The Gravy Train

By Frequency Podcast Network

What's The Gravy Train about?

The tragic life and enduring legacy of Toronto's crack-smoking mayor.

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The Gravy Train episodes:

04.14.2024
Introducing Paydirt: The Inside Story of Ontario's Greenbelt Scandal
It was one of the strangest scandals in recent Canadian history, located right at the spot where the housing crisis collides with the climate crisis. From allegations of political corruption and RCMP investigations to endangered species and Las Vegas...
10.17.2020
The Hopeful: Heirloom
Amir Omidvar left Iran during the revolutionary crisis in 1982. For twenty months after leaving his home, Amir did everything he could to cross the Atlantic ocean. While taking refuge in Spain, he made three failed attempts to enter the...
06.22.2020
Heaven Bent: The Revival
In 1994, a small church next to Toronto Pearson International Airport suddenly became one of the city’s “Top Tourist Attractions”. Why did millions of Christians flock from around the world? Was something truly supernatural happening? 25 years later, join Tara...
02.13.2020
Introducing Fiasco: Iran-Contra
A secret war, a secret deal, and a scandal that threatened to destroy Ronald Reagan’s presidency–until it didn’t. The Gravy Train team is happy to bring you the first episode of Fiasco: Iran-Contra. From the co-creators of Slow Burn comes...
12.12.2019
8: Legacy
Toronto never got the chance to reelect Mayor Rob Ford. Nor did it get the chance to kick him out of office. It wasn’t the ending anyone wanted, it’s just what happened. And over the next few years, it would...
12.05.2019
7: Rehab
More than a year after the first stories about a ‘crack video’ broke, and months after the mayor admitted he’d tried the drug ‘during one of (his) drunken stupors’, Rob Ford admitted to the public that he had a substance...
11.28.2019
6: The Circus
Mayor Rob Ford publicly admitted to smoking crack “in one of my drunken stupors” on Nov. 5, 2013. And then all hell broke loose.
11.21.2019
5: Brazen
The whole world was talking about whether or not Toronto’s mayor smoked crack. You might think that the mayor would change his behaviour following the headlines about his drug use. But he didn’t. We know this because the police were...
11.14.2019
4: Headlines
After months of absences and whispers and rumours, all of Mayor Rob Ford’s private life started to go public. It began with one story, which led to more, and more. The mayor’s response was denial—and to paint the media as...
11.07.2019
3: Whispers
As Rob Ford began his term as mayor by ending taxes and cancelling transit plans, his colleagues on city council and the reporters who covered them were starting to gossip. As his first weeks turned to months, Ford was around...
10.31.2019
2: City Hall
Rob Ford’s colleagues laughed off his campaign for mayor. They shouldn’t have. They assumed the numerous scandals he’d already suffered through, and the fresh ones that would dominate his campaign, would crush his chances. They shouldn’t have. They ran traditional...
10.31.2019
1: The Suburbs
This is the story of how our subject goes from the outskirts of the city to a seat in the building at the heart of its power. Before he was the Mayor of Toronto, and before all the insanity that...
10.31.2019
1: Suburbs
He was a joke. And then he won. He was a trainwreck. But it didn’t matter. He was a drug user and an alcoholic. But a lot of people loved him anyway. And most of all, Rob Ford was a...
10.09.2019
All Aboard
Trailer: He was a joke. And then he won. He was a trainwreck. But it didn’t matter. He was a drug user and an alcoholic. But a lot of people loved him anyway. And most of all, Rob Ford was...
10.09.2019
All Aboard
Trailer: He was a joke. And then he won. He was a trainwreck. But it didn’t matter. He was a drug user and an alcoholic. But a lot of people loved him anyway. And most of all, Rob Ford was...