Front Burner

CBC•www.cbc.ca

Front Burner is a daily news podcast that takes you deep into the stories shaping Canada and the world. Each morning, from Monday to Friday, host Jayme Poisson talks with the smartest people covering the biggest stories to help you understand what’s going on.

We’re Canada’s number one news podcast and a trusted source of Canadian news. We cover Canadian news and Canadian politics, Prime Minister Mark Carney, Pierre Poilievre, the Donald Trump administration, provincial politics from Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, and politicians Danielle Smith, David Eby and Doug Ford.

We cover Toronto, Vancouver, and Calgary as well as other municipalities across Canada. In this Canadian election year, Front Burner will be focusing more on Canadian politics. We will take a close look at Mark Carney’s first few weeks as Prime Minister, the Conservatives and Pierre Poilievre as well as the future of the NDP and Quebec’s Yves-François Blanchet from the Bloc Québécois during the 2025 Canadian federal election.

The podcast goes beyond Ottawa and digs deeper into major issues like U.S.-Canada relations, jobs, the economy, immigration, cost of living, housing and rental costs, taxes and tariffs, democracy and technology. The Front Burner daily podcast covers Canadian news from every province and territory: Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nunavut, Northwest Territories and Yukon.

We cover news from major cities like Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton. When U.S. President Donald Trump declares he wants to make Canada the 51st state and decides to implement tariffs, Front Burner has an analysis into what is happening. We cover Elon Musk’s DOGE. We cover the latest in technology from the rise of bitcoin and crypto, the future of TikTok, Meta, artificial intelligence, influencers, and more. Look to our archives to see fact-checked stories about infrastructure, fascism, border security, immigration, Pierre Poilievre, the Republican Party, American politics, Canadian politics, India, China, Trump’s tariffs, Mark Carney, Elon Musk, Toronto, technology, artificial intelligence, international students, healthcare, and inflation. We cover global news like the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, the ceasefire, the Ukraine-Russia war, the India-Pakistan conflict, and the U.S. economy and U.S. politics.

Front Burner is a part of your morning news routine. Whether you’re in Toronto or Vancouver or Washington, this is the news that matters to Canadians. We take a look at the economy and break it down from the budget to interest rate hikes to inflation to recessions to jobs to the cost of living. We look at the policy around housing, Canadian housing supply, and what this means for first-time home buyers, renters, and those with a mortgage. We look at technology, from AI to the manosphere to social media like Meta, Twitter, Facebook, and more. We look at influential newsmakers like Elon Musk and influential technology industries like crypto and AI.

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Episodes

How the Diddy case fell apart

After a long and very public trial, producer and music mogul Sean Diddy Combs has been found not guilty of the most severe charges against him. On Wednesday he was acquitted of racketeering and sex trafficking, but found guilty on lesser charges - two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. This was widely considered as a huge victory for Diddy. During the trial, prosecutors had accused him of running an extensive sex trafficking operation. And that he did so with the help of a netwo...

Jul 04, 2025•29 min

Politics! Carney so far, Poilievre’s second chance

Prime Minister Mark Carney made big promises to transform the Canadian economy, fast track national building projects and secure a trade deal with U.S. He also set Canada Day this year as a deadline for some key goals. How has he done so far and what are we learning about what he’s willing to do to make things happen? Plus, where do trade talks stand now that Ottawa has dropped the Digital Services Tax, a major sticking point for their American counterparts? How has Pierre Poilievre been handlin...

Jul 03, 2025•28 min

The end of birthright citizenship?

For at least the last decade U.S. President Doanld Trump has discussed his desire to end the practice of birthright citizenship. On his first day back in office Trump passed an executive order looking to exclude the children of undocumented people from birthright citizenship completely: an action that was immediately challenged in lower courts across the country. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered Donald Trump a major victory, limiting the power of lower courts to challenge the Presiden...

Jul 02, 2025•30 min

The repo man of the seas

The Outlaw Ocean is an anthology podcast that plunges you into the vast and often lawless world of the open seas. Today we're featuring an investigation from S2 called The repo man of the seas. In this episode, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ian Urbina joins Max Hardberger. Depending on who you ask, Max is either a seagoing James Bond or a swashbuckling pirate. Hardberger runs a rare kind of repo service, extracting huge ships from foreign ports. His company is a last resort for ship owners w...

