Investigates: Recent Episodes
APTN
APTN Investigates is the first Indigenous investigative news program in Canada, offering viewers hard-hitting reports and stories.
Produced by award-winning journalists, APTN Investigates is committed to seeking the truth for our people.
Details are emerging about medical experimentation conducted on Inuit in Canada.
APTN Investigates examines how Inuit were treated as guinea pigs and the scars left behind.
Scar Tissue: The Legacy of Inuit Medical Experimentation by Tom Fennario
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APTN National News, our stories told our way.
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As retail theft rises, so do allegations of racial discrimination. In Winnipeg, violent encounters between security guards and Indigenous people have sparked outrage.
What's the driving force behind these confrontations? Poverty? Crime? Or deeply rooted systemic prejudice?
APTN Investigates: How They See Us by Tamara Pimentel
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APTN National News, our stories told our way.
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The longest trial in Canadian history recognizes Aboriginal title for a former Cowichan Nation village in Richmond, British Columbia.
With appeals pending, including one from the Musqueam band, Return to Tl'uqtinus explores what it all means.
APTN Investigates: Return to Tl'uqtinus by Christopher Read
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APTN National News, our stories told our way.
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The River Remembers investigates the sharp rise of police killings in Canada, where police involved deaths have almost doubled since 2000.
APTN Investigates follows families demanding answers and accountability while shining a light on a pattern of violence hidden in plain sight.
The River Remembers by Brittany Guyot.
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APTN National News, our stories told our way.
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The 10-year anniversary of Standing Rock continues this week on Retrospectives, as Dennis Ward joins host Brittany Guyot to discuss AFTER STANDING ROCK—the second of his two episodes reporting from the front lines of a historic moment in Indigenous resistance.
Watch the first part of the interview here: Dennis Ward on Standing Rock, ten years la...
Clash at Standing Rock - Originally April 7, 2018: After Standing Rock | APTN Investigates
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APTN National News, our stories told our way.
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It's been 10 years since Standing Rock, a historic gathering of land and water protectors resisting the Dakota Access pipeline that captured international attention.
On Retrospectives, Dennis Ward joins host Brittany Guyot to discuss CLASH AT STANDING ROCK—the first of his two APTN Investigates episodes reporting from the front lines in North Dakota.
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APTN National News, our stories told our way.
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For decades Mohawk tobacco manufacturers have been playing cat and mouse with law enforcement, making big profits while fending off charges over selling tax free cigarettes.
But now a Mohawk tobacco entrepreneur has turned the tables: he's suing Quebec for seizing his products, and is giving APTN Investigates a peek behind the curtain of how his industry works.
APTN Investigates: Taxing Sovereignty by Jeff Dorn, Tom Fennario and Savanna Craig
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APTN National News, our stories told our way.
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A lengthy power outage ravages homes and infrastructure in Pimicikamak Cree Nation, triggering a state of emergency, a boil water advisory and a community exodus.
Crisis at Cross Lake examines how, why and what's next.
APTN Investigates: Crisis at Cross Lake by Christopher Read.
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APTN National News, our stories told our way.
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With the Indian hospitals settlement now accepting claims for compensation, Dr. Maureen Lux joins host Brittany Guyot this week on APTN Investigates Retrospectives to discuss THE CURE WAS WORSE (2017) and the painful history of these former institutions.
To find out more about the Indian hospitals settlement, go to ihsettlement.ca.
The deadline to apply for compensation is July 27, 2028. The Cure was Worse | Originally Aired October 31, 2017: https://youtu.be/o_Z11n9by-8?si=aKN9SO1GQBA3pvb6
Reporter Christopher Read joins host Brittany Guyot to discuss POWER—his 2020 two-part series on Manitoba Hydro, and the long-term impacts of the Churchill River Diversion.
POWER | Originally aired October 26, 2020: https://youtu.be/Wg5KGKQmuEI?si=MbVl_t9vcNKhNPRP
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APTN National News, our stories told our way.
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The 2025 Manitoba wildfires devastated many communities – including one in danger of falling through jurisdictional cracks.
Tamara Pimentel travels to the small northern town of Leaf Rapids to assess the damage as community members are left sifting through the ashes.
APTN Investigates: Ashes to Ashes by Tamara Pimentel
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APTN National News, our stories told our way.
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For 45 years a tiny remote First Nation has been at odds with a conservation group to get land back it believes was illegally appropriated in the 1800s.
Members of the Dzawada'enux First Nation believe Nature Trust of BC puts the wellbeing of Grizzly Bears over the needs of their people. They say it's a dispute that may lead to direct action if a solution is not found.
APTN Investigates: A Kingcome's Ransom by Rob Smith
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APTN National News, our stories told our way.
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After winning a million dollars on a scratch ticket, Joshua Saulteaux vanished from his family's property in Alberta. Blood was found inside his trailer, but no trace of him has ever been recovered.
Investigators say he walked away into the night, but his family believes something far more troubling happened.
APTN Investigates: Into the Night by Brittany Guyot
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APTN National News, our stories told our way.
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Reporter Kenneth Jackson investigates a toxic legacy left by wartime government and industry in a small Ontario town, and meets a First Nation chief demanding the land back, but only after the damage is undone.
APTN Investigates: War on the Land | By Kenneth Jackson
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APTN National News, our stories told our way.
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In Canada, the histories of residential school survivors are being challenged by a surge of denialism. Dismantling Denialism confronts those attempts to rewrite history — and explores what it will take to defend truth and reconciliation.
