COMMONS

WORK #16 – Boss Fight

July 3, 2024

This is the story of Canada’s first-ever video game union. And the lengths that the industry went to try to stop it in its tracks

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WORK #15 – Canada’s New Underclass

June 26, 2024

The huge rise in international students in Canada — most of them from Punjab, India — has become one of the biggest stories in the country.

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WORK #14 – The Colossus of Roads

June 19, 2024

She expected to face opposition from tech companies and governments that are hostile to workers. But what she didn’t anticipate was that one of the biggest obstacles in her path would be a labour union. 

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WORK #13 – Flying Under the Radar

June 12, 2024

Mandalena Lewis is one of far too many flight attendants who have been harassed or assaulted on the job. And her story is just one example of a culture of sexism and abuse that she alleges pervades the airline industry.

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WORK #12 – The Crucible of Confinement

June 5, 2024

In 2006, Zakaria Amara was arrested and imprisoned for planning what could have been one of the deadliest terror attacks in Canadian history. A ringleader of the so-called “Toronto 18,” he’s one of the most infamous Canadian convicts of the last few decades. 

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WORK #11 – The Way the Music Died

May 29, 2024

♩♪ But Spotify, it’s nearly killed us Ticketmaster’s ground us to dust The companies got too large Now monopolies are in charge ♩♪

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WORK #10 – Prison Labour Industrial Complex

May 22, 2024

Not only do Canadian prisoners work for for-profit businesses, but they’re sometimes doing the most dangerous and nauseating work around

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WORK #9 – Working Behind Bars

May 15, 2024

If we want to truly understand our criminal justice system and Canadian labour, we need to examine how prisoners work.

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WORK #8 – Make and Break Harbour

May 8, 2024

In Newfoundland and Labrador, fishing is more than just an industry or a job. It truly is a way of life. It’s at the core of what has made this place what it is.

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WORK #7 – Merchants of the Rock

May 1, 2024

The history of the Atlantic fishery can be understood as a power struggle between fishermen and merchants.

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WORK #6 – Emptying an Ocean

April 24, 2024

This isn’t just history. It’s prophecy. It’s a vision of what may come if we continue to ignore the ecological limits of this planet in the pursuit of profit.

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WORK 5 – The Westray Disaster

April 17, 2024

The story of Westray is one of managerial malice and the heroism of everyday people. But why is it that governments let this happen over and over again, at the expense of so many lives?

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WORK #4 – Reaping the Whirlwind

April 10, 2024

It’s a story of racism and labour exploitation that goes back decades, even centuries. And it’s a prophecy of what is to come — that the hardships inflicted on migrant farm workers are only a trial run for the rest of us. 

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WORK #3 – Bitter Harvest

April 3, 2024

To understand why the situation remains so bad, we need to go back in time to a moment when there was progress and hope. A moment when it looked like things might truly change for the better.

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WORK #2 – State of Emergency Rooms

March 27, 2024

Across Canada, emergency rooms have been shutting down, leaving desperate people in the lurch. And at the heart of this health care crisis, is a labour crisis.

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WORK #1 – The War on Workers

March 20, 2024

The rise of gig work and temp agencies have made employment more precarious than ever

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Introducing our new season… Work

March 6, 2024

This season of COMMONS will dig into the fascinating history and ever-changing present of what it means to be a worker in Canada.

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Bonus: Everybody Loves Romana

February 7, 2024

In this bonus episode, COMMONS producer Noor Azrieh sits down with Peter Smith to discuss his reporting on right-wing conspiracy groups like Qanon and Romana Didulo.

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CANADALAND #914 Stock Buybacks: How Grocers Eat Themselves

January 3, 2024

Canada’s biggest grocery chains spent nearly 2 billion last year buying up their own stocks.

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RATFUCKER Chapter Two: The Brethren

December 27, 2023

Richard Marsh was born into the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church. He got out of the group he calls a cult and has made it his mission to expose the Brethren for their alleged abuses.  Now he’s on the run from Brethren members who’ve been searching for him for years. The man hired to hunt Marsh down? David Wallace.

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CULTS #10 – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fandom

December 20, 2023

But at what point does it go from being harmless entertainment and turn into something more sinister?

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CULTS #9 – Romana’s Reign

December 13, 2023

Romana Didulo, the self-proclaimed Queen of Canada, is unlike almost any other cult leader Canada has ever seen

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CULTS 8 – The Eye of the Pyramid

December 6, 2023

MLMs have become such a ubiquitous part of North American life that their tenets are rarely ever questioned.

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CULTS #7 – Hey #Bossbabe!

November 29, 2023

Nearly 1.4 million Canadians and almost 50 million Americans are involved in multi-level marketing.

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CULTS #6 – Being a Blackmore

November 22, 2023

Mary-Jayne Blackmore is one of the oldest children of Winston Blackmore, the most famous polygamist in Canada. 

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CULTS #5 – Alien Superstar

November 15, 2023

The media have portrayed the Raelians as not just a cult, but a strange phantasmagoria of extraterrestrials, orgies and clones. But its followers insist it is the only true path forward for humanity.

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CULTS #4 – The Cult Wars

November 8, 2023

The Cult Wars have been raging for decades.

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CULTS #3 – MKUltra

November 1, 2023

Is it even possible to “brainwash” anyone?

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CULTS #2 – Brother XII

October 25, 2023

He’s often called the Devil of De Courcy Island for good reason.

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CULTS #1 – Speak in Tongues

October 18, 2023

The idea of cults has become an omnipresent part of our discourse. But what even is a cult? And why have we become so intrigued by these groups?

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Introducing our new season… Cults

October 4, 2023

Uncovering the stories of both devotees and dissenters, this season of COMMONS will go beyond the true crime cliches and will make you question everything you thought you knew about cults.

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Bonus: Game Misconduct

September 6, 2023

In this bonus episode, COMMONS producer Jordan Cornish sits down with Jashvina Shah to talk about her book, Game Misconduct: Hockey's Toxic Culture and How to Fix It. 

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Bonus: Overtime

August 2, 2023

In this bonus episode, COMMONS producer Jordan Cornish sits down with host Arshy Mann to discuss our recent season on hockey. 

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HOCKEY #7 – Blood on the Ice

July 5, 2023

Fighting was just his job. But it would end up taking everything from him.

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HOCKEY #6 – The Problem Hockey Won’t Name

June 28, 2023

The Hockey Canada scandal has become one of the biggest stories in the country. And now, hockey appears to be in the middle of a reckoning. But this isn’t the first time. There was another moment, just like this one.

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HOCKEY #5 – The Boys from Brampton

June 21, 2023

Mike Danton was playing in the Stanley Cup playoffs for the St. Louis Blues. And at the same time, he was trying to hire a hitman to kill his agent, David Frost.

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HOCKEY #4 – The Lonely End of the Rink

June 14, 2023

Hockey exacts a heavy toll on many boys and young men — on their minds and their bodies. And then they’re told not to talk about any of it outside the locker room.

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HOCKEY #3 – Iced Out

June 7, 2023

The NHL likes to call Willie O’Ree the Jackie Robinson of hockey. And no one can deny how significant it was when he became the first Black player on the ice in an NHL game in 1958.  But what the league doesn’t like to talk about is what happened next. 

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HOCKEY #2 – The Birth of Black Hockey

May 31, 2023

The Coloured Hockey League wasn’t just a sideshow to the main event of white hockey. And the way that league was targeted by the white establishment is reflective of the racism that Black players faced over the next century.

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HOCKEY #1 – The Best Game You Can Name

May 24, 2023

Hockey is a hell of a lot of fun. But right now, the sport is going through a reckoning.

