So that’s a wrap! Another nine-week season of Midweek behind us, and one more Midweek team that now says its goodbyes and heads off to their next adventures.
Hosts Erin Wai and Cindy Tran
Once done, we headed outside for a team photo (all double-vaxxed, in a breeze, and unmasked only momentarily, so don’t @ us!) — and lots of laughs, because some on the team actually had never seen each other without masks on (“You have a beard?!?!”).
That’s the crew up top, with Jen Osborne, our B.C. correspondent, appearing as usual online down in the corner. Good lookin’ bunch, eh?
But before the photo, the celebrating and the farewells, there was one last show to do — and a darned good one, too!
We open with a plea for help: Reporter Camille Vinet speaks with the spouse of a Carleton University PhD student detained in Turkey a year ago who still can’t come home.
Midweek’s Ben Andrews then takes us to a corner store on Preston Street that’s making a go of selling fresh fruit and vegetables, even though other small stores had to bail on an Ottawa Public Health program launched in 2018 to bring fresh produce to “food deserts” in the city that don’t have their own large grocers.
Pit bulls like Alix Packard’s dog Kira, age 11, are banned under Ontario’s Breed Specific Legislation. (Photo courtesy of Alix Packard)
Retail is one end of the food chain, and when it comes to lobsters, the other end is sinking traps in the ocean. Midweek’s Cassandra Yanez-Leyton joins us to explain what’s known in southwest Nova Scotia as Dumping Day, which marks the start of one lobster season and the end of another.
Then we go to the dogs: Ariel Harker introduces us to the founder of a group fighting Ontario’s Dog Owners’ Liability act, which bans pit bulls as a breed. Alix Packard and her friend Kira (that’s Kira on the left) say that’s unfair and want breed-neutral laws.
Reporter Zac Delaney finds out about Carleton students upset over the handling of a sexual assault case against a varsity basketball player, and Cindy Tran looks at how students of Asian ancestry can be better served in classrooms and freed from stereotypes. We also get reactions to the mayor’s announcement of free public transit for December. Then Zac is off to find out about Christmas trees at a local cut-your-own farm.
We hear what a high school student in Pembroke thinks about how her school’s semester system is changing, and Midweek’s Sarah O’Leary brings us the frustrations of a senior humanities student at Carleton who’s missing out a second time on a study-abroad opportunity he’d so looked forward to. Thanks, omicron.
Sarah then takes a more upbeat look at what draws folks to the treasures in local consignment stores, and Maia Smith reports on what the winner of the Big Brother Canada TV show five years ago has been up to since his big moment and the impact it’s had on his life.
Producer Kimberley Moriarity celebrates the end of the season with music co-producer Zoya Davis and audio technologist David Sarazin.
And speaking of the arts, Erin Wai tells us how humanities students at Carleton are expanding their online literary publication NORTH, and Zoya Davis finds out from an attendee what it was like to rub shoulders with the stars at the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards, now it was once again an in-person gala.
And to end the show and the season, we cuss in a good cause: Ralph Jean-Jacques tells us how the Communication Undergraduate Student Society launched a fundraiser to support emergency housing for women in need.
And that was that: These are uncertain times, but Midweek is scheduled to be back live on CKCU on February 2, 2022, with a brand-new team of journalists.
Looking forward to it!