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, Pierre Poilievre, Mark Carney, the Donald Trump administration, the upcoming 2025 Canadian election, 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-Designate, the Conservatives and Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre as well as other leaders like Jagmeet Singh from 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 election 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, Justin Trudeau, 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, 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

Rudy Giuliani: from RICO prosecutor to RICO defendant

This week, Donald Trump and 18 of his associates were charged under the state of Georgia’s RICO Act. RICO stands for Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, and it was originally designed to crack down on organized crime. And while Trump’s at the center of these latest charges, a lot of the heat is also on his former attorney, Rudy Giuliani. The former mayor of New York made his name in the 80s as a federal prosecutor for using the RICO act to take down the city’s mob. So how did this to...

Aug 17, 2023•23 min

Why is Alberta pausing new renewable energy projects?

It’s been a busy month in Alberta energy politics. In early August, the provincial government caught many by surprise with a six-month pause on any new solar and wind projects that would produce more than one megawatt of power. Since then, Premier Danielle Smith has doubled down on her vow not to go along with the federal government’s plan to get to a net zero power grid by 2035. Meanwhile, Canada is experiencing its worst wildfire season on record. Today, CBC’s Jason Markusoff discusses these r...

Aug 16, 2023•20 min

Niger, and an era of mutiny in Africa’s Sahel region

Last month, the African nation of Niger became the seventh government in Western and Central Africa to suffer a military takeover in the last three years. And as of today, virtually every country in Africa’s Sahel region is governed by a current or former military officer. The Sahel is a part of the world that was dominated by France through the colonial period — and many leaders of military governments that have taken over, from Mali to Burkina Faso, have identified the unresolved legacies of c...

Aug 15, 2023•31 min

Ontario’s Greenbelt, Doug Ford and an explosive audit

Last Wednesday, Ontario auditor general Bonnie Lysyk delivered a scathing report about the province’s plans to build on parts of the protected Greenbelt. While Premier Doug Ford had promised to preserve this vast network of vulnerable greenspace, he announced in November that the province would lift protections on thousands of acres to build more houses. The auditor general’s report finds there’s no evidence the land was needed to meet the government’s housing target and says that it was chosen ...

Aug 14, 2023•25 min

Weekend Listen: Buffy

Singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie has announced that she's retiring from live performances. For 60 years Buffy’s music has quietly reverberated throughout pop culture and provided a touchstone for Indigenous resistance. This five-part series, hosted by Mohawk and Tuscarora writer Falen Johnson explores how Buffy’s life and legacy is essential to understanding Indigenous resilience. In this episode, Buffy is traveling from gig to gig in the 60s, armed with her guitar and little else. She makes...

Aug 12, 2023•33 min

The Eras Tour, and Taylor Swift’s massive popularity

Taylor Swift has been on tour for months but finally, Canadian fans have been given a chance to see her here. She’s having not one or two but six shows at the Rogers Centre in Toronto next year and even though there are 300,000 tickets up for grabs, fans have been likening the scramble to the Hunger Games. Swifties may be known for their dedication but those outside the fandom might be wondering: what is it about Taylor Swift that commands this kind of hype? Elamin Abdelmahmoud, host of CBC Radi...

Aug 11, 2023•24 min

Metro workers on strike and a “Hot Labour Summer”

Right now, some 3,700 workers from 27 Metro grocery stores across the Greater Toronto Area are on strike – and they’re not alone. From British Columbia’s ports to Manitoba’s liquor stores to Hollywood, a wave of people across different industries have gone on strike this summer. Today on Front Burner, we head to a Metro picket line in East Toronto. We talk to workers there about what’s at stake for them as they strike, and take a closer look at what’s driving this recent labour unrest with McGil...

Aug 10, 2023•25 min

Worldcoin’s utopian aims, dystopian fears

A metallic orb scans your iris and turns it into a numeric code, providing a unique ID that confirms you as human. This is the process people in dozens of countries are undergoing for Worldcoin, a new cryptocurrency project that’s handing out free tokens and even local currency in exchange for biometric verification. The project claims it can prove our personhood online and enable voting, financial equality or even the distribution of a universal basic income. But even before its official launch...

Aug 09, 2023•25 min

Anti-LGBTQ backlash spurs debate in Canada’s Muslim community

In June, a group called YYC Muslims organized a large protest in front of Calgary's city hall. They were there to oppose what they call "gender ideology" in schools. They chanted, “leave our kids alone” saying they don’t want it imposed on young children. They were joined by seniors wearing T-shirts with biblical verses on them, and others sporting shirts with slogans about “government tyranny.” Counter-protesters were there too, many baffled by the unlikely alliances between the different group...

Aug 08, 2023•21 min

Front Burner Introduces: Stuff The British Stole | Season 3

Throughout its reign, the British Empire stole a lot of stuff. Today the Empire's loot sits in museums, galleries, private collections and burial sites with polite plaques. But its history is often messier than the plaques suggest. In each episode of this global smash hit podcast, Walkley award-winning journalist, author and genetic potluck, Marc Fennell, takes you on the wild, evocative, sometimes funny, often tragic adventure of how these stolen treasures got to where they live today. These ob...

