The Hatchet
The Hatchet is a podcast and newsletter dedicated to exposing power and money in Canada. Hosted by Arshy Mann, it delivers important, original, and fascinating journalism about how the country actually works. The show provides a unique perspective on Canadian politics and economics, aiming to uncover the inner workings of the nation. Listeners can expect in-depth reporting and analysis that goes beyond conventional coverage.
Episodes
Danielle Smith’s Hottest Takes
So today is the day of the Alberta referendum. And we just wanted to share with you some more of my conversation with Jeremy Appel.Here we dig into Danielle Smith’s origins as a media personality, and what that can teach us about her as a political figure. And specifically we take a look at some of the columns she wrote early on in her career where she espouses ideas like….how smoking can actually
Can Danielle Smith Control Alberta Separatism?
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit hatchetmedia.caMonday is the big day. The modern Alberta separatist movement has existed in one form or another since the 1980s. And Monday's referendum represents the closest they've ever come to achieving their goal.And the person who has gotten them this close to the promised land says she isn't even a separatist herself.It's a very
What The Hell Just Happened In Quebec? (w/ Nora Loreto)
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit hatchetmedia.caRemember 2014?Pauline Marois, the Parti Québécois Premier of Quebec, had just called an election, trying to turn her minority into a majority. She was running on the so-called Charter of Values and hoping to channel the culture war forces towards a third referendum. She had just recruited Pierre Karl Péladeau, one of the
Does Mark Carney even care about competition?
There’s something that I’ve noticed lately when it comes to how we talk about whatever is happening in Canada these days.Every announcement from the government, every hot take from the newspaper columnists and the talking heads on the nightly news comes with a caveat: WE ARE IN A TRADE WAR.And that means that any investment in Canada right now is viewed as a great investment. Just don’t look too h
Actually, privatizing Canada’s airports is a bad thing
Allowing big, private money to buy up chunks of our airports has been a long-held neo-liberal dream in Canada. Kim Campbell proposed it during her short-lived government, as did Justin Trudeau in 2017.They were both hoping to follow in the example of Margaret Thatcher’s UK, which became the first western nation to fully privatize their existing major airports back in 1987. Since then, many Europea
What Happened in Barcelona | A Few Bad Apples
The Toronto police have had a rough few months.Back in May, while the police service was still reeling from the fallout of the worst corruption scandal in recent history, three off-duty TPS officers were arrested in Barcelona, Spain.In typical fashion, the Toronto police withheld most of the important details from the public, citing concerns for the ongoing international investigation. A police sp
How to Organize in a Plague
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit hatchetmedia.caIf you were an openly gay man in Toronto in 1980, chances are that you would’ve thought that life was getting better. After all, the last decade had seen so much progress.Homosexuality had been partially decriminalized back in the late 1960s. A few years later, Toronto had become the first city in the country to ban homop
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 unjusti
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.caThere’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
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. Th
The RCMP’s War on Dissent | A Few Bad Apples
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit hatchetmedia.caThere’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, Francop
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 the 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 pol
Inside Canada's Shadow Financial System
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit hatchetmedia.caThere’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 Cr
British Columbia Can’t Outrun the Past
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit hatchetmedia.caThere 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,
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 w
Fishy Business on the Island (w/ Stu Neatby)
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit hatchetmedia.caIt’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 ove
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 up
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 offence
Separation Anxiety (w/ Paul Wells)
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit hatchetmedia.caJust over a year ago, when we were launching The Hatchet, there was one thing in particular that worried me — I’ve never felt fluent in federal politics.I think I knew as much as your average journalist — I followed the news, I had my opinions and I had a general sense of the history. But outside of the occasional story,
The Green Party is a Natural Disaster
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit hatchetmedia.caThis episode is for paid subscribers. If you would like to hear the whole thing, please support The Hatchet by going to hatchetmedia.substack.com.Now this might seem hard to believe, but there was a time when the Green Party of Canada was riding high. If just a few things went their way, they were on track to becoming a m
The Dark Prince of Bay Street | Brookfield
Support us at hatchetmedia.substack.comIn 1978, a South African accountant orchestrated one of the most audacious and ruthless hostile takeovers in the history of Canadian business.His name was Jack Cockwell. And over the next decade, he would build a corporate empire unlike anything Canada had ever seen.This is the third episode in our series examining the history of Brookfield. In our first two
The House of Bronfman | Brookfield
