Bait and Switch: Recycling's Dirty Secret | The Fifth Estate | CBC Gem

Bob McKeown examines how a deal the Canadian government struck with a China-based company to create a COVID-19 vaccine fell apart, and why some say Ottawa should never have considered the deal in the first place.

While companies big and small all over the world struggled to survive during the COVID-19 pandemic, a few have seen their fortunes increase - chief among them online delivery company Amazon and its owner Jeff Bezos. Amazon workers spoke to The Fifth Estate about COVID-19 safety protocols that came too late or weren't effective, punishing work demands, and a climate that made them reluctant to speak up. We also learn how the mayor of Brampton, On., found out about a major COVID-19 outbreak at an Amazon plant in his city, leading him to order a temporary shutdown.

Gillian Findlay looks at the effort mounted by Canadian military veterans to get former interpreters out of Afghanistan, and reveals tensions within Canada's government about how to proceed.

Nearly fifty people in New Brunswick are sick with a mysterious neurological disease and no one seems quite sure what it is or how they got it. Nine people have died, and those getting sicker believe the provincial government knows more than it’s telling them. Mark Kelley hosts.

The Fifth Estate investigates a former boarding school that promised a Christian education and tough love. But nearly 1,400 students who attended Grenville Christian College in Ontario say it was not only tough but brutal, and heavily influenced by a U.S.-based cult.

The Fifth Estate examines the devastation in B.C. after catastrophic flooding, and how the province could have been better prepared for the weather disaster.

Women who say former fashion mogul Peter Nygard sexually assaulted them, tell The Fifth Estate they believe he hasn’t been charged in his hometown because of his former star status and close connections to the city.

A former Canadian military reservist has started serving a 9-year sentence for his role in a violent neo-Nazi plot in the United States that was foiled by the F.B.I. With access to exclusive audio tapes, The Fifth Estate exposes the ideology behind the hate group that sought to recruit members of the Canadian military.

The Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation was the first community to identify what are believed to be the graves of children at the site of a former residential school. The Fifth Estate shows how the community is dealing with the traumatic discovery and talks to survivors about the impact on them, as the First Nation tries to lead the way for other communities coping with a similar tragic history.

Since a Fifth Estate story last November about abuse endured by students of a now-closed Ontario private religious school and its connection to a U.S.-based cult, there have been several new developments. Prompted by our reporting, another person has come forward to allege abuse by a son of the former headmaster.

The Fifth Estate will show how months of planning, some secretive but much of it in the open, drew convoys to Canada’s capital, leading to an unprecedented weeks-long occupation of part of Ottawa. Host Gillian Findlay talks to the early organizers and asks why police so quickly lost control.

Frustrated parents say they should be able to force their opioid-addicted kids into care. But, in B.C., the province with the highest rate of opioid deaths, the laws say kids can deny care and insist doctors don’t tell their parents if they are hooked.

One in three Canadians rents their home. While much of the focus has been on the rising price of buying a home, rental prices are skyrocketing, too. The Fifth Estate examines what’s driving rental prices up, and some people out, of their homes.

A joint Fifth Estate/Enquête investigation shows Canada still routinely ships plastic waste to developing countries, often illegally mixed inside containers of paper recycling. We ask Canada’s environmental activist-turned environment minister what he’s prepared to do about it.