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, and political repression. Canadian-Saudi relations hit an all-time low during Justin Trudeau's tenure, and Dennis Horak was expelled from his post as Canada’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia in 2018. Now, almost eight years later, he’s applauding this move by the current government to renew the relationship. Horak joins us to talk about how relations soured, and why he thinks we’re headed back in the right direction.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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 the public for weeks, following a hospitalization. Alex Shephard, senior editor of the New Republic, joins us to break down the state of each party heading into these consequential elections. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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 focusing on the Arctic. Earlier this year – the Liberal government announced a plan to modernize and expand the military’s footprint in the North. This is all in a bid to assert sovereignty in a region where Russia and China’s influence is growing.Anne Shibata Casselman is a science journalist based in B.C. She makes the argument that the path to asserting that sovereignty must put the people who live on the land and have claim to it at the centre. She just wrote a deeply reported piece in Maclean’s about this, called “The Arctic Needs Defending. Canada Isn’t Ready.”For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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 these questions, and more. What ingredients make up a manifesto? What are they designed to accomplish? And what responsibility do the rest of us have when confronted with one?Today, we’re joined by J.M. Berger, author of several books including “Extremism.’ He’s also a senior research fellow for the Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Aaron Wherry, senior writer at CBC's parliamentary bureau and good friend of the show, is here to parse through last week’s big pipeline announcement with Alberta and the deal that Prime Minister Carney made with B.C. to get it all done.Plus: The 24 Sussex national home reno nightmare turned crowdfunding campaign.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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’s biggest defence and security trade show in Ottawa to hear what those in the defence industry – and those protesting outside – think about the plan. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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 21st.For generations Europe built its cities, homes, public spaces and tourism industry around the assumption that summers would be hot, but bearable. That assumption is beginning to change. The Guardian’s Europe environment correspondent Ajit Niranjan joins us to talk about what happens when a whole continent discovers it was built for a climate that no longer exists.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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, especially Gen Z, fuelling the demand for prediction markets and other high risk and speculative ways to make money? And what are the risks of companies like Wealthsimple leaning into the gamification of the economy?Charles Martineau, Associate Director of Research at the Rotman Financial Innovation Hub at the University of Toronto, joins us to talk about the phenomenon and what the data tells us about who actually wins on prediction markets.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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 has been a growing discourse calling those facts into question. Researchers, commentators and some politicians have really zeroed in on the 2021 discovery of suspected graves near a former residential school in Kamloops.Academics and Indigenous leaders call this residential school denialism — similar to Holocaust denialism. Many of them have called for adding the denial of residential school history to the Criminal Code as a form of hate speech.Earlier this month, a Nunavut senator brought forward a motion to amend Bill C-9, the Liberals’ anti hate bill, to do just that – but it was voted down.Sean Carleton and Niigaan Sinclair have been tracking the rise of residential school denialism in Canada. Their book, “Truth Before Reconciliation: Confronting Residential School Denialism”, comes out this September.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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 natural gas into Germany.In the days and months that followed, all kinds of theories emerged about who might have staged the attack, and why. Now, after years of investigations, intelligence leaks, arrests, and reporting across Europe, a much clearer picture of what happened that night has emerged.Bojan Pancevski is the Chief European Political Correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, and the author of the new book ‘The Nord Stream Conspiracy: The Inside Story of the Explosions That Shook the World’He joins us today to discuss one of the most consequential acts of infrastructure sabotage in recent history and the small group of Ukrainian civilian divers who, according to his reporting, pulled it off.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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 real world violence. Elle Reeve is a correspondent for CNN and the author of Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics. She joins the show to explain why young men are drawn to this movement – and why it keeps leading to violence. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Margaret Evans is CBC’s Senior International Correspondent. She just returned from a week-long reporting trip in Tehran, speaking to Iranians on the ground about the impact of the war and the preliminary peace agreement.In a Canadian exclusive, CBC News reported from Iran with permission of the country’s government, who put restrictions on journalists but have no say over what we decide to publish or broadcast.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Toronto police announced this week that nearly 30 recent shootings across the Greater Toronto Area are linked by a multi-layered gun-for-hire network. They say teens have been recruited through encrypted messaging apps to carry out attacks, from targets linked to local tow truck and waste management disputes, to synagogues, Jewish schools and even the US consulate. In almost all the cases, they filmed the acts for proof of payment. Now police say they want to know who’s hiring them and how far this network spans.Abby O’Brien is a reporter at the Toronto Star who has been following Toronto organized crime networks and the recent news. She walked us through what we know so far.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit:  https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Andrew Tate – the controversial British-American influencer, and self-described misogynist – has millions of followers around the world.He often tells young men that they’re victims of a feminized society and that they need to reclaim their “natural masculine imperative for power”.Tate became even more famous after he and his brother were subject to a police raid on their Romanian property in 2022, due to suspected human trafficking. In the years after, they’ve also been investigated for rape and sexual assault. The brothers deny all wrongdoing.Heidi Blake is an investigative reporter who recently wrote a piece for The New Yorker that meticulously peels back the industry that Andrew Tate built up: from an online porn empire, to a so-called educational network for men to learn how to recruit women into “sexual slavery”. She walks us through her findings.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Reporter Francis Farrell of the Kyiv Independent recently took a harrowing journey alongside a group of Ukrainian soldiers into what they describe as the kill zone.They travelled by foot down a long road swarmed by drones, littered with shell casings and bombed out vehicles. He captured the trip in a documentary that paints a stark and dystopian picture of a war that is at once both futuristic and primitive.He joins us to talk about that trip, and about the broader conflict as Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy meets with other leaders at the G7, hoping to revive stalled peace talks.You can watch Francis’s documentary here.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

