COMMONS by CANADALAND

04.24.2024

WORK 6 - Emptying an Ocean

The closure of the cod fishery in Newfoundland and Labrador was the most devastating mass layoff in Canadian history. And its impacts are still being felt to this day. The collapse of Newfoundland cod is a story of man-made environmental calamity...

04.17.2024

WORK 5 - The Westray Disaster

This episode was originally published on November 24, 2021. Twenty-six men were working underground when an explosion tore through the Westray Mine in Nova Scotia. Their friends and colleagues went into the wreckage to try to save them. The story of Westray...

04.10.2024

WORK 4 - Reaping the Whirlwind

Migrant farm workers are the backbone of Canada’s agricultural economy. But because they can be fired and deported at will, their voices are rarely ever heard in this country. But Gabriel Allahdua is one of the few who can now speak...

04.03.2024

WORK 3 - Bitter Harvest

The creation of the Canadian Farmworkers Union, as it would come to be called, was the first step in a struggle that continues to this day. Because even now, farmworkers have far fewer rights than almost any other class of worker....

03.27.2024

WORK 2 - State of Emergency Rooms

Across Canada, emergency rooms have been shutting down, leaving desperate people in the lurch. And at the heart of this health care crisis, is a labour crisis. Nurses are leaving their jobs in droves, leaving hospitals understaffed and sometimes unable to...

03.20.2024

WORK 1 - The War on Workers

Labour has undergone a seismic shift over the past decade. The rise of gig work and temp agencies have made employment more precarious than ever. In the interest of profits, companies are turning more and more towards temporary foreign workers and...

03.06.2024

Introducing our new season… Work

Labour has undergone a seismic shift over the past decade. The rise of gig work and temp agencies have made employment more precarious than ever. In the interest of profits, companies are turning more and more towards temporary foreign workers and...

02.07.2024

Bonus - Everybody Loves Romana

In this bonus episode, COMMONS producer Noor Azrieh sits down with Peter Smith to discuss his reporting on right-wing conspiracy groups like Qanon and Romana Didulo. Featured in this episode: Peter Smith To learn more: “Lead in the head”: Self-Declared Canadian Prime Minister...

01.03.2024

CANADALAND #914 Stock Buybacks: How Grocers Eat Themselves

This episode was originally published on August 28th, 2023. Listen to Monopoly 1 - Lost in the Supermarket and Monopoly 17 - Food Fight In the past several years, Loblaws, Metro and Empire have spent billions on their own stock – And...

12.27.2023

RATFUCKER Chapter Two: The Brethren

This episode was originally published on November 7th, 2022. Listen to episodes 1 & 3 Richard Marsh was born into the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church. He got out of the group he calls a cult and has made it his mission to...

12.20.2023

CULTS 10 - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fandom

We live in a world of obsessive fandoms. The Stans, Swifties, Potterheads, Beliebers, Trekkies, Bronies, Barbs and their ilk are everywhere to be found. But at what point does it go from being harmless entertainment and turn into something more sinister? Featured...

12.13.2023

CULTS 9 - Romana’s Reign

Romana Didulo, the self-proclaimed Queen of Canada, is unlike almost any other cult leader Canada has ever seen. In an incredibly short amount of time, she’s been able to gain a mass following, despite her absurd claims and alarming rhetoric. At...

12.06.2023

CULTS 8 - The Eye of the Pyramid

Multi-level marketing isn’t based on rational business logic. It’s not even built on irrational business logic. It’s ideology. It’s faith. MLMs have become such a ubiquitous part of North American life that their tenets are rarely ever questioned. The sector holds...

11.29.2023

CULTS 7 - Hey #Bossbabe!

Nearly 1.4 million Canadians and almost 50 million Americans are involved in multi-level marketing. And that sheer volume of people makes it a near certainty that you’ve encountered MLMs in your life somehow. The promise of financial freedom can be an...

11.22.2023

CULTS 6 - Being a Blackmore

Mary-Jayne Blackmore is one of the oldest children of Winston Blackmore, the most famous polygamist in Canada. For decades, her family has been the subject of intense media and legal scrutiny because of her father’s 27 wives and 150 children. Their...