Support us at hatchetmedia.substack.comThis is the second episode in our series about Brookfield, the Canadian financial giant. In our first episode, we told you about one half of the company’s corporate lineage — Brascan, the Canadian monopoly that dominated Brazil for half-a-century.But Brookfield has another parent — the Bronfman family. And their story is even more remarkable.It begins in the
The Canadian Octopus | Brookfield
This episode was first published on April 12th, 2025. Happy New Year, Hatchet listeners!The chance to put out good journalism is its own reward, but to everyone who has listened, shared, or supported us over the last year—thank you. We wanted to kick off the year by updating you on our series on Brookfield. It’s been a long road, but we’ll be publishing the next two new episodes this week, with mo
What the mainstream media won't tell you about Jeffrey Epstein
I’ve had a hard time knowing what to make of the still-unfolding saga around Jeffrey Epstein.Like basically everyone else in the world, I’ve been following the story with interest for years.Even before the Miami Herald’s explosive 2018 investigation into the extend of his sexual abuse and how he had been able to get away with it, I had a vague understanding of a man named Jeffrey Epstein who abuse
Guns and Splutter: Breaking Down the Budget
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit hatchetmedia.caThe much anticipated budget is finally here and it promises to make "Canada Strong."Between the eye-popping promise to enable $1 trillion dollars in investments over the next five years and the $78.3 billion deficit, there’s a lot to take in.And that’s before we get into the really critical stuff… like maybe Canada will t
Wild, Wild (Rose) Country
So last week, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith used the notwithstanding clause to force Alberta teachers back to work.It’s the first time the notwithstanding clause has ever been used in this kind of a manner to end a labour action. And that’s led to some softening of support for Danielle Smith.But here’s the truth. The latest polls show that if an election were held today, Danielle Smith’s United C
Killing Canada Post
In 1965, Canada’s postal workers did something so radical, so unprecedented, that it shook our country’s political establishment to the core.They went on strike.It was radical and unprecedented because up until then public employees had no right to walk off the job. But for two weeks, postal workers conducted an illegal wildcat action which, by the end of it, saw them winning the right to strike f
Election Shock on the Rock
I think it’s kind of funny how we talk about election campaigns while they’re in progress. Between the polling and the poll aggregators, there’s often a feeling of inevitability to the result.But it also makes those times when the result is unexpected, when the actual will of the voters turns out to be very different from what the polls and the pundits predicted, to stand out in stark relief.We go
The Decline and Fall of the Canadian State (w/ Nora Loreto)
Why can’t the government do stuff?I’m not being facetious here. I think most Canadians — in fact, most people who live in western democracies — have a feeling that their governments are incapable of actually delivering on projects or providing services.But it wasn’t always this way. There was an era, not so far back in the future, when the Canadian governments turned petrochemicals into plastics,
Monopoly Man (w/ Peter Nowak)
Back a few years ago, there was this moment where it felt like there was a movement building against monopolies.It started in the United States with academics like Lena Khan and Tim Wu and journalists like Matt Stoller speaking out about the creeping corporate concentration that was infecting so much of American life.Eventually that movement found purchase in the Biden administration, which put an
Visions of Vancouver (w/ Justin McElroy)
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit hatchetmedia.caVancouver is a funny place.It’s without a doubt the most beautiful city in the country, probably also the continent and maybe even the world — at least when the sun’s shining. The rainy season, which lasts around eight months of the year, can turn it into a dreary, inescapable limbo.It’s a place filled luxury car dealersh
Northern Apocalypse | The Canadian Pacific
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit hatchetmedia.caThis episode is available immediately to paid supporters. For unpaid supporters, we're providing a short preview. Please consider supporting us at hatchetmedia.substack.comThe Canadian Pacific created a nation. But it also destroyed nations in the process.This is our third and final episode in our series about the buildin
Blood on the Tracks | The Canadian Pacific
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit hatchetmedia.caThis episode is available immediately to paid supporters. For unpaid supporters, we're providing a short preview. Please consider supporting us at hatchetmedia.substack.comThere’s a story we like to tell ourselves about how Canada was built. It’s about John A. Macdonald’s fearless vision and how Canadians across the conti
Empire of Steel | The Canadian Pacific
Most countries have a founding myth of some kind, a moment in time that serves as an anchor for the grand national story.For the United States, it’s the American Revolution and the founding of the republic. France’s history goes back centuries, but their national narrative begins with the storming of the Bastille. Which is why Bastille Day is their most important holiday.England has the Norman inv
A Lament for Nationalism
During my lifetime, there have only been a handful of times that quote unquote Canadian nationalism has been a potent force of any kind.The first, actual wave of Canadian patriotism I ever encountered was in the year 2000. That’s when Molson put out their “I Am Canadian” ad.You know the one I’m talking about.And for many people, that kind of came to encapsulate what it meant to be Canadian. Even t
Hockey's Recurring Nightmare
