As tipping creeps into more and more of our transactions, some restaurants have bucked the trend and ended the practice all together. It means higher prices on the menus and more costs for the restaurants' owners, but they say it is a better and more fair way to treat their employees. How are these eateries faring in a time when the industry is already struggling with rising costs, labour shortages and shifting consumer habits?

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Ontario's minimum wage rose to $17.20 from $16.55 on October 1, an increase of almost 4 percent based on the province's consumer price index. But advocates argue that the wage is still too low in places with a higher cost of living. There's even a movement to introduce a living wage, one that is indexed to local costs. Minimum wage workers in Toronto and Hamilton for example would be paid more per hour than those in Sudbury or Thunder Bay. But business owners say that they can't be expected to bear the sole cost of increasing wages. Some say that the government has a bigger role to play in helping low-wage workers improve their skills to graduate better paying jobs. So, what is the best way to support Ontario's low-wage workers?

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Pakistani-Canadian journalist Sadiya Ansari investigates the life of her mysterious grandmother Tahira, who leaves her children to follow a lover in post-Partition Pakistan.

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In an era of growing geopolitical tensions paralleled by deepening digitalization of economies and societies, has technology become the new battleground in the geopolitical quest for power? Host Steve Paikin asks: George Takach (author, "Cold War 2.0: Artificial Intelligence in the New Battle Between China, Russia and America"), Rachel Ziemba (Center for a New American Security), and Bessma Momani (University of Waterloo).

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The Battle of Britain was one of the hardest fought in the Second World War. In "Battle of Britain: Canadian Airmen in Their Finest Hour," historian Ted Barris details how Canadian flyers were vital in the battle and helped win it alongside their British counterparts.

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From the trenches of Korea to the Turkish invasion of Cyprus and the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, "Forgotten War" has detailed these post-World War II conflicts through the eyes of Canadian veterans who were there. But do Canadians know much if anything about this history? Has our peacekeeping past become more myth than reality? And from the days as a middle power punching above our weight, has Canada lost its place in the world? For the final episode of "Forgotten War", Steve Paikin and a panel of historians consider Canada's relationship with this history and the increasingly unstable world we face in 2024.

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The Agenda's week in review looks at the evolution of Holocaust education, the return of Donald Trump to the presidency, one woman's crusade against intimate partner violence, and the complicated meaning behind the term "Black Excellence".

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After the Second World War Yugoslavia and its six republics were unified under the communist rule of Josip Broz Tito. But by the early 1990s it all came undone. More than 100,000 people were killed in the Yugoslav wars for independence, many through deliberate campaigns of ethnic cleansing. What happened? Why did Serbs, Bosnian Muslims, and Croats descend into civil war? And what role exactly did UN peacekeepers have to play during an on-going war? Episode four of "Forgotten War" explores the history of the Yugoslav wars for independence along with guest Sandra Perron. She was Canada's first female infantry officer and deployed to both Bosnia and Croatia. Perron explains the difficulty of being a peacekeeper "when there is no peace to keep," the ethnic tensions that exploded throughout the region, and the personal battle she had within a military that wasn't ready to accept women in combat roles. This video was made in partnership with Canada Company.

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With hashtags or even school programs called Black Excellence, a term that praises Black individuals for their accomplishments, is it time to have more conversation about the constructed and racialized societal expectations of what it means to be an exceptional Black person? 

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This year's annual Golden Rescue Picnic, in Peterborough Ontario, is competing for two Guiness World Book Records: The Most Golden Retrievers Married and The Biggest Dog Cake. Find out if they win and why the heck a cuddly Golden Retriever needs a rescue organization in the first place. And wait... is that Lloyd Robertson in a gold robe officiating the wedding?

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The Haliburton Sculpture Forest, the largest sculpture forest in Ontario, is home to kilometres of paths bordered by artworks of all kinds. Visitors of all ages are welcome to engage with the works by touching, climbing, and enjoying nature and art free of charge.

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