Front Burner

Today is the sixth National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, where the country remembers the 150,000 Indigenous kids who were taken from their communities and forced to enrol in Indian Residential Schools. While there, they were subjected to widespread abuse and mistreatment. Thousands died before they could return home. There is a large historical record attesting to this fact. But tens of thousands of survivor testimonies are on track to be destroyed next year. These painful stories were heard and documented as part of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement agreement. Connie Walker is the host of the Pulitzer and Peabody prize winning podcast Stolen: Surviving St. Michaels which looked at her own father's experience at a residential school. She has been working to build a new archive of residential school survivor testimonies. She talks about the urgency of preserving these stories, at a time when there's an upswing in residential school denialism.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In just over five weeks, Americans will head to the polls for the midterm elections and the contours of the vote are taking shape.Republicans are defending narrow majorities in Congress. Trump's approval ratings are underwater, with the economy and cost of living a central concern. In some Republican races candidates are beginning to put some distance between themselves and the president.But what larger questions are Americans being asked to confront this November? Is this a referendum on Donald Trump? On the economy? On the war in Iran? Or will this be about the Democratic Party's attempt to carve out a coherent identity post-Biden? Alex Shephard is a Senior Editor at The New Republic. He's our guest today.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

A new investigation into the Tumbler Ridge shooter's use of ChatGPT has revealed some disturbing information. It has long been public knowledge that the 18-year-old had used the chatbot months before she killed her mother, half-brother, five students and an educator at school, before turning the gun on herself. That account was flagged and shut down.But a story in the American outlet Mother Jones reveals the extent to which Jesse van Rootselaar is alleged to have used a second chatGPT account right up to the day of the massacre. CBC has not independently verified this reporting.Mark Follman, the national affairs editor at Mother Jones, reported this story and has been looking closely at the role of ChatGPT in mass shootings and other violence. He joins Jayme to talk about what he found.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

The United States is getting older, and so, increasingly, are the people charged with governing it.The average age of a U.S. senator is 64-years-old and in the House it's 58, according to 2025 numbers. Dozens of elected officials are in their 70s and 80s. Presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump both turned 80 in office. As a result, Americans have seen questions about the age and capacity of their leaders become a central feature of the national conversation. What happens when the people at the top don't leave? And at what point does an aging society become a gerontocracy? Samuel Moyn is a political theorist and professor at Yale university. He's the author of several books, including 'Gerontocracy in America'. He's our guest today.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

On Tuesday, B.C. Premier David Eby called a snap election, two years into his term. He said the province needs to show a strong response to American aggression. This was just two days after the leader of the Opposition, Kerry-Lynne Findlay, resigned, following a tumultuous four months that included a string of firings and defections, leaks from caucus meetings, and allegations of spying. Eby's critics are calling his timing "cynical" and "profoundly undemocratic." It could also end up backfiring, since the election call has been a rally cry for unity on the right.Rob Shaw, who covers B.C. politics for CHEK news and Glacier Media, explains how divisions and dysfunction inside the B.C. Conservatives triggered a high-stakes political gamble in the province.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Earlier this week, Vladimir Putin's United Russia party won a record number of seats in the country's parliamentary elections. Putin is expected to frame the result as an endorsement of his war with Ukraine. And, according to Ukrainian intelligence, he may mobilize hundreds of thousands more Russian troops before the end of the year. All of this has Europe on edge. Because Russia hasn't just been targeting Ukraine – but Ukraine's allies too. In the last few weeks, a Russian ship fired flares at a Danish military helicopter, NATO jets shot down a drone over Lithuania, and Germany thwarted a suspected Russian drone attack at one of their airports. Many observers think Russia is intentionally trying to provoke NATO. But why? And what happens if NATO decides to fight back? Victor Jack, POLITICO's NATO reporter, joins us from NATO's headquarters in Brussels.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