APTN Investigates: Dismantling Denialism | By Christopher Read
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APTN National News, our stories told our way.
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This week on APTN Investigates Retrospectives, we look back at DARK VALLEY—Holly Moore and Rob Smith's 2018 story on a series of disappearances in the BC interior.
With multiple updates since the story first aired, Rob Smith joins host Brittany Guyot to talk about what it was like on the ground.
Dark Valley | Originally aired October 19, 2018: https://youtu.be/g1CP2tyToys?si=tkyngL_cUGJzuXZk
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APTN National News, our stories told our way.
Visit our website for more: https://aptnnews.ca
Hear more APTN News podcasts: https://www.aptnnews.ca/podcasts/
In a special edition of APTN Investigates Retrospectives, recently-retired APTN reporter Kathleen Martens looks back at her groundbreaking series on the Independent Assessment Process (IAP).
Martens spoke with many residential school survivors who felt that they were once again being taken advantage of – and sought accountability at the highest levels of Canadian bureaucracy.
Complaints lead to IAP investigation - Originally aired Nov 28, 2011: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctuCKRSn_vE
IAP Follow-Up - Originally aired March 9, 2012: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe5LqOCccqQ
Abuse of Process - Originally aired April 19, 2013: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJk0zcTuKpE
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APTN National News, our stories told our way.
Visit our website for more: https://aptnnews.ca
Hear more APTN News podcasts: https://www.aptnnews.ca/podcasts/
The population of Puvirnituq, QC is booming… but their water infrastructure is breaking. For years the Inuit community in Nunavik has had water shortages, and documents obtained by APTN Investigates show that a permanent solution might be a pipe dream.
Pipe Dreams: The Water Crisis in Nunavik | By Tom Fennario
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APTN National News, our stories told our way.
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APTN Investigates video journalist Rob Smith travels home to Kingcome Inlet, BC to explore how his family dealt with a year of grief and loss.
What he found was a resilient clan determined to stick together through love and culture in the face of tragedies and decades of compounding trauma.
A path towards healing, out of the darkness.
APTN Investigates: Out of the Darkness | By Rob Smith
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APTN National News, our stories told our way.
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Prisoners across Canada are producing goods for crown corporations and more recently, for public consumption. Experts warn the true cost of this labour goes far beyond dollars, raising difficult questions about dignity, rehabilitation and justice.
APTN Investigates: Fields of Confinement | By Brittany Guyot
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APTN National News, our stories told our way.
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The mystery man is finally revealed.
He sits down with reporter Kenneth Jackson and explains why he left Tyendinaga 10 years ago after the bodies of Tyler Maracle and Matty Fairman were pulled from the water.
And has never returned.
APTN Investigates: Secrets of the Bay - Chapter 5 | By Kenneth Jackson
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APTN National News, our stories told our way.
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The 1963 rape and murder of 18-year-old Ann Mary Dick devastated the small Kaska community of Upper Liard, Yukon.
Now, more than five decades later, her siblings are seeking justice over the RCMP's mishandling of the investigation and that of another historic death in the region.
APTN Investigates: Justice for my Sister | By Tamara Pimentel
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APTN National News, our stories told our way.
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Indigenous People are climbing over industry-imposed fence lines to raise concerns about the lack of inclusion in addressing plastic pollution.
In a special hour-long episode, APTN Investigates takes a microscopic look at “sacrifice zones” to find out exactly how Indigenous rights are being upheld.
In the woods near a former orphanage, records suggest that many children, including unknown numbers of Métis, remain in unmarked graves.
Activists have fought hard to protect Lemay Forest from private development – and then Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew stepped in.
Every tattoo has a story. For some it’s a constant reminder of a traumatic past influenced by gangs and violence.
As three Winnipeg women navigate the system for a better life, they work on erasing a past that is only skin-deep. Tamara Pimentel investigates.
April Hubbard is one of thousands who have been approved for Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD).
Her story offers a rare look at how people navigate love, loss and the deeply personal decision to end their life on their own terms.
Accusations of racist bullying in government jobs. Two Indigenous men asked to sign NDAs that would silence them.
Backed by a legal expert, they’re blowing the whistle and going public.
When two Mohawk men drowned 10 years ago today their deaths were quickly ruled accidents.
But an investigation by APTN Investigates has changed that.
For more than two decades, Indigenous people standing up for their rights have faced the full weight of the state’s power.
From frontline clashes with specialized RCMP units, to being watched by Canada’s intelligence agency, government actions have come under scrutiny.
APTN Investigates asks: who’s watching the watchers?
Underfunded, overwhelmed, and overlooked - Indigenous police forces are in crisis.
As they battle soaring crime, a worsening drug crisis, and a funding model that doesn’t recognize them as essential, APTN Investigates heads to the front lines to expose the true cost of underfunding First Nations policing.
In the final months of 2024, 15 Indigenous people were killed in police altercations or died while in custody.
As recent calls for a national inquiry into systemic racism in policing go unanswered, APTN Investigates the strained relationship between Indigenous people and law enforcement agencies in Canada.
Once a thriving Ontario port, Depot Harbour was devastated by a 1945 munitions fire.
Today, Wasauksing First Nation members say explosives and industrial toxins remain, while Canada delays a long-overdue cleanup.
For more than 50 years, the people of Grassy Narrows have lived with the serious health effects of mercury contamination. Residents say their community is the target of environmental racism.
Now, plans for a nearby nuclear waste facility present a new threat.
