Unpacking the News

Dental care is excluded from Canada’s universal healthcare system with services provided based on the ability to pay, leading large segments of the population to neglect care resulting in poor oral health and all its consequences. On a new Unpacking the News dentist and public healthcare activist Brandon Doucet joins host Andre Goulet for a conversation examining the little known history of dentis...

Elizabeth Comack 's work in the sociology of law and feminist criminology and as a member of the Manitoba Research Alliance , a consortium of academics and community partners engaged in research addressing poverty in Indigenous and inner-city communities, has informed 14 books she's written or edited including ‘Coming Back to Jail: Women, Trauma, and Criminalization ’ and ‘Racialized Policing: Abo...

An amazing array of independent media convened at Christie Pits park this month as Replay ’s Shama Rangwala , The Breach coordinating editor Emma Paling , analyst Chuka Ekjam , cartoonist Haus of Decline and Big Shiny Takes Institute senior fellows Marino Greco, Eric Wickham and Jeremy Appel sit down with host Andre Goulet to break down the candidates and issues, hopes and dreams and traumas and f...

Former Saskatchewan NDP leadership candidate Kaitlyn Harvey and Edmonton city council candidate Navjot Kaur join journalist Haseena Manek and host Andre Goulet for a conversation exploring the exclusionary reflex of provincial NDP parties in the 2nd in a series of episodes produced in collaboration with Briarpatch celebrating the magazine's 50th anniversary year. Read Maneek's piece at https://bri...

On May 5th through 7th the 2023 Mobilizing Data for Justice conference brought together activists, community leaders and critical researchers from around the world for skill building, community outreach and research collaboration at Concordia University's downtown campus in Montreal. Invisible Institutions' Megan Linton and host Andre Goulet spoke with multiple presenters including conference lead...

From May 8-12 don't miss UNPACKING THE NEWS broadcasting live from the 2023 Canadian Labour Congress with our friends at Quebec solidarity journalism cooperative Pivot! Every day we're releasing interviews and reports from Canada's 30th tri-annual labour summit including this episode featuring a speech from Amazon Labour Union president Chris Smalls. Subscribe to the show wherever you get your pod...

From May 8-12 don't miss UNPACKING THE NEWS broadcasting live from the 2023 Canadian Labour Congress with our friends at Quebec solidarity journalism cooperative Pivot! Every day we're releasing interviews and reports from Canada's 30th tri-annual labour summit including this episode featuring a panel from the conference floor with Emmmy and Grammy nominated Korean-American comedian and LGBTQIA2s+...

From May 8-12 don't miss UNPACKING THE NEWS' daily show broadcasting live from the 2023 Canadian Labour Congress with our friends at Quebec solidarity journalism cooperative Pivot! Every day we're releasing interviews and reports from Canada's 30th tri-annual labour summit including this episode featuring a panel from the conference floor moderated by activist Mary Shortall with a panel including...

From May 8-12 don't miss UNPACKING THE NEWS' daily show broadcasting live from the 2023 Canadian Labour Congress with our friends at Quebec solidarity journalism cooperative Pivot! Every day we're releasing interviews and reports from the floor of Canada's 30th tri-annual labour summit including this episode featuring a panel from the conference floor moderated by Broadbent Institute director Jen...

From May 8-12 don't miss UNPACKING THE NEWS' daily show every morning live from the 2023 Canadian Labour Congress with our friends at Quebec solidarity journalism cooperative Pivot! Each episode will feature interviews and reports from the floor of Canada's 30th tri-annual labour summit including this episode with prairie labour journalist Emily Leedham and host Andre Goulet exploring what to expe...

The fiercely independent, proudly polemical and reader-supported BRIARPATCH has been publishing award-winning, hard-hitting journalism and critical commentary out of Regina, Saskatchewan since 1973. In it's 50th anniversary year Unpacking the News is excited to partner with so-called Canada's oldest legacy Left media space for bi-monthly episodes featuring journalists talking about their original...

Trailblazing progressive podcast UNPACKING THE NEWS is back after a 30 month hiatus for an all-new Season 2! In this kick-off episode BERRYGROUNDS ' Justin Brake joins host Andre Goulet to explore how his work as The Independent interim editor will be afflicting the comfortable in Newfoundland and Labrador society and politics, his background in unapologetic, confrontational journalism and how Pie...

We're back! Returning after a two and a half year hiatus Unpacking the News is a weekly progressive podcast featuring in-depth interviews and panel conversations on Canadian society, culture and politics with journalists, academics and activists from coast to coast. Hosted by André Goulet in Montréal, this season will include episodes co-produced with: Council of Canadians campaign organizers Bria...

