Some episodes entertain. Some inspire. And some remind us what it means to be human. This is one of those episodes. Bailey Gee was born with the most severe form of spina bifida. Her life became a cycle of surgeries, pain, bullying, isolation, a wheelchair, and battles with mental health that often left her wondering if life was worth fighting for. Every day she prayed to be happy. Then one day, happiness found her. A random YouTube search introduced Bailey to Cesar De La Rosa, whose music and s...
May 21, 2026•33 min•Season 4Ep. 301
Step inside the recording studio to understand more about one of the greatest voices of our time, Celine Dion. My guest is Vito Luprano, the Sony Music executive and creative force who worked on 21 of Celine's albums and helped shape her rise from a shy francophone teenager into an international superstar. Vito found the songs. Fought for the sound. Pushed for the reinvention. And helped Celine move from French-language success to global domination. He shares some of Celine's iconic moments, fro...
May 14, 2026•25 min•Season 4Ep. 298
Nick Ferguson grew up in inner-city Miami in a world that tried to define his future before he had a chance to dream. With no father figure, surrounded by poverty, prejudice, and expectations that narrowed life to "jail or a casket," Nick chose another path. He chose books. He chose belief. He chose football. He chose the hard road. Undrafted, overlooked, cut, injured, and forced to fight his way through the CFL, Germany, and countless closed doors, Nick refused to let circumstance become his id...
May 07, 2026•40 min•Season 4Ep. 297
I have had the privilege of knowing Paul Meehan for many years. I am a better person for it. There is no finer handshake or twinkle in the eye. Paul is a serial entrepreneur, a lover of family, life, and is guided by a higher purpose to help others. Did I mention that Paul and his wife, Melissa, created, self-funded, and built one of the world's most quietly brilliant brand stories by refusing to shout, by embodying the expression: Less is More. In a category crowded with sugar, swagger, and sam...
Apr 30, 2026•38 min•Season 4Ep. 296
I borrowed the title of this episode from Cat Stevens, and you will soon see why. To Cat Stevens, Tillerman represented, "the man of the Earth," working to make things on this planet. And Tea, well, my guest knows tea. In honour of Earth Day, I sit down with Michael Don Ham, entrepreneur, wellness advocate, and co-founder of Wild Orchard Teas, for a beautiful conversation about purpose, resilience, and what it really means to build a business that matters. A business in constant conversation wit...
Apr 23, 2026•30 min•Season 4Ep. 293
Jesse Hirsh is one of the most unbridled, unrestrained, intelligent, and entertaining individuals I know, and he doesn't disappoint in this interview. Jesse makes you think, laugh, question, and lean in all at once, on subject matter that is near and dear to all of us. We also talk about his early hacking arrest, which made him question authority; his warnings about the rising power of platforms; how our education system needs a major reboot; and his decision to leave the mainstream media behind...
Apr 16, 2026•55 min•Season 4Ep. 292
If you have ever doubted the power of art to change lives, this episode will make you think again. It is a reminder that movement can be medicine, joy can be transformative, and community can be as important as any treatment plan. Above all, it shows how one person's calling can become a lifeline for thousands of others. What if dance could do more than move the body? What if it could unlock joy, restore confidence, build community, and become a vital part of brain health? In this moving episode...
Apr 09, 2026•36 min•Season 4Ep. 290
John Beyer grew up amidst chaos. His parents were alcoholics. By his mid-twenties, both parents had passed away, grief weighed heavily, and alcohol took over his life. In this episode, I speak with John about the moment he finally confronted that truth and the long journey that ensued. The conversation covers addiction, recovery, family, and the quiet strength of rebuilding a life step by step. John shares how he found sobriety, started a business, became a husband and father, supported a son wi...
Apr 02, 2026•31 min•Season 4Ep. 285
To mark the end of International Women's Month, I host a conversation with three remarkable women. Shamira Jaffer, recipient of the 2023 RBC Canadian Women Entrepreneur Innovation Award; Jennifer Menard-Shand, a three-time nominee for the RBC Canadian Women Entrepreneur Awards; and Dr. Georgette Zinaty, President of WBE Canada and a passionate advocate for women-owned businesses. Together, we discuss the challenges women still face, the achievements they are making, and what Canada needs to do t...
Mar 29, 2026•38 min•Season 4Ep. 284
Audrey Hyams Romoff spent over 30 years in the glossy world of public relations, building OverCat Communications and shaping the images of A-list celebrities. Her professional life was marked by polish, access, and control. But behind that world was a much more private story, shaped by inherited trauma, silence, and profound loss. Audrey's Grandmother and Mother were survivors of Auschwitz. The Holocaust was rarely discussed in their home, yet its shadow influenced everything. That silence becam...
