The Copernic Affair is available now, wherever you get your podcasts. The life of an unassuming sociology professor in Canada gets turned upside down when he is accused of carrying out a 1980 bomb attack on a synagogue in Paris. Hassan Diab says heʼs innocent, but French investigators are determined to prove otherwise. Journalists Dana Ballout and Alex Atack take listeners through the twists and turns of this extraordinary story, all the while asking… Is Hassan Diab guilty, or is he a scapegoat?...
Jan 22, 2025•4 min
COMMONS is coming to an end after six years, with a final investigation available on the CANADALAND feed . Publisher Jesse Brown sits down with COMMONS host Arshy Mann to discuss the new episode, and to help introduce Arshy’s new venture, The Hatchet. Host: Arshy Mann Credits: Jordan Cornish (Producer, Mixing & Mastering), Noor Azrieh (Producer), Caleb Thompson (production support), max collins (Director of Audio), Jesse Brown (Publisher) Further Reading: The Hatchet , Arshy Mann’s and Jorda...
Nov 28, 2024•6 min
Canadaland has launched its first ever celebrity interview podcast and it’s not great. It’s The Worst Podcast . Celebrities are always talking about their bests. Now hear them at their worst. Join award-winning filmmaker and noted curmudgeon Alan Zweig for refreshingly honest conversations with “notable people” about the worst things in life. Alan has no interest in best-selling books or Hollywood triumphs, and doesn’t know (or care) much about his guests. He’s looking for real conversations tha...
Sep 12, 2024•3 min
After months of trading voice memos and messages, Caroline meets Marwa in person in Germany. They talk about the choices they have made, the lessons they have learned, and long for a reunion with Raha. By Caroline Gillet with Marwa and Raha. The original podcast broadcast on France INTER / RADIO FRANCE © RADIO FRANCE. Canadaland is proud to premiere the English-language adaptation of this urgent and intimate podcast, building on Commons' crucial season that told the story of Canada’s role in the...
Aug 29, 2024•17 min•Season 14Ep. 9
It has been ten months since the arrival of the Taliban. Marwa takes the steps to settle in Germany and takes a step back from her country, its traditions and its history. It is the first time she has been in Europe, and everything in Germany surprises her. In Afghanistan, the Taliban impose full veils on women. Raha is more and more desperate, and plots her escape. By Caroline Gillet with Marwa and Raha. The original podcast broadcast on France INTER / RADIO FRANCE © RADIO FRANCE. Canadaland is...
Aug 28, 2024•36 min•Season 14Ep. 8
Marwa arrives in Germany and everything surprises her. Raha sends the terrifying sounds of the end of Ramadan. She is increasingly cooped up and angry in Kabul, but she manages to send gifts from there. It always gets harder to talk to Raha. Caroline Gillet doesn't know if it's because of the power cuts, or if Raha can no longer find how to say what she's going through. The end of Ramadan is determined by the stars and in Afghanistan, we observe the decision of the Emirates to announce the start...
Aug 21, 2024•28 min•Season 14Ep. 7
We arrive in April, and it has been eight months since Marwa and Raha began talking about their daily lives with reporter Caroline Gillet. Raha is in Kabul, Marwa in a refugee camp in Abu Dhabi. They say that documenting what they are experiencing and sharing helps to compensate for the immobility. The economic situation in Afghanistan is dramatic following the freezing of international aid which financed nearly 80% of the Afghan budget. Half of the country is threatened by hunger. Aid is condit...
Aug 14, 2024•22 min•Season 14Ep. 6
Revolt in all its forms – hidden or revealed – is unfolding in Kabul and in the Abu Dhabi camp. From the start, Caroline Gillet asks Marwa and Raha questions, and they answer. Or they send her sounds, or photos, when they want to share something. The reporter never knows what she will discover when she opens a voice note. Sometimes there are long minutes of ambience, or short messages for practical things, or 20 minutes of monologues to tell a story. The reporter learns to recognize false cheerf...
Aug 07, 2024•30 min•Season 14Ep. 5
With the media’s attention turned away from Afghanistan and snow beginning to fall, Raha and Marwa continue to endure the daily realities of their new lives – finding simple pleasures that help them get through the day. While Raha finally finds a new job opportunity and a glimmer of hope, Marwa begins to go out at night in the camp and creates a new family to help her quench her desire for home. By Caroline Gillet with Marwa and Raha. The original podcast broadcast on France INTER / RADIO FRANCE...