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Introducing our new season… Hockey

May 10, 2023

Love it or hate it, hockey is inescapable in Canada. But the sport has a dark side.

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BONUS: Cory Doctorow knows why monopolies are killing art

April 12, 2023

We’re bringing you Arshy’s full interview with Cory Doctorow, complete with all the nitty gritty details around how and why musicians continue to get screwed by Spotify, music labels, ticketmaster and more.

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Bonus: Do Not Pass Go

March 15, 2023

A bonus conversation about the recent testimony by Canada's grocery CEOs in front of a parliamentary committee and our reflections on our Monopoly season.

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Monopoly #17 – Food Fight

March 8, 2023

A closer look at the modern-day supermarket and the ongoing battle between everyday Canadians and grocery CEOs over what’s to blame for our declining standard of living. 

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Monopoly #16 – Amazon’s Empire

March 1, 2023

A former Amazon VP speaks out

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Monopoly #15 – Movie Monster

February 22, 2023

“I love the smell of monopoly in the morning”

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Monopoly #14 – Where the Sidewalk Ends

February 15, 2023

The story behind what happened when Google, one of the world’s great tech monopolies, wanted to make a “smart city" in Toronto

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Monopoly #13 – The Irvings

February 8, 2023

For almost a century, the Irving family has run New Brunswick like a personal fiefdom

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Monopoly #12 – Overdrawn

February 1, 2023

The Big Five banks are about to get even bigger.

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Monopoly #11 – Flight Risk

January 25, 2023

It’s been a hard few years for Canadian air passengers. And while no one blames the airline oligopoly for COVID or winter storms, air travellers have had to put up with a lot.

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Monopoly #10 – The Way the Music Died

January 18, 2023

♩♪ But Spotify, it’s nearly killed us. Ticketmaster’s ground us to dust. The companies got too large, now monopolies are in charge. ♩♪

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Monopoly #9 – Diamonds of Attawapiskat

January 11, 2023

While Attawapiskat faced crisis after crisis, the community was sitting on a literal diamond mine run by the world’s most famous mining company.

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Monopoly #8 – Raining Cats and Dollars

January 4, 2023

When you look at your pet, you probably see an adorable furball that you’d do anything for. A private equity firm sees dollar signs.

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CANADALAND #725 The Rogers Family Compact

December 28, 2022

An unofficial narrative of Canada's telecom overlords.

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Monopoly #7 – Canada’s Competition Cop

December 21, 2022

A frank discussion with Canada's top competition cop.

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Monopoly #6 – The Urge to Merge

December 14, 2022

For 150 years, Canadian politicians have been talking out of both sides of their mouths. They claim they want to promote competition. And then they pass laws that do the opposite.

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Monopoly #5 – Against the WIND

December 7, 2022

WIND Mobile, now known as Freedom, was a small company that tried to break through Canada’s telecom oligopoly. It did not have an easy ride. 

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Monopoly #4 – Teleconned

November 30, 2022

They’re the most hated companies in the country. And yet, they’re unavoidable. 

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Monopoly #3 – The Hudson’s Bay Company

November 23, 2022

Today, it’s a department store where you might go to buy perfume or cookware. But the Hudson’s Bay Company was Canada’s first, and its most powerful, monopoly.

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Monopoly #2 – Big Milk

November 16, 2022

Some say that they’re a shadowy group that are the true power behind our elected officials, wielding enormous influence that they use to either benefit their friends or crush their enemies.

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Monopoly #1 – Lost in the Supermarket

November 9, 2022

Canadians are being squeezed at every end. When it comes to cell phone bills, grocery bills, housing, entertainment, we’re all paying more than ever before.

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Introducing the new season… Monopoly

November 2, 2022

From broadband to banking to blueberries (yes, even blueberries), life in Canada is ruled by monopolies.

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WAR #8 – Who Pays the Price?

July 6, 2022

What was all of this for? And is Afghanistan destined for yet another cycle of violence?

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WAR #7 – The Long, Slow Death

June 22, 2022

Stuart Langridge was a model soldier. But when he ended his life after returning from Afghanistan, his parents began to ask questions about what had happened to their son. Instead of giving them answers, the Canadian military went to war against them.

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WAR #6 – Tortured Pasts

June 8, 2022

Despite repeated denials by senior government and military officials, there’s evidence that many Canadians knew they were sending Afghans to be tortured.

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WAR #5 – The Narcokings of Kandahar

May 25, 2022

Why did so many Afghans join with the Taliban during the years that Canada was fighting in Kandahar?

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WAR #4 – Medusa

May 11, 2022

Operation Medusa has become the most celebrated battle in recent Canadian history. It was hailed as a stroke of military genius that may have vanquished the Taliban once and for all.

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WAR #3 – Tarnak Farms

April 27, 2022

All of a sudden, they see a blast, and chaos surrounds them. What happens next would change their lives—and the Canadian military—forever.

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WAR #2 – Lords of War

April 13, 2022

In the months after 9/11, Canadian special forces were participating in secret operations at the behest of some of the most sinister men in Afghanistan.

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WAR #1 – Last Plane Out of Kabul

March 30, 2022

The true story of the end of one of the forever wars through the eyes of the people who were there.

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Introducing our new season… War

March 25, 2022

The war stories that Canada wants you to forget

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MINING #8 – The Crying of Lot 8

February 2, 2022

Many Canadian mining companies are pariahs around the world. So why does Canada allow this to happen? And is this industry violent by its very nature?

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MINING #7 – Barrick and the Cruelty of Gold

January 19, 2022

Papua New Guinea is a part of the world that few Canadians ever think about. But for the people of Porgera, their lives have been shaped by the decisions of Canadian companies. 

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MINING #6 – Diamonds of Attawapiskat

December 22, 2021

Attawapiskat has become famous across Canada and around the world. Not for the natural beauty that surrounds it, or for the Cree culture of the people who live there. Instead, it’s become a byword for the toxic legacy of Canadian colonialism.

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MINING #5 – The North’s Giant Monster

December 8, 2021

Giant Mine may be a big reason why Yellowknife exists. But for seven decades, it’s been a unique source of suffering for the people in the region.

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MINING #4 – The Westray Disaster

November 24, 2021

Twenty-six men were working underground when an explosion tore through the Westray Mine in Nova Scotia. Their friends and colleagues went into the wreckage to try to save them.

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MINING #3 – Before Bitcoin, Bre-X

November 10, 2021

Bre-X was a national obsession that made many overnight millionaires. It also happened to be the biggest fraud in the history of mining.

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MINING #2 – Life and Death in Asbestos, QC

October 27, 2021

For a century, Canada was one of the world’s leading exporters of asbestos, most of it mined from the small town of Asbestos, Quebec. But during that time, governments and corporations in Canada did everything they could to hide the fact that asbestos is deadly.

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MINING #1 – The Myth of the Klondike

October 13, 2021

The Klondike Gold Rush was many things: a media conspiracy, a ponzi scheme, a land grab. But above all, it was a humanitarian disaster that stretched over much of the Pacific Northwest.

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Introducing our new season… Mining

October 7, 2021

Stories about the dirty business of Canadian mining.

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REAL ESTATE #8 – The Last White Rajah

August 4, 2021

The destruction of Borneo’s rainforests has been called the greatest environmental crime of our time. But journalists and NGOs have long alleged that one man, Abdul Taib Mahmud, has benefitted from that destruction to the tune of billions of dollars.