Jul 01, 2025•50 min

Encore: ex-Raptors President Masai Ujiri

After a transformative 13 years, it was announced that the Toronto Raptors and longtime President Masai Ujiri would be parting ways. Across his time with the Raptors Ujiri became a figure central to Canadian and international sport — capping his time with the Raptors’ lone NBA championship in 2019. The years since then have been slower and gave way to a team in purgatory, as well as executive level disagreements about Ujiri’s place in the Raptors hierarchy. We sat down with Masai Ujiri in 2021 f...

Jun 30, 2025•30 min

Canada’s energy minister on pipelines, Bill C-5 controversy

Canada’s energy and natural resources minister Tim Hodgson is in charge of an extremely important file for the federal government. That’s because Prime Minister Carney campaigned on getting big energy and resources projects done, boosting Canada’s economy and extracting us from our close relationship with the U.S. The stakes are pretty high for Minister Hodgson, who is new to politics but has extensive experience in the private sector, including time as CEO of Goldman Sachs Canada. He was also a...

Jun 27, 2025•29 min

The unanswered questions of the Iran strike

On Tuesday, Donald Trump angrily swore about his frustrations with Israel and Iran after both countries exchanged missile fire just before the ceasefire Trump helped negotiate. So far, the fragile ceasefire has held. However as more information comes out about the extent of the damage done to Iran’s nuclear facilities and their plans to continue their nuclear program, will it last? Will the U.S. be able to engage in diplomacy with Iran after joining Israel’s bombing campaign? And after Trump pub...

Jun 26, 2025•23 min

Bubble trouble: Do protest bylaws silence dissent?

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association has just launched a constitutional challenge against legislation in the city of Vaughan known as a “bubble zone” bylaw. It restricts protest within 100 metres of a place of worship, school, daycare, hospital or care facility. Advocates say that in a time of rising extremism and hate crimes, the bylaws are necessary to protect vulnerable groups’ access to these spaces. Toronto and the nearby town of Oakville also passed bubble zone bylaws last month, and s...

Jun 25, 2025•38 min

The MAGA civil war over Iran

Over the last week, as the exchange of missiles between Israel and Iran intensified, Donald Trump’s supporters have found themselves in two camps: the hawks, like Lindsay Graham and Ted Cruz who support America joining Israel in its fight against Iran. And the isolationists, like Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson, who urge the president not to plunge the U.S. into yet another protracted war in the Middle East. Now that the U.S. air strikes on Iran have been met with a retaliatory strike on a U.S. ...

Jun 24, 2025•23 min

Trump joins Israel's war in Iran

Days into the Iran-Israel war, the United States has carried out a series of limited strikes centered on three Iranian nuclear sites. U.S. President Donald Trump has referred to the strikes as a “spectacular military success” and the Israeli government has made clear there was “full co-ordination” on the operation. Iranian officials claim to have removed enriched uranium from the facilities before they were bombed. Negar Mortazavi is a Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy, and th...

Jun 23, 2025•31 min

In search of separatists in Alberta

Last week, Front Burner spent a few days in Three Hills, Alberta, a small town northeast of Calgary. We attended an event about Alberta independence, and spoke to a wide array of people about separation from Canada, and the possibility of an upcoming referendum on the issue. CBC Calgary’s Jason Markusoff came with us. Why Three Hills? Because while separatist sentiment does exist in the province’s cities, it runs deeper in rural small towns, where people tend to feel more disconnected and frustr...

Jun 20, 2025•51 min

What exactly is ICE?

For months now, agents working for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, have been carrying out raids, arresting people on the street, at work and at immigration courthouses. Often they are wearing plain clothes and masks. As U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown intensifies, so have the instances of arrests and detentions by ICE, sometimes without warrants or due process. Despite mass protests and pushback from opposition politicians and immigrants rights groups, t...

Jun 19, 2025•28 min

Politics! Carney’s ’delete laws’ bill, G7 wraps

In this politics roundup, we first check in with the CBC’s Aaron Wherry in the Alberta Rockies about the main takeaways from the G7 summit, which wrapped without Donald Trump after he left to deal with the escalating Israel-Iran conflict. Then, we speak to Toronto Star national columnist Althia Raj about C-5, an omnibus bill which is moving through parliament at breakneck speed. The bill’s intent is to speed up approval for resource projects, but it’s been panned by critics as dangerous and unde...

