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

The state of the U.S. presidential race

The 2024 U.S. presidential election is happening on Tuesday. With six days left, the New Republic's senior editor, Alex Shephard, is here to take the temperature of the race. What are presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris pitching in this last week of the campaign? Where are they focusing their efforts? What issues and revelations could make a difference in these final days of a race most pollsters say is too close to call? For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit:  ht...

Oct 30, 2024•33 min

Canadian billionaire Frank Stronach faces slew of sex assault charges

As CEO of Magna International, a global leader in auto parts manufacturing, Frank Stronach was a big deal in the business world. In the ‘80s alone, the company’s sales grew twelvefold, to over a billion dollars annually. Stronach would go on to be praised by prime ministers and presidents. He received the Order of Canada, and even started his own political party in Austria. You can find his name on many landmarks near Aurora, Ontario, where he used to preside over Magna. But in June of this year...

Oct 29, 2024•27 min

Lessons from the last federal Liberal mutiny

As we approach the deadline set by dissenting members of Liberal caucus for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to resign, we look back at the last time there was a mutiny against a once popular Liberal Prime Minister. It’s the year 2002 and after successfully winning three majority governments, Jean Chrétien has several members of his party come out and urge him to resign, throwing their support behind his recently fired finance minister, Paul Martin. In the backroom, pulling the strings for Martin w...

Oct 28, 2024•30 min

Front Burner Presents: The Flamethrowers Ep. 5

Right-wing radio finds their greatest foe in Barack Obama: As they try to take him down at every turn, they find the perfect formula to manufacture outrage. This is episode 5 of The Flamethrowers, the story of how radio energized and then radicalized a conservative base. Hosted by Justin Ling.  More episodes are available here .

Oct 26, 2024•30 min

Front Burner Presents Céline: Understood, Episode 1

Céline Dion is having a moment. It’s not her first. And millions of fans are hoping it won’t be her last. While Céline’s international stardom seems obvious now, it was all so unlikely. This is the first episode of the four-part series from Understood, the anthology podcast that takes you out of the daily news cycle and inside the events, people, and cultural moments you want to know more about. Hosted by Thomas Leblanc.  Listen to episode 2  here . Follow Understood  here ....

Oct 25, 2024•38 min

The day Trudeau faced a Liberal revolt

Justin Trudeau is facing arguably his biggest political crisis. Some two dozen of his own MPs have signed a letter calling on him to step down as leader of the Liberal Party. After a three-hour caucus meeting in Ottawa on Wednesday, Trudeau said his party is "strong and united" — words echoed by other Liberals throughout the day. But are they? Political reporter and author Stephen Maher breaks down the growing tensions within the Liberal Party over Trudeau's leadership and just how numbered his ...

Oct 24, 2024•22 min

Canada’s traffic is brutal. Can it be fixed?

As you’re probably well aware, traffic in cities across Canada is mind-numbingly bad. The geolocation firm TomTom recently ranked Toronto as having the worst traffic in North America with Vancouver, Winnipeg and Montreal also in the top ten.  And as the debates about how to fix it rage on, it’s only seeming to get worse.  That issue is being brought into sharp relief in Ontario right now, where a new bill would force municipalities across the province to get permission before inst...

Oct 23, 2024•22 min

How Donald Trump embraced the ‘manosphere’ for votes

In the last few months, U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump has appeared on shows with huge audiences of young men. He’s been doing interviews with people like influencer Logan Paul, comedian Theo Von, video game streamer Adin Ross…all people outside the usual political media, and all with millions of followers. These appearances are just part of a deluge of efforts to court Gen Z men, in what some have called the bro or frat vote in the upcoming U.S election. Polls show that an enormous gu...

Oct 22, 2024•29 min

Detailing India’s alleged global criminal conspiracy

The allegations from the RCMP and the federal government last week are nothing short of explosive: That agents of the Indian government had been involved in “widespread violence” against Canadians on Canadian soil. But these kinds of allegations aren’t just coming out of Canada. High-level agents within the Indian government have allegedly been linked to assassination attempts, surveillance and harassment in the US, Pakistan, Germany, the UK and Australia. Many of the targets are Sikh activists ...

Oct 21, 2024•28 min

Front Burner Presents: The Flamethrowers Ep. 4

The terror attacks of September 11th have Americans turning the dial to talk radio, where a whole new generation of broadcasters are eager to capitalize on anxiety and fear. This is episode 4 of The Flamethrowers, the story of how radio energized and then radicalized a conservative base. Hosted by Justin Ling.  More episodes are available here .

