Episode notes
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit hatchetmedia.ca 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. Organized crime groups have to set up sophisticated operations to launder their money and put it to use. But today,…
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The Hatchet
Hatchet Media · Business · English
The Hatchet is a podcast and newsletter dedicated to exposing power and money in Canada. Hosted by Arshy Mann, The Hatchet delivers important, original and fascinating journalism about how this country actually works, in a way that no one else can. hatchetmedia.ca
More from The Hatchet All episodes →
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10 Jul 2026 · 19 min
Quebec cops killed a teenage boy. Now they’re targeting his friends.
The Montreal police have arrested and charged the friends of an unarmed teenage boy who was shot and killed by the Longueuil police last year. Meanwhile, the police officer who killed Nooran Rezayi is a free man. The whole thing stinks of a cover-up. The full force of the state is being deployed against a group of teenagers in order to silence them, smear their reputations and whitewash the unjustified and unjustifiable killing of an unarmed child. And it's all because Quebec’s policing establishment understands what it would mean for the public to see Nooran Rezayi’s death for what it is —…
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25 Jun 2026 · 15 min
Chaos in the Saint John Police Force | A Few Bad Apples
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit hatchetmedia.ca 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. I just mean that we often miss that police forces are complex, political institutions with competing centres of power. There are the police boards that are supposed to govern these forces and maintain civilian rule over the cops; the police chief and upper management that run the force and oversee the day-to-day operations; the…
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17 Jun 2026 · 1 hr 14 min
Inside Canada’s Billionaire Sexual Assault Trial
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. Whether it’s the prosecution of Harvey Weinstein or the ongoing revelations from the Epstein Files, the rich, famous and powerful appear to be having their crimes exposed and, on occasion, even punished. Here in Canada it’s been no different. There have been numerous media exposes on the prevalence of sexual violence in arenas as varied as media, sports, business, politics, the service industry and so many others. But when it comes to…
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11 Jun 2026 · 12 min
The RCMP’s War on Dissent | A Few Bad Apples
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit hatchetmedia.ca There’s this idea out there that often gets bandied about; that the RCMP, from its very inception, has been a tool of political repression. People claim that for most of the force’s 150-year history, the Mounties have been used to clamp down on perceived opponents of the state, whether they’re Indigenous activists, Francophone separatists or leftists of all stripes. And that theory, well, it’s basically true. During World War One and into the 1920s , one of the force’s primary missions was to infiltrate and surveil…
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5 Jun 2026 · 47 min
The Killing of Nooran Rezayi | A Few Bad Apples
This is the first installment of "A Few Bad Apples," a new, ongoing series about police misconduct from The Hatchet. Across Canada, police continue to act with impunity. Toronto is amidst t he worst policing crisis in its history. And while the details of that were still coming out, three off-duty Toronto police officers were charged with sexual assault in Spain. In British Columbia, the Vancouver police has been interfering in the city’s politics, while the RCMP spies on protesters and dissidents. Murder trials in Calgary and Fredericton have fallen apart because of police incompetence. And…
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1 May 2026 · 10 min
British Columbia Can’t Outrun the Past
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit hatchetmedia.ca There is a spectre haunting British Columbia. If you’ve been paying any attention to BC politics over the last eight months, the province has been whipped up into a panic over Indigenous rights. And all of it can be traced back to one man — and no, it’s not Premier David Eby. The man haunting the province is Joseph Trutch, BC's first Lieutenant-Governor and the individual most responsible for the fact that the province resisted signing treaties with First Nations for a century. Instead, provincial government after…
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24 Apr 2026 · 22 min
Canada's Monopolies Are Marching On (w/ Peter Nowak & Vass Bednar)
As I’m sure you all know, the media is not doing well. Layoffs and closures have left the industry in a state of absolute disrepair. Even the so-called new media outlets that were supposed to save us — think BuzzFeed and Vice — have largely packed it in. The podcasting bubble has popped and newsletters have flatlined. In short, there just isn’t some magical business model or format waiting in the wings to save journalism, especially here in Canada. But some of us just, including us over here at The Hatchet, just can’t help ourselves. We’re going to keep plugging away, hell or high water,…
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23 Apr 2026 · 9 min
Fishy Business on the Island (w/ Stu Neatby)
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit hatchetmedia.ca It’s not surprising that Prince Edward Island gets ignored by most of the press outside of the Maritimes. It’s by far the smallest province, with less than 200,000 residents. And the last time PEI politics were being covered nationally was when PEI senator Mike Duffy was at the centre of a massive expense scandal well over a decade ago. But that lack of attention is a disservice. Because PEI isn’t just a collection of small communities. It’s a full-fledged province, with equal standing in Confederation, and with a…
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14 Apr 2026 · 52 min
The Promise and Peril of Avi Lewis (w/ Nora Loreto)
Nora Loreto comes on The Hatchet to discuss whether Avi Lewis, the NDP's new leader, is set to be the socialist saviour or doomed to be another Dipper dud. We recorded this not long after the NDP convention and we dissect the challenges Avi will face as the party’s standard-bearer, including his relationships with labour, the provincial parties, his own party’s bureaucracy and much more. Also, an update on The Hatchet. Featured in this episode: Nora Loreto To learn more "The Elephant in the NDP race" by Nora Loreto on Substack "Five takeaways from the NDP Convention" by Nora Loreto on…
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14 Feb 2026 · 29 min
The Toronto Police Has Been a Rogue Agency for Too Long. Rein Them In.
The Toronto Police Service is one of the oldest institutions in this country. In fact it’s 33 years older than the country itself. And in all of those nearly two hundred years of history, you’d be hard-pressed to find a darker time for the force than right now. That’s because last week, seven current and one former Toronto Police officers were arrested and charged with an absolute litany of offences — drug trafficking, theft, accepting bribes, illegal weapons possession, conspiracy to obstruct justice, fraud, breach of trust, harassment and, worst of all, conspiracy to commit murder. And…
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