Jun 18, 2025•29 min

Palantir’s big data, AI long game

Palantir’s technology has been used by everyone from the CIA and Mossad to Airbus and Morgan Stanley. The multi-billion dollar big data software company is at the centre of many of the major issues of our time. Michael Steinberger is a reporter with The New York Times Magazine and the author of a forthcoming book on Palantir’s CEO entitled ‘The Philosopher in the Valley.’ He joins the show to discuss Palantir’s wide-reaching technology, and what it tells us about the future of government and sur...

Jun 17, 2025•33 min

Israel-Iran strikes: What comes next?

Longstanding tensions came to a head last week when Israel launched a missile attack on Iran, targeting the country’s nuclear facilities and killing several high-level military personnel and nuclear scientists. In the days following the two countries have exchanged missile strikes, killing at least 78 in Iran and 13 in Israel. As the conflict continues to escalate, what will it mean for the region? And as the bombardment derails Iran-U.S. nuclear talks, will the U.S. be pulled into an active war...

Jun 16, 2025•34 min

Can the G7 find order in the chaos?

Starting Sunday, political and economic representatives of a world order that Donald Trump is intent on shattering are gathering in Kananaskis, in Alberta's Rocky Mountains. That on its own would be high stakes. But add to it Mark Carney's aggressive national to-do list, and you've got two days that could show us how much Canada and the world have changed since Trump became president a second time. Aaron Wherry, a senior writer with CBC's Parliamentary Bureau, joins the show to unpack what he'll...

Jun 13, 2025•26 min

What’s behind Mark Carney’s military splurge?

For years now Canada's been badgered to pony up, and spend more money on the military. Those calls have come from our actual military itself, our NATO allies, and more recently the U.S. President. Well it looks like Mark Carney is going to pull out the credit card, and commit to spending an extra $9.3-billion on the armed forces by March, bumping our military spending up to two per cent of Canada's entire GDP. Carney has also pledged to end this country's reliance on the U.S. for equipment by di...

Jun 12, 2025•26 min

Wildfires rage across Canada

As many as 40,000 Canadians are out of their homes right now with evacuation alerts and states of emergency in effect across much of western Canada, from B.C. through northern Ontario. Many, especially those from Saskatchewan and Manitoba, have been away from home for weeks, with no indication of when they'll return. CBC Thunder Bay's Sarah Law brings us the story of evacuees from Sandy Lake First Nation, making their way to Thunder Bay, Ont., as fire bears down on their fly-in, fly-out communit...

Jun 11, 2025•27 min

Battleground L.A.: Fighting Trump’s ICE crackdown

The city of Los Angeles has been embroiled in protests for days after a series of ICE raids rounded up dozens of people. Now, after President Donald Trump sent in 2000 members of the National Guard, the city finds itself in the middle of a fight between the White House and state and local governments over the rights of undocumented immigrants. Jeannette Zanipatin is a lawyer and the Director of Policy and Advocacy at the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), an L.A.-based organization ...

Jun 10, 2025•26 min

Trump and Elon’s messy breakup

A feud between Elon Musk and U.S. President Trump escalated and exploded over the course of 72 hours last week. It started off with Musk’s criticism of Trump’s new spending bill, calling it a “disgusting abomination.” Trump later criticized Musk during a press conference in the Oval Office, saying that he would have won the 2024 election without the millions of dollars Musk spent to support him. From there, a barrage of attacks ensued over social media, and threats to cancel government contracts...

Jun 09, 2025•29 min

Weekend Listen: How will Canadian film and TV change if streamers don't pay into it?

What is Canadian content? And why does it matter? The Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission has been hearing very different answers to that question — as they try to come up with new CanCon rules. Commotion's Elamin Abdelmahmoud talks with storyteller Jesse Wente, policy expert Vass Bednar and showrunner Anthony Q Farrell about why getting CanCon right has never been more important. Big laughs. Smart takes. Every day. Commotion is where you go for thoughtful and vibrant conversations ...

