COMMONS

As a teen, Elisa Hategan joined Canada's most notorious and well-organized white supremacist group, the Heritage Front. She later turned on the group and helped to take them down. What can we learn from the past about how white supremacists operate today? And what do we do about all these Nazis?   Elisa's book about her time in the Heritage Front is called Race Traitor . Support COMMONS: http://co...

The final episode of our two-parter on solitary confinement in Canada. In this episode, we hear two personal stories about the impacts that solitary confinement can have. Featuring Yusuf Faqiri and Dan Parlow. Support COMMONS: http://commonspodcast.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A two part series in which we explore the conditions and consequences of solitary confinement use in Canada. Featuring Chris Jackel, a correctional officer who works in a maximum security Ontario prison, and lawyer/professor Lisa Kerr. Support COMMONS: http://commonspodcast.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There's a well known narrative about the opioid epidemic: pharmaceutical companies and doctors over-prescribed addictive drugs on patients. But there's an important policy story here too, and we need to talk about it. Featuring longtime opiate user and activist, Garth Mullins, and lawyer, Caitlin Shane. Support COMMONS: http://commonspodcast.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....

Robyn Maynard is the author of Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present. We chat with Robyn about what she calls our (mis)education: Canada's amnesia to its history of slavery and segregation, and about the ways in which Canadian classrooms are still rife with anti-black racism. Support COMMONS: http://commonspodcast.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy inf...

Back next week with a new episode! In the meantime, check out a new CANADALAND show, Oppo. Support COMMONS: http://commonspodcast.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Canada's immigration system has a human rights problem. Each year, thousands of people are indefinitely jailed in prisons without any criminal charges. Babou was one of them.   This episode features Babou Jobe and Subodh Bharati. Support COMMONS: http://commonspodcast.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We look back on some notably weird political moments of 2017 and collectively cringe. Featuring guests Tim Fontaine (of Walking Eagle News) and Scott Vrooman (of Centrism Dot Biz). Support COMMONS: http://commonspodcast.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stronger police accountability is an acute need across Canada. In Ontario, recommendations for stronger police oversight are being drafted into legislation. In this episode, we explore the suspicious death of Cheyenne Fox and the ensuing (lack of) investigation. We then speak to a former director of Ontario's Special Investigations Unit, Ian Scott, who takes us inside the organizations responsible...

"If the police don't want you to see a file, you're never gonna know it exists."   We speak with Lorimer Shenher, a former police officer who was in charge of investigating the growing number of disappearing women from Vancouver's downtown Eastside, about how law enforcement overlooked a serial killer.   Part one of a two part series on Canada's policing system and police accountability. Support C...

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. Support COMMONS: http://commonspodcast.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Betty Ann Adam is a reporter with the Saskatoon Star Phoenix. She is also a survivor of the "Sixties Scoop". When she was a toddler, the Canadian government pried her from her mother's arms. She was raised by foster parents. A modern version of this is still happening to Indigenous children across Canada.       Support COMMONS: http://commonspodcast.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy info...

Quebec's racist bill, unveiled. Plus NAFTA explained by one of its founders, former Mulroney Chief of Staff Hugh Segal.    And Vancouver? Commons is headed to your burg ! Support us at patreon.com/CANADALAND  and see this year's goals and rewards.  Support COMMONS: http://commonspodcast.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more informa...

The Liberals put forth a proposal to tax the hell out of small businesses. At least that's how it's being painted by the Opposition. In reality, the proposed changes would have virtually zero impact on the majority of small business owners, but would focus on self-incorporated doctors. And it wouldn't raise their taxes, per se, but alter how they can claim their family members as employees, and ch...

On Episode 79 of Commons we spoke with three of the four NDP leadership candidates: Niki Ashton, Charlie Angus and Jagmeet Singh. These interviews were recorded before Singh's first-ballot victory on Sunday, October 1. As a bonus to Commons listeners, we present the full interview with now NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh.   Support COMMONS: http://commonspodcast.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privac...

Three Commons hosts, three NDP leadership hopefuls, one sweltering studio. On this episode, just days before the first vote closes in the race, we speak with Niki Ashton, Jagmeet Singh and Charlie Angus about Canada-Indigenous relations, the environment, the economy and the future of the party. Support COMMONS: http://commonspodcast.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted o...

Welcome back to a brand-new season of Commons! To kick things off, the Commons team is profiling each of the four candidates vying to replace Thomas Mulcair as leader of the federal NDP. This week, we speak with Guy Caron . Also, we look at the summer political stories that evolved while we were on hiatus: the Charlottesville tragedy and subsequent events in Canada, the influx of asylum seekers cr...

On the final episode of the season, the Commons team digs into the rise of the fringe right in Canada. Journalist Evan Balgord  has been covering organizations like the Proud Boys , Soldiers of Odin , and the Three Percenters  for the better part of the past year. He joins us to discuss the ongoing street protests and what's driving these groups' discontent. Support COMMONS: http://commonspodcast....

This week we're thrilled to welcome legendary broadcast journalist Amy Goodman . Her program, Democracy Now! , was one of the few non-Indigenous media outlets to provide sustained coverage of the Standing Rock camps protesting the building of the Dakota Access Pipeline. With a pro-pipeline president in the White House and a government in Ottawa that's shown a willingness to green-light our own pro...

The dust has settled, and the Conservative Party of Canada has elected Andrew Scheer -- an anti-choice, anti-gay-marriage, anti-refugee, anti-M103 candidate -- as their new leader. As the election results trickled in, the Commons team were joined by Conservative consultant Ginny Movat  and about 50 loyal listeners at Toronto's venerable Monarch Tavern to dissect the various campaigns.   Proceeds f...

Appropriation is the buzzword in the news this week, as a misguided editorial was followed by a white elite up in arms on social media. In the end, two prominent magazine editors were gone from their posts , and the debate about the under-representation of non-white voices in Canadian media got significant traction. But  Commons is a show about politics, so we asked CBC columnist and head of TIFF...

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne announced the rollout of a basic income trial . The program is to be introduced in three Ontario communities this summer, including Thunder Bay. This is widely seen as compensation for living in Thunder Bay. B.C. Premier Christy Clark gives a voter a succinct primer on democracy, while Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil trips on his shoelaces and accidentally drops h...

The Commons team unpacks the just-released specifics of the Trudeau government's plan to legalize cannabis. And after twenty minutes or so, all they can think about is snacks . Seriously. Support COMMONS: http://commonspodcast.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Liberals, according to Conservative MP Scott Reid , are trying to "ram through whatever the fuck 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. Nothin...

Having passed a second reading, the controversial bill C-23  stands to give U.S. border guards greater authority to reject, detain, or search Canadians and permanent residents trying to cross the border. Speaking of the border, a significant chunk of our shared border with the United States comes in the form of four of the five Great Lakes (bonus points if you can name the one entirely contained w...