Under the Mat: A Dark History Podcast

Bains, C. (2024). More than 1 in 4 deaths among young people in Canada were opioid-related in 2021, study finds. CBC. https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/opioid-young-people-1.7174098Boynton, S. (2025). New Purdue opioid crisis settlement builds ‘momentum’ for Canada: B.C. AG. Global News. https://globalnews.ca/news/11247593/opioid-crisis-lawsuits-purdue-mckinsey-canada-bc-us/CATIE. (2025). Reported drug toxicity deaths dropped in parts of Canada in 2024 – But what’s behind the numbers? https://www.catie.ca/prevention-in-focus/reported-drug-toxicity-deaths-dropped-in-parts-of-canada-in-2024-but-whatsCBC News. (2025). Edmonton region hits all-time monthly peak in opioid-related deaths. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/edmonton-drug-poisoning-opioid-1.7575814Freeze, C. & Woo, A. (2026). Opioid deaths are declining. Five factors help explain why. The Globe and Mail. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-opioid-deaths-have-declined-sharply-in-canada-these-five-factors-help/Howlett, K. (2020). Canada’s Opioid Crisis. The Canadian Encyclopedia. https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/canadas-opioid-crisisPugliese, K. (2025). Healing works, but First Nation opioid crisis isn’t stopping. APTN. https://www.aptnnews.ca/national-news/healing-works-but-first-nation-opioid-crisis-isnt-stopping/Uguen-Csenge, E., Ayres, S., & D’Souza, S. (2025). Health Canada ignored expert advice to expand access to safe drugs for opioid users, internal documents show. CBC. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/opioid-overdose-crisis-street-drug-government-funding-9.6976562Van Santvoort, A., Wilson, C., & Xiong, D. (2023). Adding up the billions of government dollars directed at Canada’s opioid crisis. Times Colonist. https://www.timescolonist.com/local-opioid-crisis-news/adding-up-the-billions-of-government-dollars-directed-at-canadas-opioid-crisis-7073142Zafar, A. (2025). Opioid deaths in Canada fell 17% in 2024, but thousands are still dying. CBC. https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/opioid-deaths-decline-canada-1.7615255

Host Aubrianna Snow speaks with Dr. Harvey Imani Whitfield about the history of slavery in early Canada, the lives of enslaved people during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the legacy of slavery in North America today. Dr. Harvey Amani Whitfield is a professor and Centennial Carnegie Chair in the History of Slavery in Canada at the University of King’s College in Halifax. Prior to his current role, he taught for 17 years at the University of Vermont and four years at the University of Calgary. He grew up in Maryland and attended Colorado State University. His MA at Dalhousie focused on West African history. His area of research interest is Black migration, coerced and free, to the Maritimes during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Dr. Whitfield is the author of several books including Blacks on the Border: The Black Refugees in British North America, 1815-1860; North to Bondage: Loyalist Slavery in the Maritimes; Biographical Dictionary of Enslaved Black People in the Maritimes; Black Slavery in the Maritimes: A History in Documents; and The Problem of Slavery in Early Vermont, 1777-1810.

Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia. (n.d.). Slavery. https://bccns.com/our-history/slavery/Brown, K. G. (2019). Canada’s slavery secret: The whitewashing of 200 years of enslavement. CBC. https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/canada-s-slavery-secret-the-whitewashing-of-200-years-of-enslavement-1.4726313Canadian Museum of History. (n.d.). Virtual Museum of New France. https://www.historymuseum.ca/virtual-museum-of-new-france/population/slavery/Cooper, A. (2022). The Enslavement of Africans in Canada. The Canadian Historical Association. https://cha-shc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/The-Enslavement-of-Africans-in-Canada.pdfForani, J. (2020). ‘Systemic silence’: Canada’s ignored history of slavery. CTV News. https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/article/systemic-silence-canadas-ignored-history-of-slavery/Henry-Dixon, N. (2022). 1793 Act to Limit Slavery in Upper Canada. The Canadian Encyclopedia. https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/1793-act-to-limit-slavery-in-upper-canadaHenry-Dixon, N. (2021). Slavery Abolition Act, 1833. The Canadian Encyclopedia. https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/slavery-abolition-act-1833Hunter, A. (2022). Tainted Wealth: Canada Has Tried to Erase Its History of Slavery. The Walrus. https://thewalrus.ca/canada-slavery/Lawrence, B. (2020). Enslavement of Indigenous People in Canada. The Canadian Encyclopedia. https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/slavery-of-indigenous-people-in-canadaMcCullough, C. & McRae, M. (2023). The story of Black slavery in Canadian history. Canadian Museum for Human Rights. https://humanrights.ca/story/story-black-slavery-canadian-historyMoore, F. (2024). The history of colonialism and slavery still impacts Black people in Canada. Policy Options. https://policyoptions.irpp.org/2024/02/black-history-canada/ Ontario Heritage Trust. (n.d.). Slavery in Canada. https://www.heritagetrust.on.ca/pages/our-stories/slavery-to-freedom/history/slavery-in-canadaShaw, M. N. (2022). Historical Legacies, Black Canadian Slavery, and Institutional Histories. Black Perspectives. https://www.aaihs.org/historical-legacies-black-canadian-slavery-institutional-histories/Walfall, P. D. (2025). Here’s why Canada has to apologize for slavery. Broadview. https://broadview.org/canada-slavery-compensation/

Adams, P. (2025). Canada needs to move toward a public health model of supporting grief. Policy Options. https://policyoptions.irpp.org/2025/07/grief-support/Australian Museum. (2018). Mourning - Victorian Era. https://australian.museum/about/history/exhibitions/death-the-last-taboo/mourning-victorian-era/Cole, M. (n.d.). Mourning After: The Victorian Celebration of Death. Oshawa Community Museum. https://www.oshawamuseum.org/pdf/Mourning_After_The_Victorian_Celebration_of_Death.pdfCrowther, H. (2024). Cost of dying: How the death-care industry is changing in Canada. CTV News. https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/article/cost-of-dying-how-the-death-care-industry-is-changing-in-canada/Evans, M. (2020). The Relentlessness of Black Grief. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/09/relentlessness-black-grief/616511/Goles, K. (2022). Evolution of American Funerary Customs and Laws. Library of Congress Blogs. https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2022/09/evolution-of-american-funerary-customs-and-laws/Kodjak, A. (2016). Dying In A Hospital Means More Procedures, Tests And Costs. NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/06/15/481992191/dying-in-a-hospital-means-more-procedures-tests-and-costsMendoza, M. A. (2018). Death and Mourning Practices in the Victorian Age. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/understanding-grief/201812/death-and-mourning-practices-in-the-victorian-agePetch, A. (n.d.). English ethnographic objects in the Pitt Rivers Museum associated with funerals, mourning or memorials. England: The Other Within. https://web.prm.ox.ac.uk/england/englishness-funeral-objects.htmlTakagi, A. (2024). The cost of dying in Canada is skyrocketing: Why funeral providers say Ottawa needs to step up. The Toronto Star. https://www.thestar.com/business/the-cost-of-dying-in-canada-is-skyrocketing-why-funeral-providers-say-ottawa-needs-to/article_f1ce28b8-eaba-11ee-84c9-370c6f545e04.htmlVon Aderkas, E. & Levine, M. (2011). A brief history of death and dying. CBC. https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/a-brief-history-of-death-and-dying-1.1115800 Wilmot, C. (2016). The Space Between Mourning and Grief. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/06/internet-grief/485864/

