COMMONS

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 WestheadSupport COMMONS: http://commonspodcast.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

One of Canada's most notorious white-collar criminals speaks about his crimes.Support COMMONS: http://commonspodcast.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.Support COMMONS: http://commonspodcast.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 HumphreysSupport COMMONS: http://commonspodcast.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 OvedSupport COMMONS: http://commonspodcast.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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)Support COMMONS: http://commonspodcast.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For years, people could walk into Vancouver-area casinos with tens of thousands of dollars of suspicious cash and walk out with clean money, no questions asked. That money may be fuelling two of the biggest problems the city is facing: the housing crisis and the opiate epidemic. Support COMMONS: http://commonspodcast.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This season, Commons will be focusing on stories at the intersection of money, influence and politics in Canada. In this episode, we take you to what may be Canada’s most criminal neighbourhood — Toronto’s financial district. Along for the ride is investigative journalist Bruce Livesey, author of “The Thieves of Bay Street.”Support COMMONS: http://commonspodcast.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mohamed Waleed Taleb is stuck in Turkey. He applied to come to Canada in 2015 and was flagged under section 34 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act for his pro-democracy work against the Assad regime. He's responded to the governement's concerns and is now waiting to hear back on a final decision: will he be let into Canada, or will he be deemed "inadmissible". We spoke to Waleed about his experience. We also spoke to his lawyer Pierre Andre Theriault to better understand Waleed's case.   This episode was inspired by Canada's Missing Syrians, by Canadian journalist Gareth Chantler.Support COMMONS: http://commonspodcast.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you look at the stats, Canada has a low incidence of hate crimes, but the numbers that we rely on to tell us if we're racist or not are wrong. In this episode, we speak to journalist and  Executive Director, of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network Evan Balgord who explains why that is. Evan represented the research of Barbara Perry Professor and Undergraduate Program Director, of Criminology at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology and Sabreena Ghaffar-Siddiqui PhD Candidate and Researcher at McMaster University.Support COMMONS: http://commonspodcast.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.