This week, after more than a hundred days of fighting, the United States and Iran have reached a preliminary agreement to end the war, set to be signed in Geneva this Friday. This deal is meant to end the fighting, open the Strait of Hormuz and as U.S. President Donald Trump put it, “let the oil flow”.Iran’s top military command has framed the deal as a defeat for the US and Israel.To talk about the peace deal and how Iran will emerge from this war, we’re joined again by Vali Nasr, Professor of International Affairs and Middle East Studies at the John Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and the author of ‘Iran’s Grand Strategy: A political history.’For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

A common refrain among those who support Albertan separatism is that they would like a deal similar to what Quebec earned through its decades-long fight for greater autonomy.So as Alberta heads towards its own referendum on a separation, we wanted to try and answer the question: What did Quebec actually get?Chantal Hébert is a longtime political reporter, commentator and panellist on CBC’s At Issue. She also wrote the book, “The Morning After: The 1995 Quebec Referendum and the Day that Almost Was”. She’s our guide.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

For decades Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates built a public persona as an unrelenting, tech visionary – and later as a global health and climate philanthropist. But that reputation has started to fracture, largely because of one man: Jeffrey Epstein.The partial release of the Epstein files revealed extensive communication between Epstein and Gates, his foundation, and people who worked for him. On Wednesday, Gates testified before congress in a closed door hearing. In his opening statement, he said that he “never witnessed nor had any indication that Epstein was engaged in ongoing criminal conduct”. He was unequivocal that he has never victimized anyone.Today, guest host Aaron Wherry, speaks with Emily Glazer, a Pulitzer prize winning enterprise reporter with The Wall Street Journal who's been covering Gates and his connection with Epstein for years.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Canada has introduced new legislation that puts big tech social platforms on notice: change your platforms to make them safer for kids, or children under the age of 16 will be banned from using them. Taylor Owen is back on the show to walk us through the proposed Safe Social Media Act and how it’d be enforced. He’s the Beaverbrook Chair in Media, Ethics and Communications at McGill University. He was also part of an expert panel advising the government on online harms, and a member of the AI Strategy Task Force.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

As Alberta hurtles towards a referendum on whether or not to hold a separation referendum, we wanted to take a look at how the campaigns on both sides are shaping up.Who are the players? Are they cohesive? Organized? Charismatic?Jason Markusoff, who covers Alberta politics for CBC, is here to walk us through it.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

For decades, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, better known as AIPAC, has been one of the most powerful lobbying organizations in Washington.It has helped shape U.S. policy toward Israel, cultivated relationships with lawmakers from both parties, and more recently spent millions of dollars helping elect candidates it supports and defeat those it doesn't.But after the war in Gaza, Israel's conflicts with Iran and Lebanon, and a dramatic shift in public opinion among many Democrats, AIPAC's influence is facing new scrutiny. Candidates are increasingly being asked whether they'll accept its support, some are actively distancing themselves from the organization. Today on Front Burner, Alex Shephard of The New Republic explains how AIPAC became one of the most powerful forces in American politics, and why, for the first time, its political influence is facing meaningful resistance.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Following the critically acclaimed series Hunting Warhead, Season 2: Hunting the Suicide Salesman follows host Daemon Fairless as he takes us inside another dark corner of the internet: the online world helping people take their own lives. When people around the world started killing themselves with an obscure substance a few years ago, police were unaware that something – someone – was tying many of these deaths together.It took grieving families and investigative journalists to piece together what was actually happening and to trace the source of the substance – first, to an online suicide forum and then, to a salesman in Canada: Kenneth Law. Police believe he sent more than 1200 shipments to 41 countries… and may be connected to more than 145 deaths around the world.More episodes of Hunting the Suicide Salesman are available wherever you get your podcasts, and here: https://link.mgln.ai/HTSSxFB

