would be like in a concrete sense. Escaping into literature, reading, writing, storytelling is something that Lina and a number of the other characters we meet in The Book of Records do. I understand that when you were growing up, books were somewhat scarce in your household, but you did have Encyclopedia Britannica at home. Were you an encyclopedia reader as a kid? Is your novel drawn from your own childhood reading? It's drawn from the intense longing to have books, definitely. I was just thinking about that this morning, actually — what was in the house? The Encyclopedia Britannica, condensed books and issues of Reader's Digest. I read everything that was lying around. I think, you know, my parents felt that given limited resources, what books could they put around that could kind of represent [an] abundance of reading material. I went to the library every weekend, and I'd just sit there looking at whatever I could find. The specific three encyclopedias that Lina reads over and over, are about the journeys of three historical figures — the 20th century political philosopher Hannah Arendt, the 17th century philosopher Baruch Spinoza and the eighth century Chinese poet Du Fu. Why these three people in particular? In the book itself, the father says it's random. They're the three books he plucked off the shelf in a chaotic moment and threw into a bag and then they had to leave. For me, The Sea housed many different people at many different times. It took me nine years to write the book and people kind of moved in and moved out. But I wanted to be true to a question that had been disturbing me for a long time, which was, 'How had I come to believe the things I believed? What things were so deeply instilled in me that I didn't see them?' So on that level, I stayed with writers and philosophers and poets who had meant a lot to me for decades. Lina's father is a complex man [and] cares a lot for his daughter. You've described your own father as being a complicated man in his own way. Did you find yourself drawing on your relationship with your father at all? Maybe only in the sense that there was an exceptional person in which something was unfulfilled, and a loving person. My father had to grow up in the shadow of a father who was executed during the Second World War — who was forced to collaborate during wartime occupation, and then was killed when the occupation ended by the occupiers, because he just knew too much. The complexity and the tragedy of my father's childhood is probably woven into all my work in some way or another. Those difficult choices and the long shadow of them haunts the work. What was [your father's] life trajectory? He was born in what was British North Borneo, and then became part of Malaysia. He was the youngest child, and eventually he was sent to college in Melbourne, Australia, and there he met my mother, who was born in China and then brought to Hong Kong as a baby, also during the war. They also were refugees. My parents came to Canada in 1974, and I think it was extremely difficult. My mother was pregnant with me, they had two other children. [It's] a story we know — that uprootedness, that profound desire to make a new home, to make a better life for their kids. It's a story that we know well in Canada. I think my father was the most loving man who tried to find a footing in this continuous uprootedness. In the novel, there are these series of books and there's this epigraph that opens all the books. It's Seneca and it says, "I leave you my one greatest possession, which is the pattern of my life." And I do feel that my parents left me this pattern of their lives that I'm kind of in awe of. I feel as a writer, and just as a person, an obligation to this remembrance and love, and maybe to not being silent in the face of things when I feel something should be said. I want to ask about the dedication to The Book of Records because I know it was dedicated to your best friend, Y-Dang Troeung, who passed away in 2022. Can you tell me a bit about her? Y-Dang was an extraordinary person. She was a professor, she taught Canadian literature. She and her family were named as the last refugees when they came to Canada in the early 1980s and were welcomed by Pierre Trudeau as one of the last of the 60,000 refugees to arrive from Southeast Asia. She's definitely one of those people who gives me courage. She was just a light, I wish she was here.
CBC
05-05-2025
- CBC
Performances, healing dances abound as Toronto commemorates Red Dress Day
Mayor Olivia Chow attended two ceremonies filled with dancing, drums, sacred fires and Indigenous artwork on Monday to honour Red Dress Day. The National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and 2SLGBTQI+ People is marked nationwide. Speaking at Toronto's Native Canadian Centre in the Annex area, Chow dedicated her remarks to the memory of women and girls that have been lost. She said she's thinking about the city's role in tackling violence against Indigenous women. "We need to work harder and imagine a life that is free of violence [and is] instead full of love. Let us imagine a city that has that," she said. Chow said that Toronto should offer shelter to Indigenous people and provide more affordable housing, along with making it easier for newcomers to find and connect with local Indigenous communities and elders. "We need to make sure there's enough shelter, housing… [that] there is education and employment opportunities," she said. Toronto's events are among dozens happening across Canada. Featuring powerful dances, songs and spirit plate offerings, many Indigenous people said the events are a chance to mourn lost loved ones and keep their memory alive. Lori Boros, who is Cree, performed a song at the Native Canadian Centre. Her mother was a residential school survivor, she said, and one of her aunts went missing and hasn't been found. Boros told CBC Toronto her performance is a healing process — one that helps her stay connected to her culture. "When the song comes to you, creator from above will bring you those words and the song, and then it just comes out of your heart and just flows," she said. "You're joining in spirit with one another, with the words, as it's flowing through the music." Joseph Harper, who is Ojibway and Cree, performed a cultural dance during a Sunrise Ceremony in Love Park. Harper said he went to the event to remember and connect with his family, and that he danced for them. "I'm thinking about my grandmother mainly today, but I usually think about my family. I think about family that came before me. That's why we dance, right?" he said. "That's why we have the feathers, the songs, it's just everything is connected. That's kind of how I feel when I come out, I want to be more connected."
