The Orchardcast

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Over the past five weeks, the Orchard has been releasing weekly election update podcasts with a different guest each episode. Joining me this week is Nora Loreto , a Quebec City-based independent journalist and author who likely needs no introduction. Nora’s latest book, the second part of her series on Canadian decline for Dundurn Press, Corporate Control , comes out May 6. Related Links * Corpor...

Pierre Poilievre was supposed to be Canada’s next prime minister. As the 2025 federal election progresses, it’s looking increasingly less likely, but even if he loses, Poilievre will have made his imprint on right-wing politics in Canada for the foreseeable future. Martin Lukacs has written a brief book, The Poilievre Project: A radical blueprint for corporate rule , which details the progression...

From now until the election day, the Orchard will be releasing weekly election update podcasts with a different guest each episode. The entirety of each election update episode will be free for anyone to listen to or watch. Joining me this week is David Moscrop, author of Too Dumb for Democracy? Why We Make Bad Political Decisions and How We Can Make Better Ones . He’s also a prolific columnist, w...

From now until the election day, the Orchard will be releasing weekly election update podcasts with a different guest each episode. The entirety of each election update episode will be free for anyone to listen to or watch. Joining me this week is York University humanities professor Shama Rangwala, who co-hosts the Replay podcast with journalist Desmond Cole. Related Links * Canada’s Tory leader...

Thank you Judy Haiven , Gail Silvius , Glenn Toddun , and many others for tuning into my live video with Jordan Cornish and Arshy Mann ! Join me for my next live video in the app. If you enjoyed this video, then why not share it? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.readtheorchard.org/subscribe

From now until the election day, the Orchard will be releasing weekly election update podcasts with a different guest each episode. The entirety of each election update episode will be free for anyone to listen to or watch. Joining me this week is MacEwan University communications professor and freelance journalist Dani Paradis . Related Links * Carney pledges $150M boost to 'underfunded' CBC , CB...

From now until the election day, the Orchard will be releasing weekly election update podcasts with a different guest each episode. Unlike other Orchardcast episodes, the entirety of each election update episode will be free for anyone to listen to or watch. Joining me this week is fellow Substacker Jake Landau . Related Links * Carney promises $2B auto industry fund as Trump hits sector with tari...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.readtheorchard.org Ontario premier Doug Ford has become a political juggernaut, in large part by cultivating an image of himself as a strong, steady leader in times of political crisis. But does the image match reality? Eric Wickham, Ontario reporter for PressProgress joins me to answer this question, talk a bit about the upcoming f...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.readtheorchard.org The NDP, Canada’s traditional party of the left, is sitting stagnant in the polls with an impending federal election campaign. Avi Lewis, who was acclaimed as the party nominee in Vancouver Centre, joins the Orchardcast to discuss his view that the NDP is the party Canadians need at this moment of intersecting cri...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.readtheorchard.org As the tenuous ceasefire in Gaza hangs by a thread, it’s crucial not to lose sight of the humanitarian nightmare in the besieged coastal enclave, which will only get worse if the war resumes. Joseph Hazboun, the Catholic Near East Welfare Association’s regional director for Jerusalem, joins the Orchardcast to disc...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.readtheorchard.org U.S. president Donald Trump might not be imposing his promised 25% tariff on Canada and Mexico quite yet, having pushed its implementation date to March, but the threat remains very real. Sarah Rieger, whose work has appeared in Wealthsimple Magazine , CBC News and the Huffington Post , joins the Orchardcast to di...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.readtheorchard.org In 1971 in the slums of West Jerusalem, a group of young Moroccan Jews established the Israeli Black Panthers to fight for equality Israel’s marginalized community of Middle Eastern, or Mizrachi, Jews. While initially focused strictly on domestic issues, the group eventually came to find parallels between the mist...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.readtheorchard.org TikTok, the immensely popular short-form video app, is on the verge of getting banned in the U.S., calling its future viability into question. In April 2024, President Joe Biden signed a bill into law, passed with bipartisan support in Congress, forcing the the Chinese company that owns the app, ByteDance, to sell...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.readtheorchard.org Dr. Tarek Loubani first came on my radar in 2013, when he and filmmaker John Greyson were arrested by the Egyptian military junta en route to Gaza. In 2018, he was shot in both legs by Israeli snipers when he was in Rafah providing medical care during the Great March of Return. Since Israel’s latest onslaught bega...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.readtheorchard.org For the past six years, Arshy Mann has been the voice of COMMONS. When I heard that Mann and his producer Jordan Cornish recently decided to leave Canadaland and start their own project, the Hatchet , I knew I wanted to interview Arshy about the state of independent Canadian media. We spoke about his latest projec...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.readtheorchard.org The consensus on COP29 is that it was a flop. Delegates to the annual climate summit, held this year in Baku, Azerbaijan, reached an agreement to provide $300 billion (USD) in financing to transition developing countries off of fossil fuels by 2025, a target which climate campaigners say barely scratches the surfa...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.readtheorchard.org Donald Trump will be returning to the White House in January after defeating Kamala Harris in a landslide, in which he won every single major swing state—Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada. Trump also obtained control over both Houses of Congress, meaning for the next tw...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.readtheorchard.org When Chrystia Freeland’s grandfather, whom she’s repeatedly cited as a political influence, was outed as a Nazi collaborator to Canadian media in 2017, much ink was spilled defending his wartime activities as an act of sheer survival. A new book reveals that narrative to be totally bunk. Mikhaylo Chomiak, Freeland...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.readtheorchard.org On Oct. 15, the U.S. and Canadian governments announced that they were declaring Samidoun, a registered Canadian charity also known as the Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, as a terrorist entity. The designation was based on a vague assertion that Samidoun is funnelling money intended for Palestinian prison...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.readtheorchard.org It’s no secret that American (and Canadian) football puts players at great physical risk by the very nature of the game. There’s a reason teams play games weekly and a player suiting up for every game of the season is a rarity. While players put their bodies on the line for our entertainment, advertisers, owners a...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.readtheorchard.org Canada’s troubled Victims of Communism Memorial is back in the news. It turns out that more than 330 of the 553 names slated to be inscribed on the Ottawa monument, which was first proposed by then-secretary of state for multiculturalism Jason Kenney in 2008, belong to outright Nazis and Nazi collaborators. That’s...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.readtheorchard.org The campaign for British Columbia’s upcoming provincial election has already featured arguably the most stunning development in Canadian provincial politics since Danielle Smith temporarily sabotaged her political career by crossing the floor to the PC government benches in 2014. In late August, less than two mont...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.readtheorchard.org Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is fond of calling Canada “broken,” and he’s not wrong. Health care, housing, affordability — they’re all in crisis. But while Poilievre blames these problems on “woke” policies and “Big Government,” Nora Loreto has published the first book in a series that explains the causes...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.readtheorchard.org “There’s no business like Shoah business,” former Israeli deputy prime minister Abba Eban is reported to have once said. Anyone who follows developments in Israel and Palestine, even casually, knows how frequently Israeli political and military leaders invoke the Holocaust to justify their actions. Brown Universit...