Front Burner

There's been talk of high-speed rain for generations in Canada and while there's been a lot of studies and political promises, there's not a lot to show for it.  Finally, plans are taking shape for the Alto high-speed rail project, which could get you from Toronto to Montreal in just 3 hours. Except well before construction begins, it's facing push back. Farmers in Ontario and Quebec are worr...

Thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes throughout B.C. due to wildfires over the past week. The province warns that the fires could get worse in the coming days. The list of communities devastated by wildfires, and the intensity of the fires themselves, keeps growing. What was once a rare event has become disturbingly common. So why haven't we figured out a better way to fig...

Last Thursday, spurred by a flurry of online rumours, 72,000 migrants arrived from neighbouring Morocco to the shores of Ceuta, a tiny Spanish enclave in North Africa. According to Spanish media, around 142 of them died at the border, mostly from drowning or trampling. Within two days, most of the migrants left, largely on their own accord. But what’s lingered is a political crisis for the pr...

Earlier this summer, the federal government announced that it would build up to ten new nuclear reactors in the next fifteen years to help achieve Canada’s energy goals. Canada isn’t alone in making this kind of big investment in nuclear power. Plans are underway to build more reactors in the U.S., China, India, and across Europe.  Still, there are concerns about costs, safety and the long te...

On October 19th, Albertans will head to the polls to vote on whether or not there should be a referendum on staying a part of Canada or separating. So, how is the campaign to keep Canada united faring? What about the campaign for Alberta to leave?  Today on Front Burner, guest host Jason Markusoff in Calgary speaks with Toronto Star opinion writer Richard Warnica about his reporting on both c...

IDEAS, hosted by Nahlah Ayed is a daily podcast that explores how ideas over place and time shape our world. There are 19 centibillionaires and a growing list of 3,000 billionaires worldwide. So it might not surprise you that the richest one per cent possesses nearly half of the world’s wealth. History has never seen such an extreme concentration of wealth. Some economists argue the battle of the...

As the face of America's COVID-19 response, Anthony Fauci was a nearly constant presence in American life throughout the pandemic. To some, he was revered, reaching a sort of celebrity status. But to a movement on the American right, he eventually became a villain, accused not simply of mishandling the pandemic, but of misleading the public about its origins, and even bearing some responsibility f...

A key part of Carney's deal to get a new pipeline built in Alberta involved the creation of the Pathways Project, which he touted as "the world's largest carbon capture and utilization and storage project." Canadian political leaders, both Liberal and Conservative, have been pinning high hopes on carbon capture technology for two decades, as a way to keep oil flowing while limiting emissions. But...

This week, Sam Altman, CEO and founder of OpenAI, got much of the tech world talking after declaring that we are living in the singularity: a theoretical point when machines, with artificial intelligence, surpass human ability and are able to grow and improve beyond our control.  This comes less than a week after OpenAI admitted that two of its models went rogue and hacked another start-up. I...

The Trump administration is increasingly conflating communism and the political left, casting them as threats to American national security. The rhetoric is beginning to take institutional form. The administration has directed federal agencies to investigate networks it says facilitate political violence, convened an international summit on so-called “far-left” terrorism, and published a report pl...

Today, the Gordie Howe Bridge is set to officially open to the public, connecting Windsor, Ontario to Detroit, Michigan.  Its ceremonial opening on Friday was a one-sided affair. It was originally supposed to be a joint ceremony with U.S. officials, but that was cancelled after President Donald Trump announced his plans to hit Canada with a new whack of tariffs.  That’s just one of the m...

As part of the federal government’s AI strategy, hyperscale data centres are being built across the country with many more projects being proposed. But, communities are pushing back, and it’s capturing the attention of local governments. Projects in Ontario, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan have been the subject of protests and petitions for moratoriums. A recent Angus Reid poll reported that 68...

On Wednesday morning, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to bomb one Iranian bridge or powerplant every time a ship passing through the Strait of Hormuz gets shot at. It’s yet more evidence that the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran is over, after twelve days of renewed military escalation. As the conflict wades into this next phase, we look at how things fell apart, the damage taken on both...

