The Current

The Current for May 18, 2021

Today on The Current: Impact of misinformation and disinformation on Israeli-Palestinian conflict; calls to donate Canada’s supply of AstraZeneca doses to low-income countries; and the demise of Greyhound Canada and the case for a national bus service.
Matt Galloway is the host of CBC Radio's The Current. (CBC)

Full Episode Transcript

Today on The Current:

The CBC's Margaret Evans joins us from Lod, Israel, to discuss continued fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants in Gaza. Plus, New York Times tech reporter Sheera Frenkel discusses the role and impact of misinformation, disinformation and digital propaganda.

Then, what should Canada do with the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine doses in storage? Hundreds of thousands of Canadians have received one dose, but now several provincial governments have paused offering it as a first dose, due to safety concerns and supply issues. We discuss calls to donate those shots to countries that need them with Lily Caprani, a vaccine advocacy expert with UNICEF global headquarters; Maxwell Smith, a bioethicist at Western University who serves on Ontario's COVID-19 Bioethics Table and Vaccine Distribution Task Force; and Dr. Zain Chagla, an infectious diseases physician at St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton. 

And Greyhound Canada is permanently cutting all bus routes across the country, leaving many people who rely on it wondering where to turn. We talk to longtime customers Morgan Dunbar and Kalpesh Patel. Plus, we discuss the case for a national bus service with Kasper Wabinski, owner and CEO of Kasper Transportation, and Terence Johnson, president of Transport Action Canada, a national advocacy group for sustainable transport.