CANADALAND

Il y a du pouvoir dans la réappropriation de son propre récit - c'est pourquoi Beata n'a pas seulement écrit un mémoire sur son expérience de fuite du Rwanda, mais aussi un recueil de poésie. Elle a cherché à retrouver des images qu'elle croyait exister, capturées par la BBC, d'un convoi de camions dans lequel elle était cachée pour fuir le pays - ce qui l'a menée à en découvrir davantage. La conv...

Why are New Zealand libertarian think-tanks so into Canada’s Indigenous skyscrapers? In the midst of an ongoing housing crisis, is the Squamish Nation’s Sen̓áḵw project the future of Indigenous land development? As Deadspin’s new ownership pivots to gambling referral, we consider how broadcast bingo supports Indigenous radio. Is “Radio Bingo” a replicable model for diversifying media revenue? Host...

When governments and corporations want to stay on top of the “threats” posed by protest movements — from climate campaigns to animal-rights advocacy — there’s one company that they tend to turn to: Welund. Founded in the UK in 2007, it expanded to North America about a decade later, setting up shop in Calgary (where it’s now called Foresight Reports). So who are they? And what does it mean when pu...

As Elon Musk rails against content moderation in a disastrous interview with Don Lemon, Jesse and Ivor Shapiro reconsider Canada’s new approach to online speech.  Is the Online Harms Act as Orwellian as Margaret Atwood thinks it is?  Also, immigration is coming up a lot in the news these days. Is the recent media discourse actually….mature? Clarification: When Jesse reads from Bill C-63...

Andy Mill’s is the co-creator of The New York Times ground-breaking podcast, The Daily, and before that worked on the equally inventive and critically acknowledged podcast Radiolab. He’s also one of the very few journalists to gain the trust of J.K. Rowling for his series The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling. Finally, he’s been the subject of critical reporting from Canadaland for his work on the Peab...

Alors que la guerre à Gaza fait rage, Emilie Nicolas et Raed Hammoud font le point sur la couverture de cette guerre dans le cadre de leur travail au sein de l'écosystème médiatique québécois. Raed évoque également le travail documentaire de longue haleine qu'il a réalisé afin de créer des liens entre des personnes de différentes parties du monde, notamment ses séries documentaires T'es où, Yousse...

The laughter has stopped at the Just For Laughs festival, as ownership applies for creditor protection and cancels the Montreal and Toronto 2024 festivals. Toronto Comedian Sam Sferrazza explains how the Just For Laughs systems worked (and didn’t work) for Canadian comedy. Is there anything behind the Katespiracy? As a manipulated photo of Princess Catherine and her kids goes viral worldwide, Jess...

Labour used to be a beat. A major beat for any newspaper. Which, you know, makes sense. Because what happens with work, with the world of work, that matters to so many more people than any other section in the newspaper, more than politics or foreign affairs or even business. But the age of the working person's newspaper is just about dead, and along with it, the labour beat. But maybe not to news...

From Winnipeg to Wuhan, Canada is embroiled in an international spy situation, but why does no one seem to care anymore? Recent documents released from the investigation of scientist Dr. Xiangguo Qiu contain bombshells that may point back to the COVID lab leak theory.  As the obituaries and puff pieces roll in, the Canadian media seems to have forgotten that Brian Mulroney was - in fact - div...

Let’s skip two years of horse race punditry and commentary. It's over already. Barring some unforeseeable act of God, Pierre Poilievre is not just going to win, he is going to stomp to victory. The Liberals will likely be rebuilding from close to scratch and this country might be looking at a good long period of right wing rule. What does that look like? What does it mean for housing, crime, and t...

Dans sa nouvelle autobiograhie, la professeure en droit transféminine Florence Ashley, théorise l’academic smut ou smut therapy comme la thérapie par l'écriture érotique. Gender/Fucking: the Pleasures and Politics of Living in a Gendered Body met en lumière le bordel de l'existence humaine à travers le récit de Florence - ses expériences romantiques, sexuelles, sa transition et des vérités qui son...

Vice Media was once valued at 5.7 billion dollars - This week it closed its doors. One final episode of the podcast Cyber was released to give listeners a peek into what was going on at Vice. The staff knew something was amiss when the quality of the snacks began to deteriorate.  The Liberals tabled Bill C-63 to take aim at online hate. If this new bill comes into force it could make some onl...