Aug 07, 2023•42 min

How Shohei Ohtani is changing Major League Baseball

It has been five years since Japanese phenomenon Shohei Ohtani left Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball to fulfil his dream of playing for Major League Baseball in the U.S. The 29-year-old has been compared to the great Babe Ruth for his ability to bat and pitch with equal prowess. In fact, some say he’s the greatest baseball player of all time. Fans are flocking to his games to catch a glimpse of Ohtani in action, and he has sparked renewed interest in the struggling MLB. But as a player with ...

Aug 04, 2023•24 min

Congress, aliens and the search for E.T.

Crashed crafts, non-human biologics, and the Pentagon in possession of UFOs. Last week, former military and intelligence figures appeared as whistleblowers at a U.S. congressional hearing, testifying about the government’s apparent secrecy around UAPs: unidentified anomalous phenomena. But one former air force intelligence official, David Grusch, claimed the Pentagon collected non-human organic material and that he knew where it was keeping UFOs. Researchers searching the universe for alien life...

Aug 03, 2023•23 min

What’s driving polarization in Canadian politics?

Were the ‘Freedom Convoy’ protests in Ottawa a “peaceful protest against a tyrannical ruler,” or a bunch of people driven by “lies and misinformation, disturbing the peace of everyone, and being bigoted”? These two conflicting perspectives help illustrate Canadian polarization in a new report from the Public Policy Forum, authored by journalist Justin Ling, titled ‘Far and Wider: The Rise of Polarization in Canada.’ Ling joins guest host Tamara Khandaker to discuss political polarization in Cana...

Aug 02, 2023•25 min

Where did Ron DeSantis’ campaign go wrong?

In January, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis seemed like a real contender to win the GOP presidential nomination over former U.S. president Donald Trump. His team pitched his Florida track record, electability and “war on woke” ideals as a Trump-like candidate without the baggage. But now, just two months into his White House bid, DeSantis’s campaign is in trouble. A New York Times/Siena College poll found the Florida Governor is trailing Trump by 37 percentage points nationally. Meanwhile, the cam...

Aug 01, 2023•27 min

TikTok is coming for books, music and e-commerce

TikTok is one of the biggest, most influential social media networks in the world — and its parent company ByteDance is making moves to capitalize on its enormous cultural influence. The company has announced plans to launch a music streaming service, a book publishing division and an e-commerce platform, all of which would allow people to connect directly to the music, books and products they see in the app's most viral videos. It's a move that puts them in direct competition with tech heavywei...

Jul 31, 2023•31 min

Supreme Court changes ‘tear the fabric’ of Israel

Despite months of mass protests, Israel’s far-right government pushed through a law weakening the country’s Supreme Court on Monday. Under it, the Court is no longer able to strike down some government decisions. Fears over the effect this and other planned changes could have on Israel’s democracy have driven hundreds of thousands of demonstrators to the streets, and a growing number of military reservists are refusing to report for active duty. Allison Kaplan Sommer is a journalist at Haaretz a...

Jul 28, 2023•23 min

A major shakeup in Ottawa, but why?

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet is almost entirely different than it was just two days ago. In Wednesday’s shuffle, all but eight of Trudeau’s 38 ministers stepped into new files. Some ministers were forced out after controversial missteps. Other star MPs got bigger economic assignments. And a number of new faces were sworn in from important election regions. Today, Catherine Cullen – the host of CBC’s political podcast The House – returns to explain why Trudeau has transformed his cabin...

Jul 27, 2023•23 min

MDMA: from ‘club drug’ to the doctor's office

Australia is leading the way on normalizing the use of some psychedelics. The country’s medical regulator has approved M-D-M-A for use for people suffering from PTSD. Regulators in the US – just last month – published guidance into the use of psychedelics for possible use treating some medical conditions. How does a drug, known for its use on the dance floor, make its way to the medicine cabinet? To find out more about all this we have Rachel Nuwer on the pod today. She’s a freelance journalist ...

Jul 26, 2023•32 min

Voices from inside Toronto’s refugee crisis

This summer a humanitarian crisis played out on the streets of downtown Toronto. With city and federal shelters at capacity, dozens of asylum seekers resorted to camping on the sidewalk, in the busy entertainment district, sleeping outside in the blistering heat and through thunderstorms, for weeks. Last week, the federal government announced a one-time $212 million dollar injection into an existing program that helps provide temporary housing to refugee claimants. And most of that funding goes ...

Jul 25, 2023•26 min

‘The Heat Will Kill You First’

Floods, fires, storms and droughts are all upending lives around the globe. And at the centre of it all is a warming planet. Heat – is the driving force. We are living through the Earth’s hottest month on record. Extreme heat has led to flash floods and property destruction in northern Italy and the Balkans, and fueled wildfires in Croatia and Greece. Nova Scotia’s dealing with historic flooding, much of B-C is engulfed in wildfires and parts of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Yukon and the Northwest ter...

