When Julia Pagel was seven months pregnant, she and her husband faced all the usual new parent decisions: making a birth plan, deciding which stroller to buy and whether to use reusable or disposable diapers.

However, there was one choice that was extra tricky for the two of them. What would their child's last name be? Should they just go along with standard practice of giving the baby the father’s last name?

The tradition of giving the dad’s name to the child didn’t sit right with Julia, but her husband had come to Canada from Serbia as a 9-year-old, and his last name meant a lot to him. So Julia set out on a mission, to see how others had managed this last name quandary.

The documentary was reported by Julia Pagel and story editing by Karen Levine.

Storylines is part of the CBC Audio Doc Unit

On May 1st the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion will begin commercial operations.

It marks the end of a 12 year saga that included protests, legal challenges and the purchase of the pipeline itself by the federal government.

When Ottawa stepped in to buy TMX six years ago, it had an estimated price tag of $7.4 billion dollars. Today the cost has grown to $34 billion dollars.

As the polarizing project nears the finish line, CBC producer Allison Dempster visits communities along the pipeline route, from Edson, Alberta to Burnaby, B.C. She meets people who worked on the project, people who campaigned against it and Indigenous leaders who one day hope to own it.

In the second half of the show, we join Anna Maria Tremonti on a road trip she took along the route back in 2019. She hears from Western Canadians deeply divided on the pipeline project.

As you’ll hear, the expansion is almost complete, but the debate over its legacy is far from over.

Reported by Allison Dempster. Produced by Jennifer Chevalier.

Storylines is part of the CBC Audio Doc Unit

Mary Kajumba needed money to make a better life for her daughter. So, with the help of a placement agency she left her home in Uganda, and went to Iraq where she got a job as a restaurant cleaner. It wasn’t long after she realised she was in trouble. Mary says she found herself working 18 hour days, sharing cramped accommodation with 30 other workers and never getting paid.

But then, help came from an unexpected place. Voice memos, from a man in Vancouver who was working for an anti trafficking organisation.

This week on Storylines freelance journalist Jazzmin Jiwa brings us Mary’s story. We follow Mary as she tries to break free from the shackles of human trafficking and forced labour with the help of an NGO.

Stories like Mary’s can be found across the Middle East, where workers from sub-Saharan Africa are trafficked, transported, threatened and forced to work for little to no wages. They find themselves working as cleaners and domestic servants, after landing jobs through recruitment agencies that don’t ask many questions about working conditions.

Reported by Jazzmin Jiwa. Produced by John Chipman. Story Editing by Julia Pagel and Liz Hoath. This documentary was supported by the Pulitzer Center.

Storylines is part of the CBC Audio Doc Unit