Mar 26, 2026•29 min•Season 4Ep. 283
Wes Geer chased rock and roll the way some people chase salvation, all in, full volume, no brakes. Wes Geer went from a kid with a guitar and a dream to co-founding Head P.E., tearing through the chaos of the '90s rock scene, then playing with Korn, and living the kind of life that looks electrifying from the outside and destructive from within. Fame, excess, addiction, collapse, Wes lived every mile of that road. But this episode is not just about the rise and the wreckage. It is about what hap...
Mar 19, 2026•37 min•Season 4Ep. 282
My advice to anyone is this. If you can, follow your passion. Follow it to where it brings you intellectual and emotional rewards, a sense of purpose and place, and in this volatile world, always have a Plan B. This is why I am so excited to introduce my two guests this week. Elysia Racanelli is a family doctor by day and avant-garde singer by night, whose haunting voice and commanding stage presence will stop you in your tracks. Jonathan Roy is the son of Patrick Roy, one of the greatest goalte...
Mar 12, 2026•39 min•Season 4Ep. 281
Have you ever considered that the sports you are watching are fixed? This episode ois appointment listening for Sports fans, sports gamblers and concerned parents, and an eye-opening story for anyone interested in how pervasive organized crime has woven into our society. My guest this week is Declan Hill, Oxford-educated and author of The Fix. Declan is world-renowned as an investigative journalist who has infiltrated organized crime fixing rings to understand how the world of sports fixing actu...
Mar 05, 2026•40 min•Season 4Ep. 280
On occasion, I break format, step out of interview mode, and speak directly to you about what I believe matters to you, to me, and to our country. In this episode, I talk about Canada's K economy and the growing, dangerous divide between those who have and those who have very little. I look at the human cost, the impact on our psychology and our society, and five things we can do to rebuild our economy. To grow our way forward, versus borrowing on the backs of future generations just to cover to...
Feb 27, 2026•11 min•Season 4Ep. 279
This week's podcast is for all who are dealing with the reality that their future will not look like the past. There will be no neatly paved road. No ladder with perfectly placed rungs. Instead, there will be relentless headwinds, industries reshaped by technology and marketplaces rendered by global forces. Jobs will collapse, and new ones will emerge. Which is why I invited The k3 Sisters Band to join me this week. Three sisters who chose to make their destiny a matter of choice, rather than le...
Feb 26, 2026•30 min•Season 4Ep. 278
Vancouver's Chinatown was never built to be trendy. It was built because people had nowhere else to belong. Shut out of opportunity. Pushed to the margins. Told where they could and could not live. So they built anyway. Store by store. Family by family. A place that began to pulse and then became magnetic to all who lived in and visited Vancouver. And then slowly, the pulse weakened. Rising costs. Aging buildings. Poverty. Then the pandemic. The streets emptied. Businesses struggled to survive. ...
Feb 19, 2026•47 min•Season 4Ep. 277
Some artists find a sound or a look. Others find the truth. Bif Naked found both. In this moving episode of Chatter that Matters, I sit down with the iconic Juno Award-winning artist and activist Bif Naked to unpack "I am who I am." Born in New Delhi. Adopted. Raised across oceans, finding love in words and music. At 21, Bif met her birth mother, a moment that brought her story full circle. But identity is not formed only in comfort. At 36, Bif was diagnosed with breast cancer. Two years later, ...
Feb 12, 2026•33 min•Season 4Ep. 276
What happened to the truth? I find myself fixated on a troubling realization. It feels remarkably easy to win over an audience with a slogan, a promise without substance, or blatant mistruths, even when those are wildly disconnected from the audience's reality. And even more surprisingly, they are not only readily accepted but also often repeated and shared. I wanted to understand why. Not from a political or media lens, but from a human one. What is it about human nature that makes us so vulner...
Feb 05, 2026•44 min•Season 4Ep. 275
Robyne was a high school dropout who believed she wasn't worth saving. Then her car plunged through the ice, trapping her 20 feet underwater and changing everything. This is the story of how choosing hope became a strategy for survival and healing. I sit down with Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe, bestselling author and one of the most trusted voices on resilience. As a teenager, Robyne battled addiction, dropped out of school, and was hospitalized in an adult psychiatric ward. At 16, a near-fatal accide...
Jan 29, 2026•46 min•Season 4Ep. 274
What happens when the dream you are chasing, ends in a split second? Only to find a new one awaits. At 19, Jane Roos was chasing Olympic dreams, fast, fearless, and focused. Then, in a single moment, everything changed. A devastating car accident took her best friend's life and ended the future she had trained for. What followed was pain, survivor's guilt, and a question that quietly redefined her life: Why am I still here? From a hospital bed, with no roadmap and no safety net, Jane founded the...
