Front Burner

Today on Front Burner, an intimate look at mental health struggles amongst workers in Alberta’s oilpatch with the co-producer of a new documentary on the subject, ‘Digging in the Dirt.’

Not even one week into the federal election campaign and the major parties are already struggling with controversial candidates. Today on Front Burner, host of Power and Politics Vassy Kapelos and CBC senior reporter Katie Simpson join us to break down how the leaders are reacting and go through the latest platform promises.

In Please Explain, voters come on Front Burner to ask their biggest questions about the election. First up: Marieke Walsh from the Globe and Mail explains the party platforms on climate change, and how the carbon tax is doing for Canada.

Today on Front Burner, CBC’s Moscow Correspondent Chris Brown takes us through Vladimir Putin’s decades-long grip on power, and whether or not a popular protest movement and falling approval numbers could signal change for Russia's political future.

This week, hundreds of fans gathered in London to celebrate the launch of The Testaments, the much-anticipated sequel to Margaret Atwood's best-selling novel, The Handmaid's Tale. Similar events took place around the world, and the novel has already been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Today on Front Burner, Slate's book critic Laura Miller on the political and cultural relevance of The Hand...

The federal election campaign is set to kick off today, and so does our weekly election panel. Today on Front Burner, Power and Politics host Vassy Kapelos and CBC’s polling analyst, Éric Grenier.

With the next federal election just around the corner, and environmental issues top of mind for many Canadian voters, the Green Party is riding high on a rise in support. With this momentum comes a lot of pressure on the party’s long-time leader to deliver gains at the polls. Today, as part of our federal election profile series, we’re digging into the life and political legacy of Elizabeth May wi...

Tennis analyst Caitlin Thompson on how Bianca Andreescu won the U.S. Open this week, becoming the first Canadian to take a singles championship.

Jayme introduces Party Lines, a new CBC podcast and a political primer for every kind of concerned citizen. The National’s Rosemary Barton and BuzzFeed News’ Elamin Abdelmahmoud are here to take you beyond the talking points and provide the insights you need to navigate the upcoming federal election. Head to cbc.ca/partylines for more.

This week, Hurricane Dorian delivered catastrophic damage to the Bahamas. It was a Category 5 storm when it hit the island nation, with winds of up to 295 km/hr, and Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said it left "generational devastation." Today on Front Burner, in the age of intensifying storms, two very different portraits of hurricane recovery. Janise Elie of the Guardian describes the devastation...

In 2007, a man known as the "Berlin patient" was cured of HIV through a stem cell transplant. It was an incredible accomplishment that researchers all over the world scrutinized for years to come. He was the first and only documented case of a person who has been cured of HIV until March of this year, when a second patient was declared HIV-free from a similar treatment. Today on Front Burner, a co...

Who owns the Arctic? There are several countries who think they have a right to the North Pole or the rich territory around it. Russia has a military presence close by, and recently fired two missiles from the Arctic Ocean as a show of strength. Mike Pompeo, the U.S. secretary of state, has called the Arctic "the forefront of opportunity and abundance" for the United States. And Canada is among th...

Today on Front Burner, with the federal election expected to be called soon, Power & Politics host Vassy Kapelos joins us to talk about Justin Trudeau’s gamble on an interview with a U.S. comedian, Andrew Scheer’s position on gay marriage and abortion, and Maxime Bernier’s tweets about teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg.

Supreme Court Justice Rosalie Silberman Abella was the first Jewish woman to serve on Canada’s Supreme Court, has an internationally-recognized legal legacy, and is the longest-serving judge on the bench. So why don’t more Canadian’s know who she is? Pulitzer prize-winning journalist David Shribman got a rare interview with the judge, as her time on the top bench winds down. Today on Front Burner,...

The Bloc Québécois was once a powerful federal political party, forming the official opposition in 1993 and holding around fifty seats in the House in the mid to late 2000's. But the last two elections have nearly wiped the Bloc from existence, and the party has had a revolving door of leaders. This year, Yves-François Blanchet took over the reins. Today on Front Burner, as part of our series on t...

This week, Johnson & Johnson was ordered to pay $572 million US to the state of Oklahoma, in a landmark case that saw the court find the company liable for the state's opioid crisis. Johnson & Johnson says it will appeal the ruling. Purdue Pharma is also proposing to settle thousands of cases. These developments are the beginning of a far-reaching legal effort, in both the U.S and Canada, to hold...

Over the weekend, star NFL quarterback Andrew Luck retired at the prime age of 29, citing his many injuries as the reason. The past few years have seen revelations about the physical toll NFL players face, including CTE and other potential brain injuries. Today on Front Burner, Globe & Mail sports columnist Cathal Kelly joins us to discuss how this shock retirement might shape pro football, and wh...

On Monday, Canada pledged $15 million to help fight fires in the Amazon rainforest. That's on top of the $26.5 million the G7 pledged at the conclusion of this weekend's gathering in France. But why are so many of these fires ablaze in the first place? Today on Front Burner, we talk to Jake Spring. He's a Reuters correspondent based in Brazil and the host of the Foreign Correspondence podcast who...

Anna Mehler Paperny first tried to kill herself when she was 24 years old, just as she was finding success as a journalist. In her new memoir, Hello I Want to Die Please Fix Me: Depression in the First Person, she talks unflinchingly about her experience with depression and tries to better understand the illness.

An army reservist from a town near Winnipeg is being investigated by the RCMP and the Canadian Military for suspected ties to a shadowy militant neo-Nazi group called “The Base.” Today, we’ll talk to VICE national security correspondent Ben Makuch and VICE senior reporter Mack Lamoureux about the tactics and inner workings of the group, including its similarities to al-Qaeda. We’ll also touch on t...

Elected on a campaign of "sunny ways" and "real change," the expectations were high for Justin Trudeau when he came into power in 2015. But after a series of scandals, the public perception of Canada's prime minister might be shifting ahead of the fall election. Today, we continue our series on the federal party leaders by speaking to CBC News political reporter Aaron Wherry. He has a new book out...

Last week, a gunman in a white SUV pulled up to a restaurant on a busy Toronto street in broad daylight and shot the restaurant's owner dead. Police are saying the fatal shooting was targeted. And according to the Toronto Star's crime reporter, the victim may have had links to the mob. Today on Front Burner, Peter Edwards shares his thoughts on the brazen drive-by shooting, the connection to anoth...

This week, Elections Canada is at the centre of a firestorm over what it classifies a partisan issue during the federal election campaign period. Today on Front Burner, Elections Canada spokesperson Natasha Gauthier explains why the agency may deem climate change a partisan issue. Katie Gibbs, executive director of the non-partisan, non-profit Evidence for Democracy also shares her perspective on...

In Canada and around the world, women who’ve been struck with a rare form of cancer are joining class action lawsuits against the manufacturer of the Biocell textured breast implant. Today, on Front Burner, CBC investigative journalist Valérie Ouellet explains how this particular breast implant flew under the radar for so long.

Kenora Ontario, a small city in the province’s northwest, is in the midst of a drug crisis. In an attempt to address the situation, the city has temporarily shut down the only homeless shelter in the area. Some see it as a positive move, others see NIMBYism. Today on Front Burner, TVO reporter Jon Thompson, helps us understand the roots of the city’s drugs crisis and how it’s affecting the local p...