Host Aubrianna Snow speaks with Francine Pelletier about the legacy of the École Polytechnique massacre and the progress of feminism and with Makenna Kuzyk about the Order of the White Rose Scholarship and building brighter futures for women in engineering. Francine Pelletier has had a long career as a journalist, both in print and for electronic media, in French as well as in English. Her career includes co-founding and acting as editor-in-chief of the women’s monthly magazine (La Vie en rose, 1980-87), social and political commentary in Montreal’s La Presse (1988-92) as well as Le Devoir (2013-2022) newspapers. She worked as a Quebec National Assembly correspondent for Radio-Canada’s Le Point (1993-1995). Then, as a reporter for CBC’s The National and, shortly after, as co-host of CBC’s flagship current affairs program, the fifth estate (1995-2000). In 2001, Francine Pelletier began writing, directing and producing independent documentary films. She has a dozen films to her name, including Public Enemy Number One (2003), on former Premier Jacques Parizeau, Sex, Truth and Videotape (2004), a 6-part series on women and sex and Battle for Quebec’s Soul (2022), on how Quebec nationalism has become more and more conservative. In 2015, she joined Concordia University’s Journalism Department as a lecturer. Francine Pelletier has won many awards, including the B’nai Brith Human Rights Award, the Judith-Jasmin award and three Gemini awards. She is the author of four other books: Second début: Cendres et renaissance du féminisme, Atelier 10 (2015), on her involvement in Quebec’s women’s movement; L’Art de se mouiller : Chroniques pour nourrir le débat. Écosociété (2022), a selection of her columns in Le Devoir; Au Québec, c’est comme ça qu’on vit : La montée du nationalisme identitaire, Lux Éditeur (2023), on the rise of conservative nationalism in Quebec; Dream Interrupted : The Rise and Fall of Quebec Nationalism, Sutherland House Books, (2025), an updated English version of the preceding book.Makenna Kuzyk is currently completing her Master's Degree in Flight Test Engineering at the International Test Pilot School in London, Ontario, and is a recipient of the Order of the White Rose scholarship. She earned her undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Alberta, where she founded Mission SpaceWalker— the first all-female team to participate in the Canadian Reduced Gravity Experiment Challenge, which continues to conduct space-related research. She has been involved in Students for the Exploration of Space (SEDs) Canada, participating in their stratospheric balloon and analog research projects. Her internships included working at Rocketlab as part of the inaugural class of the Zenith Fellowship, the Canadian Space Agency, National Research Council Flight Laboratory, and Zipline as a 2024 Brooke Owens Fellow. She enjoys writing music under the Spotify artist name Mak <3, flying planes as a private pilot, and playing a variety of sports from snowboarding to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

If you're in need of support, dial 988 or text WELLNESS to 741741.Blais, M. & Dupuis-Déri, F. (2019). The Montréal Massacre is finally recognized as an anti-feminist attack. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/the-montreal-massacre-is-finally-recognized-as-an-anti-feminist-attack-128450DiBranco, A. (2019). The First Anti-Feminist Massacre. Political Research Associates. https://politicalresearch.org/2019/12/06/first-anti-feminist-massacreDiebel, L. Two women on Marc Lépine’s death list speak out. Toronto Star. https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/two-women-on-marc-l-pine-s-death-list-speak-out/article_5a2f6b99-e8f7-5506-8e56-765704555700.htmlGerster, J. (2019). Feminism met gunfire at École Polytechnique. It’s taken 30 years to call it what it was. Global News. https://globalnews.ca/news/6242996/ecole-polytechnique-violence/Global News. (2019). Remembering the women killed in the École Polytechnique massacre. https://globalnews.ca/news/6187845/montreal-massacre-victims/Lindeman, T. (2019). ‘Hate is infectious’: how the 1989 mass shooting of 14 women echoes today. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/04/mass-shooting-1989-montreal-14-women-killedMonin, G. (2025). Monique Lépine lived a mother’s worst nightmare. The Sault Star. https://www.saultstar.com/opinion/gene-monin-monique-lepine-lived-a-mothers-worst-nightmareScott, M. (2014). Polytechnique massacre: Lives forever changed. The Gazette. https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/polytechnique-massacre-lives-forever-changedThe Canadian Press. (2024). A timeline of the legacy of the Montreal massacre. CTV News. https://www.ctvnews.ca/montreal/article/a-timeline-of-the-legacy-of-the-montreal-massacre/Wilson-Smith, A. (1999). Lépine Massacre Ten Years After. Maclean’s. https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/fr/article/lepine-massacre-ten-years-after-en-anglais-seulementWoloshyn, R. (2024). Polytechnique murderer Marc Lépine had her on his kill list. She never forgot the moment she found out. CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/fifthestate/francine-pelletier-montreal-massacre-1.7401282