On Sunday it looked like the United States was about to wade back into its fight with Ansar Allah, or the Houthis, the Iran-backed group in Yemen that has grown into a surprisingly powerful military presence in the region.Saudi Arabia had been asking for support after a series of Houthi attacks and advancements, which brought a major global shipping and oil chokepoint - the Bab el-Mandeb strait - under Houthi control.Iona Craig has been reporting on Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula for over a decade and she joins us to track the group's rise from a group of rebels from the mountains of northwestern Yemen to a geopolitical force.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Parliament returns today from summer recess, amid ongoing economic uncertainty and an unresolved trade war with the U.S. Prime Minister Mark Carney told MPs on Friday that this will be "a crucial session of the House of Commons" and vowed to introduce "some of the most consequential legislation not just of this government, but in decades." CBC's Chief Political Correspondent Rosie Barton joins us to talk about what we can expect in this session of Parliament, and Carney's balancing act for his ambitious agenda. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

It's been almost a month now since trade talks between the U.S. and Canada collapsed and Mark Carney's government walked away from a deal. Canadian retaliatory tariffs went into effect earlier this month and yet more U.S. tariffs hit this week. A new deal between the two countries is nowhere in sight. By and large — Canadians support this.But Sean Speer sees this a bit differently: he's wondering if Canada really should have walked away from the table, and asks if Canadians – in all their righteous anger – are thinking clearly about the path we're on now.Speer is the editor-at-large of The Hub and a former senior economic advisor to Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

At her State of the Union address yesterday, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, made a historic offer: she wants Canada to become the first “associate member” of the European Union.No one knows exactly what that will mean. Associate membership is a designation that doesn't currently exist in the EU.But Drew Hinshaw and Joe Parkinson think it could be transformational. They're two of the journalists who first broke this story in the Wall Street Journal, and they think this signals more than a changing relationship between Canada and Europe. It's a sign of a fundamental shift in the international order.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

For years, hundreds of thousands of Haitians living in the United States have been protected from deportation under a program known as Temporary Protected Status, or TPS. But, as of August, that protection is over as the Trump administration moves to deport Haitians en masse to a country still facing extraordinary political and humanitarian upheaval.The decision to end TPS comes after years of increasingly hostile rhetoric about Haitian migrants, including the false claim, amplified by Donald Trump and other Republicans, that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, were eating people's cats and dogs.So, what explains the U.S.'s now centuries-long fascination with Haiti, and how does Donald Trump's contemporary immigration regime connect to that story?Marlene Daut is a writer, scholar and author of several books on Haitian history, and a professor of French and African Diaspora Studies at Yale University. She is our guest today.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

It's been a remarkable week in the world of Artificial Intelligence. Last Tuesday, a researcher resigned from Anthropic, saying AI companies are "racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives." A current Anthropic employee agreed, saying he gives AI more than a 10 per cent chance of causing human extinction within the next 10 years.Then on Saturday, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay calling to slow the development of AI, so that safety measures can keep pace with the technology. His competitors, Sam Altman and Elon Musk, endorsed the idea.Gary Marcus is a cognitive scientist, an AI expert, and author of books including Taming Silicon Valley. He is a frequent skeptic of the AI industry's claims, but he saw some things he liked in Dario Amodei's essay. He joins us to talk about why this discussion is happening now, just how dangerous AI really is, and what we should do about it.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

This week, some of the biggest financiers in the world will be gathering in downtown Toronto along with Prime Minister Mark Carney and the country's premiers for an investment summit. The summit is part of Carney's plan to spur $1-trillion worth of investment in the country over the next five years. Senior business writer Peter Armstrong talks to Jayme Poisson about what's on offer, to whom, and considers the question: with all the uncertainty caused by the ongoing trade war is Canada really a safe bet?For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

