Front Burner

The Liberals, Conservatives, and NDP have released their platforms. What exactly are they promising to do on issues like housing, climate change, crime and justice and the cost of living? We’ve gathered a collection of experts to break down all the details and hear from economist Mike Moffatt, climate journalist Arno Kopecky, CBC senior business reporter Anis Heydari, and CBC Senior writer Peter Z...

Pope Francis brought a lot of firsts to the Catholic Church. He was the first from Latin America, and under him, the church became increasingly globalized and diverse. He spoke up for LGBTQ rights, for the people of Gaza, and for migrants and refugees around the world. In 2022, he apologized for the Catholic Church's role in Canada's residential school system. But his death on Monday comes at a co...

On Drugs looks through the lenses of history, pop culture and personal experience to understand how drugs have shaped our world. Because even if it’s just caffeine or ibuprofen, there’s a good chance you’re on drugs right now. More episodes of On Drugs are available at:  https://link.mgln.ai/Q5X33U

As the federal election reaches the homestretch, four party leaders squared off in Montreal Thursday evening in the only English-language debate of the campaign. Liberal leader and polling frontrunner Mark Carney took heat from all sides as the Conservatives' Pierre Poilievre, the NDP's Jagmeet Singh and the Bloc's Yves-François Blanchet kept the barbs coming his way all night. Aaron Wherry is a s...

With just over a week until election day, Canada's main party leaders go head to head tonight in the only English language debate.  So, where does the campaign stand? Is anything shifting? How do people feel about the leaders at the moment? Where are parties drawing their biggest support and losses from?  David Coletto, the CEO of the polling firm Abacus Data, joins the show today to tel...

A big part of Donald Trump’s global tariff regime targets the Chinese economy in a bid, he says, to force the country into a deal favorable to the United States. Despite this, officials in China have been undeterred — claiming that tariffs will hurt Americans more than Chinese, and drawing comparison between the actions of Donald Trump and Mao Zedong’s ‘cultural revolution.’ Chinese officials have...

Three terms and a decisive majority under Stephen Harper. Erin O'Toole's leadership run — and subsequent castigation. Pierre Poilievre's meteoric ascendency to within striking distance of the country's top office. What do these things all have in common? Jenni Byrne, the longtime Conservative powerbroker running Poilievre's campaign, who has moved in the party's inner circles since first joining t...

Election day in Canada is only two weeks away. All the major parties have been holding rallies across the country, with some Conservative supporters bringing “Do you believe the polls?” signs to a party event. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is facing scrutiny over limiting media access, and Liberal leader Mark Carney is facing questions about his time working in the private sector and billio...

In the wake of 9/11, anthrax-laced letters unleashed a new wave of terror across the nation. But who was behind the attacks — and why has America nearly forgotten this story? As government buildings shut down and law enforcement scrambled to track the perpetrator, the FBI launched one of the largest and most complex investigations in its history. Untangling a web of scientific evidence and false l...

U.S. President Donald Trump announced a 90-day pause on much of what he calls "reciprocal tariffs" barely a week after first imposing them — while also implementing a 10 per cent tariff across the board on most countries, and a whopping 145 per cent tariff on China. Markets first soared at the news, then went back into freefall. Members of Trump's cabinet claimed this was the strategy all along. T...

On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a 90-day pause on his sweeping global reciprocal tariffs for all countries, except for China. Trump has long expressed his love of tariffs. Just last week, he spoke about how believes the U.S. was founded on tariffs, and that they could have helped the country avoid the Great Depression. Then, referring to the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, the...

Today our guest is Jason Kenney, the longtime federal Conservative MP and former United Conservative Party premier of Alberta.  Kenney worked closely for many years with now-Conservative party leader Pierre Poilievre, and he has been outspoken on the trade war with U.S. President Donald Trump. So today we’re having him on to talk about tariffs, the Canadian election, and tensions within the C...

Donald Trump’s trade war has revived calls for the building of east-west pipelines within Canada, as a way for the country to unleash its natural resources and reduce its dependence on the U.S. as its key trading partner. But do the economics of building new pipelines — or the logistics, or the environmental realities — actually make sense here? And what are the parties actually saying about them?...

