‘Dateline Canada’ dives deep into past cases as appetite for true crime grows

TORONTO — When Diana Swain stepped away from her journalism career after more than 35 years, she thought she was ready to slow down.

That was until the veteran reporter learned about the opportunity with “Dateline Canada,” a spinoff of the long-running American investigative newsmagazine TV show.

“I’m not sure there is anything else that would have pulled me out of what I was doing,” said Swain, who notably worked on the investigative team during her tenure at CBC before leaving to start her own communications consulting firm in 2024.

“I was happily winding down my professional life, but it’s ‘Dateline’ and it’s the legacy of that program. It’s the power of that program and it is the chance to tell a story in a fulsome way.”

Swain was named the new host of “Dateline Canada,” which will premiere on Citytv next month with a two-hour special that delves into the high-profile cold case of Elizabeth Bain, a University of Toronto student who disappeared from Scarborough, Ont., in 1990. It marks the first international expansion of the long-form NBC news program.

“It is hard to keep a program going as long as ‘Dateline’ has on either side of the border. And it has a very specific understanding with its audience about the kinds of stories it’s going to tell, how it’s gonna tell them, and it’s why people keep coming back,” Swain said. “They feel like they can depend on that kind of relationship they have with ‘Dateline.’ So, I think being able to bring that to Canadian audiences through the lens of Canadian stories is a really special opportunity.”

“Dateline” first aired in 1992 on NBC as a general interest program, but eventually evolved to focus primarily on true crime investigations.

“Dateline” NBC correspondent and Canadian Keith Morrison was on hand alongside Swain at a downtown Toronto studio and said it was “a delight” to help usher in the show’s north-of-the-border era, given his Canuck roots.

“I’ve always been a Canadian and I will remain a Canadian until I die,” said Morrison, who won’t be reporting for the homegrown spinoff. “That’s what my blood is and that’s how I feel about things, so to be associated with this makes me very happy.“

The 79-year-old was born in the Alberta-Saskatchewan provincial border city of Lloydminster and got his start working in local news before landing national roles with CTV and CBC. He joined “Dateline” in 1995 and has been a fixture on the series since.

Asked about the show’s enduring legacy, Morrison said through trial and error, “Dateline” learned how to tell stories in a way that drew viewers in and helped them make sense of what had happened.

True crime as a genre has grown in popularity in recent years, especially through steaming documentaries and podcasts.

“I suspect it has something to do with the unsettled nature of the world we live in right now,” Morrison said. “Somehow people need to be aware of the possibilities and maybe try to look a little deeper into the human psyche than normally we do.”

Morrison’s signature delivery — a drawn-out, rhythmic cadence with dramatic pauses — has also become synonymous with “Dateline” and he was even parodied on “Saturday Night Live” by former cast member Bill Hader. Morrison said he didn’t develop his style intentionally, but rather has just been himself all these years.

Nonetheless, Swain interjected to commend the veteran host on his iconic sound.

“You could probably list on one hand … the number of journalists on either side of the border who are as well known for their voice and their style of speaking as Keith is,” Swain said. “That’s an extraordinary thing.”

Swain said “Dateline Canada,” which has so far only released information on its first episode, will resemble its American counterpart, but with “a singular focus on Canadian stories.”

The first episode will examine the 36-year-old Bain case and home in on key aspects of the investigation, including the wrongful conviction of Robert Baltovich, who was Bain’s boyfriend at the time of her disappearance and spent eight years incarcerated before he was acquitted in 2008. The show also re-examines evidence and unearths previously unreported information.

Swain said what she found compelling about the case is that more than three decades after Bain first went missing, “the question of what happened to her, who was involved, has never been answered.”

“Those questions need to be answered and if we can pull together the threads of this story (and) what’s known, because often details come out over time. And that’s the luxury of ‘Dateline’ is that we have two hours to pull these threads together, show people what’s known about what happened and see if we start to make more sense of things that didn’t make sense at the time.”

“Dateline Canada” will debut on Nov. 26 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Citytv and Citytv+.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 16, 2026.

Kaitlyn McGrath, The Canadian Press