Now or Never

There is a power in publicly declaring you no longer own, support, or believe in something. Meet five Canadians doing just that.Jess Klaassen-Wright is part of a small but growing movement of young people in Canada renouncing their generational wealth. And right now, Jess is grappling with what to do with an unexpected $300,000 inheritance. Jess tells us why it’s important to talk more openly about money, including how much you have, where it came from, and asking yourself how much you really need. Since Dominique Gené was a kid, religion and her relationship to God have been her anchor. She spent a good chunk of her life in church. Until 2024, when she decided to permanently part ways with her faith.Two years ago, Gavin MacNeil said goodbye to his smartphone and social media accounts for good. Now at 18, and months away from moving away from home for the first time, can he hang on to his commitment?When Franklin Fontaine ended up in jail, it derailed his up-and-coming rap career. While he was inside he decided to renounce the drugs and gangs that had messed up his life. Now he’s using his story to try to help kids not make the same mistakes.And remember "Elbows Up," when thousands of outraged Canadians vowed to stop buying U.S products after Trump's 51st state comments? We check in with Mike Robitaille, a guy who took this boycott to the extreme, to see if he's still going strong almost a year later.

Whether it's through sheer luck or hard work, you've been handed an opportunity you've maybe only dreamed of. What do you do with it?Actor Feaven Abera has been hustling in the industry since she was 17 years old. She remembers taking jobs to pay for acting classes, commuting from Hamilton to Toronto and back for auditions and student films, and sometimes coming up short on bus fare. At 25, she was ready to call it quits, until a phone call changed everything.When Joey Gibbs spotted a lost stuffed bunny at the Vancouver airport, he decided it needed to go on an adventure of a lifetime too before being reunited with the owners.On a whim, Amanda Buhse entered her name to be a seat filler at the Emmys. When she got the call, she had less than 24 hours to get from Winnipeg to LA and be camera ready to rub elbows with the stars on TV.Edith Lemay, Sebastian Pelletier and their four children have swam with dolphins in Indonesia, sailed high above Cappadocia in a hot air balloon, and jumped into ancient lakes in Mongolia. But this epic around-the-world-adventure is more than just fun - they're also trying to create 'visual memories' before three of their kids lose their eyesight permanently. What do you pack to take to space? How do you handle the fear? And how do you prepare your family to watch you blast off? Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen gets personal ahead of his mission to the moon.

‘Tis the season for exchanging greetings, sending salutations, and dashing off (humblebrag) holiday letters. But chances are, there’s someone you haven’t reached out to yet…so what are you waiting for?Today Now or Never is nudging you to finally get those meaningful messages out into the world, starting with our own Trevor Dineen.For the past three (!) years, a complete stranger with Trevor’s old phone number, has been redirecting his birthday messages and phone calls. Trevor has never spoken to him, but today, he calls up this helpful stranger to say thanks. When her baby boy Lewiston was diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy, Calgary’s Jessica Janzen was determined his short life would be full of joy. That meant dance parties to Can’t Stop the Feeling by Justin Timberlake. Now, Jessica is trying to get Timberlake to join her in a dance for what would be Lewiston’s 10th birthday.When Laurie Froman was a teenager growing up in Six Nations of the Grand River, her dad used to do little drawings on her lunch bags, along with this simple message: “Have a good day. Love, Dad.” Laurie tells us why she’s hung on to these paper lunchbags for 35 years, and why the message is even more dear to her since her dad Cecil passed away. Toronto’s Cheryl Swanson didn't expect to give birth in her living room, but her son had other plans. Ever since that night she’s held onto a debt of gratitude that she needs to deliver. The question is: twelve years later, can we find the paramedic to make it happen? When her colleagues at the University of Regina learned that Angela was fleeing domestic abuse, they stepped up and helped her feel safe. Angela shares the difference it made and how other workplaces can do the same.Keith Merker wrote a Christmas song to cheer up his wife Lindsay as she was going through chemotherapy. The couple wasn’t in the spirit to enjoy the song at the time, so it collected dust for over a decade…Until this year, when Keith was diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer. The family is now on a mission to use the song to spread a message of joy and hope as widely and loudly as they possibly can.

This week, stories of people racing to save something before it disappears completely.For most of his life, Gerry Smerchanski has watched the stars from his property in the small town of Teulon, Manitoba. But now the town has grown up around his home, and the amateur astronomer’s night sky is disappearing because of light pollution. Find out how he’s fighting to preserve the night sky, and why it matters.After looking all over her Saskatoon home, Barb Rudoski finally found her old wedding video from 1991. Now that she’s transferred the VHS to digital, she’s finally able to take her daughters back in time to the big hair, shoulder pads, and 90s-tastic realness of her wedding day, with hilarious results. Where have all the male friendships gone? According to Statistics Canada, we're seeing our friends less often, and have fewer close friends to confide in — and this is especially true for men. Find out how something called the "Wednesday Waffle" is helping Justin, Arman, Sawyer and Mike of the Toronto Dingos Aussie-rules football club stay connected, after suffering a devastating loss on their team.Life in the small town of Flatrock, N.L. used to revolve around the church — until it was put up for sale. Although they couldn’t save their beloved church, Sonya Power-Parsons and a group of volunteers now dedicate much of their lives to reviving the community cemetery where generations of family members are laid to rest, a place that was also at risk of disappearing forever.And what happens when you're a little too good at saving things? When her living room was so filled with boxes that there was only a narrow path left to walk through, Colleen Peters knew something needed to change. Hear the tips and tricks that helped her face her collecting problem.Isabell Weitman has always loved creating, but she turned to art as her creative outlet when she was diagnosed with a nervous system disorder and wasn’t able to work. The BC-based artist creates beautifully eerie pieces using items that a lot of us would never think of saving, including bones, dead insects and dried flowers, plants and fruits. And she recently found an artistic collaborator — an orb weaver spider named Gary, whose webs have become the focal point of Isabell’s works.

Messing things up is part of the human experience.But what happens when you fail at something so big, and so publicly...how do you come back from that?On this episode, four people confess their most epic fails, and what they're doing to dig themselves out.Edmonton’s Kayla Huszar used to cajole, bribe and beg her children to brush their teeth. But her "gentle parenting" approach led to both her kids needing emergency dental surgery, and feelings of failure. How Kayla created boundaries, stopped getting bullied by her kids, and ditched the permissive approach.When Jeremy Campbell first dreamed up the Line Spike Frontenac music festival this summer, he pictured 20,000 fans in a field, singing along to an all-Canadian lineup featuring Chantal Kreviazuk and Burton Cummings. Instead, his liquor license got revoked, fewer than 4000 people showed up, and he's now over $225,000 in debt. He tells us what went wrong, and why he still has the confidence to try again next year.Ify takes her mic to Toronto's Metropolitan University, where students confess their biggest academic fails.After years of gruelling training and international marathons, long-distance runner Natasha Wodak failed all of her attempts to make it to the 2024 Paris Olympics. Now 43 years old, the life-long competitor is learning how to accept where her body is at during this stage of her career — although she still hasn’t ruled out the 2028 Olympic Games.After an existential crisis in her early 20s, Erica Rankin decided to quit her 9 to 5 job and start a protein cookie dough business. Things were going well at first, but after a mouldy cookie dough incident and some retail flops, Erica was forced to file for bankruptcy and move back in with her parents. She tells us why she's still determined to live the entrepreneurial life, and how she's doing it despite a lot of burned bridges.