Front Burner

Prime Minister Mark Carney campaigned on big promises and bold action to save a country in crisis. It's now been more than 100 days since his cabinet was sworn in, but details and tangible results are still thin on the ground. How much of a runway does he have to start delivering on his promises on things like national infrastructure, housing, and a trade deal with the United States?

Meanwhile, Pierre Poilievre has regained his ...

The unemployment rate for Canadians between 15 and 24 is at 15 percent, the highest it's been since 2010, not including the pandemic.

Why can't young people find a job? And how do these numbers fit into the wider health of our economy at the moment?

Economist and Atkinson Fellow on the Future of Workers Armine Yalnizyan is on the show to talk about these numbers, why they stand out and what could be done to pre...

Airstrikes and tanks continued pounding the outskirts of Gaza City over the weekend, as Israel’s plans to seize the strip’s largest urban centre continued. A much bigger operation, widely condemned by the international community, could begin within days or weeks.

This is all happening as the world’s leading authority on food crises is saying that Gaza City and surrounding areas — currently home to half of the territory’s populat...

Elon Musk wants a million people living on Mars within 20 years. Jeff Bezos imagines a trillion humans in space, living in a constellation of space stations the size of major cities within a few generations. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, is preparing for a future where rogue AI could destroy civilization, and is stockpiling land, gas masks, and gold in the event it leads to disaster. 

These plans, which appear ripped from the ...

Christian Zionism — the belief that the modern state of Israel fulfills biblical prophecy — has existed as a theological concept for well over a century. But in the past couple decades its political power and influence in the United States has surged, with many of Donald Trump's closest political allies among its adherents.

Today we're taking a look at the theological roots of Christian Zionism, how it became a political force i...

This summer is on track to being the second-worst wildfire season in Canadian history. It started earlier than usual with emergencies declared in the spring in Manitoba and Saskatchewan and is hitting locales that aren't typically fire-prone like Vancouver Island and Atlantic Canada. Meanwhile, fires from neighbouring provinces gave parts of southern Ontario some of the worst air quality in the world.

So what does this mean for ...

Over the last few days, US President Donald Trump has hosted a series of high-stakes talks to further the effort to end the war in Ukraine.

First, on Friday, there was the summit in Alaska — Russian president Vladimir Putin’s first time in the US in nearly 20 years. Then on Monday, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky arrived at the White House for his first time since his brutal confrontation with Trump in February. This time...

It was a chaotic weekend for anyone flying with Air Canada. The airline canceled hundreds of flights after 10,000 flight attendants walked off the job. Less than 12 hours later, federal jobs minister Patty Hajdu had ordered them back to work — but the union took the unusual step of defying that order and continuing the strike.

The main sticking points for the union had been wages and "ground work" — that is, pay for time spent w...

This week, Canada's housing department released a document with more details on the Liberal government's plans to scale up affordable housing in the country. It's now seeking feedback from the public about it.

Back in March, Prime Minister Carney vowed that his government would double the number of homes built annually in Canada to nearly half a million. This would be done through an entity called Build Canada Homes, which would...

Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has become the deadliest conflict for journalists in recent history. Among those killed was Anas Al-Sharif — one of the last remaining reporters in Northern Gaza, and one of the most recognizable media voices in the strip.

In July, the Committee to Protect Journalists said that the public smear campaign against him, led by the Israeli military, was part of an effort to manufacture consent to ki...

National Guard troops descended on Washington D.C. after U.S. President Donald Trump vowed on Monday to take back the nation's capital and clear the streets of what he calls "crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor". It comes after the President spent the better part of the last week taking aim at D.C.'s leadership, homeless population and how crime there is "out of control" – a statement that stands in sharp contrast to official figu...

35 years ago, the Kanien'kehá:ka of Kanehsatà:ke squared off with the Canadian army to defend their territory, culminating an armed standoff now known as the Oka Crisis, or the Siege of Kanehsatà:ke.

Now, some community members worry that same territory is being threatened by an out-of-control boom of unregulated cannabis megastores with alleged connections to organized crime. And a governance crisis exacerbated by that siege in...

Last month, RCMP charged four people for their alleged involvement in a plot to forcibly take land north of Quebec city in what Mounties called an incident of "ideologically motivated violent extremism". Three of the men were denied bail last week.

The accused, they charged, had planned to create an anti-government militia, but even more startling: two of the four people charged by RCMP are active members of the Canadian Armed F...

Bad Bunny, one of the most-streamed artists on the planet, is in the middle of his 30-concert residency in San Juan, Puerto Rico titled No me Querio Ir de Aqui, or "I don't want to leave here". Much like his latest album Debí Tirar Más Fotos, it is both a celebration of Puerto Rican culture and heritage but also a statement against the political and economic forces that have worked against the well-being and livelihoods of people o...

Alberta's Battle River-Crowfoot is about as safe a riding as Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre could hope for as a place to regain a seat in the House of Commons in a byelection later this month. But he's facing pushback from some locals who feel they're being used as a means to an end by someone who won't represent their interests in Ottawa. The riding is also the latest target of the Longest Ballot Committee protest movement —...

Later this month, OpenAI is expected to release the latest version of ChatGPT – the groundbreaking AI chatbot that became the fastest growing app in history when it was launched in 2022.

When Sam Altman first pitched an ambitious plan to develop artificial intelligence, he likened it to another world changing, potentially world destroying endeavor: the Manhattan Project, in which the U.S. raced to build an atomic bomb.

The sa...

Since Oct. 7, according to Gaza’s health ministry, over 60,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military campaign against Hamas. Recently, the ministry also began reporting a new kind of toll: deaths by starvation. 180 people, including 93 children, are now reported to have died from hunger. This comes after months of Israeli restrictions on humanitarian aid.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has maintained...

What does a reporter do when they receive a cold call from one of the most horrific serial killers in Canadian history?

The killer: Clifford Olson, who murdered at least eleven children in the 1980s. The reporter: Arlene Bynon, who recorded her jailhouse calls with Olson for years. Alongside legendary journalist Peter Worthington, Arlene spent hundreds of hours on the phone with Olson. It was kept secret from his prison guards; ...

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced plans to officially recognize Palestinian statehood in September — if certain criteria are met — marking a radical departure on Canada’s position in the region.

Evan Dyer is a reporter with the CBC’s parliamentary bureau. He joins the show for a discussion about this landmark moment in Canadian foreign policy, the status of Canadian arms sales to Israel, and the implications that...