The aim is to make communities safer. But the Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods Act – or SCAN – is under scrutiny after being used to evict a family of 10 in the Yukon winter.
Christopher Read introduces you to the woman who successfully took on SCAN in the Yukon Supreme Court.
Na-Cho Nyak Dun First Nation Chief Dawna Hope guides us through an incident on her people's traditional territory. A catastrophic mining failure that caused anger and confusion across the Yukon.
For some, their worst fears are realized.
Story by video journalist Rob Smith.
The Algonquin Nation has resided in the Ottawa River Basin since time immemorial. But the storing of nuclear waste - which will last for 15 generations - goes beyond their teaching of safeguarding the land for seven generations.
Story by video journalist Tom Fennario.
Charles Oudie's body was found wedged in a Vancouver storm drain in 2015. Authorities declared his death an accident before the autopsy was complete. Oudie's family still has questions. Was it an accident? Or is there something more beneath the surface?
Story by reporter Brittany Guyot.
With big city drug dealers moving into their communities and preying on the vulnerable, Anishinaabe from Wasauksing First Nation in Ontario begin to address the root causes of addiction that attracts them.
And that begins with first speaking the truth.
Story by reporter Kenneth Jackson.
When it comes to institutional child abuse in Canada, Quebec's Duplessis Orphans are considered second only to residential schools.
Some Duplessis Orphans are Indigenous—and time is running out for justice to be done.
The Assembly of First Nations is the top rung of Indigenous governance. But behind closed doors, the AFN has been plagued by infighting and power struggles.
APTN Investigates looks at the challenges facing Indigenous governance, from pre-contact to today.
In 2015, two Mohawk fishermen drowned. Police claimed they were stealing fish, took too many and the boat sank.
Police didn't bother to test these claims.
So we did and used the same boat.
Life in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside has been devastating for people just trying to survive. Wars on the poor. Wars on drugs.
Crisis after crisis for the unhoused.
In their own words, residents tell APTN Investigates' Rob Smith their tales of survival.
The Manwin Hotel in Winnipeg has been a hub for drugs and violence. It was the scene of two homicides in the last year.
But with a lack of housing, it’s also become a last resort for the city’s vulnerable population.
Stanley Morris Peters was killed in a hit and run in 1987 near the community of Mount Currie B.C. and his body has never been found.
More than 35 years later, his family continues to search for answers — and believes someone knows what happened.
Members of a First Nation in Alberta say urgent action is needed to increase financial transparency in their community.
Court documents raise suspicions of how band money is spent, while Elders are forced off-reserve after their house is condemned.
A band council in the Fraser Valley has been found guilty of unlawfully denying band membership and writing themselves blank cheques.
Yet, council remains in power as elders die waiting for justice. Kenneth Jackson returns to a story he first broke in 2017.
A Saskatchewan government report on the Prince Albert Police is kept secret. Deaths mount at corrections facilities around town.
Christopher Read investigates policing and corrections in a community with a large Indigenous population — and a lot of jails, too.
Centuries-old errors and weak enrolment criteria have put thousands of Algonquin membership claims in doubt.
After an internal investigation, APTN Investigates returns to Algonquin country — and we meet a family navigating the fallout.
The sharp rise in food prices hit even harder in the North.
In a joint investigation with CBC’s The Fifth Estate, Brittany Guyot visits families and experts in the North to find out the reason why their grocery bills are so high, and what needs to happen next.
This past spring, 30-year-old Gwich’in and Inuvialuk man Frank Gruben vanished without a trace from the small town of Fort Smith, NT.
His disappearance has sparked concern over how the territory handles missing persons cases.
There’s a new Canada Water Act in the works, and the Trudeau government says Indigenous rights will be bolstered.
APTN Investigates takes a look at what that might mean – especially for communities where clean water has been something they’ve had to fight for.
A gust of wind drifts through the prairie grass and into the city of Edmonton. A peaceful setting until you learn the history of the area.
The rural city limits have long been an informal resting ground in Alberta’s capital city, where dozens of missing women’s remains have been located, many of whom worked in the sex industry. Thirty-seven women have been found in rural areas outside of the city.
The rural outskirts of the city have been referred to as the “killing fields” by sex workers and advocates alike for decades.
After decades of lobbying, four communities in Vermont have been recognized by the state as Abenaki.
But Abenaki in Quebec are calling the process flawed... and alleging that the groups are committing cultural identity theft on their ancestral territory.
There are still more questions than answers regarding the mysterious deaths of two Mohawk fishermen on the Bay of Quinte.
APTN Investigates reporter Kenneth Jackson meets with families and community members to clear the air, fill in gaps in the police investigations – and face some difficult truths.
Two Mohawk fishermen went fishing on the Bay of Quinte eight years ago. They never came home. Police ruled that their deaths were accidental, but the families believe they were killed.
APTN Investigates reporter Kenneth Jackson sets out to discover what really happened that night.
The move is on to remove people whose claims to Algonquin citizenship are based on questionable information.
But legitimate Algonquin are asking themselves, has political and cultural damage already been done?
The remains of Indigenous women in Winnipeg landfills sparked outrage.
Reporter Brittany Guyot speaks to those affected and uncovers just how many Indigenous women have gone missing or murdered in recent years in the city.
Two Indigenous mothers are seeking answers. Allegedly, staff at Saskatchewan hospitals told them that their babies died shortly after birth. Years later, there’s evidence these babies may have survived.
The families tell Investigates’ Christopher Read that they’re now hoping for a reunion with their stolen children.
