Canadaland

Joseph Boyden has emerged from his winter burrow like a collared lemming (it's an arctic mammal -- look it up!) to plug his forthcoming book weigh in again on questions of his Indigenous ancestry. Despite his insistence that his connection to -- and friendship with -- Indigenous communities should automatically confer some sort of Indigenous status, he went ahead and got a DNA test anyway. Robert Jago wrote an excellent dissection of Boyden's latest plea for acceptance/publicity stunt, while Eric Andrew-Gee dug into Boyden's complicated family history in a Globe & Mail feature.   Also, with literally no Canadians waiting with baited breath, the CBC finally announced its cadre of Peter Mansbridge replacements. Rosemary Barton, Ian Hanomansing, Adrienne Arsenault, and Andrew Chang have collectively made the cut, while network mainstays Ernie Coombs, Bruno Gerussi, and Al Waxman remain in reserve in case any of the lead anchors bolt for CTV. National Post journalist and Commons co-host Ashley Csanady joins

This week we present a podcast based on our stage show which was based on our book which was based on this podcast. Talk about coming full circle.   In it: should you fuck your Prime Minister?; Why Canadians secretly love climate change; why we love the RCMP; and a peek at the Canada of the not-too-distant future.Support CANADALAND: https://canadaland.com/joinSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Toronto Star built an entire exposé on female genital mutilation based predominantly around a mid-level civil servant's email from three years ago.  Also, CBC Comedy is so unfunny it's funny. Or is that the other way around? Either way, a former member of Kellie Leitch's team has made it his mission to bring it down. Writer/broadcaster, and producer Naheed Mustafa joins us.Support CANADALAND: https://canadaland.com/joinSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We revisit a couple of stories that we haven't been able to follow up on to the level to which we'd hoped. At least not on the website, where our News Editor Jonathan Goldsbie makes the ultimate call as to what gets published. In this episode Jonathan and Jesse go head to head and reveal new facts about Andrew Potter's abrupt departure from McGill after his Maclean's diatribe about Quebec, and what happened after Leah McLaren's column about attempting to breastfeed Michael Chong's baby was spiked.Support CANADALAND: https://canadaland.com/joinSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Conservative Party takes their latest wedge issue to the US media, a Quebec town won't let Muslims bury their dead and Trudeau lays out some hot summer jams.   BuzzFeed's Elamin Abdelmahmoud co-hosts.Support CANADALAND: https://canadaland.com/joinSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When the vitriol started to fly over Omar Khadr's $10.5 million settlement and apology from the government, Michelle Shephard got frustrated with just how much people were getting the basic facts wrong. As national security reporter for the Toronto Star, author of the book Guantanamo's Child and co-director of the documentary of the same name, she's been the top reporter on Khadr's story for the past 15 years. She speaks to guest host Omar Mouallem about how Khadr's public image has evolved over the years and what the media and the public continues to get wrong about the story.Support CANADALAND: https://canadaland.com/joinSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Journalist Evan Balgord has been covering fringe right groups like the Proud Boys, Soldiers of Odin, and the Three Percenters for the better part of the past year. He joins the COMMONS team to discuss the ongoing street protests and what’s driving these groups’ discontent.   CANADALAND will be back on Monday.Support CANADALAND: https://canadaland.com/joinSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ren Bostelaar posted nude pictures of women he knew to 4chan without their consent. He avoided a criminal record by apologizing and taking a peace bond. Was justice served? Is revenge porn legal in Canada? What is the state of the law and social media, years after the Amanda Todd and Rehteah Parsons cases? Privacy lawyer David Fraser launched a successful constitutional challenge against Nova Scotia's anti-cyberbullying law. But he supports current anti-revenge porn laws, and he explains why. Support CANADALAND: https://canadaland.com/joinSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