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REAL ESTATE #7 – The Ballad of Eddy Haymour

July 21, 2021

Eddy Haymour has been called a lot of things in his life. Immigrant success story. Kidnapper. Terrorist. Folk Hero.

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REAL ESTATE #6 – Canada’s Biggest Slumlord

July 7, 2021

The Toronto Community Housing Corporation is the biggest landlord in Canada, and the second biggest in all of North America.

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REAL ESTATE #5 Oka

June 23, 2021

The Oka Crisis was the biggest military confrontation on Canadian soil in more than a century. On its face, it was about a golf course expansion. But for the Mohawks who took up arms, it was the culmination of a centuries-long fight for recognition of their sovereignty and their land.

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REAL ESTATE #4 – City of Glass

June 9, 2021

Real estate mania is at an all time high in this country. And in no place is this more true than in Vancouver.

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REAL ESTATE #3 – Terminal City

May 26, 2021

Vancouver is obsessed with real estate. But what most people don’t realize, is that it’s been this way from the beginning.

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REAL ESTATE #2 – The Last Man in Africville

May 12, 2021

Africville was one of Canada’s oldest Black settlements, a proud community of more than 400 people. And then the City of Halifax decided to utterly obliterate it.

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REAL ESTATE #1 – The Bridle Path

April 28, 2021

The Bridle Path is one of the most exclusive neighbourhoods in Canada, home to the ultra-wealthy and the famous. But behind their locked gates, some of Canada’s elite try to scheme their way into even greater wealth on the property market — not always legally.  And their ambitions have a way of becoming problems for the rest of us. 

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Introducing our new season… Real Estate!

April 22, 2021

Stories about Canada’s real estate obsession.

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THE POLICE #10 – Portapique

February 24, 2021

Almost a year after the worst mass shooting in modern Canadian history, Nova Scotians are still in the dark about what exactly happened. A gunman, dressed in an RCMP uniform, driving an RCMP cruiser killed 22 people.

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THE POLICE #9 – Northern Patrol

February 10, 2021

For three decades, much of Northern Ontario has been engaged in an unprecedented experiment in policing. It’s called the Nishnawbe-Aski Police Service. And the idea is simple: the old, colonial cops shouldn’t be policing Indigenous territory. Instead, Indigenous people should police themselves.

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THE POLICE #8 – The G20: Fortress Toronto

January 27, 2021

When John and Susan Pruyn came to Toronto, they were hoping to protest against the G20 and then spend some time with their daughter. Instead, they would be caught up in a whirlwind of police misconduct with few precedents in Canadian history.

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THE POLICE #7 – The G20: Conspiracy

January 13, 2021

In the first of a two-part series on the G20, two mysterious strangers start volunteering with activist networks in southern Ontario. It’s all part of one of the biggest undercover police operations in Canadian history

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THE POLICE #6 – Who Killed Myles Gray?

December 23, 2020

Myles Gray was an unarmed man who died after seven Vancouver police officers beat him mercilessly. Half a decade after he died, not only does his family not have justice, they don’t even know the names of the people who killed him.

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THE POLICE #5 – Toronto’s Finest

December 9, 2020

A Toronto police officer shoots and kills two Black men and is accused of beating another, all within a five-year span. He’s never found guilty of committing a crime. And he continues to rise through the ranks.   

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THE POLICE #4 – Starlight Tours

November 25, 2020

Thirty years later, we know some of what happened to Neil Stonechild. But we still don’t have justice. 

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THE POLICE #3 – Dirty Tricks

November 11, 2020

He called himself the General. And he was at the heart of the RCMP's biggest scandal.

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THE POLICE #2 – The Secret History of the RCMP

October 28, 2020

The RCMP is one of the most famous police forces in the world — the red serge and stetson hat are practically synonymous with Canada. But that image obscures the profound power the Mounties have held throughout Canadian history. And the dark legacy of ethnic cleansing and genocide at their core.

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We Need Your Support

October 20, 2020

We want to keep doing this work. So this week we’re reflecting on the year behind us and talking about our goals for the future.

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THE POLICE #1 – Julian Fantino

October 14, 2020

Julian Fantino may be the most famous cop in Canadian history, but during his rise, people critical of the police had a way of finding themselves in the crosshairs.

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Introducing our new season…

October 7, 2020

Stories about the power the police wield in Canada, and about the lengths they’re willing to go to hold on to it.

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PANDEMIC #12 – The Most Dangerous Story

August 5, 2020

In the final episode in our series about the COVID-19 pandemic and the crisis in long-term care, we’re going to tell you a different kind of story. A story of hope. About how the people we treat as disposable, can have lives of joy and dignity. And about one place where they were given exactly that.

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PANDEMIC #11 – It Didn’t Have To Be Like This

July 22, 2020

Four months after the first outbreak in a Canadian nursing home, over 7000 long-term residents have died of COVID-19. But if you look at the news or social media or our political debates, it seems like we’ve already moved on. Maybe that’s because it feels like this kind of tragedy was inevitable during a pandemic. It wasn’t. And we know that because in some places in Canada, politicians and public health officials made decisions that saved hundreds, if not thousands of lives.

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PANDEMIC #10 – Burn It Down

July 8, 2020

Jonathan Marchand is one of the thousands of young disabled people living in long-term care. But Marchand doesn’t want to fix the system. He doesn’t think it can be reformed. Marchand is an abolitionist. For a century and a half, Canada has hidden away disabled people in institutions where they were neglected and abused. Is long-term care just the latest incarnation of this dark history?

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PANDEMIC #9 – Mend the World

June 24, 2020

After a stroke left him locked in his own body, Rabbi Ronnie Cahana has found ways to lead an incredibly full life. Then the pandemic came. It swept through Quebec, leaving a trail of devastation. Today, Rabbi Cahana is one of the thousands of Quebeckers left stranded in the middle of one of the worst disasters in modern Canadian history.

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PANDEMIC #8 – Hunger Strike

June 17, 2020

Innis Ingram’s mother is his hero. But today, she’s living in one of the worst hit long-term care homes in Ontario. She has a terminal illness. Dozens and dozens of people around her have died, including her friend and roommate. And she’s had minimal human contact for three months. But even though he can’t be there with her, Innis is determined to get her the care she needs.

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BONUS: The Honest Fakery of Wrestling

June 10, 2020

Wrestling is very real and Stampede Wrestling helped build World Wrestling Entertainment. Damian Abraham, host and creator of The Wrestlers, explains in this week's bonus COMMONS episode.

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PANDEMIC #7 – The Frontline

June 3, 2020

Long-term care workers are in the vanguard in the war against COVID-19. They’re not the kinds of workers who get movies or TV shows made about them. In fact, their stories are rarely told. But not only are they battling heroically against this pandemic. They’re fighting for recognition and respect within a system built to marginalize them.

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PANDEMIC #6 – Northwood

May 27, 2020

Over the last two months, Nova Scotians have endured tragedy upon tragedy. The worst mass murder in modern Canadian history. A helicopter crash and the death of a Snowbirds’ pilot. And all the while, COVID-19 ravaged the biggest long-term care home in Atlantic Canada.

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PANDEMIC #5 – Shirley and Tracy

May 20, 2020

Tracy Rowley lost her surrogate mother to COVID-19 in a long-term care facility. But she’s determined that Shirley Egerdeen doesn’t become just another statistic. Tracy’s suing the company that runs the home. But one of the strangest things in this story is exactly who owns them.

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PANDEMIC #4 – Ontario Reaps its Dividends

May 13, 2020

Over 1700 Ontarians have already been killed by COVID-19. And the vast majority of them died in long-term care. But if you live in a private, for-profit home, you’re much more likely to die from this virus. The for-profit long-term care industry is politically powerful and deeply entrenched. Is this their moment of reckoning?