Canada has released its long-awaited national artificial intelligence strategy. It comes as a significant portion of the country feels uneasy about what impact the technology will have. Evan Solomon, Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation, speaks with Jayme Poisson about AI safety and the potential for job losses.

Canada has entered a “technical recession,” leading to fingerpointing in the House of Commons and Donald Trump renewing his calls to make Canada the 51st state.Many economists are disputing that this is a recession at all. But whatever you call it, the economy is weak right now. It was weak before the trade war and it’s been made weaker by the tariffs, the threats and the uncertainty.So how deep is this ditch that we are in, and how can we get out?Frances Donald, Senior Vice President & Chief Economist at RBC, joins us.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew is planting his federalist flag, wading into the Alberta separatism debate and making the case for a major new nation building project in his province. Today we speak to the former journalist, and first ever First Nations provincial Premier about keeping the country together, the need for stronger tech regulations and Indigenous consultation.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

At Donald Trump’s election victory event in 2024, he was flanked on stage by a collection of family, senior staff, and Ultimate Fighting Championship president and CEO, Dana White. The UFC has, in many ways, functioned as the sporting arm of the MAGA movement. Fighters and the organization itself have pledged incredible support to Trump, and the President has become a ringside fixture at fights. This union is set to culminate later this month with a cage fight scheduled to be held on the White House south lawn. Luke Thomas is an MMA journalist and host of the Morning Kombat podcast. He joins the show to talk about the upcoming White House fight, Trump’s decades-long presence in the world of combat sports and how the UFC - once maligned as a bloodsport - became one of the most important cultural institutions in the conservative movement.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Negotiations for an end to the war in Iran took a baffling turn last Monday when U.S. President Donlad Trump declared via social media that he would be willing to end the war in exchange for a number of countries in the Middle East and South Asia joining the Abraham Accords.The Accords are a series of diplomatic agreements that normalized relations between Israel and some Arab states. They were originally touted as a Trump foreign policy victory, and a step towards a more peaceful Middle East. But six years on, the region has descended into widescale war.Today we’re speaking with Matt Duss. He is the Executive Vice President at the Center for International Policy. He was also a foreign policy advisor to Bernie Sanders from 2017-2022. He’s co-written a piece for Foreign Policy that argues that the Abraham Accords laid the groundwork for this new era of violence in the Middle East.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

What happens when a human becomes intimately enmeshed with a chatbot? From people who’ve married their bots or who grieve their loved ones with the help of AI, host Victoria Hetherington (author of The Friend Machine) dives into the stories of the people who have invited these digital avatars into their hearts, minds, and even beds. And asks what do we gain and what do we stand to lose? Our intimacy, our resilience, even our grasp on reality? This latest season of Understood looks at who made the decisions that allowed chatbots to move way beyond digital assistants and into the most intimate parts of our lives.Understood takes you deep inside the seismic shifts reshaping our world right now. From online porn and crypto chaos to the rise of tech oligarchs, deepfake AI, and the broken promises of the internet.More episodes of Understood are available wherever you get your podcasts, and here: https://link.mgln.ai/AIxFB

CBC parliamentary reporters Aaron Wherry and Catharine Tunney are back to talk about the big political stories of the week including: Prime Minister Mark Carney losing high-profile MP Steven Guilbeault over climate policies, digital surveillance blowback from Bill C-22, and how Carney will handle Alberta separatism.Correction (June 1, 2026): A previous version of this episode said part of Bill C-22 would give authorities warrantless access to basic subscriber information. In fact, the threshold for authorities to obtain the information has been lowered, but would require authorization from a court.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

