Front Burner

Since the 1960s, Israel has been building settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank — settlements deemed illegal under international law, and condemned by the Canadian government. With the settlements has also come many documented cases of violence from Israeli settlers against the Palestinians whose homes are being bulldozed to build those settlements.Now, a new investigation by CBC's the fifth estate has found that Canadian charities have been indirectly funding organizations, including the Israeli military, that support the ever-expanding settlements. That includes issuing tax receipts on those donations — despite them running afoul of the rules governing registered Canadian charities.Cohost Ioanna Roumeliotis breaks down her team's reporting, and why critics say these donations are perpetuating violence that threatens the possibility of peace and a Palestinian state.We'd love to hear from you! Complete our listener survey here.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts.

After an anti-tariff ad commissioned by the Ontario government ran during the World Series, U.S. President Donald Trump pulled the plug on negotiations between his office and the federal government. It comes as Stellantis and General Motors announced they were moving some production to the U.S., affecting thousands of jobs on this side of the border. So we’re talking to historian Dimitry Anastakis about the importance of the Canadian auto industry, how it became so intertwined with America and what options the government has.We'd love to hear from you! Complete our listener survey here.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit:  https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts.

In the years since their consecutive World Series wins in the early ‘90s, the Toronto Blue Jays have had their ups, downs and bat flips. And heading into this season, the team wasn’t exactly slated for a deep playoff run.But now, the Jays are headed into game one of the World Series as underdogs against the richest team in baseball. And facing off against Shohei Ohtani, who might be the best player in the history of the game.We’re joined by Blake Murphy, the host of Sportsnet’s Blue Jays podcast Jays Talk Plus to talk about this historic run, the players who are endearing the nation and whether the Jays can win it all.This episode mistakenly used a fake clip of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. talking about the New York Yankees. It has been removed.We'd love to hear from you! Complete our listener survey here.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts.

Through the 1960s, the U.S. government waged a war on Black activism, and activism writ large. It was led by the FBI and its longtime director, J. Edgar Hoover.It was called COINTELPRO and was the FBI’s counterintelligence program created to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize” its targets.With the Trump administration’s crackdown on the American left through law enforcement campaigns and new directives, it raises the question: is a version of the FBI’s counterintelligence program back today? Beverly Gage, an historian and the author of G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century, joins the show to talk about COINTELPRO, the man who made it possible, and the ways the program continues to loom over American life today.We'd love to hear from you! Complete our listener survey here.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts.

Stephen Maher, a longtime federal politics reporter, is here to talk about Pierre Poilievre’s recent comments that the RCMP covered up for Justin Trudeau so he could avoid criminal charges and whether or not this will hurt or help his upcoming leadership review.Plus, fallout from carmaker Stellantis’s plan to move a plant from Brampton to Illinois and what it says about the state of trade talks with the U.S.We'd love to hear from you! Complete our listener survey here.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts.

Former FBI James Comey. Former national security advisor John Bolton. New York attorney general Letitia James. What do they have in common? All are now facing legal action from the U.S. government.Benjamin Wittes, editor-in-chief of the U.S. nonprofit publication Lawfare, breaks down the Trump White House's campaign of legal revenge against the president's rivals and critics, and where it could be headed next.We'd love to hear from you! Complete our listener survey here.

Over the last 10 days Israel and Hamas have observed a ceasefire that saw the return of hostages and prisoners to Israel, Gaza and the West Bank as well as deliveries of much needed aid to famine-struck Gaza since the deal was reached. However, the ceasefire has remained shaky and the possibility of a permanent end to the war is still uncertain. Israel carried out airstrikes throughout southern Gaza after it said Hamas militants fired at IDF troops in Rafah. Hamas has denied this. To parse through the events that led to those developments, we talked to William Christou, freelance journalist based in Jerusalem for The Guardian. We'd love to hear from you! Complete our listener survey here.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