Oct 19, 2024•31 min

Conspiracies, controversies, and B.C’s election drama

Tomorrow, British Columbians head to the polls in a provincial election that’s seen plenty of twists and turns. There was the collapse of the B.C. United party, formerly the B.C Liberal party, which really opened the door for the further rise of the B.C. Conservative Party, and its leader John Rustad. Rustad, who’s running to be premier of B.C., is in a tight race with sitting B.C. NDP premier David Eby. Controversial and conspiracy-laden comments by Rustad himself, and a number of his candidate...

Oct 18, 2024•24 min

How MAGA world is planning to deny a Harris win

Republicans have already filed over 100 lawsuits in US courts, in what critics say is an attempt to overturn the upcoming election. Ari Berman, national voting rights correspondent with Mother Jones, brings us the latest on how the 2020 Stop the Steal movement shaped the 2024 election. He also talks about the fifteen years he’s spent reporting on this topic. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts...

Oct 17, 2024•28 min

Politics! India-Canada dispute escalates, Liberal caucus revolt

The Thanksgiving long weekend ended with a bombshell from the RCMP and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: Accusations that agents from the Indian government are linked to, and helped orchestrate criminal acts in Canada. These allegations include acts like murder and extortion against members of the country’s Sikh community. It’s the latest development in an ongoing row between Canada and India that started last year. Now as diplomats are expelled from both countries, the fallout has just begun. Mean...

Oct 16, 2024•28 min

A reporter in Gaza’s year of survival

Al Jazeera reporter Hani Mahmoud is currently based in Deir al Balah, in central Gaza. He’s spent the last year reporting on Israel’s war against Hamas in the territory. Hani has told the stories of families displaced by the war, struggling to access food and water, and grieving relatives who have been killed, while living those hardships himself. One year into Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, more than 42,000 people have been killed, according to local health authorities. It’s estimated that...

Oct 15, 2024•28 min

Split Screen: Thrill Seekers | It was a multi-million dollar media experiment. Would you fall for it?

A TV crew offers 12 ordinary people the chance to take part in the adventure of a lifetime. But there’s a catch. The audience knows everything but the contestants are kept in the dark. As the cameras roll, no questions are allowed. Split Screen: Thrill Seekers is a new 6 part series that exposes how a TV show left contestants struggling to trust what’s actually real. Host Nick van der Kolk (Love + Radio) asks: does reality TV only succeed when it exploits those involved? He talks to the set desi...

Oct 14, 2024•35 min

Front Burner Presents: The Flamethrowers Ep. 3

Welcome to the world of conspiracy and paranoia. A horrifying act of domestic terrorism brings right wing radio some unwanted attention, which pushes one fan of the supernatural away from politics, while a pair of anti-government broadcasters dig their heels in. This is episode 3 of The Flamethrowers, the story of how radio energized and then radicalized a conservative base. This series was originally produced in 2021. Hosted by Justin Ling.  More episodes are available here ....

Oct 12, 2024•47 min

Inside controversial Trump biopic ‘The Apprentice’

'The Apprentice' premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and received an eight minute ovation. The film follows a young, awkward, ambitious Donald Trump during his bid for respect among New York City's elite, and his formative relationship with notorious NYC lawyer and political fixer Roy Cohn. But in the time since its Cannes debut, team Trump has unleashed a pressure campaign to keep the film from the public. Dan Bekerman is a producer of 'The Apprentice', and joins us for a discu...

Oct 11, 2024•30 min

Birth rates are declining. Should we be worried?

Canada’s fertility rate just hit a record low: 1.3 babies per woman, placing us among some of the lowest birth rates globally.  While discourse around declining birth rates has been dominated by the likes of Elon Musk and Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance, it’s not just tech billionaires and social conservatives paying attention to this issue. Governments around the world have tried to enact policies to encourage their citizens to have more children, in most cases to no avail. So why is ...

Oct 10, 2024•22 min

A terrifying hurricane is headed toward Florida

Floridians are packing up and evacuating their homes as Hurricane Milton, one of the biggest hurricanes ever recorded, bears down on Tampa Bay. A major hurricane hasn't hit the region in more than 100 years, during which time the city has grown massively in population and built up significant residential developments along the waterfront — all as climate change has made hurricanes bigger, stronger and more frequent. Thomas Mantz, president and CEO of Feeding Tampa Bay, tells us what's happening ...

Oct 09, 2024•26 min

A dispatch from the perilous Darién Gap

NOTE:  In yesterday’s episode, we promised to bring you a conversation with a man who’s spent the last year in Gaza, both living through and reporting on Israel’s military campaign there. We were logistically unable to bring you that today, but we will do so as soon as we possibly can. For decades, the Darién Gap, a jungle crossing straddling the Colombia and Panama border, was considered impossible to cross. Today, it’s a path that many migrants take, risking their lives, to try and make i...