There’s an old adage from the days of the Watergate scandal: “follow the money.” And in Donald Trump’s second term as President of the United States, these words remain incredibly relevant.From foreign investments, to real estate, cryptocurrency, personal stock trades, taxpayer settlement funds, personal gifts, and presidential pardons the news environment has been flooded with reports about the ways in which critics say Donald Trump is using the Presidency to profit personally. Zack Beauchamp is Senior Correspondent with VOX. He joins the show to discuss the flood of corruption allegations surrounding Trump, the politics of self enrichment, and the ethical loopholes that make much of it possible.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Western Premiers gathered in Kananskis, Alberta this week to discuss shared issues like trade, defense and energy projects. But another topic overshadowed the meetings: Alberta separatism. Late last week, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced the province will hold a referendum on the prospect of independence in the fall. But rather than a straight question about leaving Canada, the referendum will ask Albertans whether they support another referendum on seceding. The question has both separatists and federalists upset.Kathleen Petty, host of the CBC podcast West of Centre, and Jason Markusoff, writer and producer with CBC in Alberta, join us to talk through the fallout. What does this mean for the country, for Albertans and for Smith herself?For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

As we inch closer to the July 1st CUSMA review deadline, there still aren’t any formal trade talks between Canada and the U.S. planned. The government says there are informal talks happening at different levels. Other recent developments aren’t great. U.S. officials have blasted a substantial hike in what big streamers have to pay into Canadian content, and they’ve suspended a joint defense board that’s been around for 80 years. This week as talks between the U.S. and Mexico begin, Canada is excluded. Our returning guest is Eric Miller, the president of Rideau Potomac Strategy Group and a fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In a major escalation of its months long “maximum pressure” campaign, the United States announced it has indicted Raúl Castro, former president of Cuba, over the downing of two planes flown by a group of Cuban exiles targeting the regime in 1996.It was a move officials within the Trump administration had been signalling would happen after the director of the CIA met with Cuban officials in Havana. We speak to Peter Kornbluh, an author and senior analyst at the National Security Archive specializing in Cuba, about whether this signals a Venezuela-style strike on the country.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Prime Minister Mark Carney has condemned what he described as the “abominable treatment” of flotilla activists detained by Israeli authorities. His statement came after the release of a video showing activists from around the world blindfolded, restrained, and forced face-down on the ground as Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir toured the detention site.Up to a dozen Canadians were among those detained, according to the group who organized the flotilla. All have since been deported. Today we’re joined by Heidi Matthews, legal scholar and assistant professor at York University’s Osgoode Law School, who traveled alongside an earlier flotilla as a part of a legal support vessel. She joins to discuss the politics and history of the Gaza flotillas, and the tradition of nonviolent direct action.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Earlier this month, 30 Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to the Trump administration with a remarkable request: to publicly acknowledge that Israel has nuclear weapons. Israel is widely believed to be the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East. But unlike other nuclear powers, Israel has never officially acknowledged its arsenal.That nuclear policy is known, in Hebrew, as “amimut” or opacity. And for decades the United States has largely gone along with it. Today, historian Avner Cohen, author of ‘Israel and the Bomb’, joins us to explain how Israel built its nuclear program in secret, and why that silence still matters today.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Late last week, Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced a new energy agreement that paves the way for a new pipeline to the West Coast. It includes an industrial carbon pricing deal, and is contingent on the approval of the Pathways project— a proposed carbon capture, utilization and storage facility.The agreement was panned by environmentalists who said, among other things, that the Liberals are sacrificing the climate goals they spent the better part of a decade legislating.Climate journalist Arno Kopecky writes for publications like The Narwhal and Canada's National Observer. He’s here to talk about whether Mark Carney is betraying his own environmental bona fides and a decade of Liberal groundwork.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Alberta premier Danielle Smith is calling a court ruling “antidemocratic” after judge struck down the petition which hoped to trigger a separatist referendum this fall. The ruling came in part because it found that the province failed to consult with First Nations whose treaty rights would be affected by a vote to separate. Still, separatist groups and the province are appealing the decision and looking to forge ahead.But how does Alberta’s separatist movement stack up against other secessionist causes and how should Ottawa handle it? The Globe and Mail’s Andrew Coyne joins us.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In The Cult Queen of Canada from CBC’s Uncover, a tiny Saskatchewan town faces a surreal crisis when a cult leader calling herself “The Queen of Canada” occupies an abandoned school. As neighbours turn on each other, a retired teacher leads resistance in a story about what happens when online extremism spills into the real world. Hosted by Rachel Browne.Crime. Investigation. Revelation. Uncover brings you explosive, high-caliber true crime year-round. From CIA mind control to serial abuse, mysterious disappearances to wrongful imprisonment.More episodes of The Cult Queen of Canada are available wherever you get your podcasts, and here: https://link.mgln.ai/CQOCxFB

