Canadian Scandal: True Crimes and Dirty Secrets From the Great White North

Every country has its justice system failures...those moments where the pursuit of a conviction outruns the full truth.

Here in Canada, that moment has a name:

Karla Homolka

Homolka and her husband, Paul Bernardo, were a seemingly normal happy young couple, a facade that made it much harder for the public to accept that they were at the centre of one of the most disturbing criminal cases in Canadian history.

But as horrific & grotesque as their crimes were, the real scandal came later when evidence was revealed that portrayed Karla Homolka as less of an innocent victim, manipulated by an abusive spouse and more as an active and willing participant.

We're digging into the story of "the Ken & Barbie killers" and the legal system forced to make a difficult choice in an episode I'm calling The Deal With The Devil: The Karla Homolka Plea Bargain

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February 20, 1959...a day that would come to be known in Canada as "Black Friday".

On that day, thousands of workers showed up for their shifts at the Avro Aircraft plant thinking it would just be a regular day. These workers had spent the last several years working on something truly extraordinary:

A 100% Canadian-made supersonic jet known as "The Avro Arrow".

But by the end of that day, it was all over. The project had been cancelled and the workers laid off. But why?

That's what we're going to try to find out in an episode I'm calling Grounded: The Death Of The Avro Arrow

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In depression-era Canada, a rural farmhouse in Northern Ontario became the unlikely stage for a global sensation.

Five tiny lives entered the world and, against all odds, became the first known surviving identical quintuplets. But behind the starstruck gazes and celebratory headlines, a different story was unfolding; one of unprecedented intervention, lives under constant scrutiny, and of innocence lost.

We're going to go deep into this complex and unsettling story in an episode I'm calling From Miracle to Misery: The Stolen Childhood of the Dionne Quintuplets.

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"Yes, I have smoked crack cocaine. But do I? Am I an addict? No. Have I tried it? Probably in one of my drunken stupors, probably approximately a year ago."

That gem of a quote comes courtesy of the late Rob Ford, who served as the Mayor of Canada's largest city for 4 years. Throughout his term in office, he faced numerous scandals, but it all came to a head when rumours started swirling that Ford had been caught on video smoking crack.

We're going to go on a journey into the life & times of one of the most controversial figures in Canadian political history with an episode I'm calling Crack, Lies, and Videotape: The Rise and Fall of Rob Ford.

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When you think of "election scandals" there's probably a few high profile ones that come to mind including alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election or claims of voter fraud in the 2020 U.S. Presidential election that fuelled the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol building.

But would you believe that Canada once dealt with its own major election scandal?

It had everything from burner phones, to fake automated phone calls, to a guy hiding behind a super-secret alias.

Serious cracks were exposed in what everyone believed to be a rock-solid election system and we're going to explore them all in an episode I'm calling The Legend of Pierre Poutine: Canada's Robocall Scandal.

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