Front Burner

He was “Captain Canada” last year and at one point, the most popular conservative in Canada. But now Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s taken a hit in the polls after a series of decisions that include the purchase and almost immediate sale of a $28.9-million private jet that his critics are calling the “gravy plane”.  Two recent polls have seen the Ontario PCs drop enough to find themselves almost...

We are entering week two of a dramatic trial that pits two of the biggest names in tech against each other: Elon Musk and Sam Altman.  Musk is suing OpenAI, a company that he co-founded, claiming they betrayed their original mission in order to chase profits. According to him, the fate of the world is at stake.  But OpenAI says it’s all sour grapes, and that he's just upset that they did...

Following the recent shooting connected to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, false-flag conspiracy theories emerged almost instantly online.  A false-flag is a covert operation designed to appear as though it was carried out by someone other than the true perpetrator. And the complicated thing is that false-flag operations are not just the figments of paranoid imagination. Throughout hi...

The shockwaves triggered by the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran have made clear the extent to which the global economy relies on oil, and the U.S. dollar. It’s no accident.  So today we are going to try and understand how and why the U.S. and Saudi Arabia created this system, and how severely it’s being tested by this war. David Wight is our guest. He’s a lecturer at the University of North Carolina...

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government has delivered its spring economic update amidst an unpredictable global backdrop. It included a better-than-expected deficit figure and billions of dollars for skilled trades workers, as well as a sovereign wealth fund. Senior business correspondent Peter Armstrong breaks down what the document tells us about Canada’s finances and the Liberal government’s pr...

For years, Jim Balsillie has been one of the loudest voices in the country to speak out about how data is being used to concentrate wealth and power, and to manipulate our behaviour. That’s included helping the province of Manitoba take aim at algorithmic or surveillance pricing, where businesses offer different prices based on consumers' personal data. As well as being the former Research In Moti...

On Saturday night, as U.S. President Donald Trump sat on a dais in front of a room full of journalists, gunshots were heard inside the building. An armed man was taken down by Secret Service members, and the President was evacuated, unharmed.  Paul Hunter was there, and describes what happened in that room, and what to make of what may be the third attempt on Trump’s life. Paul is CBC's senio...

Nearly two months into the war on Iran one thing remains clear: Iran has secured strategic leverage that before this war began, seemed unlikely. And it's left many asking why the United States’ military - the most powerful in the history of the world — so often finds itself unable to win wars or satisfy its strategic objectives? All kinds of military analysts and historians believe the U.S. has lo...

In his 14 months as director of the FBI, Kash Patel has not only overseen a radical transformation of the bureau, but has also embroiled himself in a seemingly endless list of controversies. Late last week, The Atlantic published a scathing story with allegations of erratic behavior, excessive drinking, and unexplained absences. In response, Patel filed a $250 million defamation suit against the m...

A conflict playing out in British Columbia is testing the limits of reconciliation in the province. It’s a fight that involves resource extraction, democracy, political flip-flops, and a test of values. It has set off fears that people may not own their homes and raised the legal prospect that Indigenous groups could veto laws around resource extraction. Others have called this fearmongering, and...

Jayme sits down with Nobel laureate economist, Daron Acemoglu, a professor at MIT, and one of the leading thinkers about labour, politics and technology.  He’s the author of the best-selling book “Why Nations Fail” and the forthcoming work “What Happened to Liberal Democracy?”. They talk about the decline of western liberal democracy, the alienation of the working class, AI, and more. This wa...

During the spring, farmers around the globe work to get the seeds and enough fertilizer in the ground to maintain the growing season. If that doesn't happen, food prices spike and farmers could face lower crop yields.  That is very much at risk of happening right now because of the Strait of Hormuz’s closure. About a third of the world’s seaborne fertilizer goes through the strait and prices...

U.S. President Trump announced Thursday that Israel and Lebanon have agreed to a 10-day ceasefire, following diplomatic talks in Washington. This follows an intense period of violence, in which more than 2100 people have been killed in Lebanon, including a Canadian citizen. Prime Minister Mark Carney has condemned Israel’s actions in Lebanon, which he characterized as an illegal invasion. CBC...

