CRUDE #3 - Let the Bastards Freeze in the Dark
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    COMMONS
    CRUDE #3 – Let the Bastards Freeze in the Dark
    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?
    April 30, 2019
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    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?

    Featured in this episode: Mary Janigan, Chris Turner

    To learn more:

    Let the Eastern Bastards Freeze in the Dark by Mary Janigan

    The Patch: The People, Pipelines, and Politics of the Oil Sands by Chris Turner

    This episode is sponsored by Freshbooks and Endy.

     

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    December 5, 2017
    Invisible Victims: The Quest for Police Accountability
    "It was bad enough that I had lost my daughter. But the interaction with the police was even worse." A miniseries on policing.
    December 19, 2017
    Throwing Shade at 2017: A Political Awards Show
    We look back on some notably weird political moments of 2017 and collectively cringe.
    January 8, 2018
    Unknown Road: Inside Immigration Detention
    Each year, thousands of people are indefinitely jailed in prisons without any criminal charges. Babou was one of them.  
    January 22, 2018
    Our Mis(education): the Erasure of Blackness in Canadian Schools
    "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."
    February 12, 2018
    Finding A Fix: Our Opioid Overdose Crisis
    “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.”
    February 27, 2018
    Unconstitutional Solitude
    Part one of a two-part series in which we explore the conditions and consequences of solitary confinement use in Canada.
    March 12, 2018
    Stories From Solitude
    Two stories take us inside solitary confinement cells across Canada.
    March 27, 2018
    Canadian History X
    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?
    April 9, 2018
    The All-White Jury In Canada
    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.
    April 24, 2018
    Life In Canada Without Clean Water
    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.
    May 7, 2018
    What Do Peacekeepers Actually Do?
    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?
    May 22, 2018
    Canada Is Not Racist… According To The Stats
    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.
    June 5, 2018
    What The Hell Is A Fairness Letter?
    We speak to someone who might not be let into Canada for trying to bring democracy to Syria.
    June 19, 2018
    CORRUPTION #1 – The Most Crime-Ridden Neighbourhood In Canada
    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.
    October 2, 2018
    CORRUPTION #2 – How Vancouver Became a Money Laundering Paradise
    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.
    October 16, 2018
    CORRUPTION #3 – The Trouble With Paradise: How Canadians Built The Offshore World
    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.
    October 30, 2018
    CORRUPTION #4 – Papa Pump and the Small Town Shakedown
    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.
    November 13, 2018
    CORRUPTION #5 – The King of Cabbagetown
    For two decades, he's controlled public institutions and bragged about his connections to organized crime. So who exactly is the King of Cabbagetown?
    November 27, 2018
    CORRUPTION #6 – Charlottetown’s Web
    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.
    December 11, 2018
    CORRUPTION #7 – The Only Canadian Imprisoned For Insider Trading
    One of Canada's most notorious white-collar criminals speaks about his crimes.
    January 8, 2019
    CORRUPTION #8 – Hockey’s Hall of Shame
    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.
    January 22, 2019
    CORRUPTION #9 – Victoria’s Secrets
    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.
    February 5, 2019
    CORRUPTION #10 – The Canadian Company Accused of Using Slaves Today
    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.
    February 19, 2019
    Introducing Our New Season: CRUDE
    Canada was built on oil.
    March 28, 2019
    CRUDE #1 – Smell This Town
    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.
    April 2, 2019
    CRUDE #2 – Bombs, Blood & the Battle of Trickle Creek
    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?
    April 16, 2019
    CRUDE #3 – Let the Bastards Freeze in the Dark
    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?
    April 30, 2019
    CRUDE #4 – Orphan Wells: Citizen Con
    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.
    May 14, 2019
    CRUDE #5 – A Town, Annihilated
    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.
    May 28, 2019
    CRUDE #6 – The Devil in the Deep Blue Sea
    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.
    June 11, 2019
    CRUDE #7 – The Billionaire Plot to Destroy Alberta’s Economy is Totally Real!
    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.
    June 25, 2019
    Introducing Wag The Doug
    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? 
    July 8, 2019
    CRUDE #8 – Spies, Lies and Private Eyes
    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.
    July 23, 2019