With resistance to Canada150, Indigenous women calling out a reporter at a press conference, and the Proud Boys disrupting a Mi'kmaq ceremony in Halifax, the way people talk about our colonial history is changing. While Indigenous people demand respect, journalists like the National Post's John Robson think the insults are just too much.   NDP MP Romeo Saganash plagiarized co-host Erica Violet Lee's work in an op-ed for the Globe and Mail.   With Omar Khadr reportedly getting an apology and a settlement of $10.5 million from the Canadian government after nearly a decade in Guantanamo Bay, politicians are twisting the narrative, and a columnist wonders why Khadr can't just move on.   Erica's blog: Moontime Warrior Erica's Twitter: @ericavioletleeSupport CANADALAND: https://canadaland.com/joinSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Canada was once home to a small, but mighty collective of gay and lesbian newspapers and magazines that made up a radical alternative media. Over the last few decades now-defunct publications like The Body Politic, Siren and Fab brought LGBTQ+ issues, interests and voices, to the forefront. Daily Xtra, now the country’s only remaining national queer news source, ceased print in 2015 but continues publishing online. Despite queer people having more rights than ever before, queer media is all but disappearing. Is this solely a result of Canadian media’s general decline, or is the shift indicative of something more? It’s also been a year since Black Lives Matter Toronto (BLMTO) halted the country’s largest Pride parade in protest, with a list of demands in tow. The action sparked a harsh months-long backlash of editorials and hot takes by mostly white, straight columnists and pundits, ruthlessly condemning BLMTO. Has coverage of LGBTQ+ issues and news by legacy media changed or improved since BLMTO’s protest?

The Toronto Star put the final nail in the coffin of Star Touch, its $20-30-million app for a device that most people don't have or use. And after praising themselves for its bold innovation, quietly laid off 30 journalists. Meanwhile, Canada gears up this weekend for a celebration of epic proportions: Peter Mansbridge is retiring. And confederation, something something. Finally we dig into Jonathan Kay’s Twitter mobs and how they’re killing free speech for anybody who’s not a National Post columnist. Vice Senior writer Manisha Krishnan joins us.Support CANADALAND: https://canadaland.com/joinSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After the release of the Public Policy Forum's Shattered Media report this past winter comes the latest beg for cash to prop up the newspaper industry. This one comes in the form of a request for a subsidy totaling hundred of millions of dollars per year from News Media Canada, the umbrella advocacy organization for Canadian newspapers. While it claims to advocate for the maintenance of local journalism, the organization shies away from supporting small, digital startups, which are often the strongest source of civic journalism in many Canadian communities. The Trudeau government swiftly knocked down the idea of taxing Netflix and other digital endeavours to fund this bailout, though it sounds like they're ultimately in favour of finding that funding. Bob Cox, Chair of the Board of News Media Canada as well as the publisher of the Winnipeg Free Press joins us.   (Producers' note: owing to a technical glitch with our telephone recording process, this interview is an amalgam of two separate interviews conduct

