What to know
- Elizabeth Bain, a University of Toronto student, disappeared from Scarborough in 1990; her case remains unsolved.
- Her boyfriend, Robert Baltovich, was convicted and spent eight years in prison before being acquitted—no one else has been charged since.
- Dateline Canada’s premiere delves into the case with new interviews from key figures, including police, legal experts, and journalists.
- The show explores how differences between Canadian and U.S. justice systems affect true-crime investigations and public perception.
As Dateline launches its first Canadian edition, the legendary true-crime franchise turns its lens on one of the country’s most haunting unsolved mysteries: the disappearance of Elizabeth Bain, a University of Toronto (UofT) student who vanished from Scarborough in 1990.
From her boyfriend being wrongfully convicted, spending eight years in prison before acquittal, to Canada’s justice system charging no one for her disappearance afterwards, Dateline Canada — a series investigating true crimes — took the responsibility to bring back her case to public view and honour her story for the Canadian edition’s first episode.
Dateline NBC’s iconic host, Keith Morrison, and Dateline Canada’s Diana Swain gave Now Toronto a sneak peek at what to expect ahead of the show’s first episode, and why Bain’s case is the perfect story to introduce Dateline’s investigative storytelling in Canada.
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Why Elizabeth Bain’s case for the first episode?
Elizabeth Bain might’ve disappeared in 1990, but Swain explained that it doesn’t mean her case isn’t as important.
“It’s an important story because it’s unresolved, and I know that when we were first talking about the story, I remember thinking you should not be allowed to disappear in life, and that nobody knows what happened to you, or why, or who was involved,” Swain told Now Toronto.
In 1992, Bain’s boyfriend, Robert Baltovich, was convicted of second-degree murder, spending eight years in prison before being acquitted. He was later exonerated in 2008.
“Because of the way our justice system worked, that was in all material ways the end of the investigation. No one was charged after that. Not much happened after that, and her case really disappeared from public view,” Swain said.
Since Bain’s case left mainstream news, Swain’s heard lots of comments like, “Oh, I forgot about that,” or “Oh, you’re right,” but she’s hoping that through this episode, people will further understand her case rather than keeping her case a distant, mysterious forgotten tale.
“And I think, just on a human level, that feels wrong. I think even though it’s been a long time, she deserves more than anything else. She deserves someone to be looking closely at whatever happened to her, and so I think that’s what makes it the right case to start Dateline Canada,” she explained.
Morrison added that Dateline’s format also has a similar vibe to a movie—building the story over time.
“It’s a movie that’s about real people and real things that happened, and it’s told like a movie in a sense that it’s got a story arc that you can follow, understand, that makes sense that leads you to a sort of conclusion,” he told Now Toronto.
On bringing the series to Canada
As a Canadian-born investigative journalist with careers on both sides of the border, Morrison notes that differences between the Canadian and American justice systems can shape how you navigate a case.
“Whenever we have done stories in Canada, my American colleagues are sometimes taken aback by the Canadian justice system. They think that they can do things the usual way, and they can’t. It’s a different system,” Morrison told Now Toronto.
Now he’s passing the torch to award-winning journalist Diana Swain for the Canadian edition of the well-loved series, and she hopes the show helps Canadians better understand the Canadian justice system.
“The reality for many Canadians, I think, is that they won’t ever have an interaction with the criminal justice system… their impression of how it works often comes from what they see on TV, and for many Canadians, that’s what they’ve seen in the United States,” Swain said.
“Whether it’s Law & Order, or it’s Dateline… their impression of how the justice system works is what they see, which is the American justice system. And while it’s similar, it’s not the same,” she explained.
In the investigation of Bain’s disappearance, viewers will discover exclusive interviews with a retired Toronto Police officer who worked the case, Baltovich, Professor John Irwin, and journalist Paula Todd.
“I think it’s the best way to understand a story is to talk to people who come at it from all different angles. I’ve always thought of stories as a wheel, and if you can bring people into the conversation who come from all different perspectives—people who knew Elizabeth or people who covered the case at the time-that’s how you really develop your own understanding of all the parts of it,” Swain explained.
Dateline Canada premieres Thursday, Nov. 26 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Citytv and Citytv+ with a two-hour special revisiting the disappearance of Elizabeth Bain.
