Context-rich interviews from Vancouver’s public edge.
Redeye follows public issues through careful interviews rather than hot takes. Its conversations move from Vancouver council and BC worker protections to Japanese Canadian history, Black Canadian student resistance, street medicine, climate policy, and activist memoir.
PRESS PLAY
Redeye is built around the kind of interview that starts with context and keeps asking what the details mean. It is rooted in Vancouver and the Lower Mainland, but its frame is larger than localism. City politics, provincial policy, labour law, climate action, public health, cultural history, and social movements all sit close together here. The show is at its strongest when a public issue needs patient explanation. A City Beat episode can spend time on Vancouver budget cuts, recreation facilities, homelessness counts, and the gap between political slogans and actual services. Another conversation follows BC’s platform-worker protections into the everyday reality of ride hail and food delivery workers, especially racialized, migrant, and new immigrant workers. Redeye also listens for history in place. Its episode on the Powell Street Festival traces Japanese Canadian settlement, forced removal during internment, and the festival’s role in cultural regeneration around Oppenheimer Park. The conversation with Street Doctor Jill turns social media health education into a wider discussion about homelessness, compassion, and common misconceptions about giving money or food to people on the street. Climate coverage is similarly grounded. Rather than simply naming emissions targets, the show asks what happens when staff and priorities shift inside government. The interview on the Climate Action Secretariat makes bureaucratic change feel concrete, especially when climate-policy staff are redirected toward oil and gas work. Redeye’s cultural episodes carry the same seriousness. Betty Baxter’s memoir becomes a way to talk about Olympic sport, lesbian identity, coaching, firing, advocacy, and the Vancouver Gay Games. Michelle Stevenson’s True North opens a path into Black Canadian history, archival footage, and the 1969 student uprising at Sir George Williams University. Across these episodes, the show’s pace remains measured. It gives guests space, then returns to the plain question at the center: who is affected, what changed, and what history is being carried forward. Redeye suits listeners who want public affairs with memory, specificity, and a strong sense of place.
Made for: For listeners who follow civic politics, labour, housing, climate, public health, and Canadian social history. It best suits people who prefer careful interviews over quick commentary.
What sets it apart: Redeye connects local Vancouver issues to larger histories of displacement, resistance, policy, and community life. Its strength is patient guest-led explanation with enough civic detail to make abstract systems legible.
A progressive take on current events. Produced by an independent media collective at Vancouver Cooperative Radio.
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Redeye turns policy and activism into specific, intelligible accounts of how institutions shape public and private life.
Redeye keeps asking how public decisions travel into ordinary life. Jane Williams leads focused interviews on street design, military refusal, arms shipments and private health care, pressing guests to explain the machinery behind their claims.
Redeye follows the paperwork from F-35 parts to private health care, so your outrage arrives footnoted.
Press play if you want
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A clear, legally grounded account of how Canadian arms and F-35 parts are tracked through the United States toward Israel.
Canada's role in arming Israel is traced through a route officials have often treated as secondary: Canadian explosives and F-35 parts moving through the United States toward Israel.
A focused look at how Alberta's Bill 11 could tie two-tier care to private insurance and trade rules.
Alberta's Bill 11 is framed here as more than a provincial health-care fight. Jane Williams asks Andrew Longhurst of the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives how a two-tier law could open space for private insurance and foreign companies protected by trade agreements.
Two Israeli conscientious objectors connect personal refusal to militarism, occupation, and political dissent.
Red Eye follows Inat Gerlitz and Tal Mitnick, two young Israeli conscientious objectors who refused service with the Israeli Defense Forces and paid for that choice with prison terms of 87 and 185 days.
A live Vancouver conversation about cars, streets, and safer streets.
Jane Williams shapes Red Eye around a Vancouver public conversation about Life After Cars, bringing Doug Gordon and Sarah Goodyear into the same room as City Councillor Lucy Maloney and designer Tom Flood.
A literary conversation that lets title, craft, and one vivid reading carry the episode.
This episode of Red Eye centers on Off the Map, a new anthology of creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry by Vancouver writers with lived experience of mental health issues.
Spanish-language narrative journalism from across Latin America and Latino life.
This episode features an interview with Michelle Stevenson, director of the documentary True North, which explores the 1969 black student uprising in Montreal at Sir George Williams University (now Concordia University) through archival footage and activist interviews.
This episode features an interview with author Melissa Bruntlett about her new book 'Women Changing Cities', which highlights women leaders worldwide who are transforming urban environments to be more inclusive and liveable.
Israeli youth activists Inat Gerlitz and Tal Mitnick discuss their refusal to serve in the IDF during a Vancouver event hosted by Dr.
Lorraine Chisholm speaks with Seema Shah and Pari Mokhradi about Off the Map.
Researcher Andrew Longhurst explains how Alberta's Bill 11, which creates a two-tier healthcare system, opens the door for foreign private companies to enter Canada's public healthcare market.
Canada’s “U.S. loophole” lets weapons avoid permits and move from Quebec to Israel via the United States.
Jane Williams opens Red Eye with excerpts from a Vancouver stage event.
Residential-school denialism, the guests argue, often accepts that schools existed while minimizing harm and contesting findings.
Redeye interviews Dalhousie professor Debbie Martin about university policies responding to people accused of falsely claiming Indigenous identity.
Melissa Bruntlett describes how Anuela Rustani reshaped Tirana streets and added a Grand Park playground after 79 days of protest.
This episode features an interview with Emiko Morita about the history of the Powell Street Festival, a Japanese-Canadian cultural event in Vancouver, and the new book 'Return to Paorugai'.
This episode discusses the ongoing need for improved legal protections for gig workers in BC, focusing on Bill 48's effectiveness and advocacy efforts by BC Policy Solutions.
This episode features an interview with Dr.
This episode discusses the BC government's elimination of the Climate Action Secretariat and its implications for emissions targets and climate policy, featuring an interview with Sven Biggs from Stand.Earth.
This episode discusses Vancouver City Council's upcoming agenda, focusing on the latest homeless count data showing record highs in homelessness across Metro Vancouver and funding requests for aging recreation facilities.
Former Olympian Betty Baxter discusses her memoir 'Outspoken,' which details her journey from competing in the 1976 Olympics to becoming an activist for LGBTQ+ rights and women in sports.
This episode features an interview with Michelle Stevenson, director of the documentary 'True North,' which explores the 1969 black student uprising in Montreal at Sir George Williams University (now Concordia University) through archival footage and activist interviews.
This episode analyzes Vancouver's contentious 2025 budget process under Mayor Ken Simms and previews upcoming 2026 municipal elections, focusing on budget cuts and public opposition.