Who is Hamdi Lataj, the Balkan ex-bank burglar living large among Canada's A-listers? - Investigative Journalism Bureau Hamdi Lataj is a convicted bank burglar who police suspected once trafficked drugs with Mexican kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán and who was targeted in an illegal gambling and money-laundering case ...

This is Hamdi Lataj – an ex-bank burglar with multiple U.S. convictions, once suspected by police of drug trafficking with El Chapo, and targeted in an illegal gambling case involving alleged members of the mafia.

Today, he lives large among Canada’s A-listers.

ijb.utoronto.ca/news/who-is-...

INSIGHTS: The Supreme Court has a chance to protect women with disabilities who suffer from coercive control - Investigative Journalism Bureau An upcoming ruling could allow women the chance to file civil claims against men who leverage their disabilities to perpetuate abuse.

"For women with disabilities, the legal gap in recognizing coercive abuse is dangerous: it perpetuates invisibility and systemic injustice, erasing how power is exploited to reinforce dependency."

Ena Chadha in the latest IJB Insights:
ijb.utoronto.ca/news/insight...

Reflection: What's at stake in Canadian transparency tussles - Investigative Journalism Bureau One of the best ways to lose friends at a party is to bring up freedom-of-information legislation.  Try it the next time you want to escape an awkward social interaction. “Oh, that is so interesting. ...

From Anna Mehler Paperny: "The people who work for you don’t want you to have information that you own. They’re betting you won’t care enough to make a fuss over it.

Prove them wrong."

ijb.utoronto.ca/news/reflect...

Two major Ontario hospital labs bought research dogs from U.S. breeder with troubled past - Investigative Journalism Bureau At least two Canadian hospital research labs have imported dogs for scientific research from a U.S. breeder cited for repeated animal care violations, the Investigative Journalism Bureau has found. Th...

At least two Canadian hospital research labs have imported dogs for scientific research from a U.S. breeder cited for repeated animal care violations.

Read the latest installment of our investigation with
@newmarkjplus.bsky.social into the use of dogs in science.

ijb.utoronto.ca/news/two-maj...

Ontario given failing grade for high levels of lead in drinking water: report - Investigative Journalism Bureau The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board has a problem with dangerous levels of lead in drinking water at some of its schools, according to a new report from the Canadian Environmental Law Associatio...

Ontario’s schools are failing to meet the safe levels of lead in their drinking water, a new report by @CELA shows. 

Students across Ontario are being exposed to drinking water “that would be considered unsafe in the majority of the country,” says the report.

More: ijb.utoronto.ca/news/ontario...

NDAs to hush up alleged sexual misconduct are under fire. 'I can't agree to this' - Investigative Journalism Bureau Ashley Chand spent more than a decade working her way up through the ranks of human resources and administration positions at some of Vancouver’s most prestigious law firms. When she landed the job of...

This Vancouver woman alleges sexual harassment at the law firm where she worked. When she was offered a non-disclosure agreement to settle the case, she refused to sign. Now she's speaking out against the silence that NDAs impose.
ijb.utoronto.ca/news/ndas-to...

Behind the Reporting: Measuring the justice system’s response to the killings of Indigenous women and girls - Investigative Journalism Bureau I sit at my desk in the warm afternoon light and listen to the young Indigenous woman on the computer screen in front of me recount the three times she was almost killed by a man. A survivor of sex tr...

How is it possible that five per cent of Canada’s female population makes up 26 per cent of all the killings of women in this country?

We still don’t have a satisfactory answer.

Behind the Reporting: ijb.utoronto.ca/news/behind-...

Whistleblower, experts challenge researcher's claims on the use of dogs in research. Read the latest installment of our ongoing investigation into the use of dogs in science. ijb.utoronto.ca/news/whistle...

IJB Gets Action: Ontario NDP demands changes to hospital funding model after IJB investigation - Investigative Journalism Bureau QUEEN’S PARK, Thursday, Jan 5 – Ontario’s NDP party is demanding urgent changes to hospital funding based on new data published by the Investigative Journalism Bureau.  “When our hospitals cannot make...

Ontario's NDP party is demanding urgent changes to hospital funding based on new data published by the Investigative Journalism Bureau.

ijb.utoronto.ca/news/ijb-get...

Find your hospital’s finances: IJB launches the Ontario Hospital Finance Explorer - Investigative Journalism Bureau Ontarians can now access the key financial information of their hospital by using the Investigative Journalism Bureau’s Ontario Hospital Finance Explorer.  By searching the name of their local hospita...