Jun 07, 2025•40 min

Cheap and deadly: How drones are reshaping war

On Sunday, Ukraine launched Operation Spider’s Web, a surprise drone attack that went deep inside Russia, reaching as far as Siberia for the first time. Ukraine says 117 drones were smuggled into Russia, hidden in the roofs of wooden sheds and later loaded onto the backs of trucks then launched remotely. The result was an enormous blow to Russia’s strategic bomber fleet. Cheaper than traditional weapons and commercially available, drones have become increasingly important to both sides of the Uk...

Jun 06, 2025•23 min

Politics! Border bill blowback and 'Santa' Carney

The Liberals have tabled new legislation that would significantly expand law enforcement powers and tighten immigration of all kinds, including refugee claims, in a move to appease the Trump White House — but critics say it raises major concerns for Canadians' civil liberties. Meanwhile, Mark Carney met with Canada's provincial and territorial premiers this week in his first ever first ministers' meeting, and the post-meeting vibes have been extremely positive. There seems to be a general agreem...

Jun 05, 2025•30 min

Real estate, crypto, Middle East deals: Who is Steve Witkoff?

A little over five months ago, few outside of the New York City real estate scene knew who Steve Witkoff was. Now, as the U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, he’s not only been tasked with trying to end the war in Gaza but he’s also at the centre of negotiations with Russia over the war in Ukraine and with Iran to secure a new nuclear deal. To understand how one of President Donald Trump’s closest friends came to spearhead negotiations in some of the most complex foreign policy files of the l...

Jun 04, 2025•28 min

When hunger is a weapon

Since October 7, access to food in Gaza – and its systematic restriction by Israel – has been the subject of international condemnation. The most recent incident is the killing of dozens of Palestinians attempting to obtain food from an aid distribution centre. Israeli settlers have blocked roads, and aid delivery. Aid convoys and workers have also been targeted with violence. And as of March, Israel established a full scale blockade on aid into the Gaza strip. Today a trickle has been allowed i...

Jun 03, 2025•40 min

U.S. Politics! Elon’s out, tariffs in court, and Trump vs. Harvard

Alex Shephard, senior editor at The New Republic, is on Front Burner to break down a few of the big developing news stories coming out of the Trump administration in recent weeks. He talks to host Jayme Poisson about Elon Musk’s exit from the White House, U.S. President Trump’s war with Harvard, and where we are right now with the on again, off again tariffs as they get kicked around the courts. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts...

Jun 02, 2025•27 min

AI cheating runs wild on campus

The use of generative AI has become rampant on college and university campuses across North America. KPMG - who surveyed over 400 Canadian students about this in the fall — found that around 60 per cent use AI models like ChatGPT in their assignments. James Walsh recently wrote a piece in New York Magazine called Everyone is Cheating Their Way Through College, where he spoke to dozens of students, professors, and administrators about the AI cheating surge, and how it’s ratcheting up a debate abo...

May 30, 2025•25 min

Will laws apply in Ontario’s ‘special economic zones’?

The Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act – also known as Bill 5 – aims to fast track mining projects in Ontario and gives the government the power to create 'special economic zones' that would grant the government the power to exempt companies from still-unspecified laws. Ontario Premier Doug Ford has framed these measures as necessary to protect the province against the threat of Donald Trump's trade war. But the sweeping power it affords the government has Indigenous groups, the Civil...

May 29, 2025•23 min

A royal visit and a high-stakes political moment

For the third time in Canadian history, the head of the British monarchy delivered the throne speech before ushering in a new session of parliament. It comes at a time when Canada could use some help protecting its sovereignty in the face of threats from U.S. President Donald Trump. But how does this moment fit in with King Charles’ reign so far, which has been marked by political turmoil, royal rifts, calls for reparations and cutting ties with the British monarchy? We break it all down with El...

May 28, 2025•25 min

The ‘cover-up’ of Joe Biden’s decline

Last June, during the first presidential debate of the 2024 U.S. election campaign, Joe Biden stumbled and struggled to find the right words. His performance was described as disastrous and incoherent. At that point, many Americans had already come to the conclusion that Biden was too old for the job. But for those who hadn't yet, the debate was the moment that fact became impossible to deny. Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again is a new b...

May 27, 2025•30 min

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