CANADALAND

Migrant farm workers aren't the only temporary foreign workers who have been largely forgotten and failed during the pandemic. Producer Sula Greene brings us the voices of workers some of us see every day but who nevertheless often remain invisible. What do these women endure to become Permanent Residents of Canada, and is that goal even possible given our current system?   This episode is su...

Torstar publishes pro-gambling content now. And the Rogers family vacation at Mar-a-Lago. Data journalist David Weisz co-hosts. Further reading: See Steve McAllister's Torstar contributions about sports betting  here ; David duly noted CBC's  The Big Spend , which takes a look at COVID spending; David also duly noted  Humber's Storylab Surviving Hate project;  See the first pie...

In 1972, the government funded an absurd study to measure the impact of cannabis on productivity. Show Notes: Young women were sequestered in a hospital ward for 98 days and administered daily doses of super-potent, government-grown marijuana. They smoked 2 joints a day while weaving macrame belts for money.  Their story is the subject of a new indie film, The Marijuana Conspiracy Trailer But...

Media reacts to a perplexing Court decision on Bill 21, Quebec's law banning some public servants from wearing religious symbols. And Rebel News is facing new scrutiny. CANADALAND's French language media correspondent  Emilie Nicolas  co-hosts.  Further reading: See The New York Times piece on Caolan Robertson speaking about Rebel News  here See The Canadian Anti-Hate Network's...

Ever since the Canadian government announced recommendations that adults from Indigenous and racialized communities should be given priority for a COVID-19 vaccination, accusations of reverse racism have filled comment sections and social media posts. Now, racial minorities with vaccine priority are facing racism and other structural barriers to getting the jab. Our new reporter, Cherise Seucharan...

As provinces fail spectacularly to control the third wave of the pandemic, is the press adequately holding them to account, or making things worse? And what are the ethics of publishing a a picture of a nude MP accidentally caught on Zoom? Freelance journalist  Justin Ling  co-hosts.  This episode is supported by Our Darkest Day,  Squarespace , and  Freshbooks . Support CA...

Filmmaker Daniel Lombroso spent four years following Lauren Southern, Richard Spencer, and Mike Cernovich with a camera, as their stars rose and the bigotry and xenophobia they championed went mainstream. The result is White Noise , a feature-length documentary produced by The Atlantic. And though they're less prominent these days, and we might be eager to forget about Southern, Spencer, Cernovich...

GraceLife Church and Montreal riots against public health directives had us wondering why mainstream narratives about vaccine hesitancy focus so much on racialized communities. And journalists are officially hella tired. Freelance journalist Fatima Syed  and Torstar Editor  Evy Kwong  co-host. Further reading: Evy's piece to combat vaccine hesitancy  here StatCan's report on Ca...

The Landlord Credit Bureau lets landlords review their tenants and report their payment habits. The information is shared with other landlords, and it can damage a tenant's credit rating. But is that legal? In the midst of the pandemic, Hamilton resident Joey Nicol and her partner found they'd been signed up for the Landlord Credit Bureau by their landlord. Fearing eviction, they started to invest...

An uprising of frontline workers forces change to COVID policies. And with a major merger in the works, a telecom giant makes the case that less competition is good for Canada. Freelance journalist  Nora Loreto  co-hosts. This episode is brought to you by  Dispatch Coffee ,  Kilne , and  Squarespace . Support CANADALAND: https://canadaland.com/join See omnystudio.com/liste...

Restaurants have struggled badly during the pandemic. But food writer  Suresh Doss  takes us to a parking lot, a subway stop, and a home cook's kitchen to show us a thriving underground food scene. This episode first aired on September 20,  2020. It is brought to you by Our Darkest Day, Pandemic University and Article . Additional music by Audio Network. Support CANADALAND: https://...

CBC puts an end to Randy Bachman's Vinyl Tap after just 16 years of self-indulgent, uninspiring radio. What will take its place? And it turns out one of the reporters who's most friendly to Doug Ford is in a relationship with the Premier's director of media relations. Fucked Up singer and Turned Out A Punk host  Damian Abraham  co-hosts. Read Jonathan Goldsbie's piece about Brian Lilley...

A site called SeaWestNews describes Alexandra Morton as “BC's loudest anti-salmon farming activist,” and her writing as “rambling” and “conspiracy-laden.” Originally a whale biologist from California, Morton was shocked into activism when her research revealed the devastating results of industrialized salmon farming. Since then, she's been subject to attack camp...