If we’re in a war against climate change, then Canada’s north is arguably on the front line of that battle.
Reporter Christopher Read recently went to the Yukon to look at efforts to reduce the number of diesel generators.
They are polar opposites of Canada’s correctional system. On one side, a supermax prison is criticized for extreme isolation, excessive confinement, and no services. On the other, an Indigenous healing lodge with cultural services and many empty beds.
Find out who ends up where in The Prison Within.
For years, APTN Investigates has been following the story of Odelia and Nerissa Quewezance. The Saulteaux sisters were convicted of the second-degree murder of Anthony Dolff in 1994.
Their cousin admitted to killing the farmer.
Still, the sisters were put in prison where they’ve been – for the most part – for nearly 30 years.
John Derek Mills is a Cree man from Waterhen First Nation. He’s a ’60s Scoop survivor with a long juvenile record.
A life of crime culminated in a botched armed robbery in 1996. Originally sentenced to seven years, Mills is still behind bars nearly three decades later. He feels he has fallen through every crack in the justice system.
Although solitary confinement was abolished in 2019, it continues to operate under different names.
Joey Toutsaint estimates he has spent more than 2180 days in isolation. And he says every day has been a battle to overcome his thoughts of suicide.
APTN Investigates is taking viewers inside corrections facilities to see what’s really behind the overrepresentation of Indigenous Peoples in Canada’s justice system.
See the four-part series here: aptnnews.ca/insidecorrections
There's a silent epidemic of sexual abuse in First Nation communities across Treaty 3 territory in northwestern Ontario.
APTN speaks to survivors who say the only way to stop it is by talking about it.
It was meant to be the largest settlement agreement in history. Forty billion dollars for Indigenous children who have suffered in Canada’s child welfare and health care systems.
Noah, now 21 years old, is among the leaders in this fight for dignity, compensation and the well-being of future generations.
Marilyn James has fought for recognition for her people for three decades, facing opposition every step of the way.
The feds consider her people extinct. BC courts ruled she has no standing. And now her cousins south of the border have a supreme court victory granting hunting rights. Members have frozen her out. Denouncing her claims as false.
Her story is one of genocide, identity and baskets.
Violence on the streets of Winnipeg is at an all-time high with random attacks and murders.
APTN Investigates goes right to the root of the problem through the lives of former gang members and finds a message of hope that things can change.
Nuxalk people want to protect their pristine ecosystem and stop mining exploration.
To do so they’re employing a unique tactic - placing totem poles in the mountains as a warning to outsiders.
APTN journalist Brittany Guyot identifies alleged Catholic Church abusers who worked at various residential schools and in Indigenous communities.
She speaks with survivors and a priest who left the country after charges were brought forward.
In the quiet border town of Fort Frances, Ontario, women and children are being sexually exploited and too often by the very people and institutions that are supposed to protect them.
APTN Investigates speaks to the victims, identifies convicted sex offenders and alleged abusers.
This summer, Pope Francis apologized for the role the Catholic church played in Canada’s Indian residential school system.
APTN Investigates takes a look back at the historic apology and speaks with survivors about a path forward.
We are all climate disaster survivors. That's the belief of the creators of the Climate Emergency Project – a nationwide network of academics, journalists, and students who are creating an oral history of victims of climate change disasters. In B.C., APTN Investigates teamed up with Megaphone Magazine, The University of British Columbia and the University of Victoria to help tell the stories of climate disaster survivors from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
There have been renewed calls for the disbanding of the Thunder Bay Police Service.
For more than two decades, the embattled police force has been criticized for their mishandling of sudden death cases involving Indigenous people.
For more than two decades, the Thunder Bay Police Service has come under fire for their mishandling of sudden death cases involving Indigenous people.
APTN Investigates meets with families and community leaders that are still seeking justice.
APTN Investigates first reported in 2021 on the push for museums to decolonize and also repatriate Indigenous belongings and ancestors.
In this update, Christopher Read takes you inside efforts to retrieve a Nuxalk totem pole currently in the possession of the Royal British Columbia Museum.
Last year, more than 2,200 British Columbians died from toxic overdoses, according to the BC Coroner Service.
Ann Marie Sexton’s son, Chad, was one of the many people who died in 2021. Now she’s fighting to help her younger son enter recovery.
Three militarized police actions in support of pipeline megaprojects have taken place on Wet’suwet’en traditional territory in the last seven years. The Wet’suwet’en call them invasions. On this episode, Rob Smith takes you inside their battle against pipelines and shows you why they keep putting their bodies on the line.
The discovery of unmarked graves on residential school grounds raises a lot of questions. Why weren’t survivors believed when they testified about the graves? Is there more evidence that the churches or Ottawa haven’t disclosed? Can the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement be re-opened?
APTN Investigates finds the answers.
Crime and policing are big issues in rural Alberta. The provincial government is looking at ways to improve response times, including a study that will look into the creation of a provincial police force. Alberta has three Indigenous police departments.
The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruled in February 2022 that Ottawa’s First Nation Policing Program is discriminatory in its funding.
APTN Investigates explores how a provincial police transition and the recent CHRT ruling could affect two of Alberta’s three Indigenous police departments.
Cree-Metis men Jacob Sansom and Maurice Cardinal had just finished a moose hunt when police say they were confronted and shot on a northeastern Alberta backroad by two non-Indigenous men. Now, those two men stand accused of murder and a family is left to struggle with the loss of two knowledge keepers and family providers. APTN Investigates met with the family and visited the backroads that many say are scary for Indigenous people.