11.15.2023

CULTS 5 - Alien Superstar

In 1973, a French motorsports journalist claimed to have been visited by a UFO that revealed to him the secret origins of humanity. For the next half-century, the man known as Raël would go on to create a new faith...

11.08.2023

CULTS 4 - The Cult Wars

An explosion of new spiritual movements in the 1970s led to the creation of an entirely novel academic field. But right from the beginning, the discipline was riven asunder. The Cult Wars have been raging for decades. They’re fought not only...

11.01.2023

CULTS 3 - MKUltra

In the 1960s and 70s, there was a fear that cult leaders were brainwashing young people into joining their new, strange movements. But is it even possible to “brainwash” anyone? At a psychiatric hospital in Montreal, one mad scientist, with the...

10.25.2023

CULTS 2 - Brother XII

The story of Brother XII still fascinates and even frightens some people in and around Nanaimo. He’s often called the Devil of De Courcy Island for good reason. Brother XII prophesied about the coming apocalypse. But instead, his story would presage something...

10.18.2023

CULTS 1 - Speak in Tongues

As organized religion declines in countries like Canada, we’ve experienced an explosion of what some call religious movements and what others call cults. The idea of cults has become an omnipresent part of our discourse. But what even is a cult?...

10.05.2023

The End of Canadaland

Support us now! Click here: canadaland.com/join The first episode of Canadaland was published ten years ago today. If we were to announce this is the last episode of Canadaland, no one would be surprised. Journalism in Canada is in a fight for its...

10.04.2023

Introducing our new season… Cults

The word cult gets tossed around a lot. The label gets applied to everything from doomsday religions, to wellness fads, to online conspiracies. Uncovering the stories of both devotees and dissenters, this season of COMMONS will go beyond the true crime cliches...

09.06.2023

Bonus - Game Misconduct

In this bonus episode, COMMONS producer Jordan Cornish sits down with Jashvina Shah to talk about her book, Game Misconduct: Hockey's Toxic Culture and How to Fix It. Featured in this episode: Jashvina Shah To learn more: Game Misconduct Hockey's Toxic Culture and...

08.02.2023

Bonus - Overtime

In this bonus episode, COMMONS producer Jordan Cornish sits down with host Arshy Mann to discuss our recent season on hockey. If you value this podcast, Support us! You’ll get premium access to all our shows ad free, including early releases...

07.05.2023

HOCKEY 7 - Blood on the Ice

Derek Boogaard made his living pummeling people on the ice. But outside the arena, he was soft-spoken and kind. Fighting was just his job. But it would end up taking everything from him. Hockey fights, and the numerous blows to the...

06.28.2023

HOCKEY 6 - The Problem Hockey Won’t Name

The Hockey Canada scandal has become one of the biggest stories in the country. And now, hockey appears to be in the middle of a reckoning. But this isn’t the first time. There was another moment, just like this one. Back...

06.21.2023

HOCKEY 5 - The Boys from Brampton

Mike Danton was playing in the Stanley Cup playoffs for the St. Louis Blues. And at the same time, he was trying to hire a hitman to kill his agent, David Frost. Danton’s arrest and conviction would become one of the...

06.14.2023

HOCKEY 4 - The Lonely End of the Rink

Justin Davis was never a superstar. He was a journeyman player, one of tens of thousands, chasing the dream. And at almost every step, when hockey gave him something, it would also take something away. Hockey exacts a heavy toll on...

06.07.2023

HOCKEY 3 - Iced Out

The NHL likes to call Willie O’Ree the Jackie Robinson of hockey. And no one can deny how significant it was when he became the first Black player on the ice in an NHL game in 1958. But what the league...

05.31.2023

HOCKEY 2 - The Birth of Black Hockey

Of the estimated 7000 people who have played in the NHL only around 100 of them have been Black. That’s an absurdly low number compared to any other major North American sports league. But what makes that statistic especially shocking is...

05.24.2023

HOCKEY 1 - The Best Game You Can Name

Hockey is a hell of a lot of fun. But right now, the sport is going through a reckoning. Allegations of racism, corruption, sexual misconduct and so much more are rocking the game to its core. But the truth is...