The energy crisis spurred by Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz is wreaking economic havoc on much of the world; especially in Asia and Europe, where shortages have already forced people to ration fuel, travel less for work, and pay more for food.  And it could all get even worse, because this week, after ceasefire talks fell apart, the Trump administration imposed a blockade of its own....

Pope Leo has once again criticized the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, saying “I don’t think the message of the gospel is meant to be abused in the way some people are doing, and I will continue to speak out loudly against war.”  This is not the first time the pontiff has criticized Trump's behaviour and policies. Trump responded with a Truth Social post calling the Pope “weak on crime and terrible...

With last night’s byelection wins, Prime Minister Mark Carney is now leading a majority government. But after five floor crossers joined the Liberals, spanning from the NDP to the social conservative wing of the Conservative party, there are questions around what exactly that government stands for. Aaron Wherry is a senior writer with CBC’s parliamentary bureau. He’s here to talk about how a major...

After a fourth Conservative MP crossed over last week, the Liberals are now only one seat shy of an official majority. And with two out of three byelections taking place today in safe Liberal ridings, it’s widely expected that Mark Carney and the Liberals will get their majority government after the results come in. Tonda MacCharles is the Toronto Star’s Ottawa bureau chief. She’s here to talk abo...

After six weeks of war and a fragile ceasefire Iran is going into high-level talks with the U.S. battered but defiant. Whether any kind of real agreement can be reached remains to be seen. The U.S. and Iran are extremely far apart in their demands. Vali Nasr is a professor of international affairs and Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University and the author of “Iran’s Grand Strategy: A Polit...

By the end of the day on Wednesday, the tenuous ceasefire between Iran and the U.S. was already being tested.  Israel continued to bomb Lebanon heavily, and Iran attacked Gulf countries. There was confusion over whether the Strait of Hormuz was open or not.  And then there are the larger questions. What was the real cost of this war? Who came out on top? Today on the show The Economist g...

Today on the show we are going to talk about a grave threat made by U.S. President Donald Trump towards Iran where he wrote that unless the Strait of Hormuz is opened up “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” It set off a whole day of worried speculation. Could this mean the obliteration of Iran’s energy grid and water plants? A nuclear strike? Or could it be some...

Today, a check-in on Israel’s expanding wars in Iran and Lebanon, violence in the West Bank and details of a new law that could see the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of deadly attacks. Jayme welcomes Israeli journalist Meron Rapoport back to the show. Meron has been reporting on Israel for over 30 years, and was formerly the head of news at Israel's Ha’aretz newspaper. He’s now an edito...

Deepfake porn is a billion-click industry built on stolen faces, while the people making it hide theirs behind screens. Hosted by journalist Sam Cole, Understood: Deepfake Porn Empire traces the decades-long rise of synthetic porn, the targets who are fighting back, and the global investigation that led to its Canadian kingpin. Understood takes you deep inside the seismic shifts reshaping our worl...

As the Iran war wraps up its fifth week, the increasing price on fuel and food is wreaking havoc on consumers and businesses around the world. Global markets are also incredibly volatile. Right now, the economic fallout is more pronounced in the Gulf, Asia, and Europe, but analysts say the shockwaves could soon be felt in North America. Liz Hoffman is the business and finance editor at Semafor, an...

Since the beginning of the U.S.-Israeli war, Iran has been publishing AI propaganda videos online trolling the United States, and Donald Trump.  Conversely, the U.S. military, and Donald Trump specifically, have spent the better part of the last year publishing all kinds of war and military content and propaganda of their own.  Propaganda has always been part of war. But in 2026, somethi...

Today we’re joined by Alex Panetta, journalist and former Front Burner guest host. You may remember him as a regular on this show when he was a CBC Washington correspondent. Alex is now on sabbatical studying artificial intelligence and has been grappling with a lot of the big questions we have been thinking about too. So today we’re going to talk about the ways he’s been using AI in his own life...