The IJB is launching a new public database. Want to know if your hospital has borrowed money from a bank, received one-time government funding, or was in an annual operating deficit? Look up your hospital through the Ontario Hospital Finances Explorer:
ijb.utoronto.ca/news/find-yo...

Why are Ontario hospitals turning to bank loans to stay afloat? In our latest investigation, we examine how healthcare executives are paying millions in bank interest while sprawling financial deficits across Ontario hospitals are putting “lives at stake.” ijb.utoronto.ca/news/why-ont...

High levels of deadly radon gas found in 21% of social housing units — but most aren't tested at all - Investigative Journalism Bureau Eleanor Hubley Manor is a modest, beige one-storey apartment building just off a highway interchange near Halifax. As part of the province’s subsidized housing network, it is home to about eight tenan...

Deadly radon gas is hiding in many public housing units, but residents often have no idea — and no ability to address it.

ijb.utoronto.ca/news/radon-public-housing

‘The justice institution has failed us’: The numbers behind the Indigenous femicide crisis in Canada - Investigative Journalism Bureau Indigenous women and girls are killed at rates six times higher than non-Indigenous women — yet the perpetrators are frequently convicted of lesser offences than those guilty in the deaths of non-Indi...

We tracked the outcomes in over 1329 killings of females in Canada and found significant anomalies in how the justice system treats Indigenous victims.

Read the IJB's analysis of the Indigenous femicide crisis in Canada: ijb.utoronto.ca/news/the-jus...

The 'insane' number of women being killed in Canada YouTube video by Investigative Journalism Bureau

We spent more than a year tracking the killings and suspicious deaths of women and girls in Canada. Here’s what we found.
www.youtube.com/shorts/Hw9IU...

Read more: lnkd.in/ehHqnHrA

The ‘insane’ number of women being killed in Canada - Investigative Journalism Bureau Since 2019, at least 1,329 women and girls have been killed or died in Canada under suspicious circumstances— one victim every other day. A new IJB analysis uncovered damning statistics that experts s...

The 'insane' number of women being killed in Canada:

The IJB spent more than a year examining the deaths of females across Canada. We uncovered damning statistics that experts say point to a systemic problem.

ijb.utoronto.ca/news/the-ins...

In the latest episode of IJB’s Heliograph podcast, abuse researcher Jennifer Fraser discusses how gaslighting works, its impact on truth and journalism, and why it matters to us all.

Listen now: shows.acast.com/651db1f30832...

Cocaine and bananas: Fruit shipments from Ecuador president's family firm allegedly used to smuggle drugs - Investigative Journalism Bureau An encrypted chat allegedly between Balkan drug traffickers shows them bragging about having exclusive rights to smuggle cocaine alongside bananas in shipping containers exported by the Ecuadorian pre...

Cocaine and bananas: Fruit shipments from Ecuador president’s family firm allegedly used to smuggle drugs

Read more: ijb.utoronto.ca/news/cocaine...

‘This is the new slavery’: Migrant farm workers underpaid, abused and injured - Investigative Journalism Bureau Harvesting cannabis in British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley as a migrant labourer in 2023, Maria recalls being surprised when her boss invited her and two friends for dinner at his home in the nearby mo...

Broken bones, chemical exposure, unpaid labour, and “deplorable” housing conditions. Migrant farm workers’ experiences reveal why some critics call this government program “the new slavery.”

Read more: ijb.utoronto.ca/news/this-is...

Canadian courts ignore minimum sentences for child porn, data shows - Investigative Journalism Bureau Courts across Canada have been issuing sentences for years that were less than the mandatory minimum for possession of child sexual abuse material, the Investigative Journalism Bureau has found.

A third of criminal sentences in child porn possession cases have fallen below the mandatory minimum of 12 years, an IJB analysis of 100 Canadian court cases has found.

Read more: ijb.utoronto.ca/news/canadia...

Your doctor could be receiving payments from a drug company. Why won't anyone tell you? - Investigative Journalism Bureau In Canada, when a doctor hands you a prescription, you trust that what’s been recommended is the best drug for your health. What you can’t know is whether your physician has benefited financially from...

Your doctor could be receiving payments from a drug company. Why won’t anyone tell you?

ijb.utoronto.ca/news/your-do...