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PANDEMIC #3 – McKenzie Towne

May 6, 2020

The McKenzie Towne Continuing Care Centre has experienced the deadliest COVID-19 outbreak in Alberta. But some people say that their loved ones were killed by neglect at McKenzie Towne long before the pandemic even began.

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PANDEMIC #2 – When the Plague Came

May 2, 2020

Why did Commons drop everything and focus in on long-term care? Because the vast majority of deaths are happening in those homes. Because we should have known that was going to be the case, but we let it happen anyways. And because the level of suffering, isolation and trauma happening in long-term care today is almost too much for us to face up to.

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PANDEMIC #1 – 33 Dead in Dorval

April 29, 2020

They were found abandoned in the facility. The conditions were described as “akin to a concentration camp.” Within two weeks, over thirty of them would be dead. The story of the Résidence Herron in Dorval, Quebec is a national shame. And a preview of the carnage still to come.

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An emergency season: PANDEMIC

April 27, 2020

A new season of COMMONS

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RADICALS #3 – The Last Pandemic

April 15, 2020

It began as a mysterious disease from a far off place. It turned into the deadliest plague humanity has faced since the Black Death. AIDS has ravaged and reshaped us in so many ways. But in Canada, the battle against AIDS wasn’t just a fight against a virus. It was a fight against a system that didn’t care if some people lived or died.

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RADICALS #2 – They Buried Her Heart at Wounded Knee

April 1, 2020

There have been books and songs and plays written about Anna Mae Aquash. But she was no folk hero — she was flesh and blood. A young Mi'kmaq woman who took up arms against the United States government, Anna Mae was a revolutionary. But when she was found murdered in the South Dakotan countryside, it tore her movement apart. It took thirty years to find out who pulled the trigger. But that’s not the same thing as knowing who’s responsible for her murder.

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RADICALS #1 – Nazi Island in the Sun

March 18, 2020

It’s one of the most audacious plots in North American history. Turn a Caribbean island nation into a criminal state — then use the money to fund Neo-Nazis and Klansmen across Canada, the US and Europe. The scariest part? They almost pulled it off.

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Our New Season: RADICALS

March 12, 2020

Our new season is about the people who go to extreme lengths for what they believe in.

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Introducing: Cool Mules

March 1, 2020

A new investigative series about the cocaine smuggling ring inside Vice Media.

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DYNASTIES #9 – The Harts

February 5, 2020

The Harts are Canada’s first family of professional wrestling and one of the most famous dynasties the country has ever produced. And sure, wrestling is scripted. But what happens when reality begins to invade that fiction? The story of the Harts is one of triumph and tragedy that transcends the world of pro wrestling.

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DYNASTIES #8 – The Regans

January 22, 2020

Gerald Regan was the premier of Nova Scotia, the founder of a powerful political dynasty, and one of the most prolific sexual predators in Canadian political history. Even after his death last November, few in the establishment are willing to recognize, let alone reckon with, his crimes.

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DYNASTIES #7 – The Olands

January 8, 2020

For 150 years, the Olands have been one of Canada’s most prominent brewing dynasties, the makers of Moosehead Beer. But in the last decade, they’ve made the news for much darker reasons. Richard Oland was murdered in 2011. And police and prosecutors believe that he was killed by his only son.

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DYNASTIES #6 – The Desmarais

December 11, 2019

The Desmarais family is by far the most influential Canadian dynasty of the last half-century. But if you don’t live in Quebec, chances are you haven’t even heard of them. Paul Desmarais had Prime Ministers and Premiers in his pocket and billions of dollars at his disposal. He wasn’t just a Laurentian elite; he was the Laurentian emperor.

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DYNASTIES #5 – The Sahotas

November 27, 2019

The Sahotas are Vancouver’s most notorious slumlords. For decades they’ve let their buildings rot, leaving their tenants to live in filth and desolation. But the Sahotas are not like any other dynasty you’ve ever heard of. Their story is far stranger, and far darker, than anything you can imagine.

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DYNASTIES #4 – The Rizzutos

November 12, 2019

The Rizzutos are Canada’s first family of crime. For decades, they dominated Montreal’s underworld with an iron fist. With the help of corrupt politicians and police officers, the Rizzutos built one of the most fearsome and lucrative criminal enterprises this country has ever seen. Their reign was long and bloody. But their fall was even more gruesome.

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COMMONS Needs Your Help

October 29, 2019

Canada is a big, weird, and complicated place. We want to keep telling you these stories, but we need your help.

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DYNASTIES #3 – The Fords

October 15, 2019

They call themselves the Canadian Kennedys. And they’re one of the most famous political dynasties to ever exist in this country. But the rise of the Ford family has been marred by violence and self-destruction at almost every turn. The story of the Fords is tragic — for them, for everyone who falls into their orbit, and for the people of Toronto.

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DYNASTIES #2 – The Irvings

October 1, 2019

For almost a century, the Irving family has run New Brunswick like a personal fiefdom. They own the newspapers, the industry, and, according to some, even the government. So how does a single family come to so thoroughly dominate an entire province? And what happens when that family starts to fracture and split apart at the seams?

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DYNASTIES #1 – The Stronachs

September 17, 2019

Canada is a country ruled by dynasties — political, commercial and criminal. In the first episode of our new series, we bring you the story of an eccentric, billionaire patriarch; his famous, charismatic daughter; a fire-breathing monument the size of the Statue of Liberty; and the battle over one of Canada’s great business empires.

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Our New Season: DYNASTIES

September 11, 2019

Stories about the rich and powerful families who run Canada.

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CRUDE #10 – The Apocalypse is Now

August 20, 2019

Canoe-borne bandits strike an underwater town. A new generation of wealthy lobstermen is minted. An island disappears. And hellfire engulfs a highway jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive. Just another normal day amidst Canada’s climate catastrophe. 

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CRUDE #9 – Tar Teck: The Final Frontier

August 6, 2019

Teck Resources just got approval to build the largest tar sands operation ever. The Frontier mine would have serious and permanent consequences for the local environment, Indigenous peoples and the global climate. So why haven’t you ever heard about it?

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CRUDE #8 – Spies, Lies and Private Eyes

July 23, 2019

Ever get the feeling someone is watching you? If you’ve been to an environmental protest recently, you might be right. Private intelligence firms, the RCMP and even Canada’s spies have all been caught collecting information on everyday Canadians speaking out against the oil industry.

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Introducing Wag The Doug

July 8, 2019

Over the past few weeks, Ontario Premier Doug Ford was booed at the Raptors' victory parade, demoted a bunch of star members of his Cabinet amid sagging poll numbers and lost his Chief of Staff, who got caught up in a nepotism scandal.  Are we witnessing the downfall of a government, or is this just another month in Ontario? 

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CRUDE #7 – The Billionaire Plot to Destroy Alberta’s Economy is Totally Real!

June 25, 2019

Has Canada been a casualty of a nefarious campaign by foreign-funded radicals to landlock our country’s energy resources? Is Big Oil the victim of a vast international conspiracy? Naaaah. But there is, of course, another conspiracy afoot.

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CRUDE #6 – The Devil in the Deep Blue Sea

June 11, 2019

An unspeakable tragedy occurs off the coast of Newfoundland. But this isn’t just a story about a nautical disaster. It’s about what happens when a poor province finds immense riches just within reach. And how the promise of oil wealth can twist history around itself.