An APTN Investigation reveals a staggering number of missing and murdered Indigenous men and boys across the country.
With the prairie provinces seeing the highest numbers, reporter Brittany Guyot speaks with the families impacted in Manitoba.
APTN Investigates reporter, Brittany Guyot, reveals numerous Indigenous men and boys have been murdered or vanished along the infamous Highway of Tears.
Several families in Prince George say they want to see a national inquiry to look deeper into the issues Indigenous men and boys face.
The stories don’t stop when the cameras go away. Melissa Ridgen updates her report about a Saskatchewan doctor’s unprofessional conduct related to prescribing opioids.
Brittany Guyot shares the next chapter in the Winnipeg Art Gallery’s display of Inuit art produced in tuberculosis hospitals.
APTN Investigates reported in 2020 on the search for a community that would be willing to house radioactive waste.
With nuclear power back in the spotlight as a carbon-free energy source, there have been several new developments.
Sexual exploitation crosses class, gender and race. Anyone can be a victim, but it’s often marginalized people that are most at risk.
APTN Investigates looks at how this abuse is impacting the city of Kenora, Ontario and the vulnerable women who are exploited.
In the city of Kenora, Ontario the sex trade is rooted in the streets and Indigenous women are the main target. But who are the people buying?
APTN Investigates finds out and demands answers about what’s operating in plain sight.
When you want to vote but can’t because your polling station is hours away, something is wrong.
APTN’s Christopher Read takes a closer look at barriers encountered by Indigenous voters in the 2021 federal election, with a focus on Kenora.
There have been new developments since we originally aired Melissa Ridgen’s Cindy’s Story in 2017.
In a new feature on APTN Investigates, we’re providing updated information on past stories. Bradley Barton was originally acquitted of a manslaughter charge in the death of Metis and Cree woman Cindy Gladue in an Edmonton hotel. But that was not the end of the story.
On this episode of APTN Investigates: We’re exploring the tactics Indigenous peoples are using to break free from Canadian colonialism.
On the season premiere of APTN Investigates, we're exposing the tactics Canada uses to conceal residential school horrors and to also deny Indigenous justice and sovereignty.
The Tthetsënɂotı̨́né of Rocher River, Northwest Territories are still fighting to reclaim their culture and identity after being forcibly removed from their traditional homeland.
Now, more than 60 years later, they are looking for answers and an apology from the Canadian government.
A small group of Dene say Canada forcibly removed them from their traditional homeland in the N.W.T. in the 1960s. Since then, the Tthetsënɂotı̨́né have fought to hold on to their culture. APTN Investigates explores this chapter in the history in “Refugees in our Land.”
APTN Investigates visited a community with infrastructure and governance problems but almost 5000 kms away Membertou’s chief, Terry Paul, says his community’s success is about having transparent policies and sticking with them.
Also, a look at a Ktunaxa man who has started an organization to help band members who can’t find accountability.
First Nation citizens across Canada have nowhere to turn with their concerns about their on-reserve government. APTN Investigates speaks to a member of one of these communities whose concerns are echoed.
We found corruption and mismanagement aren’t as widespread as stereotypes suggest, but when it does happen, does the Indian Act system allow it? In fact, many experts say the Indian Act is the problem.
Nadine Moostoos is speaking out for the first time since she joined a U.S. class action as “Jane Doe #44.”
The former foster child says her healing is in limbo while she waits for Winnipeg Police to investigate her allegations against former fashion mogul Peter Nygard.
Winnipeg fashion magnate Peter Nygard is wanted for alleged sex crimes in the US after the FBI charged him last year. Now, his alleged victims who are Indigenous have come forward to tell their stories and question why Canadian authorities are failing to investigate their cases.
Human trafficking is making headlines in Nova Scotia, with high rates in the province relative to the rest of Canada.
APTN’s Trina Roache looks at why and what makes Indigenous women vulnerable in APTN Investigates: Exploited
Among curators and other museum professionals, “decolonization” is a buzz word everywhere these days.
APTN Investigates visits the Royal British Columbia Museum where the decolonization conversation is at the boiling point, prompting staff departures and an internal investigation.
It’s no secret that museum collections have benefitted from the colonization of countries occupied by imperial powers such as Britain and France.
But in recent years, spurred in part by the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, there is a global push to decolonize museums.
What does five decades of pushback get you? Millions spent on modern treaties. Decades spent in court. Arrest and incarceration for standing up. Indigenous people know it’s the good fight for current and future generations.
But there’s a cost when you’re looking to down the barrel to defend your homeland and assert your identity. And it appears to be a battle with no end in site.
The RCMP raid on Wet’suwet’en territory last year painted a troubling picture of the state of the relationship between Indigenous people and Canada.
Colonial attitudes, racism and the economy continue to roll over the rights of the First Peoples. But there are those who fight back at the negotiating table, in the courts or on the land.
Long-term care facilities are ground zero for the Covid-19 pandemic. Reporter Brittany Guyot travels to northern Manitoba’s Rod McGillivary Memorial Care Home, where all 28 residents came down with the virus. She speaks to family who say their loved ones are falling through the gaps in care.
APTN Investigates reporter Brittany Guyot examines long-term care for Indigenous people in Canada. Through that lens, she examines Winnipeg's KeKiNan Centre beset by security concerns, lack of medical attention and gaps in accountability.