Are stories about vaccine efficacy doing more harm than good? And Canadian politicians are following a road paved by Trump, singling out critics for scorn. Montreal Gazette health reporter Aaron Derfel  co-hosts. This episode was brought to you by  Dispatch Coffee ,  Pandemic University ,  Squarespace , and  HelloFresh . Support CANADALAND: https://canadaland.com/join See...

The culture war icon is back with a new bestseller. We revisit our examination of Jordan Peterson the media phenomenon, which asks how an obscure Canadian psychology professor rose to international stardom. This episode is brought to you by Pandemic University , Cullen's Foods , and FreshBooks . It first aired on February 5, 2018. Additional music by Audio Network. Support CANADALAND: https://cana...

What's the best way to cover allegations of sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces - or just generally, really? And the Alberta government has some harsh words for an animated Bigfoot movie.   Freelance journalists  Fatima Syed  and  Maggie Rahr  co-host. This episode is brought to you by the  Rotman School of Management ,  Squarespace ,  Athletic Br...

Ari Ben-Menashe has been an Israeli spy, sold weapons to Iran, survived a firebombing, and been the target of at least one RCMP investigation. He crossed paths with Jeffrey Epstein. And he's worked for Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, Libya's Khalifa Haftar, and Sudan's Transitional Military Council. Ben-Menashe runs the lobbying firm Dickens & Madson (Canada), based Montreal. And on March 5th, it wa...

HuffPost Canada is dead. The Ryerson School of Journalism faces a crisis. And a very serious, important conversation about Dr. Seuss. The Nation's national affairs correspondent Jeet Heer  co-hosts. This episode is brought to you by the  Rotman School of Management ,  CFUV ,  Squarespace ,  Theatre Passe Muraille  and  HelloFresh . Support CANADALAND: https://can...

A Haitian senator's wife paid $4.25 million—all money down—for a house in Laval , Quebec. Meanwhile in Haiti, people have been protesting against corruption, kidnapping, and a president who they say is over-staying his term in office. How do we talk about Haiti without reproducing unhelpful tropes and stereotypes? Vélina Elysée Charlier , an activist with Nou Pap D&ograve...

Torstar gets into the gambling business. Americans get caught up on the WE scandal. And documents suggest Canada's two major newspaper chains traded notes on shutting down each others' papers before they swapped them.  The Tyee's tech and privacy reporter  Bryan Carney  co-hosts. Further reading: Read Bryan's full story here on the Torstar Postmedia correspondence here . This episod...

In February, as the Australian government prepared to introduce a link tax, Facebook blocked all news from its Australian platform.  The new legislation, lobbied for by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp and other big media organizations, would have forced Facebook and Google to pay them each time their content is shared online. Facebook's strong-arm tactic forced the government to amend the legislat...

Canada's vote to call China's treatment of Uyghurs a genocide exposes an online wave of China apologists on the far left. And the New York Times brings back Cortland Cronk in an attempt to prove that Canadians are actually not very nice. Author and retired journalist Jan Wong co-hosts. This episode is brought to you by The Rotman School of Management , Athletic Brewing , HelloFresh and SquareSpace...

LifeSiteNews may be the biggest Canadian news outlet you've never heard of — a kind of Breitbart for traditionalist Catholics. A new investigation published by the Canadian Anti-Hate Network shows how LifeSite, which has its roots in an anti-abortion lobby group, has grown. It's become a megaphone for an anti-LGBTQ+ movement. And as it has collided with the far-right infosphere, it has platf...

Canadian media have lost the plot around the vaccine rollout. And a Montreal-based website makes the list of COVID-19 conspiracy theory superspreaders. Globe and Mail health columnist André Picard  co-hosts. This episode is brought to you by  Dispatch Coffee ,  Squarespace ,  Kilne  and  Manscaped . Support CANADALAND: https://canadaland.com/join See omnystudio...

Michelle Latimer was the buzziest Canadian director and showrunner of 2020. Her documentary Inconvenient Indian premiered at TIFF and reaped plaudits and awards. Her series Trickster , based on a novel by Eden Robinson, debuted on the CBC and was slated for a second season. But it all came crashing down in December when a CBC investigation called into question Latimer's Indigenous identity claims....