Jul 31, 2024•25 min•Season 14Ep. 4
It has been three months since the Taliban returned to power. Raha and Marwa regularly receive reminders from Instagram of what their lives used to be – at a birthday, at a party, surrounded by friends. They send screenshots with their voice notes to Caroline Gillet. For Caroline, she sees evidence of daily lives that had been so much closer to her own than she would have imagined. The images make Caroline more aware of the scale and speed of the upheavals over recent weeks. While Raha endures t...
Jul 24, 2024•28 min•Season 14Ep. 3
Marwa and Raha are relearning daily life. Raha seeks comfort in anything that has not changed since the arrival of the Taliban, in the few dwindling spaces of freedom that remain. While Marwa discovers new things in the Abu Dhabi refugee camp. By Caroline Gillet with Marwa and Raha. The original podcast broadcast on France INTER / RADIO FRANCE © RADIO FRANCE. Canadaland is proud to premiere the English-language adaptation of this urgent and intimate podcast, building on Commons' crucial season t...
Jul 17, 2024•26 min•Season 14Ep. 2
INSIDE KABUL is a multi-award winning series by journalist Caroline Gillet that follows the daily life of two young Afghan women, Marwa and Raha. Both have been recording their daily lives since the arrival of the Taliban in August 2021. Should they stay? Leave? And when they leave, what does exile look like? Raha and Marwa record voice notes on their phones each day which they send to Caroline in Paris. They record to feel less isolated, to share the horror, to share the sounds of their new rea...
Jul 17, 2024•32 min•Season 14Ep. 1
The video game industry, like much of the tech, has been resistant to unionization for a very long time. But like so many other white-collar businesses, video game studios are built on the backs of thousands of exploited, low-paid workers. This is the story of Canada’s first-ever video game union. And the lengths that the industry went to try to stop it in its tracks. Featured in this episode: James Russwurm, Johanna Weststar, Pablo Godoy To learn more Not All Fun and Games: Videogame Labour, Pr...
Jul 03, 2024•48 min•Season 13Ep. 16
The huge rise in international students in Canada — most of them from Punjab, India — has become one of the biggest stories in the country. But most media outlets and political parties have framed it entirely as a housing issue. They’re missing the point. This is a story about the creation of a new, racialized underclass to do all of the work we don’t want to do. And it’s about the human wreckage that’s left in the wake after we’re done squeezing those people of every penny and every drop of swe...
Jun 26, 2024•43 min•Season 13Ep. 15
Earla Phillips has almost 16,000 Uber rides under her belt. But over the last few years, she’s been trying to hold Uber, one of the most powerful tech companies in the world, to account. Earla is a leader in a growing movement of gig workers who are trying to reclaim the basic labour rights that have been stripped from them. She expected to face opposition from tech companies and governments that are hostile to workers. But what she didn’t anticipate was that one of the biggest obstacles in her ...
Jun 19, 2024•38 min•Season 13Ep. 14
Today we’re sharing an episode of the newest show on the network, A Field Guide to Gay Animals. A Field Guide to Gay Animals explores sexuality, gender, and joy in the animal world. Animal enthusiasts Owen Ever and Laine Kaplan-Levenson take us on a quest to see beyond the natural world as we know it and into the natural world as it is: queer as f*ck. Cheeky and contemplative, curious and raunchy, Field Guide shows us that the natural world is more exuberant, more joyful, and more gay than we co...
Jun 15, 2024•43 min
Mandalena Lewis is one of far too many flight attendants who have been harassed or assaulted on the job. And her story is just one example of a culture of sexism and abuse that she alleges pervades the airline industry. But it’s not just airlines. So many workers, especially in female-dominated professions like nursing, education or food service, have to endure similar demeaning and violent treatment. And when they go to their employers, not only are they often ignored. They’re actively silenced...
Jun 12, 2024•38 min•Season 13Ep. 13
In 2006, Zakaria Amara was arrested and imprisoned for planning what could have been one of the deadliest terror attacks in Canadian history. A ringleader of the so-called “Toronto 18,” he’s one of the most infamous Canadian convicts of the last few decades. But this won’t be an episode about the Toronto 18 terror plot. This is about what happened to one of the ringleaders after that plot was foiled. About his many years of incarceration. About the possibility of rehabilitation. And what role, i...