This year, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Venezuelan opposition leader, María Corina Machado.In the announcement last week, the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee said Machado had earned the prize for her “struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy". The award comes at a time when the U.S. has taken an increasingly belligerent stance against Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro.So today we’re talking about Machado, the legacy of the Nobel Peace Prize, its controversial winners, who wins it and who doesn’t.Jay Nordlinger, the author of Peace They Say: A History of the Nobel Peace Prize, and a writer with the Next Move, a publication of the Renew Democracy Initiative, joins the show.We'd love to hear from you! Complete our listener survey here.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Marie-Philippe Bouchard has been in her role as President and CEO of CBC/Radio-Canada for a little under a year.Since her appointment, we’ve had a federal election that has spared the public broadcaster from defunding threats for now, but certainly not from a broad sentiment that the CBC needs change and evolution. This week, Bouchard unveiled her own five-year vision. Today, she joins the show to discuss the relationship Canadians have with the CBC, and what changes she thinks the public broadcaster needs to make.We'd love to hear from you! Complete our listener survey here.

At its peak, Marineland was the second most popular tourist destination in Ontario’s Niagara region after the falls. Visitors could get up close and personal with beluga whales, dolphins and orcas, and watch them perform in elaborate shows. Throw in a side of rollercoasters and other exhibits and you had a family friendly attraction built to last.But for years, the park has been mired in controversy and allegations of animal abuse. Business has declined to the point that the park is now closed to the public. However, several animals including 30 beluga whales remain trapped there. Marineland says it needs money or a new home for the whales, or else they might have to kill them.Liam Casey of the Canadian Press has been covering this story for years. He lays out what could happen to the whales, and what it all means for other parks like Marineland.We'd love to hear from you! Complete our listener survey here.

Canada's first ever minister of artificial intelligence, Evan Solomon, is spearheading what he's calling a "30-day sprint" to nail down Canada's AI strategy. The plan? To figure out a government approach to the technology in order to boost the Canadian economy.Today, we wanted to take stock of the state of the industry in Canada, and a closer look at the Liberal government’s strategy. What could it all mean for our jobs, our economy, society, and environment?Murad Hemmadi, a reporter with The Logic, joins the show.We'd love to hear from you! Complete our listener survey here.

Where did Elon Musk’s epic ambitions begin? In search of clues we return to his sheltered youth in apartheid South Africa, a world engineered for white supremacy. Along the way, we connect the dots between a bizarre White House ambush of South African president Cyril Ramaphosa to teenage Elon’s ego-powered quests in video games. Finally, was his “draft dodge” from military service a moral act or an opportunist’s exit? Know more, now. Understood is an anthology podcast from the CBC that takes you out of the daily news cycle and inside the events, people, and cultural moments you want to know more about. You can find Understood wherever you get your podcasts, and here: https://link.mgln.ai/FBxMoM

Today, if all goes well, a ceasefire will begin in Gaza.In phase one, Hamas has pledged to return all of the hostages, living and dead. For its part Israel will release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, while withdrawing troops to an agreed-upon line in Gaza and maintaining majority control of the territory.Beyond that, the details of Trump’s promise of a “strong, durable, and everlasting peace” are fuzzy, but for hostage families and people in Gaza, it’s a reason to hope. Producer Allie Jaynes brings us a documentary that gives an on-the-ground perspective of what these past two years have been like for Gazans — especially for children. We hear from a 12-year-old with a popular Instagram “cooking show,” a girl living in a crowded displacement camp, and a music teacher giving lessons to kids all over Gaza to help them “escape the weight of war through the freedom of music.”We'd love to hear from you! Complete our listener survey here.

