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

Work sucks. Where are the unions?

Nearly a million Canadian workers have taken job action in recent years, with Canada Post employees being the latest to do so. That included work stoppages at airlines, railways and Canadian ports. You might assume, from the many headlines about strikes, that union power is growing in Canada. But in fact, over the last forty years, the number of workers who are members of a union has decreased by nearly 10 percent. At the same time, jobs across many sectors have gotten worse, from stagnating wag...

Nov 20, 2024•26 min

UN Palestinian rapporteur Francesca Albanese

Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, recently returned from a week-long trip to Canada. She was given standing ovations at sold-out speaking events, yet also faced backlash from groups who called for the Canadian government to condemn her, and advocated for the UN to remove her from her position. Today, a wide-ranging conversation with Francesca Albanese. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/tra...

Nov 19, 2024•43 min

Trump’s day one: mass deportations?

In the past week, U.S. president-elect Donald Trump has announced many members of his upcoming cabinet, giving a window into his second term’s priorities. There’s little known about the wider implications of these appointments, but one area that Trump has emphasized as a “day one” priority is immigration. This was Trump’s single biggest talking point throughout his presidential campaign, and heading into a second term, it’s a clear policy priority. Nicole Narea is a senior reporter covering poli...

Nov 18, 2024•25 min

Weekend Listen: How bad results can upend lives

They needed certainty. They got chaos. For over a decade, countless people from at least five different countries put their trust in a company offering prenatal paternity tests. It promised clients “99.9% accuracy” — but then routinely, for over a decade, identified the wrong biological fathers. In the brand new season of Uncover: Bad Results, investigative journalists Jorge Barrera and Rachel Houlihan track down the people whose lives were torn apart by these bad results, the shattered families...

Nov 16, 2024•36 min

The Billion Dollar Influencer Economy

There are a reported 13 million full time influencers in the U.S. today. According to Goldman Sachs, the influencer economy is worth around $250-billion, a number expected to double by 2027.  Despite its quick rise, the influencer economy remains a nascent industry that, in many ways, has no meaningful oversight or standard and practices.  We're joined by Emily Hund, author of 'The Influencer Industry: the quest for authenticity on social media' to better understand one of ou...

Nov 15, 2024•29 min

Canada’s secret list of alleged Nazi war criminals

In the mid 1980s, the Canadian government tasked a commission to investigate whether a considerable number of alleged Nazi war criminals settled in Canada after the Second World War. The Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals was headed by retired Quebec judge Jules Deschênes. It looked into this issue, but for decades, many of the commission’s findings were not made public.That includes a list of 900 names of alleged Nazi war criminals who lived in Canada, and the files and documents about them...

Nov 14, 2024•26 min

Hasan Piker on how Trump seized online culture

For decades, conservatives worried about losing the fight for cultural relevancy.  During his campaign, Donald Trump aggressively courted Gen Z and young millennial men — appearing on podcasts, streams and alongside influencers, discussing everything from combat sports to cocaine use. A PR campaign which many have credited, in part, for his election victory.  Hasan Piker is a rare political streamer on the American left; on election day, his coverage garnered 7.5 million views overall....

Nov 13, 2024•42 min

Why can't Canada have fast trains?

In Canada, we've spent a lot of time and money studying the prospect of high-speed rail, as enjoyed by many other countries — transit infrastructure that has transformed countries like Japan and France. This week, the federal government is expected to announce plans for a high-speed rail line between Toronto and Quebec City, which could finally make that prospect a reality. But are Canadians — and their politicians — ready to spend the billions of dollars it would take? Does this particular line...

Nov 12, 2024•25 min

How Murray Sinclair changed Canada

Murray Sinclair — an Anishinaabe lawyer, judge, senator, and, most consequentially, the chair of the Truth and Reconciliation commission — died last week at the age of 73.  Sinclair helped bring to light the stories of thousands of Indigenous residential school survivors, and provided Canada with a roadmap towards reconciliation. Today we have a documentary featuring the voices of three people who knew Murray Sinclair well, about the personal lessons he taught them and how he transformed th...

Nov 11, 2024•29 min

What could Trump’s win mean for Canada?

The election of a new U.S. president reverberates around the world, but none of America's partners are as intertwined economically, politically and culturally as Canada.  With respect to trade, the future of NATO, immigration, and the culture wars, both Canada and the United States are inextricably linked.  Today, CBC Washington correspondent Alex Panetta and CBC senior business reporter Peter Armstrong on the longstanding political relationship between Ca...

Nov 08, 2024•30 min

How the Democrats lost to Trump again

As the dust settles and Donald Trump celebrates a remarkable victory, we examine what went wrong for the Democrats this time around. How did they fail to speak to working class voters of all backgrounds? Should President Biden have left the race sooner? And where does the party go from here? After a long night of covering the election, Alex Shephard, senior editor at The New Republic, joins us for a post mortem. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit:  https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontb...

Nov 07, 2024•26 min

America embraces a second Trump presidency

For months, Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris rallied voters with a message: "We're not going back." But as the election was finally called in the early hours of Wednesday morning, it's now clear that America does in fact want to go back. Back to Donald Trump. Keith Boag, longtime CBC Washington correspondent, joins us to break down how this happened, and what a second Trump presidency could hold. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit:  https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontbu...

Nov 06, 2024•25 min

A viewer's guide to U.S. election night

It’s been an incredibly tight race between presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump ahead of today's U.S. election.  The winner is expected to be decided by razor-thin margins in seven battleground states: Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona. From understanding the path to victory, to the value of the blue wall states, to the final stretch of the campaigns, CBC Washington correspondent Paul Hunter guides us through what to consid...

Nov 05, 2024•21 min

What’s up with these political polls?

With the U.S. election just a day away and a Canadian one that could be called very soon, we’re all spending a lot of time talking about polls. But how exactly do they work and what happens when they get it wrong? Last week, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe won another majority government for the Saskatchewan Party despite some polls beforehand showing the NDP in the lead. And famously, the polls highly underestimated Donald Trump’s voter base in both 2016 and 2020. So to better understand the ins...

Nov 04, 2024•24 min

Front Burner Presents: The Flamethrowers Ep. 6

Donald Trump takes the style, tactics, and issues straight from the right-wing radio playbook. The only question now is: Where does it go from here? This is episode 6 — the final episode — of The Flamethrowers, the story of how radio energized and then radicalized a conservative base. Hosted by Justin Ling. Listen to the full series here .

Nov 02, 2024•50 min

An undecided Palestinian Democrat in Michigan

In the Democratic presidential primaries in Michigan earlier this year, rather than voting for Joe Biden, more than 100,000 people marked “uncommitted” on their ballots. It was an anti-war protest, meant to send a message to Biden to make a permanent ceasefire happen in the war in Gaza — or risk losing those voters in November. That campaign spread nationally. And while Biden is no longer the Democratic candidate, the Uncommitted movement is still going — even though it has garnered significant ...

Nov 01, 2024•27 min

Why did Elon Musk go all in on Trump?

As recently as 2022, billionaire Elon Musk was saying that Donald Trump should "hang up his hat & sail into the sunset." But in recent months, Musk has become one of the most influential supporters of Trump's campaign to regain the presidency, from appearances at rallies to millions of his own dollars in funding. What prompted his change of heart? And how much might it have to do with the relationship his companies like Tesla, SpaceX and StarLink have with the U.S. government — both in terms...

Oct 31, 2024•22 min

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

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