In the SERIES FINALE, join host Andre Goulet and a cross-country conclave of comrades for the first day back to school at Podcast High! Hear conversations with Chris (Left Behind), Gabrielle (les Ficelles/Ricochet), Tyler + Roberta (Alberta Advantage), Evan (Kino Lefter), Paris (Tech Won’t Save Us), Eric (Big Shiny Takes), Umair (Oats for Breakfast) and Rob Rousseau (49th Parahell) as they navigat...

How will Canadians cope with rising unemployment, a housing crunch and paying rent? How should government handle the economic recovery, including proposed bailouts for big corporations? And what is the future of affordable housing in Canada? On the last in a series of summer episodes exploring how the pandemic interacts with social issues in Canada, David DesBaillets returns with the fifth edition...

Pivot Legal Society's Meenakshi Mannoe (Vancouver Prison Justice Day Committee) and Montreal academic and activist Ted Rutland (The Anti-Carceral Group) join host Andre Goulet to discuss decarceration, abolition and the past, present and future of Prison Justice organizing in an era of COVID-19. Find out more about how you can support prisoners and Prison Justice activism at http://prisonjustice.c...

As the movement to defund police continues to gain momentum across North America, a coalition of more than twenty Montreal community groups are calling for a 50% cut to the police budget in one of Canada's safest and most over-policed cities. But where would these cuts happen? And how could funding be re-directed? On this episode Black Lives Matter Montreal organizer Marlihan Lopez, Native Women’s...

On a special Canada Day crossover host Andre Goulet teams up with the sensational socialist film crit of Kino Lefter's Abdul, Laura and Evan! Join the gang for a hallucinogenic history tour as they unpack Matthew Rankin's surreal 2019 not-quite-biopic 'The 20th Century', featuring beloved bachelor and long-time Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King. Thrill to analysis of the artificiality of...

What kind of challenges come with organizing in the midst of a public health crisis? On a new episode of UtN's summer series 'The Intersect', Free Transit Edmonton's Juan Felipe Vargas Alba and Free Transit Ottawa's Julia Szwarc join host Andre Goulet to explore the rapid growth of the Free Transit movement and how it intersects with police violence, labour, class and race. Audio on this episode f...

On the first in a series of episodes exploring how the pandemic interacts with social issues in Canada, David Desbaillets returns with a new edition of ‘Housing Party’ to talk with Marie-Hélène Landry of women’s shelter Chez Doris about economic, social and housing realities in the era of COVID-19. Community organization Chez Doris has been providing shelter to vulnerable and homeless women in Mon...

On episode 127, investigative journalist Martin Lukacs (The Trudeau Formula: Seduction and Betrayal in an Age of Discontent) joins host Andre Goulet to discuss Justin’s new role as the nation’s camp-counsellor-in-chief, the lobbying leviathan and Liberal corporate cronyism, misplaced praise for an insufficient NDP response to the CERB bailout, new developments in the Wet'suwet'en fight for land ti...

On episode 127 Kate Jacobson and Sean Willett of The Alberta Advantage join host Andre Goulet to discuss zero dollar oil, recognizing America as a failed state, fake country balkanization in an age of pandemic and more. Plus: dismantling so-called "Canadian" values and a Marxist analysis of Dr. Panda's pseudo-fascism. See the 'Canadian Values' poll at http://angusreid.org/modern-morality/ Learn mo...

On episode 125 Emily Leedham, James Wilt and host Andre Goulet talk COVID19 in Manitoba, call out the CERB for leaving undocumented workers behind and explore why the left’s response to the recent Winnipeg PD murders and to police killings everywhere should be to call for the abolition of the police. Plus: releasing a major book on the future of public transit in the middle of a pandemic, Harvey's...

Sequestered in the nation's capital, political commentator and academic David Moscrop (The Washington Post, Maclean's) joins host Andre Goulet to discuss the nationalization of the economy and the paradigm shifting CERB, the strength of Canadian political institutions in the face of an unprecedented crisis and what the Trudeau government can learn from the radical transparency and virus realpoliti...

On episode 123 journalist Drew Brown (The Independent, VICE) joins host Andre Goulet to lament the loss of Newfoundland shed culture, analyze the gigantic hole in Trudeau’s Canada Emergency Response Benefit plan and explore why the global pandemic may be an extinction event for journalism. This episode was recorded on April 5th, 2020. Check out Tom Baird's COVID-19 math at https://theindependent.c...