Beyond the frontlines of the war in Ukraine, a shadow war between the Kremlin and Kyiv is escalating -- with covert assassinations, car bombs, civilian recruitment, and even the involvement of a terrorist group with a history in Canada. Today, national security reporter Ben Makuch examines how it’s transforming the character of the biggest land war since the Second World War -- and who might be winning.We'd love to hear from you! Complete our listener survey here.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

The term ‘Antifa’ derives from the German word for Antifascist — and the constellation of resistance movements largely created as a response to Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler. Today, Antifa describes a decentralized anti-fascist movement with local groups and unaffiliated activists all over the world. Many became aware of Antifascist organizing following  Antifa’s intervention at the white supremacist ‘Unite The Right’ rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. For the last decade, Antifa has come to symbolize progressive protest and movement building – engaging in doxxing,, property destruction, and street-level physical confrontations. In late September of this year, U.S. President Donald Trump officially designated Antifa a domestic terror organization. Mark Bray is an academic, scholar of European history and radicalism, and the author of several books including ‘ANTIFA — the anti fascist handbook.’ He joins the show to discuss the rise of antifascist movements from the 1930s to today, and why Trump’s terror designation recalls authoritarian crackdowns through history, both in the U.S., Canada and abroad. We'd love to hear from you! Complete our listener survey here.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Indirect talks between Hamas and Israel in Egypt are underway, with the goal of reaching an agreement on the first phase of U.S. President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposed peace plan. It would see the release of all remaining Israeli hostages by Hamas and potentially, over a thousand Palestinians detained by Israel as well as a ceasefire. The overall plan aims to end the war altogether.But after previous hostage exchanges and ceasefires have failed to bring a permanent end to the war, what’s different this time? Are they any closer to peace?William Christou, a freelance journalist working for The Guardian currently in Jerusalem, joins Jayme Poissonto parse through Trump’s plan, the talks so far and how people in Israel and Gaza are reacting to it all.We'd love to hear from you! Complete our listener survey here.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Aaron Wherry, senior writer at CBC's parliamentary bureau, is back today to talk Canadian politics.We get into Mark Carney’s upcoming trip to Washington and what it might mean for the possibility of some sort of trade stability with the United States.Plus, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says her province will propose a new bitumen pipeline to B.C.’s coast to the federal major projects office. But with significant opposition from indigenous communities and the B.C. government, is she just trying to pressure the federal government to get involved?We'd love to hear from you! Complete our listener survey here.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

When the book ends, the conversation begins. On Bookends, Mattea Roach speaks with writers who have something to say about their work, the world and our place in it. You’ll always walk away with big questions to ponder and new books to read.Bookends does not shy away from difficult conversations … and neither does Anna Sale, the host of the popular Slate podcast Death, Sex and Money. The show is all about diving into topics that get deep fast, and Anna expands on that promise in her book, Let’s Talk About Hard Things. In this special bonus episode, Anna joins Mattea to chat all about the book, podcasting and how her own outlook on tough topics has changed over the years. You can listen to Bookends wherever you get your podcasts, or here: https://link.mgln.ai/FB-Bookends

After Donald Trump was elected for a second time, historian Timothy Snyder wrote this in the New Yorker: “Trump has always been a presence, not an absence: the presence of fascism.” Today on Front Burner, Snyder makes that case again. His warning about fascism feels particularly relevant at this point in Trump’s presidency, as the U.S. sees an escalation in political violence, the deployment of federal law enforcement in major cities, and the proliferation of masked ICE agents on what critics call ‘roving patrols’ across the country.Timothy Snyder teaches at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs. He is the author of books like “On Tyranny” and “On Freedom”.We'd love to hear from you! Complete our listener survey here.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

The U.S. government has shut down after Republicans and Democrats failed to pass a spending bill before the end of Tuesday. Government services will grind to a halt and hundreds of thousands of federal employees face unpaid leave. How long is it expected to last, and could it have been avoided? Plus, President Donald Trump and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth held a rare gathering of the country’s top military leaders, detailing their new vision for the US military. We break it all down with Alex Shephard, senior editor at The New Republic. We'd love to hear from you! Complete our listener survey here.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts