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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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?

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

“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."

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

We have news.

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.

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.

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

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

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

"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."

“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.”

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

Two stories take us inside solitary confinement cells across Canada.

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?

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.

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.

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?

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Canada was built on oil.

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.

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?

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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? 

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.

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?

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. 

Stories about the rich and powerful families who run Canada.

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.

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?

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

A new season of COMMONS

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.   

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.

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

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.

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.

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.