Jun 05, 2024•35 min•Season 13Ep. 12
♩♪ 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 at No Frills ♩♪ ♩♪ But Spotify, it’s nearly killed us Ticketmaster’s ground us to dust The companies got too large Now monopolies are in charge ♩♪ ♩♪ And the record labels I fear the most Have all just merged and so now we’re toast Don’t you think it’s just so gross? The way, the music, died ♩♪ Featured in this episode: Sim...
May 29, 2024•32 min•Season 13Ep. 11
Prison labour is largely invisible in Canada. Most prisoners who work do institutional upkeep, the kind of cleaning, cooking and maintenance that’s required to keep a prison running. But then there are prison industries. Not only do Canadian prisoners work for for-profit businesses, but they’re sometimes doing dangerous and nauseating work around. Featured in this episode: Calvin Neufeld To learn more: Bloody Bad Business: Report on the Joyceville Institution Abattoir “Prison farm supporter worr...
May 22, 2024•35 min•Season 13Ep. 10
All labour exists on a spectrum, ranging from enslavement at one pole, to fully, freely given on the other. And, in Canada, at the most extreme end of that spectrum are prison labourers. Incarcerated people have few rights and fewer options when it comes to their working lives. If we want to truly understand our criminal justice system and Canadian labour, we need to examine how prisoners work. Featured in this episode: Jordan House, Asaf Rashid To learn more: Solidarity Beyond Bars: Unionizing ...
May 15, 2024•38 min•Season 13Ep. 9
Today we’re sharing with you a preview of the first episode of Canadaland’s newest show Pretendians . What do some of the most prominent and successful Indigenous artists, leaders and thinkers have in common? They aren’t Indigenous. From major universities, to the halls of power, to Hollywood, there are people claiming to be Indigenous in the interest of power, money, and status. There are dozens of outrageous cases of Indigenous identity fraud that we know about, and likely thousands that we do...
May 14, 2024•15 min
In Newfoundland and Labrador, fishing is more than just an industry or a job. It truly is a way of life. It’s at the core of what has made this place what it is. Today, as fishers leave the industry in droves, all of that is at risk of dying. But is it even worth it to try to keep all of that alive? After all, there’s plenty of ways to make a living. And what kind of future is in store for the people who refuse to let go? Featured in this episode: Kimberly Orren, Leo Hearn, Jenn Thornhill Verma,...
May 08, 2024•36 min•Season 13Ep. 8
The cod collapse is a harbinger of the many environmental disasters we’re about to face. But what happens to workers in the aftermath of that kind of catastrophe? In Newfoundland and Labrador, monopolistic corporations took advantage. The history of the Atlantic fishery can be understood as a power struggle between fishermen and merchants. And the merchants are winning. Featured in this episode: Glen Winslow, Ryan Cleary, Jenn Thornhill-Verma To learn more: “Who Controls Fish Processing in Newfo...
May 01, 2024•27 min•Season 13Ep. 7
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 that turned into economic devastation. It’s a story of a government ignoring the knowledge of working people, in favour of the so-called expertise of industry, to disastrous effect. But this isn’t just history. It’s prophecy. It’s a vision of what may c...
Apr 24, 2024•45 min•Season 13Ep. 6
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 is one of managerial malice and the heroism of everyday people. But why is it that governments let this happen over and over again, at the expense of so many lives? Featured in this episode: Vernon Theriault, Tom Sandborn To learn more: Westr...
Apr 17, 2024•48 min•Season 13Ep. 5
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 up. And the story he has to tell is startling. It’s a story of racism and labour exploitation that goes back decades, even centuries. And it’s a prophecy of what is to come — that the hardships inflicted on migrant farm workers are only a trial run for the rest of us...
Apr 10, 2024•42 min•Season 13Ep. 4
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. And even today, the men and women who grow our food are subject to horrific working conditions and racial discrimination. But to understand why the situation remains so bad, we need to go back in time to a moment when there was progress and hope. A moment when it looke...
Apr 03, 2024•35 min•Season 13Ep. 3
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 carry out their most basic obligations. In this episode, we'll tell you how nursing went from a profession hailed as heroic to one in an utter state of crisis, all through the eyes of a woman who lived through it all. Featured in this episode: ...
Mar 27, 2024•28 min•Season 13Ep. 2
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 international students for minimum wage jobs. And even for those with seemingly secure employment, wages and benefits continue to be squeezed. One thing seems clear: workers are getting screwed. This season of COMMONS will dig into the fascinating hist...
Mar 20, 2024•33 min•Season 13Ep. 1