The ceasefire in Iran has been in place for five weeks, with no clear end in sight to the war. The latest peace negotiations fell apart, with U.S. President Trump saying that the ceasefire is on “life support.” So what happens now? What kind of pain will Iran be able to tolerate? And how can the U.S. get itself out of this quagmire?The Economist’s Middle East correspondent Gregg Carlstrom joins us to discuss the latest.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Today on the show, the President of Princeton University, Christopher Eisgruber, joins us. He makes a defense of the role of post secondary institutions at a time when they are at the centre of a culture war and the target of an incredibly hostile White House that casts universities and professors as the enemy.He discusses the limits of free speech, his views on civility, artificial intelligence and more.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

President Trump arrives in Beijing today for a high-stakes summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping. He’s bringing with him a long list of tech and business titans like Elon Musk, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg.There’s a lot on the line.The two countries have been embroiled in a tit-for-tat trade war for years – which escalated last year after Trump’s Liberation day tariffs. They came to a truce in the fall but the relationship is still fraught. In addition, the war in Iran looms. China is an ally to Iran and the largest buyer of its oil.Jonathan Cheng is the Wall Street Journal’s China bureau chief. He walks host Jayme Poisson through what to expect in the coming days.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Recent polls show that Canadians are increasingly concerned about the growth of AI.And yet, the AI race is hurtling forward with few guardrails. In many cases, people aren’t even being given a lot of choice around using it. Many jobs now include the use of AI.Today, we are talking about that tension and more with technology ethicist Tristan Harris.He’s been sounding the alarm about AI growth, arguing that the tech industry is currently in a dangerous race without the proper checks and that the consequences will be profound.Harris is the co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, which he founded after working at Google. He’s also featured in the new documentary The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

On the week where Alberta separatists should have been celebrating a major milestone on their quest to split the country apart, they are instead facing a police investigation and the anger of people across the political spectrum.Separatist group the Centurion Project released the names, addresses and phone numbers of all eligible voters in the province during a political recruitment gambit that could undermine their whole mission. We’re joined by Jason Markusoff who covers Alberta politics for the CBC. He’s going to talk us through what this all means for the future of Alberta's independence movement.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Australia was the first country to adopt a ban. Canada’s federal government is signaling that something is coming from them soon. A recent Angus Reid poll found 75 per cent of Canadians support the idea.But even among those who acknowledge the harm social media causes for young people, the answer is not so clear cut.We’re joined by Taylor Owen, the Beaverbrook Chair in Media, Ethics and Communications at McGill University. He’s a part of the federal government’s expert advisory group on online safety and on its AI strategy taskforce. He makes the argument that a ban isn’t a silver bullet and that we need to focus on making social media safer for everyone.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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 on par with the Liberals, a party that’s currently helmed by an interim leader. Doug Ford’s personal approval ratings are worse, with more Ontarians unhappy with him than not. Can he turn this around? We’re joined by Robert Benzie, Queens Park Bureau chief for The Toronto Star. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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 so well after he stepped down. New York Times technology correspondent Mike Isaac has been covering the trial in Oakland, California. He joins us to break down the stakes of the trial, as well as what it’s taught us about the AI race. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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 history, governments have used deception, staged attacks, and manipulated attribution to justify war, consolidate power, and shape public opinion.Today, we’re joined by Kathryn Olmsted, author and distinguished professor of history at University California, Davis, to discuss the history of false flag operations, conspiracy culture, and the relationship between real government deception and modern political paranoia.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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 Greensboro and the author of Oil Money: Middle East Petrodollars and the Transformation of U.S. Empire, 1967–1988.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

On Saturday, a car bomb killed pro-war Russian commentator Darya Dugina on the outskirts of Moscow. Dugina was the daughter of ultranationalist philosopher Alexander Dugin, whose influence on Russian President Vladimir Putin is widely debated — leading to speculation the bomb was meant for Dugin himself. Today on Front Burner, The Guardian's Moscow correspondent Andrew Roth explains who Dugin is, the competing theories for who was responsible for the car bombing, and what impact the attack could have on how the war in Ukraine is fought.