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CRUDE #5 – A Town, Annihilated

May 28, 2019

The Lac-Mégantic rail disaster was a calamity like we’ve never seen before. The families of the victims never got justice. But the conditions that made it possible have barely changed. And the next time could be far worse.

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CRUDE #4 – Orphan Wells: Citizen Con

May 14, 2019

What happens when the oil wells run dry? Environmental damage, government bailouts and a scheme that some are comparing to the subprime mortgage crisis. And all of this is just the beginning.

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CRUDE #3 – Let the Bastards Freeze in the Dark

April 30, 2019

The Alberta oil sands. It’s a cold patch of land (which we once almost nuked into oblivion) that’s become Canada’s economic engine. Governments have fought over it for decades. And now it’s one of the most controversial places on the planet. Will it finally tear our politics apart?

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CRUDE #2 – Bombs, Blood & the Battle of Trickle Creek

April 16, 2019

A family poisoned in their homes. Bombs going off in the night. Shots fired and inside jobs. The story of Wiebo Ludwig is There Will Be Blood come to life. So was he a man of faith facing down the full might of Big Oil? Or a terrorist with blood on his hands?

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CRUDE #1 – Smell This Town

April 2, 2019

If you don’t understand oil, you can’t understand Canada. We take you to a place unlike anywhere else in the world, where the booms and busts all began. And find out why just a short distance away, children grow up afraid of the very air they breathe.

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Introducing Our New Season: CRUDE

March 28, 2019

Canada was built on oil.

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CORRUPTION #10 – The Canadian Company Accused of Using Slaves Today

February 19, 2019

Canadian companies have committed all kinds of wrongdoing abroad. But this is on a different level. One Vancouver-based company has been accused by the United Nations and Human Rights Watch of using slaves to build a mine with one of the world’s most oppressive governments.

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CORRUPTION #9 – Victoria’s Secrets

February 5, 2019

Tens of thousands of dollars in suits, luggage, magazines and mustard. An epic booze heist from the legislature. An undercover legislator exposing corruption. And a wood-splitter that’s transfixed a province.

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CORRUPTION #8 – Hockey’s Hall of Shame

January 22, 2019

Canada is hockey crazy. But at the heart of the sport is a system of unpaid labour that scars some boys for life. And the teams and leagues are doing whatever it takes to make sure things stay exactly the way they are.

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CORRUPTION #7 – The Only Canadian Imprisoned For Insider Trading

January 8, 2019

One of Canada's most notorious white-collar criminals speaks about his crimes.

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CORRUPTION #6 – Charlottetown’s Web

December 11, 2018

It might be small, but it when it comes to graft, Prince Edward Island plays in the big leagues. Inside PEI’s long, strange attempt to become Canada’s online gambling hub.

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CORRUPTION #5 – The King of Cabbagetown

November 27, 2018

For two decades, he's controlled public institutions and bragged about his connections to organized crime. So who exactly is the King of Cabbagetown?

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CORRUPTION #4 – Papa Pump and the Small Town Shakedown

November 13, 2018

In the eleven years that Marolyn Morrison was the mayor of Caledon, Ontario, she faced down deep-pocketed developers, mafia enforcers and corrupt federal officials. When millions of dollars are at stake, things get heated.

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CORRUPTION #3 – The Trouble With Paradise: How Canadians Built The Offshore World

October 30, 2018

The Panama Papers revealed to the world just how deeply enmeshed tax havens are in the global economy. And for 100 years, Canadian banks, businessmen and politicians have worked to build that offshore system, alongside crooks, fraudsters and corrupt officials.

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CORRUPTION #2 – How Vancouver Became a Money Laundering Paradise

October 16, 2018

For years, people could walk into Vancouver-area casinos with tens of thousands of dollars of suspicious cash and walk out with clean money, no questions asked. That money may be fuelling the city's housing crisis and opiate epidemic.

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CORRUPTION #1 – The Most Crime-Ridden Neighbourhood In Canada

October 2, 2018

This season, Commons will be focusing on stories at the intersection of money, influence and politics in Canada. In this episode, we take you to what may be Canada’s most criminal neighbourhood — Toronto’s financial district.

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What The Hell Is A Fairness Letter?

June 19, 2018

We speak to someone who might not be let into Canada for trying to bring democracy to Syria.

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Canada Is Not Racist… According To The Stats

June 5, 2018

If you look at the stats, Canada has a low incidence of hate crimes, but the numbers that we rely on to tell us if we're racist or not are wrong.

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What Do Peacekeepers Actually Do?

May 22, 2018

The Liberal government announced that it would be sending around 200 troops to assist in a UN peacekeeping mission in Mali. But what does "peacekeeping" look like today and what do peacekeepers actually do?

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Life In Canada Without Clean Water

May 7, 2018

Canada has 20 per cent of the world's freshwater and yet some Indigenous communities across the country have not had clean drinking water for decades.

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The All-White Jury In Canada

April 24, 2018

There's a simple legal mechanism that allows lawyers to whitewash juries. A new bill proposes getting rid of it, but some lawyers are saying that will make things worse. We look back to how we got here.

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Canadian History X

April 9, 2018

As a teen, Elisa Hategan joined Canada's most notorious and well-organized white supremacist group, the Heritage Front. What can we learn from the past about how white supremacists operate today? And what do we do about all these Nazis?

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Stories From Solitude

March 27, 2018

Two stories take us inside solitary confinement cells across Canada.

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Unconstitutional Solitude

March 12, 2018

Part one of a two-part series in which we explore the conditions and consequences of solitary confinement use in Canada.

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Finding A Fix: Our Opioid Overdose Crisis

February 27, 2018

“I tried to count up the amount of people that I knew who had died from overdose. I got to fifty, and I just had to stop. You get used to it. It’s like it becomes normal.”

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Our Mis(education): the Erasure of Blackness in Canadian Schools

February 12, 2018

"Only a few decades after slavery was abolished, you already had, in textbooks in Ontario, the removal of references of history of slavery in Canada, but still many examples of realities of slavery in the United States. This idea of identifying racism as an American phenomenon is an important part of how Canadian racism articulates itself."

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Unknown Road: Inside Immigration Detention

January 22, 2018

Each year, thousands of people are indefinitely jailed in prisons without any criminal charges. Babou was one of them.  

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Throwing Shade at 2017: A Political Awards Show

January 8, 2018

We look back on some notably weird political moments of 2017 and collectively cringe.

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Invisible Victims: The Quest for Police Accountability

December 19, 2017

"It was bad enough that I had lost my daughter. But the interaction with the police was even worse." A miniseries on policing.

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Invisible Victims: How Police Botched the Robert Pickton Case

December 5, 2017

“If the police don’t want you to see a file, you’re never gonna know it exists.” Part one of a two part series on Canada’s policing system and police accountability.

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No Protest is Genteel: On Antifa

November 21, 2017

Live from Vancouver: We speak with organizers Garth Mullins and Annie Ohana to unpack what it means to resist fascism in BC. Featuring Hadiya Roderique and guest host Sandy Garossino.

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As If They Were Pets: The Sixties Scoop

November 6, 2017

Betty Ann Adam is a reporter with the Saskatoon Star Phoenix. She is also a survivor of the “Sixties Scoop”. When she was a toddler, the Canadian government pried her from her mother’s arms. She was raised by foster parents. A modern version of this is still happening to Indigenous children across Canada.  

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Niqabs & Nafta

October 24, 2017

Quebec’s racist bill, unveiled. Plus NAFTA explained by one of its founders, former Mulroney Chief of Staff Hugh Segal. Also, Quebec passes a bill restricting religious symbols, but mostly just the kind worn by brown people. And Vancouver? Commons is headed to your burg! Support us at patreon.com/CANADALAND and see this year’s goals and rewards.