CBC
02-05-2025
- CBC
How writing helps Iryn Tushabe recover what she's left behind
It's been almost 20 years since Iryn Tushabe left Uganda to live in Regina, and she says that she writes to recover things she's left behind. Tushabe was a finalist for the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2021. In 2023, she won the Writers' Trust McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize. Tushabe was longlisted for the CBC Nonfiction Prize in 2016. The 2025 CBC Poetry Prize is accepting submissions! If you're interested in the CBC Literary Prizes, the 2025 CBC Poetry Prize is accepting submissions until June 1. You can submit an original, unpublished poem or collection of poems of a maximum of 600 words (including titles). The traditional stories of spiteful gods and triumphant heroes were one of the ways she and her family connected with each other. "I grew up next to a forest. When I was born, my neighbours were baboons and monkeys and just all kinds of wild animals," she said on Bookends with Mattea Roach. "On any given day, I might see more chimpanzees and baboons than human beings. So after supper, all we ever had for company were each other. And I had a big family. So we told each other these stories." Her latest book, Everything is Fine Here is inspired by one of those Ugandan folk tales and tells the story of two sisters. Aine is the younger sister and her world is turned upside down when she begins to suspect that her beloved older sister is gay. This is Uganda, where homosexuality is illegal. And as happy as Aine is to see her sister Mbabazi find love, she's caught between disapproving parents, a hostile culture and a desire to see her sister blossom and incorporate some kind of new and fresh ideas into Aine's world. Tushabe joined Mattea Roach on Bookends to discuss why for her, writing is an act of reclamation and recovery. Mattea Roach: Why did you choose to tell a queer love story through the perspective of an observer? Iryn Tushabe: The first draft that I wrote was actually first person. It turned into this long rambling diatribe of a thing that was unreadable at the end of it. It was full of anger because a lot of it was my own experience of growing up bisexual in Uganda. What that draft did is it helped me purge all of that frustration and anger, and now I could tell it from the perspective of someone else and still include those experiences - Iryn Tushabe I think what that draft did is it helped me purge all of that frustration and anger; now I could tell it from the perspective of someone else and still include those experiences, but not make it so personal to myself. Once I stepped out of the way and let the younger sister be the one to tell the story, then it became more real. It became more of a story that includes everything — not just the idea of just being gay and queer in Uganda. What is it like for Aine to grow up with a sister who is kind of that gold star sibling, someone that you want to emulate in a lot of ways? I think that sibling dynamic where the older sister is really much older; they kind of take on the role of a mother too. So she has nurtured Aine since she was very small. So they are quite close Family can be a site for a lot of hurt, a lot of heartbreak and disappointments. It can be a site for healing too. Aine, I think, has a pedestal in her heart for her sister. Just really adores her. It just seemed to me that it would be a good story to tell from the family level because family can be a site for a lot of hurt, a lot of heartbreak and disappointments. It can be a site for healing too. Can you describe what the relationship between religion and queerness was like for you growing up in Uganda and how that has affected your journey as a queer person and as a writer? There's an influx of evangelists from the United States. They come and they hold these massive crusades, and they convert people from whatever religions they're in and they turn them into born again Christians. These are the sorts of people who actually have influenced the Anti-Homosexuality Act in Uganda before it was ever tabled in parliament. I didn't want to inflict any further violences on the queer characters in the book. So religion plays a massive role. But it seems to me that, when you know what you know about Uganda through the news, you don't get the whole picture. You just think that perhaps Ugandan queers are just sitting there waiting to be saved by outsiders. But the way they live their lives is actually — they're resisting. They're moving forward in the world with turmoil for sure. It's hard, but they're happy. I think that's part of the reason why I made the book that way. I didn't want to have to repeat what everyone in the news-reading world already knows about the Anti-Homosexuality Act. I didn't want to inflict any further violence on the queer characters in the book. What is your relationship to spirituality these days? I think for a lot of people who grew up religious and who are queer, it's a complicated thing to navigate. I'm envious of people who are queer who still are able to hold onto their faiths. But for me, I cannot. I cannot reconcile the two because I just feel like growing up a Christian it's, to use a tired word, traumatizing. It's traumatizing on a psychological level to sort of be told that the only way to be in the world is to pray this thing away. But now I find it in meditation. I find it in sitting in silence. And it's very hard, so infinitely harder than prayer. Because in prayer you can just say all these things and unburden yourself in whatever way. But it's hard to sit in silence for 30 minutes because it feels like an eternity. There's some incorporation of Ugandan folk tales in a really beautiful way and the characters in your novel find great meaning in some of these stories that they were told as children. There's this one story in particular about two loyal sisters. Can you tell that story? I feel that this story truly encapsulates what the novel is about. It was the first thing that came to my mind. So basically the story is that these two siblings are tested, their family is tested by this goddess Nabinji, the goddess of plenty. And she comes to the home of the two sisters, and their mother is unkind to her, so she puts this curse on her, so that she's suspended between life and death. And the girls pursue the goddess to the forest so that she will give them their mother back. She subjects them to all these difficult phantasmagoric illusions to break their spirits. But every day they sing to each other and they persist and persevere through all these trials. At the end of it, she just grows bored because she can't break their spirits and she sends them back with this candle that they can burn next to their mother. And hopefully when the candle burns out, then their mother will arrive. Is there a name for a mother whose children have outgrown her? - Iryn Tushabe But when they get back, their mom is still young. That's just the most beautiful thing I like about that story is that she's still suspended at the age where the curse was put on her. And they've grown older than her and part of it is just, 'Ok so is she still our mom if we're older than her? And is there a name for a mother whose children have outgrown her?' I think that's kind of what Mbabazi and Aine are doing. Their mom is stuck in these old colonial Christian ways and they just want to get her unstuck. And they're burning this candle, but who knows how long this candle is going to burn and does it burn out? Does she wake up? I think that's the tragedy of it. They're not knowing if mama gets unstuck. I'm wondering what your hopes are for queer people in Uganda looking ahead? We have a phrase that I have in my acknowledgements and it's in my language, but translated I guess with context would be, "May love always prevail." I think that is my hope — that many people will walk this path towards embracing everybody.
