Front Burner

Today on the show we are going to discuss the complete gutting of the Washington Post, an American institution. The paper that broke Watergate. The paper that just nine years ago told the world “Democracy Dies in Darkness”.

And we’re going to place this latest news in the context of a much broader political assault on journalism, and the further consolidation of information in the hands of the billionaire class of Trump allies.

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Last week the U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent issued a very public warning to Prime Minister Mark Carney. At the centre of that warning is the USMCA trade deal, which kept Trump’s tariffs from unleashing even deeper damage to the Canadian economy.

A mandatory review of the US-Mexico-Canada pact is kicking-off now. It has turned into a high stakes negotiation, with the U.S. poised to squeeze Canada and Mexico and to use the ne...

Jeffrey Epstein’s vast connections with the rich and powerful, the world over, are on full display in the over 3 million files and documents released by the U.S. Justice department late last week.

There’s mounting evidence of Epstein’s relationships with people like President Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and tech titan Peter Thiel, as well as behind the scenes dealmaking ...

Around 73 thousand people have been detained in ICE facilities across the United States over the past year. That’s a 75 per cent increase from right before Donald Trump took office. At least 38 people have died in ICE custody since then. 

It’s all part of the Trump administration’s rapidly expanding immigration crackdown, which has included the addition of over one hundred new facilities. One of those facilities, in south F...

Pierre Poilievre easily won his leadership review in Calgary on the weekend with 87.4% of the vote. Today, senior Parliamentary bureau writer Aaron Wherry talks about the convention, whether it guarantees Poilievre’s future and what challenges still lie ahead for the Conservative leader. Plus, why a press conference at a grocery store prompted election speculation.

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www....

In just over a decade, the Conservative Party of Canada has lost four elections, picked three new leaders, and turned on two of them when they failed to become Prime Minister. As the party votes on Pierre Poilievre’s future as leader of the Conservative Party, Front Burner speaks to Conservative insiders, Abacus Data CEO David Coletto and senior parliamentary writer Aaron Wherry to consider the path the Conservatives took to this p...

Over the last few weeks, the Trump administration has explicitly or implicitly borrowed from the Nazi tradition on social media.

Specific passages or iconography from the Third Reich have been repurposed in the context of the government’s own legislative program today. The adoption of these extreme symbols, dog whistles and phrases is part of a re-mainstreaming of fascist and Nazi ideas more broadly.

Ali Breland, a staff writ...

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has weighed in on the separatism movement in Alberta. Bessent has said that the province is a “natural partner” to the U.S., and that it has “great resources”.

While Bessent is certainly the most high profile U.S. official to muse about Alberta separatism, he hasn’t been the only MAGA supporter to chime in. Donald Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon and Republican congressman Andy O...

Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump set off a firestorm with comments dismissing the military contributions of fellow NATO members during the war in Afghanistan. 

This follows the president’s aggressive bid for Greenland, a self-governing territory of NATO-ally Denmark, which brought into question whether NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, could survive without America, its strongest and richest member. 

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Massive anti-ICE protests in Minneapolis intensified over the weekend, in the wake of the second fatal shooting of an American citizen involving federal law enforcement agents in the city this month. On Saturday, border patrol agents shot and killed Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse.

Today, we’ll be talking about Stephen Miller, Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy, and how the deadly ICE surge i...

Donald Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ says it has a plan for the future of Gaza. Critics say that strategy is full of holes, and that the true intention of the board extends far beyond the war ravaged territory. 

Today we look at how a U.S. 20-point plan for a post-war Gaza evolved into a body that some fear could undermine the United Nations and further erode international order.

Jayme Poisson speaks with Hugh Lovatt, a Senio...

It was an eventful World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this week, with striking speeches by both the U.S. President and Canadian Prime Minister. For his part Donald Trump talked for more than an hour on an array of topics, including his desire to acquire Greenland. His speech came a day after Mark Carney made international headlines announcing the end of the old world order as he sees it, and the need for a new path forward ...

In a provocative speech to the World Economic Forum on Tuesday, Prime Minister Mark Carney made the case that the rules of international economics and politics are “in the midst of a rupture, not a transition”.

Carney went on to say that middle powers like Canada need to work together to find their own coalitions to survive and stand up to countries using economic coercion – a clear reference to the Trump administration. 

Prime Minister Mark Carney is at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this week, as the situation with Greenland continues to escalate. 

Carney’s Davos trip is coming on the heels of a visit to China and Qatar where the Prime Minister made deals with both countries. Last year, he called China the biggest threat to Canada’s security, but now he talks about a “new world order” and says “we take the world as it is, n...

Anti-ICE protests continued throughout Minnesota over the weekend, as they have for nearly two weeks now. Since the shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis, ICE agents have been getting in confrontations with the people they are targeting, and the citizens attempting to observe and document ICE’s actions.

The city and state are on a razor’s edge — trying to observe and protest while not giving U.S. President Donald Trump an oppo...

A mass protest movement has gripped Iran and is shaking the foundations of that country’s ruling regime. Thousands of protesters have been detained and rights groups say more than 2,500 people are dead, including one Canadian citizen.

With Iranian officials signalling plans for “quick” executions, U.S. President Donald Trump issued threats of his own, hinting at military intervention.

Will the U.S. throw its military weight b...

Potential American military intervention in Iran amid ongoing protests and violence. The shooting death of a 37-year-old mother in Minneapolis at the hands of an ICE agent. A criminal investigation into the chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve.

Astead Herndon is a podcast host and editorial coordinator with Vox. He breaks down another seismic week in American politics. 

Our colleagues in CBC's Washington bureau — Katie Simp...

Mark Carney arrives in Beijing today to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. It’s the first time in nearly a decade for a Canadian Prime Minister to do so, and the stakes are high.

Carney has to balance his handling of two problematic superpowers during these talks.

On the one hand, he wants to double non-U.S. exports abroad in the next decade and China is the second largest market in the world. On the other, a closer...

The seizure of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro by military force. Promises to "take back" the Panama Canal. Massive tariffs on Brazil. Threats to take action against cartels in Mexico.

Donald Trump's foreign policy in Latin America in recent months has been chaotic, even contradictory at times. But it all seems to be part of what Trump has referred to as the "Donroe Doctrine": a reinvention of the Monroe Doctrine that saw Am...