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Why We Need Higher Taxes, A Canadian Mt. Rushmore And A Population Of 100 Million

October 10, 2017

The Liberals put forth a proposal to tax the hell out of small businesses. At least that’s how it’s being painted by the Opposition. In reality, the proposed changes would have virtually zero impact on the majority of small business owners, but would focus on self-incorporated doctors. And it wouldn’t raise their taxes, per se, but alter how they can claim their family members as employees, and change how the money they park in investments rather than being poured back into their businesses is assessed. Fortunately, we have Laval economics professor Stephen Gordon to make sense of this. And you know what would ease the burden on the beleaguered doctors? Another 65 million Canadians who could share the pain. That’s what author and Globe & Mail columnist Doug Saunders would like to see.

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Ashton, Angus & Singh – Oh My!

September 26, 2017

Three Commons hosts, three NDP leadership hopefuls, one sweltering studio. On this episode, just days before the first vote closes in the race, we speak with Niki Ashton, Jagmeet Singh and Charlie Angus about Canada-Indigenous relations, the environment, the economy and the future of the party.

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Guy Caron, Guaranteed Income And Climate Refugees

September 12, 2017

Welcome back to a brand-new season of Commons! To kick things off, the Commons team is profiling each of the four candidates vying to replace Thomas Mulcair as leader of the federal NDP. This week, we speak with Guy Caron. Also, we look at the summer political stories that evolved while we were on hiatus: the Charlottesville tragedy and subsequent events in Canada, the influx of asylum seekers crossing the border and Trudeau’s cabinet shuffle which may have just doubled the bureaucracy for Indigenous peoples.

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The Rise Of The Right

July 4, 2017

On the final episode of the season, the Commons team digs into the rise of the fringe right in Canada. Journalist Evan Balgord has been covering organizations like the Proud Boys, Soldiers of Odin, and the Three Percenters for the better part of the past year. He joins us to discuss the ongoing street protests and what’s driving these groups’ discontent. — In exploring the rise of the right, Commons also interviewed two other people who are closely monitoring this movement. Dr. Barbara Perry, a professor of Social Science and Humanities at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, is the author of In The Name of Hate: Understanding Hate Crimes. Sarah Ali is a member of the Organizing Committee Against Islamophobia. The group, alongside a diverse set of other organizations have been demonstrating against the fringe right on a regular basis. Unfortunately, these interviews were cut from the podcast due to time constraints, but are available as web exclusive downloads here: Dr. Barbara Perry (interviewed by Hadiya Roderique) Sarah Ali (interviewed by Ashley Csanady)

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Amy Goodman/The Constitutional Clusterf**k

June 13, 2017

This week we’re thrilled to welcome legendary broadcast journalist Amy Goodman. Her program, Democracy Now!, was one of the few non-Indigenous media outlets to provide sustained coverage of the Standing Rock camps protesting the building of the Dakota Access Pipeline. With a pro-pipeline president in the White House and a government in Ottawa that’s shown a willingness to green-light our own projects, Goodman weighs in on what we can expect going forward. Also, British Columbians and, well, the British, are both coming to grips with minority governments. And nobody seems entirely sure how they’re supposed to work. Philippe Lagassé, Associate Professor at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University provides some much-needed clarity.

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Drink Like A Conservative

May 30, 2017

The dust has settled, and the Conservative Party of Canada has elected Andrew Scheer — an anti-choice, anti-gay-marriage, anti-refugee, anti-M103 candidate — as their new leader. As the election results trickled in, the Commons team were joined by Conservative consultant Ginny Movat and about 50 loyal listeners at Toronto’s venerable Monarch Tavern to dissect the various campaigns.   Proceeds from this event were donated to Newcomer Women’s Services — a Toronto-based not-for-profit that supports new immigrants.

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Cultural Appropriation Is An Inherently Political Act

May 16, 2017

Appropriation is the buzzword in the news this week, as a misguided editorial was followed by a white elite up in arms on social media. In the end, two prominent magazine editors were gone from their posts, and the debate about the under-representation of non-white voices in Canadian media got significant traction. But Commons is a show about politics, so we asked CBC columnist and head of TIFF Cinematheque Jesse Wente how appropriation is represented in the Canadian political sphere. Also, on the left coast, the Green Party is playing spoiler for the first time in Canadian history in the wake of the BC election, the federal Conservative Party is getting ready to choose their new leader, and Commons is throwing a Party to watch and analyze those results live. When somebody says ‘traditional values,’ everybody drink!

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That’s Why We Live In A Democracy

May 2, 2017

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne announced the rollout of a basic income trial. The program is to be introduced in three Ontario communities this summer, including Thunder Bay. This is widely seen as compensation for living in Thunder Bay. B.C. Premier Christy Clark gives a voter a succinct primer on democracy, while Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil trips on his shoelaces and accidentally drops his writ. In our feature interview, Ashley speaks with Bloodwatch.org founder and Executive Director Kat Lanteigne about her long fight for justice for victims of Canada’s tainted blood scandal, and why she believes the federal government and some provinces are inclined to roll back some of the regulations put in place following the Krever Report.

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Commons Gets High

April 18, 2017

The Commons team unpacks the just-released specifics of the Trudeau government’s plan to legalize cannabis. And after twenty minutes or so, all they can think about is snacks. Seriously.

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Being Icky Is The Job

April 4, 2017

The Liberals, according to Conservative MP Scott Reid, are trying to "ram through whatever the f**** they want." In other, vaguely sexually-themed Conservative news, Brad Trost isn't down with the "the whole gay thing," while k.d. lang asks if Jason Kenney might be secretly fond of it. Kellie Leitch and Senator Lynn Beyak? Just crapping on Muslims and Indigenous peoples again, respectively. Nothing sexy there.

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You Have No Rights At The Border

March 21, 2017

Having passed a second reading, the controversial bill C-23 stands to give U.S. border guards greater authority to reject, detain, or search Canadians and permanent residents trying to enter the United States. Speaking of the border, a significant chunk of our shared border with the United States comes in the form of four of the five Great Lakes (bonus points if you can name the one entirely contained within one of the two countries). President Donald Trump’s newly-unveiled budget threatens to decimate the funding of the Environmental Protection Agency and, by extension, the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. And the ugly battle for the federal Conservative leadership reached blobfish levels of unattractiveness as accusations of widespread voter fraud reached a fever pitch over the weekend.   You can find out more about our exclusive sponsor, Wealthsimple here. Follow the show on Twitter.

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“I’m Ashamed Of Myself For Being Afraid”

March 7, 2017

This week, the city of Thunder Bay, ON, agreed to implement the recommendations of an inquest that looked into the deaths of seven Indigenous students. This, despite the fact that no one from city council appeared to have attended said inquest. The case of a Halifax-area cab driver accused of sexually assaulting a heavily intoxicated female passenger was dismissed by a provincial court judge after he claimed that, “clearly, a drunk can consent.” Finally, the Globe & Mail dug deep into a brewing cash-for-access scandal in British Columbia that could have significant ramifications in that province’s upcoming election. … You can find out more about our exclusive sponsor, Wealthsimple here. Follow the show on Twitter.