Behind the Reporting: Masih Khalatbari Uncovers the Hidden Truth About ‘Forever Chemicals’ in North Bay - Investigative Journalism Bureau On a cloudy day last spring, I found myself in the dining room of a home in North Bay. After a long drive from Toronto, I watched a deer stroll out from behind the trees in the backyard, and trot thro...

It began with a road trip to a home in North Bay, when we were starting to investigate the spill of toxic ‘forever chemicals’ in local drinking water. IJB reporter Masih Khalatbari takes you behind the reporting of our latest investigation:
ijb.utoronto.ca/news/behind-...

Feds 'covered up' toxic forever chemicals in the water of this Ontario city for 5 years - Investigative Journalism Bureau The federal government concealed toxic water contamination in North Bay, Ont., for almost five years before warning residents of a dangerous chemical spill from the city’s airport and a nearby militar...

The feds knew for years that toxic forever chemicals contaminated North Bay’s water—and concealed it . Our latest investigation exposes the buried truth North Bay residents were denied for years.

ijb.utoronto.ca/news/feds-co...

Ontario failed to toughen rules on lead in water despite advice, documents show - Investigative Journalism Bureau For at least four years, Ontario officials have known that the provincial safety limit for lead in drinking water doesn’t go far enough to protect the public, newly released documents show. But despit...

Ontario government officials discussed lowering the lead limit for drinking water four years ago, but have since failed to act, newly released documents show: ijb.utoronto.ca/news/ontario...

Bad Practice: How doctors jump borders to leave troubling pasts behind  - Investigative Journalism Bureau In 2018, family physician Ken Shafquat Intikhab Abrahim was reprimanded by Florida’s medical board and banned from prescribing certain pain medications after being accused by officials of providing “p...

When a doctor moves around, troubling issues from their professional histories don’t necessarily follow them.

The Bad Practice project led by the @occrp.org found 100+ doctors left behind troubling pasts to start fresh in in another jurisdiction.

Read more: ijb.utoronto.ca/news/bad-pra...

Numerous dogs 'humanely sacrificed' as test subjects at private lab in Toronto area - Investigative Journalism Bureau The vast majority of Canada’s leading university research labs have stopped using dogs as test subjects in scientific research — a practice that Ontario Premier Doug Ford has promised to ban with fort...

A large Scarborough research facility performs drug safety tests on dogs – sometimes involving invasive and fatal experiments – the Investigative Journalism Bureau has found.

Read the full story:
ijb.utoronto.ca/news/numerou...

More than 70 journalists, students, funders, and supporters came together this week for an evening of reunions and reflection, celebrating the Investigative Journalism Bureau’s fifth anniversary and new partnership with Postmedia.

Read more:
lnkd.in/gdxNhSxb

Coming soon: Our new podcast, Arachnid: Hunting the web’s darkest secrets in collaboration with TVO, Piz Gloria Productions and the Toronto Star is launching on all platforms on May 27.

Stay tuned and listen to the trailer: www.tvo.org/podcasts/ara...

INSIGHTS: Crushing workloads have made me fall out of love with nursing - Investigative Journalism Bureau A registered nurse reacts to an IJB investigation which found nurses working in acute medical units at Niagara Health Services hospitals were sometimes assigned 10 patients each.

"Crushing workloads have made me fall out of love with nursing."

A registered nurse reacts to an IJB investigation which found #nurses working in acute medical units at Niagara Health Services hospitals were sometimes assigned 10 patients each.

#NursesWeek

ijb.utoronto.ca/news/insight...

Heliograph: Arthur Caplan on Can We Trust the System Behind Drug Trials - Investigative Journalism Bureau In this episode of Heliograph, host Blair Bigham sits down with world-famous bioethicist Dr. Arthur Caplan to pull back the curtain on the shadowy world of phase one clinical trials, where new drugs a...

Who's policing clinical trials? Often, no one.

On the latest episode of the Heliograph podcast, the IJB's
Blair Bigham sits down with world-famous bioethicist Arthur Caplan.

Listen here: ijb.utoronto.ca/news/heliogr...

Groundbreaking First Nations Housing Class Action Suit Begins - Investigative Journalism Bureau Lawyers representing more than 100 First Nations across Canada have begun arguments in a groundbreaking class action lawsuit alleging Canada has “deliberately underfunded” housing on reserves.

Groundbreaking First Nations Housing Class Action Suit Begins ijb.utoronto.ca/news/decisio...