Indigenous people in Canada are over represented in every area of the justice system. And in Prince George, they are dying in cells.
Reporter Lee Wilson examines why death in custody happens so often in Prince George’s RCMP detachment.
Three Indigenous people have died while in custody in Prince George’s RCMP detachment over the last three years.
APTN’s Lee Wilson speaks to the families of two of the men who died, as they search for answers with not much progress.
Since 2013, 178 Indigenous children have died in connection to Ontario’s child welfare system – with 147 of those children tied to First Nations child welfare agencies.
How did we get to this point? Cullen Crozier and Kenneth Jackson continue their look at the child welfare system in Ontario.
Three sisters gone in seven months, with one surviving sister left to tell their story.
Robyn-Lee Mathers' sisters had deep ties to Weechi-it-te-win Family Services, but Sacha Raven Bob never made it out alive.
Could Odelia Quewezance have been charged with second-degree murder in error? Her co-convicted cousin who was a minor back in the 1990s, maintains he copped to the terrible murder and insists to this day that she had nothing to do with it.
High-profile prison advocates say her case needs to be re-examined in the context of rural Saskatchewan racism and even a homegrown “satanic panic.”
A Saulteaux woman says she was wrongfully convicted for murder and is fighting for her freedom after spending more than 25 years in prison.
In A Life Sentence - Part 1, John Murray and Holly Moore share the story of Odelia Quewezance, who was convicted of second-degree murder in 1994.
In 2020 the global conversation around racism has gained momentum. In Racism Lives Here Too, Trina Roache looks at the Mi’kmaq and Black experience in Nova Scotia.
Struggles over land, rights and justice and tensions around identity for people with deep ties in both communities.
Racism has made headlines around the world throughout 2020.
In Nova Scotia, racism has shaped the history of Mi’kmaw and Black people for over 400 years.
In APTN Investigates: Racism Lives Here Too, Trina Roache explores that shared history and what it looks like today.
Ecosystems damaged, and a way of life vanished. In Part 2 of Power, APTN Investigates reporter Christopher Read visits Pimicikamak to hear from the people there who aren’t quitting their fight for better treatment by Manitoba Hydro.
Harnessing the power of rivers to generate electricity with hydroelectric dams is often thought of as a clean and green engineering marvel. But the negative impacts of hydro generation on ecosystems and the people who harvest from those ecosystems is the part of the story that doesn’t get mentioned in the glossy brochure.
In Part 1 of APTN Investigates: Power – Christopher Read travels to South Indian Lake, Manitoba once one of the largest freshwater fisheries in North America.
We don’t have to wait till we surpass the level of global warming scientists are warning us about to note climate change is already wreaking havoc. Inuit communities have been dealing with the loss of arctic ice for decades.
Hunters lives and livelihoods are put at risk and people are recovering emotionally and physically from extraordinary weather events. Reporter Rob Smith heads way up north for the story.
Humanity has a little over a decade left before passing a dire milepost – a 1.5 degree rise in the average global temperature. At the present rate we will hit that mark sometime in the 2030s. That would be disastrous for humankind. But the science is clear.
In Part 1, Rob Smith delves into wildfires in Telegraph Creek and the people whose lives were changed forever.
A group of Indigenous Elders in Ontario are going to the World Health Organization with concerns about spraying of glyphosate-based herbicide on their traditional lands. Research says glyphosate is safe.
Meanwhile, a recent victory in a California court has emboldened thousands of others coming forward with their own claims that Round-Up gave them cancer.
Chris Read presents Poison on our Land, originally aired March 22, 2019.
It sounded like a great idea, an Indigenous-owned investment group that would generate money for poverty-stricken Manitoba First Nations. So where did all the money go?
Melissa Ridgen presents Rags and Riches, originally aired January 30, 2015.
Civil lawsuits are piling up against a Kelowna social worker accused of stealing thousands from Indigenous children in his care. The number of alleged victims is growing each day.
Cullen Crozier presents Broken Trust, originally aired January 25, 2019.
For residential school survivors across Canada, the process of being compensated for physical and sexual abuse stirs up feelings of shame and pain.
It's a complex process involving lawyers at every level and it’s creating anger among survivors who say its attracting people who are taking advantage of them all over again.
Kathleen Martens presents IAP Investigation Follow-Up, originally aired March 9, 2012.
British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley is a beautiful place to raise a family – that is until women start going missing. Holly Moore faces threats and intimidation as she investigates why four women have vanished within an hour’s drive of one another in Enderby, BC.
Holly Moore presents Dark Valley, originally aired October 19, 2018.
It was a specific claim decision that could change everything. Billions are owed to First Nations in outstanding land claims. Josh Grummett digs into the fight of the Huu'ay'aht people on Vancouver Island.
Josh Grummett presents Priceless, originally aired November 10, 2017
When kids "age out" of the foster care system, they're on their own. If the foster child has serious disabilities. Then that's it. They must live in a group home. Those are the rules a Saskatchewan foster family is fighting.
Kathleen Martens presents For the Love of Matty, originally aired February 6, 2015.
The Cindy Gladue case drew headlines across Turtle Island from outrage that her most private body part was cut out and displayed in court to fury over the acquittal of the man who said rough sex accidentally killed her.
An Alberta Court of Appeal slammed the trial and demanded a new one. Melissa Ridgen explores if this landmark ruling could affect future indigenous women victims of sexual violence.
As the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement wound down in 2016, it was clear to reporter Kathleen Martens that not all survivors felt reconciled or heard. She went across the country for this one-hour special and spoke to survivors about how the settlement affected their lives.