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Strong Hearts To The Front

February 21, 2017

Welcome back to CANADALAND Commons! New hosts Hadiya Roderique, Ryan McMahon, and Ashley Csanady spend their first episode looking into the mostly manufactured controversy behind M103 – a motion to denounce Islamophobia and racism and a push for the Canadian government to set up a committee to look into the rise of discrimination in the country. Also, refugees from countries on U.S. President Donald Trump’s list of banned countries are taking the extraordinary step of trying to cross the border into Manitoba. On foot. In February. What happens to them when they get here and are they just going to shipped back to the States? Finally, the Sixties Scoop was likely something you didn’t learn about in your high school history class. But the courts last week awarded the now-grown Indigenous children taken from their families a victory. … You can find out more about our exclusive sponsor, Wealthsimple here. Follow the show on Twitter.  

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COMMONS returns!

February 13, 2017

  Meet the new hosts of CANADALAND COMMONS: Hadiya Roderique, Ashley Csanady, and Ryan McMahon. New episode available Tuesday February 21 and every two weeks thereafter. You can find out more about our exclusive sponsor, Wealthsimple here. Follow the show on Twitter.

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A Message About the Future of COMMONS

October 18, 2016

We have news.

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A Hodge Podge Of Political Hacks: Inside The War Room

October 11, 2016

We go behind the scenes in Canadian politics with Lisa and Warren Kinsella, who share stories of Liberal war rooms and "dirty rotten lobbyists."

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A Hat Trick Of Deceit: First Nations And The LNG Project

October 4, 2016

On last week's show, Bloomberg's Josh Wingrove predicted energy projects would put an end to the Trudeau government's honeymoon. Now we have a test case.

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Drunk On Liberal Power / Kellie Leitch On Anti-Canadian Values

September 27, 2016

Conservative leadership contender Kellie Leitch calls Trudeau a "Canadian identity denier" and defends her idea of screening immigrants for their values. Plus, a look at the year ahead in Parliament.

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Conservative Leadership Showdown Part 2: Tony Clement & Maxime Bernier

September 20, 2016

Our quest to get to know all the Conservative leadership contenders continues with Tony Clement and Maxime Bernier.

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Conservative Leadership Showdown Part 1: Michael Chong & Brad Trost

September 13, 2016

Over the summer, Vicky and Supriya set out to interview all of the candidates for the leader of Conservative Party. Here are their interviews with Michael Chong and Brad Trost.

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When Your Councillor Spams You On Facebook

September 6, 2016

A listener thinks a city councillor is using his platform to make money. The councillor gets philosophical. We get to the bottom of it.

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When CSIS Comes Knocking pt. 2

August 23, 2016

Earlier this summer, we heard about CSIS agents making unannounced visits to Muslims. Now, one of those men joins us.

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MMIW: What Justice Means for a Family Member

August 9, 2016

We talk to Maggie Cywink about the upcoming inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women. Her sister Sonya Cywink was murdered over 20 years ago and the case remains unsolved.

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Canadian Police Are Racist Too

July 26, 2016

There’s been a lot of attention on police violence against Black people in the U.S. How different is Canada's policing system?

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When CSIS Comes Knocking

July 12, 2016

Vicky and Supriya talk to human rights activist Monia Mazigh about CSIS's unannounced visits to Muslim men's homes and workplaces.

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Buy Gold and Raisin Bran: The Brexit and Canada

July 5, 2016

Supriya and Vicky want to know what the Brexit means for us. Does a vote for the United Kingdom to leave the EU change our lives on this side of the ocean?

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Naming a Genocide

June 21, 2016

The government declared that ISIS is committing a genocide against Yazidis. Vicky and Supriya look into what that means for Canada's obligations.

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Cheri DiNovo on How to Fix the NDP

June 14, 2016

MPP Cheri DiNovo on why she couldn't sit back and watch the NDP make any more mistakes.

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This Is Not Canada: Living as a Migrant Farm Worker

June 6, 2016

A farm worker wants better conditions for foreign labourers, and is Trudeau bending gender norms in politics?

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Celebrating Defeat: Dispatches from the Conservative Convention

June 1, 2016

The Syrup Trap's Winnie Code checks out the Conservative Convention, where she talks to a crude button maker and interim leader Rona Ambrose.

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Are Libertarians Conservatives?

May 16, 2016

Libertarian Matt Bufton does not want to be lumped in with Conservatives; a story of a Brenna Kannick's death in remand; the NDP proposed a bill to create gender equity (nearly) on the ballot.

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How to Make Poor People Disappear (Census Edition)

May 11, 2016

Sex and the census, how the last government made poor people disappear and bailing out Bombardier.

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Debating Same-Sex Marriage and Other Ways to Stay Irrelevant

May 2, 2016

The Conservative Party is getting ready to debate same-sex marriage more than a decade after it became law. BC's Premier is getting rich off party funds. An economist on why Newfounland and Labrador are shutting down more than half their libraries. Desmond says goodbye.

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Can a Conservative Be a Feminist?

April 25, 2016

Should a politician's voting record prevent her from speaking up about sexism? Why protestors were living inside the offices of Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada across the country. And Mike Duffy's acquitted. Jane Lytvenenko joins Supriya Dwivedi.

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Parliament Needs More Women’s Bathrooms

April 19, 2016

NOT SORRY writer Vicky Mochama talks to young women on Parliament Hill about the barriers they face and the work they do.

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Should This Old Indian Guy Lead the Conservatives?

April 11, 2016

Conservatives jump into the leadership race, Desmond has questions about a Liberal Party flip flop on torture and economist Lindsay Tedds tells us why the Panama Papers matter.

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Tom Mulcair: Hot Prosecutor or Wet Napkin?

April 4, 2016

Tom Mulcair's leadership review, corrupt Quebec politics and a ton of free advice on how the government can become more open.

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Police in Canada Get Away with Killing Black People

March 30, 2016

“It’s just the mindsets of the entire police force in which they don’t see us as human and if a life is lost of ours, they just don’t care."

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Canada’s Arms Deals: Beyond Saudi Arabia

March 21, 2016

Canada’s arms deal with Saudi Arabia has raised a lot of controversy, but they’re not the only ones getting our weapons or weapons parts. Supriya wants to know who else Canada is selling arms to, what oversight exists to make sure they’re being used ethically and what happens if we do see a reason to break an arms contract. She talks to NDP defence critic Hélène Laverdière, who’s trying to create a Parliamentary sub-committee to oversee arms sales. She also talks to Anthony Fenton, a PhD candidate at York University who studies political economy of Canada and the Middle-East.

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Rogue Senators

March 14, 2016

Senator Diane Bellemare quit the Conservative caucus, saying pressure to toe the party line is getting in the way of Senators doing their jobs.

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Live From U of Ottawa: Refugees Welcome, But Bad News About the Job Market…

February 29, 2016

When Canadian University grads work at Starbucks and immigrant doctors drive taxis, how will refugees get on their feet?

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Legal Weed is Bad for Poor People

February 22, 2016

We talk to a Liberal MP and a criminal defense lawyer about what legalisation means for the people who built the markets.

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George Elliott Clarke: A Polyphony of Canadian Blacknesses

February 15, 2016

The Parliamentary Poet Laureate talks about working for a pioneering black MP, Canada's multitude of black histories and his problem with telephone companies.

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Don’t Let Harper Happen Here: Wab Kinew on Entering Politics

February 8, 2016

Wab Kinew talks about systemic racism against Indigenous peoples in Canada and why he's turned to politics to try to make the changes he wants to see.

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Paris; Backlash Against Canadian Muslims?

February 3, 2016

Following the tragedy in Paris, Desmond talks to Imam Syed Soharwardy, founder of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, and Amira Elghawaby, communications director for the National Council of Canadian Muslims, about the backlash Canadian Muslims face when terrorist attacks carried out in the name of Islam.

