Investigations

Councillors have been left scrambling to warn their colleagues before more municipalities abandon their net-zero commitments, after conspiracy theories resurrected from the US Tea Party swamped their communities. The organization meant to support them has been silent.

Internal instructions accessed by Canada’s National Observer show that the chatbot produces tailored scripts, petitions, reports and even speeches for council chambers. The messaging is all framed to resonate with municipal officials’ duty to represent local interests. The chatbot drops the cost of misinformation to "close to zero."

When dozens of Katie Pasitney's 400-odd ostriches got sick and started dying in mid-December, the Edgewood, BC, farmer, who shares responsibility for the farm, never imagined that her herd would become a front in a far-right movement’s battle to sow mistrust in government institutions and public health measures. 

A podcast about the Exxon Valdez oil spill has won a top award from the American Bar Association. Slick Science podcast tells the story of a community’s fight for justice after the Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker owned by the Exxon Shipping Company, spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound.

In Episode five of The Takeover, we take the examination of right wing politics to the Canada Strong and Free Network conference in Ottawa.

Episode three of The Takeover podcast hears from a journalist who has been writing about the major actions of the President Trump administration.

Columnist David Brooks, who describes himself as a moderate opinion writer with the New York Times, went against the grain in his speech which opened day two of the ARC conference in London, U.K.

Episode two of The Takeover examines his career from a psychology professor at the University of Toronto to wildly successful author and guru for dissatisfied young men and now leader of a global movement to create a right-wing world.

In the first episode of The Takeover, join the team on the floor of the London conference, where these power brokers and hangers-on have gathered to hash out what a future could look like without environmental or other regulations, without limits on fossil fuels, without limits on speech no matter the cost.

We went to the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in London, a right-wing networking event organized by former U of T professor Jordan Peterson. We observed how speakers spread anti-net-zero strategies across a growing conservative network that includes the U.S., the U.K. Europe, Australia and Canada.

Dark money is paying for oil and gas ads on shadowy Facebook pages, all coordinated by a PR firm with oil and gas — and Conservative Party — connections. How did a small town in Southern Ontario find itself in the crosshairs of this mysterious campaign?