If you don’t understand oil, you can’t understand Canada. We take you to a place unlike anywhere else in the world, where the booms and busts all began. And find out why just a short distance away, children grow up afraid of the very air they breathe.

Featured in this episode: Pat McGee and Charlie Fairbank (Fairbank Oil Properties), Vanessa Gray.

To learn more:

“Time stands still in oil industry's birthplace” in the Toronto Star by Murray White.

“Canada’s Toxic Secret: A troubling trend of leaks and spills in the Sarnia area” in Global News

“The Chemical Valley” In VICE by Patrick McGuire

CLARIFICATION: In the episode, we credit the Price of Oil series to the the Toronto Star, National Observer and Global News. The collaborative investigation also involved Concordia University, Ryerson University School of Journalism, the University of Regina, UBC, The Corporate Mapping Project and the Michener Awards Foundation.

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Last season Commons covered corruption in Canada. This time around we're talking about Canada's relationship with the oil industry. The good, the bad, the ugly, and the weird. 

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Canadian companies have committed all kinds of wrongdoing abroad. But this is on a different level. One Vancouver-based company has been accused by the United Nations and Human Rights Watch of using slaves to build a mine with one of the world’s most oppressive governments.

Featured in this episode: Geoffrey York (The Globe and Mail) & Aaron Berhane (Mefti)

To learn more:

“Canadian miner Nevsun Resources has a tangled relationship with one of the world’s most repressive regimes” in The Globe and Mail by Geoffrey York

“We were forced to work at Western-run mine, say migrants who fled Eritrea” in Reuters by Allison Martell and Edmund Blair

“What did Canadian mining executives know about possible human rights violations in Eritrea?” in The Fifth Estate (CBC) by Scott Anderson “The Slaves of Eritrea” in Canadian Business by Matthew McClearn

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Tens of thousands of dollars in suits, luggage, magazines and mustard. An epic booze heist from the legislature. An undercover legislator exposing corruption. And a wood-splitter that’s transfixed a province.

Just another day in the wild world of B.C. politics.

Featured in this episode: Andrew MacLeod (The Tyee)

To learn more:

“Speaker Report Alleges ‘Flagrant’ Misspending by Two Senior Legislative Officials,” in The Tyee by Andrew MacLeod

“Whistleblower alleges legislature expense issues beyond clerk and sergeant-at-arms,” in Global News by Richard Zussman.

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Canada is hockey crazy. But at the heart of the sport is a system of unpaid labour that scars some boys for life. And the teams and leagues are doing whatever it takes to make sure things stay exactly the way they are.

Featured in this episode: Scott Wheeler (The Athletic)

To learn more:

“Hockey’s Puppy Mill” in The Walrus by Nicholas Hune-Brown

“How a Dad with NHL Dreams Bankrolled a Hockey Empire” in The Toronto Star by Robert Cribb

“Why Junior Hockey’s Financial Statement Should be Taken with a Mountain’s Worth of Salt” in The Hockey News by Ken Campbell

“Hockey Parent Confidential: An Oral History of Sex, Bribes and Goalie Moms” in The National Post by Joe O’Connor

“Lawyers Follow the Money as Court Releases CHL Team Financials” in TSN by Rick Westhead

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One of Canada's most notorious white-collar criminals speaks about his crimes.

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It might be small, but it when it comes to graft, Prince Edward Island plays in the big leagues: a secret off-the-books committee, conflicts of interest run amok, public records mysteriously destroyed, a provincial government doing an end-run on the Criminal Code.

An inside look at PEI’s long, strange attempt to become Canada’s online gambling hub.

Featured in this episode: Robyn Doolittle (The Globe and Mail), Stu Neatby (The Guardian), Paul Maines.

To learn more:

“Small island, big bet: How PEI lost its online gambling gamble” in The Globe and Mail by Robyn Doolittle and Jane Taber

“How Prince Edward Island almost made millions from Internet gambling” in The Guardian  by Teresa Wright

“Island businessman denies knowing he was sole director of e-gaming shell company” in The Guardian by Stuart Neatby.

CORRECTION: PEI has two Green Party MLAs, not one, as stated in this episode.

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For twenty years, he's controlled public institutions from behind the scenes. He brags about his connections to organized crime. And he's connected to some of the most powerful people in Canada. So who is the King of Cabbagetown? This follows up on the last episode, "Papa Pump and the Small Town Shakedown."

To learn more: "Connected" in The Globe and Mail by Greg McArthur, Karen Howlett and Adrian Morrow. "A ‘Big Fish’ Seeks a Seat at the Toronto District School Board" in The Globe and Mail by Karen Howlett, Caroline Alphonso and Greg McArthur. "Inside the Nasty, Bizarro, Contemptible, Gobsmackingly Screwed-up Soap Opera that is the TDSB" in Toronto Life by Philip Preville "The Green Mobster: Rizzuto Family Secretly Owned Firm that Won Municipal Contracts" in The National Post by Adrian Humphreys

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In the eleven years that Marolyn Morrison was the mayor of Caledon, Ontario, she faced down deep-pocketed developers, mafia enforcers and corrupt federal officials. When millions of dollars are at stake, things get heated.

To learn more:

"Battleground Caledon" in Toronto Life by Kelly Pullen

"Connected" in The Globe and Mail by Greg McArthur, Karen Howlett and Adrian Morrow

"Corrupt tax auditor gets three years" in The Toronto Star by Marco Chown Oved

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The Panama Papers revealed to the world just how deeply enmeshed tax havens are in the global economy. And for 100 years, Canadian banks, businessmen and politicians have worked to build that offshore system, alongside crooks, fraudsters and corrupt officials.

To learn more:

Treasure Islands: Uncovering the Damage of Offshore Banking and Tax Havens by Nicholas Shaxson

Canada: A New Tax Haven: How the Country That Shaped Caribbean Tax Havens is Becoming One Itself by Alain Deneault

The Billionaire and the Bank (Global News 16x9)

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