On Monday night, US President Donald Trump signed orders to impose a 50 per cent tariff on a wide swath of Canadian goods ranging from hockey sticks to envelopes to Christmas decorations. The tariffs are scheduled to take effect on August 19th. Prime Minister Mark Carney says he spoke with Trump on Tuesday morning and that they have agreed to intensify negotiations in the coming weeks.  Jayme...

It’s no secret that there are factions in the Conservative movement in Canada and that not everyone gets along. But over the last couple of weeks Conservative infighting has spilled out into the public with barbs in speeches, podcasts, and social media.  Nick Taylor-Vaisey is the Ottawa bureau chief with Politico Canada. He breaks down the sniping and what it says about the state of the Conse...

In a nationally televised address last week, U.S. President Donald Trump repeated claims about fraud and foreign interference in the 2020 election and announced the release of declassified documents he says reveal a government cover-up. But with the midterms approaching, there remains much concern that Trump's speech, and his years-long conspiracies, aren't really about the election he lost but th...

As the planet heats up, wildfire seasons are getting worse. Wildfires have caused mass destruction to homes and community infrastructure in Collins First Nation. Thousands of people have been evacuated from their communities across Northern Ontario. Fires continue to rage across the country. Even those of us living in cities, safe from the flames, are feeling the effects. Toronto briefly had the w...

Recently, in the U.S., there’s been a wave of self described democratic socialists running for and winning elected office. There is the improbable case of Zohran Mamdani who won his New York mayoral campaign. But there are other high profile races where establishment incumbents are being unseated by much younger insurgents. From Denver to New York, Washington D.C. to Seattle. Even here in Canada,...

The Gaza peace plan and ceasefire, announced last October, is in limbo. Israeli forces have continued their strikes and expanded control of the strip beyond the lines originally agreed upon in the plan. Humanitarian aid is trickling in but there are still concerns about how it’s being distributed. The U.S.-led Board of Peace, created to handle the resolution of violence and reconstruction in Gaza,...

Lindsey Graham, the U.S. Republican Senator from South Carolina, died on Sunday at 71. Before Donald Trump won the Republican nomination in 2016, Graham was a high-profile critic of the future president, calling him “hateful,” a “kook,” and a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot.” But over time, Graham became a key ally, championing Trump through his many controversies.   Will Saletan o...

It’s no secret that Prime Minister Mark Carney thinks Canada should reduce its dependence on the U.S. It’s a message he delivered on the world stage in Davos. But new reporting from the Wall Street Journal illustrates how Carney has been making this pitch to European leaders behind the scenes, and how he’s become a central figure in the attempts to reimagine the West’s alliances.  Today on Fr...

Mark Carney met with Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman in Saudi Arabia this week, aiming to strengthen ties and build up our economic relationship in areas like AI and critical minerals. It’s been 26 years since a Canadian Prime Minister visited the country, despite the fact that they’re a major trading partner. The relationship had come with friction over things like Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, h...

The U.S. midterms are coming up this fall. They could flip control of the House and possibly the Senate. But both parties are dealing with difficult messes.  Progressive Democratic candidate Graham Platner’s Senate campaign in Maine imploded after allegations of sexual assault, which has laid bare a war in his party. Republican infighting ground Congress to a halt. And Senator Mitch McConnell...

This week, Prime Minister Carney is in Turkey to attend the NATO summit. Ahead of leaving for Ankara, he announced the procurement of 12 submarines from the German company TKMS, in what’s expected to be the largest military procurement deal in Canada’s history. Carney says that these submarines, along with a slew of other military investments, will allow Canada to assert our full sovereignty in th...

In the aftermath of an act of public violence, attention often turns to a document. Sometimes it’s a letter, a blog post, or a video, that gets referred to as a manifesto. Very quickly the public coalesces around these documents. Journalists struggle to consider what to print, authorities debate whether they should be released, and researchers scour them for clues. Following the recent incel attac...