As the trade war between Canada and the U.S. continued to deepen this week, U.S. commerce secretary Howard Lutnick and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum spoke ahead of a fourth round of negotiations between the two countries later this month. Today, we look at the view from Mexico, the other partner in the CUSMA trio. What are the big table stakes in Mexico's negotiations with the US? What kind of tightrope is Sheinbaum walking? And how could whatever happens between Mexico and the U.S. affect Canada? Alex González Ormerod is a Mexico City-based analyst and the founder and director of The Mexico Political Economist where he covers Mexican business news and policy for a global audience.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Many economists say the bond market is the most important financial market in the world. It sets the baseline for almost everything Canadians borrow: mortgages, car loans, lines of credit. And right now, it's looking pretty weird.30-year U.S. Treasury yields are the highest they've been since 2007, in the runup to the great financial crisis. The U.S. now spends more on interest payments than they do on defence.Canadian bond yields are rising too. But, on the whole, the market here seems more stable than it is in the U.S. At a press conference last month, Prime Minister Mark Carney assured reporters that “we have our house in order.”John Authers is a senior markets editor at Bloomberg, and he's on the show to explain why the bond market matters, and whether a shaky U.S. treasury market could be a boon for Canada.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

The U.S. announced a new string of bans and tariffs against Canadian products, set to go into effect later this month. This came after Canada imposed counter-tariffs against billions of dollars of American imports. As the trade war ramps up, we look to both sides of the border to see where it's all heading and what it would take to get back to the negotiating table. Politico's Ottawa Bureau Chief Nick Taylor-Vaisey joins us from Ottawa, alongside Politico's Washington-based international trade reporter Daniel Desrochers.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

This week will mark 25 years since the September 11th terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. Those attacks, by al-Qaeda, killed nearly 3000 people.What followed that tragedy was the 'War on Terror', characterized by a series of foreign wars and domestic security measures. The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, detention and torture at Guantanamo Bay and countless other prisons, and a mass surveillance system designed to go after any perceived threat on American soil.Spencer Ackerman is a national security reporter who has spent pretty much his entire career covering the aftermath of 9/11 and five years ago he released his book, 'Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 era Destabilized America and Produced Trump'. He joins us to talk about how this continues to shape U.S. politics today. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

The Mile Zero Murders investigates the baffling wave of disappearances and murders in the small town of Dawson Creek, B.C., a community struggling with a deadly local drug trade. Host Timothy Sawa explores missing person cases like that of Cole Hosack and Renee Didier, pursuing leads from grieving families, reluctant authorities and the drug dealers themselves. The question that drives this series is the same one that haunts this community: where is the justice?About UNCOVER: 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. Each season features a new host who is deeply connected to the story, committed to tracking down the truth. With over 30 seasons to choose from, Uncover represents the best in true crime.More episodes of The Mile Zero Murders are available wherever you get your podcasts, and here: https://link.mgln.ai/MZMxFB

In her piece for the Atlantic, “The end of reading is here”, Rose Horowitch makes the case that across the board in the U.S. – people are reading less. According to the National Endowment for the Arts, fewer than half of all American adults reported having read a book of any kind in 2022. Horowitch speaks with host Jayme Poisson about how this decline in reading has a dramatic effect on not only our leisure time and the education system, but also the way that we think and structure our society.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In just over a month, Quebecers will head to the ballot box. And, until recently, this election seemed like a foregone conclusion: the Parti Quebecois, running on a promise to hold another independence referendum, had been ahead in the polls for the better part of three years.Then, the Canada-U.S. trade talks collapsed, and Quebec's political future suddenly looks uncertain. The governing Coalition Avenir Quebec has surged from a distant fourth place, the PQ has shelved its referendum until after Donald Trump leaves office, and the U.S. commerce secretary has accused Mark Carney of “manufacturing” a fight over the French language to stop the sovereigntists from winning.Paul Journet is a political columnist for La Presse, and he unpacks what this election means for the province – and for the rest of the country.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

