The Hatchet

Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -14:33 Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. Bob Davidson, a representative of the Saint John Police Association, being forcibly removed from a Saint John city council meeting earlier this year. There’s an unfortunate tendency to talk about the cops as some kind of a monolith. And don’t worry, I’m not about to go on some lecture about how not all police officers are bad.

Frank Stronach, the founder of one of Canada’s largest manufacturing companies, has been charged with a litany of sexual assaults spanning nearly fifty years. This episode contains substantial discussions of, and some descriptions of, sexual violence, and so it may not be appropriate for all listeners. For the last few years, it’s become almost a cliché to talk about how we’re in the middle of a new era of accountability when it comes to sexual violence.

The BC RCMP’s Critical Response Unit has been the subject of more than 500 official complaints, including for arbitrary detention, racial abuse and torture. There’s this idea that often gets bandied about. That the RCMP, from its very inception, has been a tool of political repression.

The Longueuil police showed up in force to the silent march mourning the police killing of Nooran Rezayi, an unarmed 15-year-old boy. If you work in the media long enough, you’ll start to notice the cycles. Bit by bit, the press will start to take an issue more seriously. They’ll devote more reporters to that specific beat, opinion writers will focus their ire on it, stories on that topic will be more likely to lead off an evening broadcast. And then, the tide will recede.

There’s something about the way we talk about crime that I’ve always found frustrating. Whether it’s car theft rings or fentanyl trafficking or targeted killings, we end up having intense political debates about peripheral issues — should we be locking more people up or making it harder to get bail or changing the Youth Criminal Justice Act. But we rarely, if ever, talk about the central issue — money. Just like legitimate businesses, criminal enterprises are trying to make a profit.

An exclusive look inside The Hatchet’s recording studio (also known as Arshy’s dining table with a blanket thrown over it) with Andrea Werhun. For the last few months, I’ve been wondering what the hell happened to podcasts. Maybe you’ve noticed the difference too. A decade ago, it felt like this new medium was the future of in-depth journalism. Every few weeks, a major investigative podcast seemed to drop out of nowhere.

The Chopping Block is an additional newsletter for supporters of The Hatchet. When Harjit Sajjan was sworn in as Justin Trudeau’s first defence minister, it was to much fanfare. “Everyone Thinks Canada’s New Defense Minister Is a ‘Badass’” declared a VICE News headline in characteristically bombastic fashion. “Harjit Sajjan: Canada’s ’bad-ass’ defence minister” intoned a similarly-positive Maclean’s profile.

Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -32:15 Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. The signing of the USMCA, which in retrospect, was a much more innocent time. It’s been a weird month. When we first launched The Hatchet, we spent a lot of time talking about the kinds of stories that we wanted to cover and the kind of work that we wanted to do here. Something we did not anticipate was having to seriously entertain the notion of American annexation. But here we are.

Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -37:04 Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. It’s time to give the Americans the Jack Torrance treatment. This is starting to get ridiculous. One day we’re being tariffed to all hell, and the next day, the Trump administration says that they’re putting the trade war on pause for another month. But what we have to understand is that, from the American perspective, this is an effective strategy.

Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -23:24 Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. The price of food keeps rising. And for the last few years, we’ve had a national debate about whether or not that’s the fault of the mega grocery chains. But the CEOs of Loblaws, Metro and Sobeys claim that it’s not their fault. We should be looking further up the food chain for the real culprits. They might have a point.