Kathleen Martens presents Truth? Or Reconciliation?, originally aired Jun 23, 2017.
Reporter Trina Roache was invited into a secret Facebook group for RCMP members and she was shocked by the racism posted there. As she dug deeper, it became clear that for Indigenous people in Canada, the relationship with police has always been fraught.
Trina Roache presents Racism in the Ranks, originally aired Apr 27, 2018.
Wilderness Challenge camps came into vogue in the 1970s. Pitched as “last resorts” for so-called juvenile delinquents to reform themselves deep in the Canadian wilderness. But allegations of brutal abuse shut down one Saskatchewan outfit despite a government report that apparently exonerated them.
Now, 40 years later Chris Read takes survivors back to the place in the woods that still haunts them.
Chris Read presents Last Resort, originally aired Nov 2, 2018.
Colten Boushie was shot by white farmer Gerald Stanley as he was sitting in a vehicle with friends. The story polarized the nation -- especially when Stanley was found not-guilty of the crime. Now, the Boushie family has launched a two million dollar lawsuit against Stanley and the RCMP.
Rob Smith presents Justice for Colten, originally aired Mar 16, 2018.
Statues across the world are coming down to stop the memorialization of controversial historical figures.
APTN Investigates dug into the centre of the debate surrounding Edward Cornwallis, the founder of Halifax. One of the policies enacted under his leadership was a bounty offered for Mi’kmaq scalps.
Trina Roache presents History Decolonized, originally aired Feb. 16, 2018.
We're going to take a deeper look at the battle against the so-called black snake near Standing Rock, North Dakota. For months it was largely ignored by the mainstream media.
That was until powerful images of people and horses being hit with rubber bullets, peppered sprayed and tasered hit social media.
Dennis Ward presents Clash at Standing Rock, originally aired Nov. 25, 2016.
Saskatoon's Royal University hospital is the primary care facility for expecting mothers throughout the health region. But that esteemed reputation has come under fire.
Within the last year, four women have come forward. They claim they were pressured into getting sterilized at the hospital's maternity ward.
It was a practice used against Indigenous women right up until the 1970s. So it shouldn't be happening in this day and age, right?
Cullen Crozier presents Against Their Will, originally aired Jan. 27, 2017.
Saskatoon's Royal University hospital is the primary care facility for expecting mothers throughout the health region. But that esteemed reputation has come under fire.
Within the last year, four women have come forward. They claim they were pressured into getting sterilized at the hospital's maternity ward.
It was a practice used against Indigenous women right up until the 1970s. So it shouldn't be happening in this day and age, right?
Cullen Crozier presents Against Their Will, originally aired Jan. 27, 2017.
What is Indigenous journalism? How is APTN different than mainstream? Is APTN news fulfilling the vision of its creator? These are a few of the questions award-winning journalist Cullen Crozier tries to answer.
We also talk about the construction of stories, and how the person with the camera and the microphone tries to create truth, even when it has to be reconstructed as was the case with Cullen’s doc: Forgotten Survivors.
Rob Smith remembers when APTN was led by spitfire News Director Rita Deverell, and reporters were just a little rough around the edges. We talk about his documentary Defiant, the art of VJing and more.
All our fellows are good but John Murray was the first person to earn an APTN-CAJ Fellowship. The idea was to give an Indigenous person, who was mid-career a chance to embed with APTN Investigates and make their own episode, while getting paid to do it.
Yes, John Murray was good, so good we asked him to stay. Along with the fellowship, we also discuss his documentary, Cowboys and Pretendians, which asks why cinema is still so racist.
Award-winning APTN Investigates reporter Rob Smith hit the ground just after the decision in Gerald Stanley’s trial that perplexed and divided the nation. We talk about what it was like behind the scenes of the coverage.
Cullen Crozier was always going to be a gifted storyteller, it was in his genes, a talent passed down from his grandfather. He was making deliveries for a living when he discovered the APTN office. It led to a chance encounter that led to an award-winning career as a video journalist. We talk about that, as well as his documentary Against Their Will which documents the resilience of women fighting back against the system that sterilized them.
Last February, APTN News broke the story of racist social media comments by an RCMP officer who posted that Colten Boushie, the 22-year-old Cree man shot and killed by Gerald Stanley, “got what he deserved.”
Trina Roache got the tip from another police officer who was disgusted to see dozens of racist comments about Indigenous people on a Facebook group for RCMP. Trina takes us behind the scenes of that story, and talks about why exposing these stories are important.
Dennis Ward saw it coming. The pipeline, the build-up of tension at Standing Rock in North Dakota, which became an eight-month long stand-off. He convinced the APTN news room to go south-side for what has turned out to be one of the most important stories in US-Indigenous relations this century.
We talk about his pre-APTN career, to his coverage of Standing Rock, including news gathering while being pepper sprayed, and dodging rubber bullets.
Melissa Ridgen has exposed corruption and misspending in Indian country. We dive into what she has discovered about accountability, and some of the key stories Investigates has broken over the last 10 years…. Plus we talk about bunnies.
Trina Roache has worked at APTN – off and on – since 2001. After returning from an “extended” four-year mat leave in 2013, she saw that the equipment had changed and evolved.
But the Mi’kmaq video journalist wanted that big old Sony camera she was accustomed to using earlier in her career.
“I still have that camera,” she told Karyn Pugliese during her interview for APTN Investigates – a Retrospective, talking about her History Decolonized documentary. “My fingers just know where to go.”