After a vote this weekend, the far right could take power in a part of Germany for the first time since WWII. Alternative for Germany, or AfD, is far ahead in the polls in a state election in Saxony-Anhalt. They're promising massive changes to immigration, education, and what they call "patriotic cultural policy." Their rise is testing the country's firewall strategy, which was designed to stop parties seen as extremist from gaining power. CBC's Jessica Singer speaks with guest host Jason Markusoff about her reporting from the region in the run-up to the election.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Protein was once mostly associated with body builders and elite athletes, but today it's advertised everywhere from cereal boxes to fast food restaurants.It's just one facet of a broader phenomenon: many are referring to apps and gadgets to count their steps, count calories, and check if they actually had a good night's sleep. But are our attempts to enact self-care actually making us self-obsessed?Writer and cultural critic John Semley joins guest host Matthew Amha to talk about the emerging culture of wellness, technology and self-improvement.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

This weekend, U.S. President Donald Trump posted an AI-generated video of an army of geese with orange hair, holding machine guns, defending what he's now calling "Lake America." It's just the latest provocation in this new phase of the trade war we've entered. Today, Parliamentary bureau senior writer Aaron Wherry joins guest host Jason Markusoff to discuss the Carney government's plan to weather the storm and how their decision to walk away from the deal with the U.S. is reverberating politically within Canada, from the ranks of the opposition to the Alberta sovereignty debate. Plus, the significance of Monday's three federal byelections. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

For most of its history, the WNBA existed on the margins of American professional sports. Its players were outspoken on race, gender and LGBTQ rights, while the league struggled for the money and attention enjoyed by men's sports. But today, the league has never been more popular.Women's basketball has entered a new era of mainstream attention, driven in part by stars like Caitlin Clark. But that attention has brought something else with it: the American culture war.Recently, a WNBA player has become a conservative media celebrity for her views on transgender athletes, former NBA players are trolling the league over the same issue, and even the Trump administration has taken an interest.Guest host Matthew Amha speaks to Seerat Sohi of the Ringer about how the WNBA got entangled in culture war issues and what happens when a league with a distinctive cultural identity suddenly finds itself with a much bigger, and more politically diverse, audience?For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

When trade talks between Canada and the U.S. broke down last week, one of the issues that reportedly came up was Canadian streaming rules that require platforms like Netflix to make Canadian and French-language content easier to find in Canada. Prime Minister Mark Carney said that Canada would not compromise on protecting French culture. But U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said language was never the issue – rather "past discriminatory laws that target U.S. streaming companies." Vass Bednar is the managing director of the Canadian Shield Institute, and she's spent years studying how American tech companies shape Canadian policy. She unpacks what Big Tech wants out of these trade talks – and what this latest rupture means for Canada's digital sovereignty.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

On Tuesday, in the ongoing trade war with our southern neighbour, Canada released details on counter-tariffs that will be imposed on a wide range of American products, matching the $28-billion worth of Canadians goods that have been tariffed since the weekend. It comes after days of heated rhetoric between US President Donald Trump, his officials and Canadian leaders, namely Ontario premier Doug Ford. But how is all of this registering for Americans? Especially with both parties in campaign mode ahead of the midterm elections?White House reporter for Bloomberg and Canadian living in Washington, Josh Wingrove, joins host Jayme Poisson to parse through the American reaction to the breakdown of trade talks, the ongoing escalations between Canada and the US, and the politics behind the Trump administration's maneuvers. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

U.S. President Donald Trump is threatening yet more tariffs, saying he'll increase levies on cars, trucks and steel to 50% on January 1. This latest announcement comes as new tariffs came into place on Saturday on a number of Canadian goods worth $28 billion after trade negotiations fell apart.Peter Armstrong, CBC's Senior Business Reporter, is back on the show to talk about what moving forward without a deal on these new tariffs means for the Canadian economy and what Prime Minister Mark Carney's promised “dollar-for-dollar” retaliatory tariffs could look like.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