The Hockey Canada trial has been going on for two months now. And during that time, the Canadian media has meticulously covered every twist and turn that’s taken place in the London, Ontario courthouse.Five men — Michael McLeod, Dillon Dubé, Alex Formenton, Cal Foote and Carter Hart — have been accused of sexually assaulting a twenty-year-old woman, who is only being identified as E.M., after a Ho
What Isn’t Being Said About Iran
It’s so hard to know where to start a story. Choosing a starting point shapes the entire message and moral of whatever story you’re trying to tell.And that’s especially true when it comes to something like the recent Israeli and American bombardment of Iran.The simplest way to start would be to parrot what most Western governments and the mainstream media have been saying. For them, you need to be
What's Coming Up Next for The Hatchet
Arshy and Jordan sit down to give a quick update about how things have been going, a sneak peak at some upcoming projects, and the future of The Hatchet. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hatchetmedia.ca/subscribe
Carney's AI policy is artificial and not very intelligent
We’re now a month-and-a-half removed from the last federal election. And it feels like we’re finally starting to get a sense of how this government is going to, well, govern. Domestically, there’s been legislation on resource development and a lot of new powers for cops and border guards. Plenty of increased spending on defence and tax cuts. And internationally, Mark Carney has been doing a lot of
Why Did the Duck Cross the Border?
Point Roberts is one of the most unique places in North America. It’s a tiny spit of land right across the American border from the Vancouver suburb of Delta. But because it’s surrounded on three sides by water, it’s not connected to the rest of Washington state. It’s a community built by both Canadians and Americans — a physical manifestation of what the relationship between our two countries can
Danielle Smith's Hermit Kingdom
What does Danielle Smith want? The American threat has led to some strange bedfellows between the premiers and the feds. Leaders as different as Wab Kinew, Doug Ford and Mark Carney all seem to be on the same page. But not the Albertan premier. She’s been the odd woman out during the past few months. She maintained friendly contacts with the Trump administration, she argued against the use of expo
It’s Carney’s Canada – What Comes Next?
The last time we spoke with John Rapley, economic columnist for the Globe and Mail, it was right after Chrystia Freeland resigned as finance minister, creating a crisis for the Trudeau government.Remember that? It feels like quite a long time ago.Here’s some of what’s happened since then — Justin Trudeau announced his resignation, Donald Trump began to joke about Canada as the 51st state, and then
And One Last Thing....
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit hatchetmedia.caFinal thoughts on one of the strangest elections in Canadian history from the team at The Hatchet. If you’re in Toronto, make sure to drop by our election watch party at the Dock Ellis.
Debate Night in (English) Canada
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit hatchetmedia.caFor the first and only time this election, the major federal party leaders (and Yves-François Blanchet) stepped onto a stage and debated each other in English. None of the major parties have released a fully-costed platform. And both Mark Carney and Pierre Poilievre have done everything possible to avoid being subjected t
The Canadian Octopus | Brookfield
Brookfield has been in the news constantly over the last few weeks. The Conservatives attacked the company for moving the headquarters of one of their subsidiaries to New York City. The NDP have accused it of avoiding taxes through offshore havens. And Prime Minister Mark Carney, the former chairman of Brookfield Asset Management, has found himself on the defensive because of his association with
Pierre’s Polycrisis
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit hatchetmedia.caSupport us at hatchetmedia.substack.comIt’s week two of the federal election and Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives are off to a rocky start.There’s been reporting in most major news outlets about turmoil behind-the-scenes. And high ranking staffers have been openly criticizing his campaign and pushing for a change in direc
"They're Ready to Defend This Country": Canada's Military in the Age of Trump
With the American government regularly threatening annexation on a weekly basis, there’s one question that I’ve had on the top of my mind — what does the Canadian military think about all of this?We’re well past the point where anyone can argue that this is a joke or that Trump isn’t being serious. I don’t think it’s a surprise for anyone that the Canadian Armed Forces are almost entirely dependen
Mark, Pierre & the Great Campaign of 2025
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit hatchetmedia.caSupport us at hatchetmedia.substack.comThe federal election is here! And I think we all know this is going to be a wild one. The last few months have already been some of the strangest in modern Canadian history. But worry not, The Hatchet is here to help understand everything you need to know about this race. In addition
Canada’s Corporate Welfare Catastrophe
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit hatchetmedia.caThere’s a line about Canada that gets tossed around a lot. It comes from Harold Innis, the father of Canadian economic history, who said that Canadians have been relegated to “hewers of wood and drawers of water.”An…
Hair of the Doug
This was the week where Doug Ford finally became Prime Minister.Okay, so technically it’s Mark Carney who was actually sworn in as PM. But for a few weeks, Doug Ford appeared to be leading the nation. After all, it was Ford that was invited down to the Washington for a meeting with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. The feds just sort of tagged….along.And there were two people in particular that I
Let the Southern B******s Freeze in the Dark
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. Tarrifs are a tax that consumers end up paying for. So by continually pushing off the date that they come into
Will Reconciliation Survive the Trade War?