Reflecting on her “long journey” with the company, the talented story teller said “APTN has come so far,” since she started.
According to APTN Investigates journalist Josh Grummet, the most important thing anyone can do in life is listen. So that’s why his Twitter handle is @joshlistens! Another intriguing mystery solved during this conversation with Executive News Director Karyn Pugliese.
He’s the right-hand man to producers on Investigates. A journalist, shooter, editor and creative tour de force with a hand in every episode including his own, Priceless.
Kathleen Martens knows this. She’s proved time and again that government did not fairly compensate survivors and some lawyers fleeced them. She’s broken stories, held those in power accountable, some lawyers were disbarred as a result of her exposés.
Her documentary “Truth? Or Reconciliation” was another deep dive winning the 2017 Canadian Association of Journalists award in the Open Broadcast Feature category with one judge calling it a “perfect” documentary.
Holly Moore was a fine arts student, a dancer and a street performer. Naturally, the next step in her career was to join CBC’s elite investigative unit. Not so obvious?
We talk about how she got from A to B to APTN Today, she is the producer of APTN Investigates, and recently won the Amnesty International Award for Human Right reporting for her work on “The Cure was worse” delving into stories of starvation, isolation, loss of culture and even medical experimentation at Canada’s tuberculosis sanatoriums.
Melissa Ridgen has moved from APTN Investigates to host the APTN talk show InFocus. She’s brought her direct style of inquiry and her predilection for getting to the bottom of things in a Frank way. Not everybody likes that.
We’ll talk to her about how she handles haters. Also, how staring out a window led Ridgen to investigate a good news story, but then it all went wrong.
Veteran reporter Kathleen Marten’s takes us behind the scenes. Matty is non-verbal, suffers from serious disabilities and just aged out of foster care. His foster family wants to keep caring for him, but the state is cutting them off. It’s the kind of noble story reporters want to tell.
However, you can’t just bulldoze your way in. Marten’s talks about trying to strike the balance between getting the images and story a television journalist needs, and while trying not to exploit or harm the vulnerable youth at the centre of the story.
Kathleen Martens has done it all, from covering agricultural stories for a small-town paper in rural Manitoba to taking on the complexities of the federal bureaucracy, not to mention just about the entire legal profession. First in local print and then in long form TV investigations for a national audience and now on the APTN National News web site, there’s not much Kathleen Martens hasn’t done in the world of journalism. And by bringing a handful of national awards to APTN Investigates, the evidence is clearly there that she’s done it very well.
Karyn Pugliese and Kathleen Martens discuss the Independent Assessment Process and so much more on APTN Investigates: A Retrospective.
It’s been a unique journey for APTN Vancouver Video Journalist Tina House. She learned how to be in the right place at the right time from her Metis leader father. She picked up the skills she needed to survive and prosper in media the hard way, waiting tables along the way.
Then during the very first season of APTN Investigates, Tina House was awarded the Amnesty International Human Rights Journalism Award for a story about a missing and then murdered relative. Karyn Pugliese and Tina House discuss Missing Women and so much more on APTN Investigates: A Retrospective.
Francine Compton’s father made her transcribe interviews as a child, then encouraged her to study broadcast, telling her one day Indigenous people would have their own TV network.
She was still a teenager when she was put in charge of APTN’s studio crew. She’s since worked as a reporter, producer and is now part of APTN’s management team. We talk about this plus her Investigates story on fracking, before fracking was a thing.
It became clear early on at APTN that the majority of reporters it was hiring were single moms. Melissa Ridgen talks about balancing motherhood and journalism.
As well this episode dives into Ridgen's investigation into the scandal surrounding the Manitoba Association Of Native Firefighters' (MANFF's) apparent disregard for its duty to care for flood victims, not to mention taxpayer dollars. We talk about why it's important to investigate these stories, despite the fear that it may perpetuate a stereotype.
Kenneth Jackson, a former Ottawa Sun crime reporter trying his hand as a freelancer, got the box. In it were documents with politicians' names, someone who had a personal connection to the prime minister and a mass of information about First Nations water.
Jackson put the box in the trunk of his car and drove to the Ottawa home of his best friend, a reporter named Jorge Barrera who had been working at APTN as a web reporter. That launched one of the most widely reported investigations into a Canadian political scandal. Spoiler alert: Kenneth got a job at APTN.
Todd Lamirande had been at APTN for only a year when he transferred to BC to open the Vancouver bureau – located in his one bedroom apartment. Shortly thereafter, the police illegally seized his car and his tapes.
It was a precarious start, but so began an 18-year career at APTN, and Lamirande – who never wanted to work in television –began his ascent, becoming one of the best known on air personalities at APTN. Lamirande also tells how he unravelled the mystery behind the missing Bell of Batoche. Or did he?
For a long time Paul Barnsley was the only investigative journalist on the Native beat, and today he remains one of the most respected journalists among Indigenous people in Canada. In Through the Looking Glass he talks about his career and offers wisdom from his own experience to non-Aboriginal reporters breaking in on the beat.
It’s part of a series of interviews celebrating the 10th anniversary of APTN investigates.
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Award-winning Cheryl McKenzie, known as the face of APTN for more than a decade speaks about her career, a breakthrough story that saved dozens of lives, and the of launch Investigative journalism by Indigenous peoples – a first in the world. It’s part of a series of interviews celebrating the 10th anniversary of APTN investigates.
Please help people find it, by leaving a rating or comment.