On Friday, Canada's trade talks with the U.S. fell apart less than an hour before the deadline for new tariffs hit. While there had been positive signs earlier in the week, Prime Minister Mark Carney says the U.S. proposed new terms in recent days that were "uneconomic, unfair" and "called into question the reliability of any deal." Former Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole is a member of the Prime Minister's Advisory Committee on Canada–U.S. Economic Relations. He joins host Jayme Poisson to shed more light on what went wrong, and what could be coming next.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

On Thursday, Canadian trade representatives were in Washington for more talks amid a tentative trade deal with the U.S. Coming out of the meeting, Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc said that they were "very close" to reaching an agreement.Today, CBC senior parliamentary writer Aaron Wherry and Abacus Data CEO David Coletto are here to parse through what we know so far about the impending trade deal and talk about the political test Prime Minister Mark Carney will face in defending it. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In 2020, the politics of racial justice appeared to be everywhere: the killing of George Floyd sparked one of the largest protest movements in American history, and progressive ideas about policing, prisons, racism and inequality moved into the political mainstream.But many of the central demands of the millions who took to the streets were ultimately not met.Six years later, some of the politicians and activists who came of age during that period now appear to be distancing themselves from it. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently described the politics of that era as “Woke 1,” saying: “Woke 1 was crazy.”So, what happened?Scholar, professor and author Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor joins Front Burner to talk about the legacy of that protest movement, and what happened to the wave of progressive ideas that followed it.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Late Tuesday night, U.S. President Donald Trump announced he would pause the implementation of the 50 per cent tariffs on a range of Canadian goods for three days, saying the two countries had reached a tentative agreement. Shortly after, Prime Minister Mark Carney put out a statement that read, in part: "Substantial progress has been made, although there is important work still to be done."Host Jayme Poisson spoke to senior business correspondent Peter Armstrong earlier in the night, before the announcement, about the complexity of the negotiations, the challenges in getting a deal, and the uncertainty inherent to any deal with this U.S. administration.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

This past weekend, Israeli strikes killed at least 11 people in southern Lebanon, according to the country's health ministry. It was the deadliest attack since a fragile ceasefire was reached in June, meant to halt fighting between Israel and Hezbollah – though attacks continued. On top of airstrikes and drone attacks, residents and emergency workers in the region are accusing Israeli forces of intentionally starting wildfires which have been ripping through homes, forests and olive groves throughout the embattled area. All of it has people there worried about whether they'll be able to stay and whether the hundreds of thousands displaced by the war will ever be able to return. Will Christou works for The Guardian based in Beirut. He's been reporting on the fires, and the broader Israeli campaign in southern Lebanon. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

During Pete Hoekstra's tenure as U.S. ambassador to Canada, he has called Canada's federal election campaign “un-American”, amplified one of Donald Trump's “51st state” posts, and reportedly unleashed an expletive-laden tirade on an Ontario trade official. Now, a petition calling on him to be expelled from the country has gathered nearly 200,000 signatures.Today, Matina Stevis-Gridneff, the Canada bureau chief for the New York Times, tells us who Pete Hoekstra is, why some Canadians are so upset with them, and what the push to kick him out says about the Canada-U.S. relationship. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Prime Minister Mark Carney's message on immigration is all about control. He has repeatedly talked about how new arrivals are down. And deportations are up, too.Today, part two of our documentary on how Canada's political class changed course on immigration, how it happened so quickly, and what it means for the country now as our population shrinks for the first time in Canada's history.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

It wasn't too long ago that much of Canada's political class was united in their embrace of immigration to help grow the population and with it, the economy. Now, many of those same politicians are singing a different tune as it's regularly stated as fact that Canada's immigration consensus is broken. Today, part one of a two-part documentary on the political 180 on immigration, how it happened so quickly, and what it means for Canada as the country shrinks its population for the first time in history.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