The Pikwakanagan First Nation seemed to be doing well - it has a good economy, high graduation rate, it has been revitalizing its culture, the books are tight. But things have gotten bad in the last five years. Pikwakanagan is not immune to the troubles infiltrating the towns surrounding it.  Late last year, Chief Greg Sarazin declared a State of Emergency over Opioids in the small rural comm...

Liberal MP Rob Oliphant was caught being critical of the Trudeau government’s policy on the Gaza war in a leaked phone call with a constituent. He is the parliamentary secretary to the foreign affairs minister and says he’s considering quitting. First announced in the 2018 Federal Budget the Local Journalism Initiative (LJI) has given 50 million dollars to help underserved communities maintain loc...

Dr. Ayman Oweida he’s doing everything he can to help his family survive. But he hears the bombs getting closer when speaking to them on the phone.  The eyewitness of Aunt Fatimah, who says she is the sole survivor of an attack by the IDF, has lead Oweida to sign onto a coalition asking the Canadian government to cease arms exports to Israel.  It might not save his family - but it might...

Selon Yara El-Ghadban, romancière et éditrice montréalaise d’origine palestinienne, le rêve est un acte révolutionnaire. Dans cet épisode, Emilie invite Yara à partager des extraits de son ouvrage Les racistes n'ont jamais vu la mer, coécrit avec Rodney Saint-Éloi. Au cours de cette discussion franche, l’expression artistique, le deuil, et l’espoir s'entremêlent.  According to Yara El-Ghadban...

Is radio not a viable business anymore? Bell Media said this in a release in the wake of massive layoffs. And Pierre Poilievre is waging a bizarre battle with the media … including the (controversial) Canadian Press. Host: Jesse Brown Credits: Aviva Lessard (Producer), Caleb Thompson (Audio Editor and Technical Producer), André Proulx (Production Coordinator), Karyn Pugliese (Editor-in-Chief) Gues...

After Max Krangle left Big Tobacco he went to work for the porn business. Jesse and Max explore whether the business lessons learned in porn, one of the world’s most successful enterprises, can apply to journalism, one of the world’s most vulnerable industries. Host: Jesse Brown  Credits: Tristan Capacchione (Audio Editor and Technical Producer), Jonathan Goldsbie (News Editor), Bruce Thorson...

The Alberta Premier has a UCP leadership election this year, and apparently she needs transphobic voter support more than she cares about keeping the government out of classrooms and kids’ pronouns. And invitations for Nazis, cancellations for Jews - we analyze the shameful takedown of NDP MLA Selina Robinson and try to figure out where exactly the line for cancellable offence is. Correction (Feb....

Two journalists, Kathleen Martens and Brandi Morin, have been closely following the ongoing crises faced by unhoused people, largely Indigenous, in so-called “tent cities”. They have been documenting the political and police action to remove the encampments. In Brandi’s case, she was arrested for doing her work as a journalist, which brought the eyes of the world on her. But the story isn’t about...

En début de semaine, la chroniqueuse Toula Drimonis a vu la publication en français de son livre "Nous, les autres", suite au succès de la version originale anglaise en 2022. Fille d'immigrants grecs, l'auteure partage son vécu ainsi que celui des immigrants d'autres horizons au sein de la société québécoise. Dans un contexte où les débats sur l'immigration retournent à l'avant-scène de l'actualit...

How much information should the public get when it comes to the motivations of a suspected shooter attacking a government building? And the new global order of internet governance that applies only to Taylor Swift - unpacking AI-generated deep fake porn.  Host: Jesse Brown Credits: Aviva Lessard (Producer), Caleb Thompson (Audio Editor and Technical Producer), Annette Ejiofor (Managing Editor...

Every social media platform prizes something different. With Instagram, it’s aesthetics. On TikTok, it’s theatre-kid energy. And with Twitter, it was information and wit, conveyed via the written word. Jonathan Goldsbie is very good at Twitter. But Twitter is no longer Twitter. Every platform gradually withers — but since Elon Musk purchased it, the site’s ongoing transformation into the very wors...

From cash cows to scapegoats, has there been a change in how we talk about international students? And how Canada’s provincial governments have, one by one, told the Canada Border Services Agency that they no longer want a role in a system decried as inhumane. Clarification: Canadaland would like to clarify there are other requirements to maintain a permanent residency in Canada. One such example...

For years Canadian media has been saying that Canada is a world leader in regulating big tobacco and is a global success story when it comes to weaning the public off of cigarettes.  Last week there were headlines about the decline of tobacco use in Canada — according to the World Health Organization stats that say we are beating just about every country when it comes to convincing people to...