May 1, 2017
SHARE
CANADALAND
#181 Desmond Cole: Celebrated and Resented
On April 20, Toronto Star columnist and Newstalk 1010 host, Desmond Cole, gave a powerful deputation at a Toronto Police Services Board meeting. He then stood in protest, calling on the board to restrict police access to ‘carding’ data. The meeting eventually adjourned, and Cole was escorted out by police officers. For almost five years now, Cole has been using his platform as a journalist to report on and push back against ‘carding’—which disproportionately affects Black people—by the Toronto Police. Cole—former host of CANADALAND COMMONS—joins Jesse Brown to discuss recent criticism he’s received from fellow journalists and the public, how mainstream media has failed to highlight the damaging effects of carding, his new CBC documentary The Skin We’re In, which explores anti-Black racism in Canada, and the book he’s writing about Black Canadians.
Jesse Brown
Host & Publisher

On April 20, Toronto Star columnist and Newstalk 1010 host, Desmond Cole, gave a powerful deputation at a Toronto Police Services Board meeting. He then stood in protest, calling on the board to restrict police access to ‘carding’ data. The meeting eventually adjourned, and Cole was escorted out by police officers.

For almost five years now, Cole has been using his platform as a journalist to report on and push back against ‘carding’—which disproportionately affects Black people—by the Toronto Police.

Coleformer host of CANADALAND COMMONSjoins Jesse Brown to discuss recent criticism he’s received from fellow journalists and the public, how mainstream media has failed to highlight the damaging effects of carding, his new CBC documentary The Skin We’re In, which explores anti-Black racism in Canada, and the book he’s writing about Black Canadians.

More from this series
“Our Reddit fucking sucks.” -Jesse Brown
April 13, 2026
The history of Canada’s weirdest and most prolific interviewer.
April 6, 2026
Look, we’ve all fallen for it at some point, right?
April 2, 2026
“The long-term vision is to financialize everything and create a tradable asset out of any difference in opinion.” - Tarek Mansour, co-founder and CEO of Kalshi.
March 30, 2026
“People who made very serious allegations were not even talked to by the RCMP, and for some reason the tribunal says, that's not discriminatory.” -Journalist, Laura Robinson
March 23, 2026
" In my psychosis all my memories were distorted. So I was like, oh my gosh, I went to the White House when I was little. Obviously I was trafficked there for abuse to world elites." -Anthony Cesar Douglas
March 16, 2026
“There are many agents from the regime within Toronto and other cities documenting our faces and our presence.” -Bahar Almasi
March 9, 2026
"You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes." -Morpheus
March 5, 2026
all podcasts arrow All Podcasts
CANADALAND