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The Government Finally Admitted They Illegally Spy On Us and Nobody Cares

February 2, 2016

A watchdog report released publicly last week said CSE collected info on Canadians and gave it to other countries.

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Michelle Rempel on Heckling

January 25, 2016

Desmond and Supriya speak to Conservative MP Michelle Rempel about heckling in the House of Commons.

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What is a Post-Harper Conservative?

January 19, 2016

Conservative strategist Jim Burnett returns to answer questions like “What is a Conservative today?” and “Did you actually like Harper?" Plus, a young Conservative gives his view on the future of the party.

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White Men Gotta Speak On This

January 12, 2016

Editor-in-chief of the Walrus Jonathan Kay and cultural critic September Anderson talk about whether white men are being stifled by political correctness. Oh, and wtf is political correctness anyway?

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A Senator On Mischief, Mutiny And Men’s Rights

January 7, 2016

A difficult interview in which Senator Anne C. Cools dismisses the need to audit senators' expenses and denies that violence is a gendered problem.

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Canada’s Climate Game (of Thrones)

December 23, 2015

Andray is shamed for driving an SUV. Trudeau is shamed for brushing off young people. Desmond is shamed for not watching Game of Thrones.

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Bringing Refugees To The Rockies

December 23, 2015

We take a look at what goes into getting 3 refugees from Syria to the small mountain town of Jasper, Alberta. And a refugee from Pakistan talks about abandoning her home country.

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Families of MMIW: “What can we do tomorrow?”

December 16, 2015

Three family members of murdered or missing Indigenous women join Desmond and guest host Supriya to talk about their thoughts on the national inquiry and how they've felt let down by First Nations leaders on this issue.

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Electoral Reform, or How New Zealand Got a Rastafari MP

November 30, 2015

Andray and Desmond speak to a former New Zealand politician about the electoral reform his country went through. Conservative strategist Jim Burnett thinks it would never work in Canada.

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The Beaverton

November 24, 2015

Andray and Desmond talk about giving teeth to political satire with Luke Gordon Field, editor-in-chief of The Beaverton.

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How the Cabinet is like Wu-Tang Clan

November 9, 2015

Andray speaks to University of New Brunswick's JP Lewis and Buzzfeed Canada's Scaachi Koul about the new Liberal Cabinet. JP is full of weird analogies. Scaachi's dubious of the change to come.

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Losin’ Ain’t Easy

November 2, 2015

Andray wants to know what a party in the opposition can actually do, so he talks to Ray Martin, the former Leader of the Offiical Opposition for Alberta. He also talks about the future of the Conservative Party with Mark Warner - a candidate who was ousted in 2007 - and Tasha Kheiriddin - a conservative who's been critical of Stephen Harper.

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Canada’s 1st MP of Somali descent

October 27, 2015

Ahmed Hussen is the first Canadian of Somali descent to get elected to Parliament. He joins Andray and Desmond in studio to talk about diversity in Parliament and Liberal policies on Bill C-51, the refugee crisis and more.

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Live On Election Night

October 20, 2015

Andray Domise, Desmond Cole and Supriya Dwivedi broadcast 'live and loose' to a packed room at the Monarch Tavern in Toronto. Feat. Jesse Brown in Toronto, Jen Gerson at Harper HQ in Calgary, Drew Brown in Edmonton, Morgan Baskin in Squamish. Warning: there's some profanity in this episode. Check out tweets from the event at #CL42. Special thanks to RAUR for the livestream.

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The Choice for Progressives

October 14, 2015

Tiffany Gooch explains why she's voting Liberal, and Luke Savage tells us why he's voting NDP. Plus, Desmond and Andray debate the value of voting.

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Campaign Ads (are for grandmas)

October 8, 2015

Andray Domise and Desmond Cole talk campaign ads with Jen Gerson and Scott Matthews. Featuring a special guest appearance from Andray’s grandma.

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Knock Knock

October 8, 2015

Desmond Cole follows a Green Party candidate and his volunteers as they door-knock in the riding of Toronto-Danforth.

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What are women’s issues, anyway?

October 8, 2015

Septembre Anderson and Naomi Sayers tell Desmond Cole what they think women's issues are, and what they make of how they're treated in our politics.

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A Conservative Makes His Case

October 8, 2015

Cartoonist and conservative commentator J.J. McCullough tells Andray and Desmond why he's voting Conservative in this election. It gets uncomfortable.

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A Historic Election

October 7, 2015

We've never seen one like this before. Desmond Cole is back to talk three-way races, minority governments and party cooperation with Paul Fairie (@paulisci) and Mychaylo Prystupa (@Mychaylo). Plus, Andray Domise is reticent to embrace coalitions.

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Kids These Days

October 7, 2015

Andray Domise speaks with former 18-year-old mayoral candidate Morgan Baskin (@MorganBaskinTO) and Generation Squeeze founder Paul Kershaw (@GenSqueeze) about youth in politics. Don't worry. No one asks you to rock the vote.

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Survey Says!

October 7, 2015

Andray Domise and Desmond Cole talk to Kyla Ronellenfitsch from the Gandalf Group and David Coletto, the CEO of Abacus Data to help figure out political polling. When should you pay attention to a poll and why and when should you take the results with a grain of salt.

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Migrant Detention

October 7, 2015

Desmond Cole and Andray Domise talk about the Canadian government's detention of migrants, many of whom have committed no crime, with Renu Mandhane and Syed Hussan.

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Debts and Deficits

October 7, 2015

Andray Domise and guest host Supriya Dwivedi talk government debt, recessions and the Balanced Budget Act with Mike Moffatt of the Mowat Centre, and Aaron Wudrick of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

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Cash Rules Everything Around Me

October 7, 2015

To kick off the official federal election campaign, Desmond Cole and Andray Domise talk to Harold Jansen and Gerry Nicholls about campaign financing, party fundraising, and why this campaign is set to be the longest in modern Canadian history.

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The COMMONS Guide To Debates

October 7, 2015

Desmond Cole and guest host Supriya Dwivedi present The CANADALAND: COMMONS Guide To Debates. 

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Can I Kick It?

October 7, 2015

Desmond Cole and Andray Domise talk election fraud, Justin Trudeau, and the TRC.

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The Senate, What it Do?

October 7, 2015

Paul Wells and Heather Hughson talk about what the Senate does, and whether or not it's worth hanging on to.

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Barbaric Cultural Practices

October 7, 2015

Andray Domise, guest-host Supriya Dwivedi and Ishmael Daro talk about the Zero Tolerance For Barbaric Cultural Practices Act, the new Quebec secular legislation, and the massacre in Charleston.

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Diversity or Tokenism?

October 7, 2015

Rachel Décoste joins to talk diversity quotas, tokenism and equity in Canadian politics.

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Crossing the Floor

October 7, 2015

Andray and Desmond speak with former Wildrose leader Danielle Smith about crossing the floor from the official opposition to the governing party.

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Residential Schools

October 7, 2015

We haven't even begun to talk about what happened.

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The PMO, what it is?

October 7, 2015

What is the Prime Minister's Office? How many people work there, who are they, and what do they all do? Just how powerful is the PMO, and is the Prime Minister responsible for what it does?

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Elizabeth May

October 7, 2015

Desmond Cole talks to Green Party leader Elizabeth May about her plans to get arrested, and more.

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What Happened in Alberta?

October 7, 2015

Desmond and Andray try to understand the NDP's shocking victory. Guests: professor Melanee Thomas and writer Drew Brown.

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Sex Work in Canada

June 1, 2015

Kerry Porth, Akio Maroon, and Elene Lam join for a panel discussion on Bill C-36 and more.

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