Jan 22, 2026•39 min•Season 4Ep. 273
Ben Mulroney has spent his life carrying a famous last name while choosing a different path on his own terms. That is why I wanted to share his story. We recorded the show in front of a sold-out room at The Toronto Hunt. Ben takes you behind his public persona and into the moments that shaped him, tested him, and surprised him. He shares wonderful stories that are funny, candid, and genuinely human, including what it really feels like to work on a red carpet and suddenly find yourself face-to-fa...
Jan 15, 2026•40 min•Season 4Ep. 272
One of the greatest lessons I've been gifted as host of Chatter That Matters is seeing how much impact one individual can have when they choose purpose over comfort. This episode is a powerful reminder of that truth. At the centre is Tim Cormode, whose life changed during a moment of stillness alone on a glacier. That clarity led him to build Power to Be, using nature as a pathway to dignity, confidence, and possibility for people told their limits were fixed. Tim shares what two decades in the ...
Jan 08, 2026•44 min•Season 4Ep. 271
I open my 2026 season with fireworks of positivity. One of the best Chatter that Matters yet. A human journey marked with humility, humour and extraordinary. Someone knuckles decided to knock on the door of opportunity. What does a Dragon, Best Selling Author, a McDonald's drive-through, a beat-up pickup truck, and a simple multi-million-dollar question have in common? 1-800-GOT-JUNK? The one and only Brian Scudamore. Brian turned hauling junk into a $700 million empire by embracing a mindset he...
Jan 01, 2026•40 min•Season 4Ep. 270
Dear Canada. It is now or never. In this fifteen-minute podcast, I state that we stand at a crossroads. A century ago, the world emerged from the trenches of war and the shadow of a brutal pandemic. The optimism of the Roaring Twenties gave way to recklessness. We gambled our destiny, left it to chance, and crashed in 1929. Prosperity built on illusion never lasts. Today, we face another critical time. The first quarter-century of this millennium has not been gentle, from the shock of 9/11, to t...
Dec 30, 2025•13 min•Season 4Ep. 269
Our global food system is feeding more people than ever, yet some argue it is also making more people sick, more unequal, and more vulnerable. How did we get here, and more importantly, how do we change course? In this timely and deeply human conversation, global nutrition expert Dr. Stuart Gillespie joins Chatter that Matters to unpack the forces shaping what we eat, who profits, and who pays the price. Drawing on decades of frontline experience across India, Africa, and within the United Natio...
Dec 25, 2025•37 min•Season 4Ep. 268
In this profoundly moving episode of Chatter That Matters , I sit down with Pierre Mousseau to talk about loss, grief, faith, and the long road back to meaning after tragedy. During the height of the pandemic, Pierre lost his 20-year-old son, Parker, after weeks of surgeries, setbacks, and moments that felt like miracles, followed by an impossible decision no parent should ever have to make. To say there is no more, to say goodbye to their child. Pierre speaks openly about watching his son fight...
Dec 18, 2025•34 min•Season 4Ep. 267
Some people dream. Others help weave those dreams. This episode is about two women who refuse to separate the two. It begins with Karla Briones. Raised in an entrepreneurial family in Chihuahua, Mexico, her first business was a schoolyard candy empire at six years old. Then the drug cartels arrived. Threats followed. Friends disappeared. At eighteen, her family dismantled their entire life and drove nearly four thousand kilometres to Canada with no safety net, no jobs, no guarantees. What follow...
Dec 11, 2025•44 min•Season 4Ep. 266
I went in, and she was sitting there in a motel room with a kilo of cocaine on the bed and two bikers helping her break it down into smaller bags. That was the insanity I was living in. Gordon Lownds has lived multiple lives. He grew up in Toronto and clashed with his father and an older brother who bullied him until he finally fought back at sixteen. That was the moment he said, enough. He left home, hustled at carnivals, and learned some of the sharpest business lessons you will ever hear. He ...
Dec 04, 2025•36 min•Season 4Ep. 265
As you listen to the show, I encourage you to step into Debra E. Meyerson's shoes. Debra had a dream life: a tenured professorship at Stanford, a reputation as a groundbreaking scholar on organizational change and identity, and big adventures with her husband, social finance leader Steve Zuckerman, including sailing across Europe with their three kids. Then, at 53, a stroke changed everything. In the first 48 hours, Steve watched the Debra he knew slip away. Her speech, her mobility, and everyth...
Nov 27, 2025•33 min•Season 4Ep. 264
Recorded in front of a sold out crowd at the Toronto Hunt, this episode captures the energy of a live audience and a message every Canadian needs to hear. We are living longer, and more of us will reach 100, yet our healthcare system is under strain and our daily choices matter more than ever. My guest, Mike Kessel, CEO of Cleveland Clinic Canada, brings a clear and practical view of what it means to live long and live well. He explains why lifestyle drives most of our health outcomes and how si...
Nov 20, 2025•39 min•Season 4Ep. 263