Governor General David Johnston issued a mea culpa over his radio interview in which he refers to Indigenous peoples as immigrants. Postmedia did not issue mea culpas for poorly-researched racist screeds in its Vancouver and Toronto outlets. Instead, they continue to rattle the cup in front of the federal government for bailout money. Finally, the National Post issued a mea culpa for years of Conrad Black columns by announcing they would stop publishing their Monday edition of the paper.   (Producers' note: Jesse Brown would like to issue a mea culpa after misstating the name of one of the lead characters of TV sitcom Three's Company, while Short Cuts guest David Berry's mea culpa comes over misstating that 'Sufferin' Succotash' was a catchphrase of Foghorn Leghorn. It was, in fact, Sylvester the Cat.)Support CANADALAND: https://canadaland.com/joinSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Iraqi photojournalist Ali Arkady thought he was documenting the "good guys" -- the non-sectarian forces fighting Daesh for the preservation of Iraq. Instead, Arkady witnessed abuse, torture, and murder committed by the Emergency Response Division.  After fleeing Iraq with his family, Arkady partnered with the Toronto Star and ABC News to have his work see the light. He joins Jesse Brown on the phone from an undisclosed location in Europe alongside Mitch Potter, one of the three Star reporters who helped write this essential exposé.Support CANADALAND: https://canadaland.com/joinSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Breitbart News has convinced concerned Christian families that Ontario’s new child protection laws will bring forth a queer totalitarian state, where parents opposing or denying their children’s gender identity will have them forcibly removed from their homes. After tweeting about almost being published in Teen Vogue on June 2, Toronto-based freelance writer, Roslyn Talusan’s call-out of the magazine went viral and led to dozens of writers flooding her inbox with similar stories of being strung along after having successfully pitched personal stories and essays approved by editors of Conde Nast’s supposedly progressive, feminist magazine. The Liberal government is moving forward with an amendment to the Criminal Code,  as a result of the Jian Ghomeshi case. The change will, for the first time, ensure that a complainant’s text messages, e-mails and video recordings with sexual content or a sexual purpose can be kept out of trials. Freelance writer and editor at Femsplain, Roslyn Talusan joins Jesse.Support

Or did we play ourselves? This most recent Conservative leadership race highlighted a number of deficiencies in Canadian media. Namely, why did the guy with virtually no chance of ever becoming Prime Minister, who skipped debates and ran much of his campaign from Boston, receive so much more press coverage than the guy who actually won the leadership? Did media just go for the low-hanging fruit, or did we allow ourselves to be manipulated by an expert huckster? CBC.ca's Opinion Producer Robyn Urback has some opinions of her own and joins us for the episode.Support CANADALAND: https://canadaland.com/joinSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland stands up to the sole remaining global superpower like a newborn kitten taking on Galactus. Somewhere between 10 and 5,000 freedom-loving citizens descend on Parliament Hill to rail against Trudeau, refugees, Islam, you name it. Of course, close to 10,000 attended the most recent pro-marijuana rally, proving that Canadians love pot far more than they fear Sharia law. Finally, Scott Gilmore pens a tone-deaf piece for Macleans highlighting conditions on First Nations reservations and the solution is for the rest of us to ... care?Support CANADALAND: https://canadaland.com/joinSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

McClelland & Stewart was the publishing house that, at one time, served as the home for the likes of Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, Leonard Cohen and others. In 2000, under the direction of building magnate Avie Bennett, it was broken apart and sold to the University of Toronto and to Random House Canada. It's now entirely owned by a foreign company. Elaine Dewar, author of the new book The Handover, joins us to explain the seeming sleight-of-hand that put this institution in foreign hands. Avie Bennett died this past weekend at the age of 89.Support CANADALAND: https://canadaland.com/joinSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Conservatives have a new, dimpled, leader, Nova Scotians have more of the same, and British Columbians have an unprecedented lefty hybrid. How effective was media coverage of these three electoral events? Plus, Toronto Life's recent tone-deaf spurt of house porn has led to, if not riots in the streets, then at least a whole lot of snark on social media. Journalist Katie Toth joins us.Support CANADALAND: https://canadaland.com/joinSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

One cardinal rule of journalism is that reporters never accept incentives, be that meals, gifts, or - God forbid - money, from the subjects on whom they're reporting. This applies across the board except, we now know, in the travel section. Travel writers used to diligently follow this standard but, as newspapers and magazines were increasingly unable or unwilling to foot expenses, these journalists were forced to find alternative sources to fund their trips. This meant cozying up to hotel chains, airlines, and tourism bureaus. If travel writers are being subsidized by the tourism industry, can the readers trust the stories? Bert Archer is arguably Canada's most prolific travel writer and teaches the practice and ethics of travel writing at the University of Toronto. He believes journalists can maintain their editorial independence - but must walk a careful line.Support CANADALAND: https://canadaland.com/joinSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more