Jul 24, 2023•26 min

Jason Aldean and country music’s culture war

Jason Aldean is one of contemporary country radio’s most played voices, and he’s no stranger to controversy. He’s been accused of misogynist comments, worn blackface at Halloween, taken an anti-mask stance during the pandemic and, last year, his wife’s transphobic comments got him dropped by his long-time PR firm. Now, his latest single, “Try That in a Small Town” is facing backlash. Depending on who you ask, it’s either an ode to old-fashioned community values, or a racist dog-whistle. Today, E...

Jul 21, 2023•24 min

Conspiracy campaign: RFK’s presidential bid

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., John F. Kennedy’s nephew, is running for U.S. president. Like his forefathers, he’s vying to lead the Democrats – but his political focus is noticeably different. For decades, RFK Jr. has been spreading false information about vaccines, and has more recently been peddling conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and 5G. Vera Bergengruen, a senior correspondent at TIME, recently interviewed RFK Jr. Today, she explains why RFK is campaigning on conspiracy theories and how he refle...

Jul 20, 2023•24 min

Forever chemicals are in Canadians’ air, water and blood

Forever Chemicals, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), have been around since the 1940s and are used in everything from non-stick pans to take-out containers to cosmetics and fire retardant. But flash-forward to today and the long-lasting, man-made substances have been found inside Canadian blood samples – brought in through the air and dust we breathe, and even in our drinking water. And now the federal government is proposing to list them as toxic. Today on Front Burner, we’re askin...

Jul 19, 2023•25 min

Actors, writers shut down Hollywood

The union representing almost 160,000 actors, SAG-AFTRA, is striking after negotiations fell through with the group representing most major Hollywood studios. The news comes about two months after 11,000 members of the Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) announced their strike. Studios say the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of streaming services like Netflix, Crave and Disney+ has caused financial strain. Meanwhile, actors say the shift to streaming has led to decreasing residuals, me...

Jul 18, 2023•32 min

Canada: the Anthropocene’s ground zero?

It's a well-established scientific fact that humans have had a massive impact on the planet. But has it been big enough to warrant the definition of a new geological epoch? It's an idea that's been hotly debated in the scientific community for years — and now, a group of researchers are arguing that a small lake in rural Ontario provides the best evidence for defining that new epoch. Crawford Lake, about 60 km southwest of Toronto, captures the history of the world in its sediment deposits, calc...

Jul 17, 2023•22 min

Weekend Listen: 10 Minutes to Save the Planet

Our brains aren’t wired to save the world. But if you’re ready to make changes that actually stick, 10 Minutes to Save the Planet will show you the way. Co-hosts meteorologist and climate reporter Johanna Wagstaffe and broadcaster Rohit Joseph work through the UN’s 10 actions for a healthy planet, but in a way that won’t shame, overwhelm or bore you. Think of each episode as a bite-size guide to fight climate change, rooted in behavioural therapy. More episodes are available at: https://link.cht...

Jul 15, 2023•12 min

A landfill blockade and demands to find Indigenous women’s remains

It's been a week since protesters began a blockade of the Brady Road landfill in Winnipeg. They're calling on the government to search the Prairie Green landfill — a privately owned dump outside the city — for the remains of Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran, two murdered Indigenous women. But the government says that, despite police believing the two women's remains are there, the site won't be searched, primarily due to safety concerns. But for Cambria Harris, that's not good enough. Her mother...

Jul 14, 2023•27 min

Has the Bank of Canada gone too far?

There’s a growing chorus of critics of the central bank’s decision to increase interest rates, as things like food and housing are keeping inflation up, and seem largely unaffected by higher rates. This comes as the Bank of Canada increased its key interest rate on Wednesday. It’s the 10th time the central bank has hiked the rate since March, 2022 — bringing it to five per cent. The move is all part of an effort to rein in high inflation, but that has come down significantly since its peak last ...

Jul 13, 2023•24 min

Jonah Hill and the rise of “therapy speak”

“Boundaries,” “trauma,” “holding space,” “gaslighting” — These are all examples of what’s known as “therapy speak”: Phrases and buzzwords that have made their way out of the therapist’s office, onto social media and into our everyday lives. But what happens when those same words are misunderstood or used in manipulative and harmful ways? That’s what many are asking after Jonah Hill’s ex-girlfriend, professional surfer Sarah Brady, posted screenshots of text messages from their past where the act...

Jul 12, 2023•20 min

Will Threads be the Twitter killer?

After Twitter caused chaos by limiting how many Tweets users can see, the company behind Instagram and Facebook made a play for its audience last week. On Wednesday, Meta released Threads, an app also centered around short text posts. With its built in connection to Instagram accounts, CEO Mark Zuckerberg says Threads already has 100 million users. But Threads is already experiencing the same privacy concerns as other apps, and Twitter owner Elon Musk is threatening to sue over intellectual prop...

Jul 11, 2023•25 min

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