For more than a decade, Nigel Farage has been one of the most influential people in British politics. His anti-Europe crusade was key to securing Brexit. And up until recently, it seemed quite possible that his right-wing populist party, Reform UK, could win the next general election. Then, Andy Burnham took over as the new Labour prime minister. And a string of financial scandals appeared to put the normally unflappable Farage on his heels. In July, Farage quit his seat in parliament, saying he wanted voters to judge him in a "people versus the establishment" by-election. The other main political parties called it a stunt, and refused to put forward any candidates. On Thursday, Farage will face off against his main opponent: a joke candidate who goes by Count Binface. Farage is expected to win, but will still face an investigation and possible suspension when he returns to parliament. Sam Blewett is Politico's UK Political Correspondent, and he joins guest host Jason Markusoff to discuss, with his approval rating at an all time low, whether Nigel Farage missed his moment. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

When Bashar al-Assad fled Syria in December 2024, it brought a sudden end to a family dynasty that had ruled the country for more than fifty years. The collapse of his government also prompted a new wave of reporting into the lives of the Assads — and particularly Bashar's wife, Asma al-Assad.Before she became Syria's first lady, Asma was Emma Akhras, a British-born investment banker from West London. Once profiled by Vogue as a modernizing force and “a rose in the desert,” she became one of the most controversial figures of Assad's brutal dictatorship.Chloe Hadjimatheou is The Observer's narrative editor and host of the podcast 'We Call Her Emma.' She joins guest host Jason Markusoff to discuss the transformation of Syria's former first lady and her complicity in her husband's regime. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

There's been talk of high-speed rain for generations in Canada and while there's been a lot of studies and political promises, there's not a lot to show for it. Finally, plans are taking shape for the Alto high-speed rail project, which could get you from Toronto to Montreal in just 3 hours. Except well before construction begins, it's facing push back.Farmers in Ontario and Quebec are worried about how the proposed route will affect their land. A growing chorus of politicians from the opposition Parti Quebecois to the federal Conservatives are pushing back on its massive price tag. And now, Doug Ford's Progressive Conservatives in Ontario are also questioning the project. The Toronto Star's Queen's Park Bureau Chief Rob Benzie joins guest host Jason Markusoff to tackle the question: could political disagreement derail this long-awaited train project?For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes throughout B.C. due to wildfires over the past week. The province warns that the fires could get worse in the coming days.The list of communities devastated by wildfires, and the intensity of the fires themselves, keeps growing. What was once a rare event has become disturbingly common. So why haven't we figured out a better way to fight wildfires? And what could we be doing differently?Mike Flannigan joins us to answer those questions. He's a professor of wildland fires at Thompson Rivers University and runs the Canada fire weather outlook. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Last Thursday, spurred by a flurry of online rumours, 72,000 migrants arrived from neighbouring Morocco to the shores of Ceuta, a tiny Spanish enclave in North Africa. According to Spanish media, around 142 of them died at the border, mostly from drowning or trampling. Within two days, most of the migrants left, largely on their own accord.But what's lingered is a political crisis for the pro-immigration Spanish government in an increasingly anti-immigration European Union focused on border security. And questions surrounding how exactly this came to be and who's to blame.We're joined by Aitor Hernandez-Morales is based in Brussels, Belgium and who's been covering the political fallout over the last week for Politico. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Earlier this summer, the federal government announced that it would build up to ten new nuclear reactors in the next fifteen years to help achieve Canada's energy goals.Canada isn't alone in making this kind of big investment in nuclear power. Plans are underway to build more reactors in the U.S., China, India, and across Europe. Still, there are concerns about costs, safety and the long term management of radioactive waste.Jacopo Buongiorno teaches nuclear science and engineering at MIT. He's also the director of the school's Center for Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems.He's here to talk about what's driving Canada's – and the world's - nuclear power boom, and what risks could come with it.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

On October 19th, Albertans will head to the polls to vote on whether or not there should be a referendum on staying a part of Canada or separating. So, how is the campaign to keep Canada united faring? What about the campaign for Alberta to leave? Today on Front Burner, guest host Jason Markusoff in Calgary speaks with Toronto Star opinion writer Richard Warnica about his reporting on both campaigns, the enthusiasm gap, and what it might mean for the future of the country.