There’s been a surge of Canadian nationalism over the last month, and understandably so. I’ve been feeling it too, I think it’d be hard not to. You really couldn’t grow a better villain in a lab than Donald Trump to actually rally Canadians in this way.And with that has come a good amount of talk of both Canadian history and the need for modern-day nation-building. That’s a good impulse. This is n
The Man Behind Trump's War on Canada
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit hatchetmedia.caWe all knew that if Donald Trump got reelected, things would get chaotic pretty fast. But what I don’t think anyone anticipated was just how much Canada would be in the new administration’s cross-hairs.And there’s been one question no one really seems to be able to give a definitive answer to — why us?During the election
The 51st State of Emergency
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. And so on today’s episode of The Hatchet, we’re going to talk about the tarrifs, the history
The Hundred Years' War between Newfoundland and Quebec
In 1969, Quebec and Newfoundland worked together to build a hydroelectric generating station in Labrador at a place called Churchill Falls. It would go on to produce an enormous amount of energy.But the deal they struck has haunted Newfoundland ever since.Because Quebec gets to buy electricity at an absolutely rock bottom price, which hasn’t changed in more than fifty years. And they then turn aro
The Last of the Pirates
When Paul Watson was arrested in July of last year, it made headlines around the world. The presidents of France and Brazil called for his immediate release.But here in Canada — Watson’s birthplace and where much of his activism has centred — the reaction was strangely muted.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau never said a word about his case. While there was some news coverage of his case, it was nothi
How Pretendians and Grifters Infiltrated a Billion Dollar Federal Strategy
You’ve probably heard some of the controversy swirling around ArriveCan; how one of the contracts to help build it went to a company owned by a federal government employee. And especially how the whole thing cost $60 million to make, even though, you know, it was a pretty basic app.But ArriveCan was also the beneficiary of a specific strategy that the federal government has been implementing for n
The Only Certainties in Canada are Death and Tax Havens
So everyone seems pretty worried about a potential trade war with the United States. And for good reason — the US is our biggest trading partner by far. And I bet that over the next couple of days and weeks, a lot of journalists are going to head over to the StatsCan website to look up numbers of just how much money flows between the two countries.If they do, they might find themselves looking at
Canada’s Economy Is Even More Screwed Up Than You Think
Support us at hatchetmedia.substack.comI think we all know that the Canadian economy isn’t doing great. In the years after the pandemic, inflation surged and everyday people had to deal with ever-rising prices on all kinds of staple goods.The former governor of the Bank of Canada Stephen Poloz said recently that it’s likely that Canada’s already in a recession, and we just don’t know it yet.And no
How the Indian Government Extorts Canadians Into Becoming Spies
An open secret among Canadian Sikhs is only now being spoken about publicly.For years, Indian officials have used visa approvals to extort and blackmail their critics in Canada. They’ve coerced Canadians to spy on their fellow citizens or denounce their political beliefs in writing, in exchange for the privilege of being able to visit loved ones in India.It’s just a small part of the foreign inter
First Came Bread. Are They Fixing the Price of Meat and Potatoes Too?
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. Everywhere you look in the food industry, you’ll find rapacious corporate olig
Canada's Criminal Bank: A Triptych on TD
TD Bank has over a hundred thousand employees, almost two trillion dollars in assets and it’s a foundational part of the Canadian economy.It’s also a criminal enterprise.TD Bank has now admitted that for years, they helped launder hundreds of millions of dollars in drug money in the United States. But TD’s bad behaviour goes much further back. And leads us a lot closer to home.Featured in this epi
