Front Burner

It’s no secret that there are factions in the Conservative movement in Canada and that not everyone gets along. But over the last couple of weeks Conservative infighting has spilled out into the public with barbs in speeches, podcasts, and social media. 

Nick Taylor-Vaisey is the Ottawa bureau chief with Politico Canada. He breaks down the sniping and what it says about the state of the Conservative party.

For transcripts ...

In a nationally televised address last week, U.S. President Donald Trump repeated claims about fraud and foreign interference in the 2020 election and announced the release of declassified documents he says reveal a government cover-up.

But with the midterms approaching, there remains much concern that Trump's speech, and his years-long conspiracies, aren't really about the election he lost but the midterm elections still to come.

Da...

As the planet heats up, wildfire seasons are getting worse. Wildfires have caused mass destruction to homes and community infrastructure in Collins First Nation. Thousands of people have been evacuated from their communities across Northern Ontario. Fires continue to rage across the country.

Even those of us living in cities, safe from the flames, are feeling the effects. Toronto briefly had the worst air quality in the entire world...

Recently, in the U.S., there’s been a wave of self described democratic socialists running for and winning elected office.

There is the improbable case of Zohran Mamdani who won his New York mayoral campaign. But there are other high profile races where establishment incumbents are being unseated by much younger insurgents. From Denver to New York, Washington D.C. to Seattle.

Even here in Canada, NDP leader Avi Lewis is a long-...

The Gaza peace plan and ceasefire, announced last October, is in limbo.

Israeli forces have continued their strikes and expanded control of the strip beyond the lines originally agreed upon in the plan. Humanitarian aid is trickling in but there are still concerns about how it’s being distributed. The U.S.-led Board of Peace, created to handle the resolution of violence and reconstruction in Gaza, has made little progress.

But ...

Lindsey Graham, the U.S. Republican Senator from South Carolina, died on Sunday at 71. Before Donald Trump won the Republican nomination in 2016, Graham was a high-profile critic of the future president, calling him “hateful,” a “kook,” and a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot.” But over time, Graham became a key ally, championing Trump through his many controversies.

Will Saletan of the B...

It’s no secret that Prime Minister Mark Carney thinks Canada should reduce its dependence on the U.S. It’s a message he delivered on the world stage in Davos. But new reporting from the Wall Street Journal illustrates how Carney has been making this pitch to European leaders behind the scenes, and how he’s become a central figure in the attempts to reimagine the West’s alliances. 

Today on Front Burner, ...

Mark Carney met with Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman in Saudi Arabia this week, aiming to strengthen ties and build up our economic relationship in areas like AI and critical minerals.

It’s been 26 years since a Canadian Prime Minister visited the country, despite the fact that they’re a major trading partner. The relationship had come with friction over things like Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, human rights abuses...

The U.S. midterms are coming up this fall. They could flip control of the House and possibly the Senate. But both parties are dealing with difficult messes. 

Progressive Democratic candidate Graham Platner’s Senate campaign in Maine imploded after allegations of sexual assault, which has laid bare a war in his party. Republican infighting ground Congress to a halt. And Senator Mitch McConnell has not been seen or heard by...

This week, Prime Minister Carney is in Turkey to attend the NATO summit. Ahead of leaving for Ankara, he announced the procurement of 12 submarines from the German company TKMS, in what’s expected to be the largest military procurement deal in Canada’s history.

Carney says that these submarines, along with a slew of other military investments, will allow Canada to assert our full sovereignty in the Arctic.

Today, we are f...

In the aftermath of an act of public violence, attention often turns to a document. Sometimes it’s a letter, a blog post, or a video, that gets referred to as a manifesto.

Very quickly the public coalesces around these documents. Journalists struggle to consider what to print, authorities debate whether they should be released, and researchers scour them for clues.

Following the recent incel attack in Montreal, we engage in the...

The Canadian defence industry can’t grow the way Prime Minister Mark Carney is proposing by just selling domestically. That’s why another aim of the Defence Industrial Strategy is to grow Canadian defence exports by 50%. So what could happen when the world comes knocking on our defence industry’s door?

This is part two of a two part documentary. Part one aired on July 2nd. 

For transcripts of Front Burner, plea...

Mark Carney ran for office promising to spend a whole lot more on the Canadian military. Since being elected, he’s poured billions of dollars into defence, and plans to roughly triple Canada’s defence expenditures in the next ten years. He’s also proposing to grow Canada’s defence industry revenues by 240%. 

Today, in part one of our two part documentary, senior producer Imogen Birchard heads to Canada&r...

This week, temperatures across much of Europe reached above 40 C. In parts of Spain and Portugal, it was hotter than the Sahara Desert.

Governments are telling citizens to stay indoors. Schools have closed. Wildfires have spread. Nuclear reactors have reduced their output because rivers have become too warm to cool them efficiently. The World Health Organization says Europe’s heat is responsible for 1,300 deaths since June 21s...

Investment company Wealthsimple is partnering with Kalshi to launch Wealthsimple Predict. It’s an app that’ll allow Canadians to place bets on things like Bank of Canada interest rates, job numbers and long term weather patterns.

This comes at a time where there’s growing scrutiny on prediction markets in the U.S. for misleading advertising and susceptibility to insider trading. So why are young investors, especial...

A warning: this episode discusses the trauma and harms surrounding Canada's residential school history. Please listen with care. 

So much of what we know about Canada's residential schools has been established as fact. More than 150 thousand Indigenous children and youth were taken from their families and required to attend these schools. Several thousand students died.

Although all of this is well-documented and verified, there...

In the fall of 2022, Danish authorities scrambled fighter jets to investigate a strange disturbance in the Baltic Sea. What they found was extraordinary.

An enormous geyser had opened up on the water’s surface. It was evidence that something deep below had ruptured with enormous force.

Just days earlier, a team of divers had planted explosives along Nord Stream, a multi-billion dollar network of pipelines carrying Russian natur...

On Monday morning, a 25-year-old man opened fire in Montreal, leading to a shootout that left three people dead.

A few hours later, police found a manifesto written by the shooter. It contained a laundry list of grievances but, more than anything, it bore the telltale signs of someone who had spent a lot of time immersed in the world of incels.

The incel, or involuntary celibate, movement was born online but has occasionally inspired...