05.10.2023

Introducing our new season… Hockey

Love it or hate it, hockey is inescapable in Canada. But the sport has a dark side. From violence and racism on the ice, to corruption, cover-ups and abuse off of it. In the latest season of COMMONS, host Arshy...

04.12.2023

BONUS: Cory Doctorow knows why monopolies are killing art

In the last season we sat down with Cory Doctorow, co-author of Chokepoint Capitalism: How Big Tech and Big Content Captured Creative Labor Markets and How We'll Win Them Back, to find out how the music industry has become dominated...

03.15.2023

Bonus - Do Not Pass Go

In this bonus episode, COMMONS producer Jordan Cornish sits down with host Arshy Mann to talk about the grocery CEOs testifying at Parliament, their thoughts about the Monopoly season coming to an end, and what listeners can do to make...

03.08.2023

Monopoly 17 - Food Fight

A Loblaws, or any other, modern-day supermarket, is many things. It’s a temple of abundance. A place where a consumer has more choice than the greatest kings, emperors and pharaohs had in their lifetimes. It’s a tech platform, tracking our every taste,...

03.01.2023

Monopoly 16 - Amazon’s Empire

The Big Tech companies have ushered in a new era of global monopoly. And the most influential, the most powerful of all of them, is Amazon. In this episode, we focus in on two of the fundamental pillars of Amazon’s dominance:...

02.22.2023

Monopoly 15 - Movie Monster

“I love the smell of monopoly in the morning” “Forget it, Jake, it’s Cineplex” “The competition commissioner once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti” “Life is like a box of anti-competitive cinema chains...

02.15.2023

Monopoly 14 - Where the Sidewalk Ends

Google, one of the world’s great tech monopolies, wanted to make a “smart city,” full of sensors and robots and self-driving cars. Toronto, one of the world’s most insecure cities, wanted a big tech firm to put it on the innovation...

02.08.2023

Monopoly 13 - The Irvings

For almost a century, the Irving family has run New Brunswick like a personal fiefdom. They own the newspapers, the industry, and, according to some, even the government. So how does a single family come to so thoroughly dominate an...

02.01.2023

Monopoly 12 - Overdrawn

Not only do the Big Five banks get away with charging exorbitant fees for basic services. Not only do they block any competitors by controlling Canada’s payment infrastructure. Not only are they totally entwined with the federal government. But the Big...

01.25.2023

Monopoly 11 - Flight Risk

It’s been a hard few years for Canadian air passengers. And while no one blames the airline oligopoly for COVID or winter storms, air travellers have had to put up with a lot. But Canada has consumer protections to make sure...

01.18.2023

Monopoly 10 - The Way the Music Died

♩♪ A long, long time ago, I can still remember How the music used to pay my bills I knew that if I got my break That I could be as big as Drake And then I could stop shopping...

01.11.2023

MONOPOLY 9 - Diamonds of Attawapiskat

This episode was originally published on December 21, 2021. Attawapiskat has become famous across Canada and around the world. Not for the natural beauty that surrounds it, or for the Cree culture of the people who live there. Instead, it’s become...

01.04.2023

Monopoly 8 - Raining Cats and Dollars

When you look at your pet, you probably see an adorable furball that you’d do anything for. A private equity firm sees dollar signs. Ever so quietly, faceless, big money firms have been consolidating Canada’s veterinary clinics. And vets are just...

01.02.2023

Trailer: COMMONS

COMMONS is a documentary podcast that proves Canada is anything but boring. Each season, host Arshy Mann guides you through the country’s dark underbelly, bringing you stories about crime, corruption and all manner of misdeeds. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy...

12.28.2022

CANADALAND #725 The Rogers Family Compact

This episode was originally published on November 1st, 2021. Who are the Rogers family? How did they get so powerful? Why have they turned against one another? And what does it matter? We've spent a week immersed in Rogers history to...

12.21.2022

Monopoly 7 - Canada’s Competition Cop

Support us at www.commonspodcast.com Matthew Boswell is the Competition Commissioner. And he's the last man trying to stand in the way of the mega-merger between Rogers and Shaw. But even he acknowledges that Canada's antitrust laws aren't just inadequate — they're weighted...

12.14.2022

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