Oct 08, 2024•26 min

‘Time stopped on October 7th’

‘Time stopped on October 7th.’ Jonathan Dekel-Chen was a longtime resident of Nir Oz, an Israeli kibbutz near the Gaza border. Nearly a quarter of the residents there were either killed or taken hostage on October 7th, 2023, when members of Hamas and other armed groups killed around 1200 people, and took 251 Israelis and foreigners hostage. That set off Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza, which has now killed an estimated 41,500 people, according to Palestinian health authorities. Jo...

Oct 07, 2024•33 min

Front Burner Presents: The Flamethrowers Ep. 2

In the second episode of The Flamethrowers, host Justin Ling explores how President Ronald Reagan takes the shackles off right-wing radio and inaugurates a golden era of conservative politics. And Rush Limbaugh — almost by accident — becomes a kingmaker in the Republican party and changes radio forever. The Flamethrowers was originally produced in 2021. More episodes of The Flamethrowers are available here ....

Oct 05, 2024•44 min

A Canadian mission to rescue Afghanistan’s last female politicians

The war in Afghanistan is the longest in both Canadian and American history. The U.S.' withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, signaled not only the end of a 20-year war, but it also marked the re-introduction of a familiar era in the country's history: the return of the Taliban, and the widespread subjugation of women.  Three years into Taliban rule, CBC News chief correspondent Adrienne Arsenault brings us inside a secret mission, led by a group of Canadian MPs, to r...

Oct 04, 2024•24 min

Is China’s economic miracle going bust?

China’s economy has changed drastically in the last four decades. When China started to open up to the world in the late ‘70s and ‘80s, it went from one of the world’s poorest countries, to one of the world’s fastest growing major economies. But now, that same economy is struggling. Home prices are in freefall, retail sales are slowing down, unemployment is up. Things have gotten so rough that last week the Chinese government announced a set of stimulus measures that are meant to give the econom...

Oct 03, 2024•22 min

The gloves stay on in Walz-Vance U.S. VP debate

In most American elections, the vice presidential debates are almost an afterthought — but this has not been a typical election. Republican J.D. Vance and Democrat Tim Walz are relative newcomers on the national stage, both making headlines since their selection, and this will likely be the only time they face off in a one-on-one debate. CBC Washington correspondent Alex Panetta breaks down the debate's biggest moments, and what it can tell us about the parties' strategies for the final month of...

Oct 02, 2024•21 min

Death of Hezbollah’s Nasrallah weakens the 'Axis of Resistance'

Last Friday, Lebanon-based militant group, Hezbollah, confirmed that their secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Beirut.  As a significant political and cultural leader in the region, the death of Nasrallah poses a number of questions.  Where does this leave the “Axis of Resistance”, the Iran-led coalition of militias united against Israel, of which Hezbollah is a crucial part? Does this open the door for an Israeli ground invasion in Lebanon? And w...

Oct 01, 2024•28 min

Politics! Liberals’ survival mode, Conservatives vs CTV News, and more

While the Liberals survived the first non-confidence vote tabled last week, the Conservatives are already trying again.  The Bloc Quebecois have issued an ultimatum to the Liberals for their party’s support. The Prime Minister has accused Conservative MP Garnett Genuis of making a homophobic comment during question period. NDP leader Jagmeet Singh confronts Pierre Poilievre after repeated accusations of selling out. And Pierre Poilievre goes after Bell Canada and CTV News over the editing o...

Sep 30, 2024•26 min

Front Burner Presents: The Flamethrowers Ep. 1

Award-winning reporter Justin Ling tracks the rise of right wing radio in the U.S. from fringe preachers and conspiracy peddlers of the 1930s to the political firestorm that rages today. Our story begins with Canadian priest Charles Coughlin — a populist crusader who winds up espousing conspiracy and hate. Right-wing radio flexes its muscle with a boycott of Polish Ham. And the Kennedy government almost wipes right-wing talk off the map.  The Flamethrowers was originally produced in 2021. M...

Sep 28, 2024•42 min

Introducing, Canada’s millennial ‘Jackpot Generation’

Over the next two years, baby boomers will pass a reported 1 trillion dollars down to their heirs, who, in most cases, are their millennial children. This intergenerational transfer of wealth is expected to be the largest in Canadian history.  The nature of homeownership in Canada has changed many times over in the last half century, and these changes have contributed to widening gulfs in wealth and prosperity. Baby boomers came into their adult years through an economic golden age, in whic...

Sep 27, 2024•21 min

As bombs rain down, Israel readies potential Lebanon invasion

On Wednesday afternoon, the Israel Defense Forces released a video of their top commander telling troops on the northern border to prepare for a ground invasion of Lebanon.  The mid-week Lebanese death toll, following Israel’s air strikes that began Monday, is more than 600 people. Hezbollah on Wednesday also shot a ballistic missile towards Tel Aviv for the first time, although it was intercepted and caused no injuries. The Israel-Hezbollah conflict is escalating in a serious way. Today, w...

Sep 26, 2024•22 min

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