U.S. President Trump’s latest and most severe tariffs have caused a bloodbath on the global markets and widespread economic anxiety. JP Morgan’s chief economist raised the odds of a global recession by the end of the year to 60 per cent, up from 40 per cent. People are looking at their jobs being eliminated in places like auto plants, and elsewhere in the manufacturing sector. Journalist Joe Weise...

FBI undercover agent Scott Payne’s job was to infiltrate the most dangerous gangs of our times: outlaw bikers, drug cartels and the international neo-Nazi networks hellbent on inciting a race war.  He was taking down these groups from within. And Scott was good at it — people confided in him their most audacious plans for mass violence and domestic terrorism. In the second season of White Hot...

Canada may have dodged the worst of Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs, but it didn’t emerge unscathed. U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed that he is going ahead with a 25 per cent tariff on "all foreign-made" automobiles – a devastating blow for the Canadian auto sector, plunging it into uncertainty. Aaron Wherry, a senior writer with the CBC’s parliamentary bureau, joins the show to discuss the f...

In the culmination of countless speeches, tweets and campaign promises, U.S. president Donald Trump has finally unveiled sweeping tariffs on goods imported into the country — from nearly every country it does business with. He dubbed it "Liberation Day," calling it the start of a new era of economic independence for the United States, saying it will bring jobs and industry back to the country. But...

Last week one of the U.S.’s leading scholars and thinkers on fascism announced his intention to leave his country, which he said was “tilting toward authoritarian dictatorship.” Jason Stanley will be leaving Yale and taking up a post at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs.  Stanley has been warning about the threat and rise of fascism in the United States since Donald Tr...

As the Liberals ride strong, support for the NDP is collapsing. Most polls now show their support at less than 10 per cent — half of what it was just three months ago. Some data suggest they could lose three quarters of their seats in the house, and that they’re at risk of losing official party status. How did the New Democrats get here? Why hasn’t leader Jagmeet Singh been able to turn policy win...

Just over one week into the federal election campaign and there's lots to talk about. From Mark Carney's first call with Donald Trump, after which the U.S. President pulled a dramatic change in rhetoric about Canada, to infighting and chaos in the Conservative ranks. CBC's Chief Political correspondent Rosemary Barton breaks down week one of campaigning in this pivotal election. For transcripts of...

Across the world an anti-Tesla campaign has been growing since Elon Musk began his work dismantling U.S. government institutions, and meddling in other country’s democracies.  The protests, dubbed “Trash Tesla,” are seeing regular folks and former customers selling their cars, dumping stock and picketing dealerships. Others are torching Tesla vehicles. As a result the U.S. attorney general sa...

The federal election has only been officially underway since Sunday, and a few stories are dominating the headlines. Both the Liberals and the Conservatives are facing allegations of foreign interference, which has once again resurfaced questions about why Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre refuses to get his security clearance to be briefed on such issues. Liberal leader Mark Carney continues t...

In a 2021 speech entitled ‘The Universities are the enemy,’ Vice President JD Vance laid out a plan for America’s universities saying in part “we have to honestly and aggressively attack the universities in this country.” Columbia University has become ground zero for the Trump administration's war on higher education. Following a year of pro-Palestinian protest on campus, Trump revoked $400-milli...

With the federal election underway, Pierre Poilievre’s political opponents have intensified their accusations that the Conservative leader is like U.S. President Trump. On Sunday, Liberal leader Mark Carney said that Poilievre mirrors Trump in language and intention, and that he followed the administration’s lead in proposing foreign aid cuts. For weeks now, the party has been putting out ads focu...

With trust in journalism eroding, disinformation — once fringe — is now mainstream. Much of it is spreading on social media. Today’s guest says the online media environment in Canada is more fragile and vulnerable to manipulation than ever before. A dangerous situation at the best of times — even more so during an election. Taylor Owen is a professor at McGill University, the Chair in Media, Ethic...