    CRUDE #9 – Tar Teck: The Final Frontier
    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?
    August 6, 2019
    CRUDE #10 – The Apocalypse is Now
    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. 
    August 20, 2019
    Our New Season: DYNASTIES
    Stories about the rich and powerful families who run Canada.
    September 11, 2019
    DYNASTIES #1 – The Stronachs
    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.
    September 17, 2019
    DYNASTIES #2 – The Irvings
    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?
    October 1, 2019
    DYNASTIES #3 – The Fords
    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.
    October 15, 2019
    COMMONS Needs Your Help
    Canada is a big, weird, and complicated place. We want to keep telling you these stories, but we need your help.
    October 29, 2019
    DYNASTIES #4 – The Rizzutos
    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.
    November 12, 2019
    DYNASTIES #5 – The Sahotas
    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.
    November 27, 2019
    DYNASTIES #6 – The Desmarais
    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.
    December 11, 2019
    DYNASTIES #7 – The Olands
    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.
    January 8, 2020
    DYNASTIES #8 – The Regans
    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.
    January 22, 2020
    DYNASTIES #9 – The Harts
    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.
    February 5, 2020
    Introducing: Cool Mules
    A new investigative series about the cocaine smuggling ring inside Vice Media.
    March 1, 2020
    Our New Season: RADICALS
    Our new season is about the people who go to extreme lengths for what they believe in.
    March 12, 2020
    RADICALS #1 – Nazi Island in the Sun
    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.
    March 18, 2020
    RADICALS #2 – They Buried Her Heart at Wounded Knee
    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.
    April 1, 2020
    RADICALS #3 – The Last Pandemic
    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.
    April 15, 2020
    An emergency season: PANDEMIC
    A new season of COMMONS
    April 27, 2020
    PANDEMIC #1 – 33 Dead in Dorval
    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.
    April 29, 2020
    PANDEMIC #2 – When the Plague Came
    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.
    May 2, 2020
    PANDEMIC #3 – McKenzie Towne
    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.
    May 6, 2020
    PANDEMIC #4 – Ontario Reaps its Dividends
    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?
    May 13, 2020
    PANDEMIC #5 – Shirley and Tracy
    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.
    May 20, 2020
    PANDEMIC #6 – Northwood
    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.
    May 27, 2020
    PANDEMIC #7 – The Frontline
    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.
    June 3, 2020
    BONUS: The Honest Fakery of Wrestling
    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.
    June 10, 2020
    PANDEMIC #8 – Hunger Strike
    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.
    June 17, 2020
    PANDEMIC #9 – Mend the World
    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.
    June 24, 2020
    PANDEMIC #10 – Burn It Down
    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?
    July 8, 2020
    PANDEMIC #11 – It Didn’t Have To Be Like This
    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.
    July 22, 2020
    PANDEMIC #12 – The Most Dangerous Story
    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.
    August 5, 2020
    Introducing our new season…
    Stories about the power the police wield in Canada, and about the lengths they’re willing to go to hold on to it.
    October 7, 2020
    THE POLICE #1 – Julian Fantino
    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.
    October 14, 2020
    We Need Your Support
    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.
    October 20, 2020
    THE POLICE #2 – The Secret History of the RCMP
    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.
    October 28, 2020
    THE POLICE #3 – Dirty Tricks
    He called himself the General. And he was at the heart of the RCMP's biggest scandal.
    November 11, 2020
    THE POLICE #4 – Starlight Tours
    Thirty years later, we know some of what happened to Neil Stonechild. But we still don’t have justice. 
    November 25, 2020
    THE POLICE #5 – Toronto’s Finest
    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.   
    December 9, 2020
    THE POLICE #6 – Who Killed Myles Gray?
    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.
    December 23, 2020
    THE POLICE #7 – The G20: Conspiracy
    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
    January 13, 2021
    THE POLICE #8 – The G20: Fortress Toronto
    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.
    January 27, 2021
    THE POLICE #9 – Northern Patrol
    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.
    February 10, 2021
    THE POLICE #10 – Portapique
    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.
    February 24, 2021
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