Front Burner

IDEAS, hosted by Nahlah Ayed is a daily podcast that explores how ideas over place and time shape our world.There are 19 centibillionaires and a growing list of 3,000 billionaires worldwide. So it might not surprise you that the richest one per cent possesses nearly half of the world's wealth. History has never seen such an extreme concentration of wealth. Some economists argue the battle of the 21st century is between oligarchy and democracy. How did we get here? IDEAS begins a four-part documentary series The Billionaire Age.Listen to more episodes in this series:Listen to Part Two: Disney heiress on the dangers of extreme wealthListen to Part Three: How oligarchs are taking over the worldMore episodes of IDEAS are available here: https://link.mgln.ai/IDEASxFB

As the face of America's COVID-19 response, Anthony Fauci was a nearly constant presence in American life throughout the pandemic. To some, he was revered, reaching a sort of celebrity status. But to a movement on the American right, he eventually became a villain, accused not simply of mishandling the pandemic, but of misleading the public about its origins, and even bearing some responsibility for COVID-19 itself.This week, Fauci testified before the U.S. Senate's Homeland Security Committee, to answer for his response to the pandemic. But the proceedings took a strange turn, as he refused to answer questions, repeatedly invoking the Fifth Amendment. Daniel Engber is a senior editor at The Atlantic who co-wrote the piece, "What Anthony Fauci Didn't Say." He joins us to talk about why some Americans were so eager to put Anthony Fauci on trial.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

A key part of Carney's deal to get a new pipeline built in Alberta involved the creation of the Pathways Project, which he touted as "the world's largest carbon capture and utilization and storage project." Canadian political leaders, both Liberal and Conservative, have been pinning high hopes on carbon capture technology for two decades, as a way to keep oil flowing while limiting emissions. But so far, it hasn't been adopted at a mass scale.Investigative reporter Carl Meyer wrote a piece for The Narwhal about how politicians and oil companies have promoted carbon capture over the years. He joins us to talk about what we know about this technology, why we haven't seen it materialize at a large scale, and what it tells us about the politics around the climate.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

This week, Sam Altman, CEO and founder of OpenAI, got much of the tech world talking after declaring that we are living in the singularity: a theoretical point when machines, with artificial intelligence, surpass human ability and are able to grow and improve beyond our control. This comes less than a week after OpenAI admitted that two of its models went rogue and hacked another start-up. It has some American lawmakers proposing legislation that would ensure companies and the government have a “kill switch” for AI models that escape human containment. So are we at a technological point of no return? Or is it just hype? Will Douglas Heaven, Senior AI editor at the MIT Technology Review, joins us.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

The Trump administration is increasingly conflating communism and the political left, casting them as threats to American national security.The rhetoric is beginning to take institutional form. The administration has directed federal agencies to investigate networks it says facilitate political violence, convened an international summit on so-called “far-left” terrorism, and published a report placing prominent American activists, politicians and organizations within a broader narrative of foreign communist influence.For some, the parallels to an earlier period of American history - the Red Scare - are difficult to ignore.Today historian Ellen Schrecker, author of Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America, joins us to examine the history of the Red Scare and whether it's repeating itself.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Today, the Gordie Howe Bridge is set to officially open to the public, connecting Windsor, Ontario to Detroit, Michigan. Its ceremonial opening on Friday was a one-sided affair. It was originally supposed to be a joint ceremony with U.S. officials, but that was cancelled after President Donald Trump announced his plans to hit Canada with a new whack of tariffs. That's just one of the many bumps in the road to getting this bridge open.CBC Windsor reporter Emma Loop has been reporting on the Gordie Howe Bridge for years. She talks about the long journey to the opening, and how it represents the Canada-U.S. relationship writ large.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

As part of the federal government's AI strategy, hyperscale data centres are being built across the country with many more projects being proposed. But, communities are pushing back, and it's capturing the attention of local governments.Projects in Ontario, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan have been the subject of protests and petitions for moratoriums. A recent Angus Reid poll reported that 68 per cent of Canadians object to a data centre being built near them.As Prime Minister Mark Carney pushes an agenda of digital sovereignty and AI expansion, we look at how Canadians are responding to the rapid construction of data centres, and the risks AI poses to the environment and local communities.Paris Marx joins us. He is a tech journalist and the host of the podcast, Tech Won't Save Us. He's got a book coming out this October called 'Hyperscale: The Ambition and Excess of Big Tech's Data Empires.'For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

On Wednesday morning, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to bomb one Iranian bridge or powerplant every time a ship passing through the Strait of Hormuz gets shot at. It's yet more evidence that the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran is over, after twelve days of renewed military escalation.As the conflict wades into this next phase, we look at how things fell apart, the damage taken on both sides, and whether we're headed into endless war. Trita Parsi joins us. He is the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute and the author of several books about the U.S and Iran, including Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

On Monday night, US President Donald Trump signed orders to impose a 50 per cent tariff on a wide swath of Canadian goods ranging from hockey sticks to envelopes to Christmas decorations. The tariffs are scheduled to take effect on August 19th. Prime Minister Mark Carney says he spoke with Trump on Tuesday morning and that they have agreed to intensify negotiations in the coming weeks. Jayme Poisson speaks to trade expert Eric Miller about the significance of these tariffs and why they're happening now. Miller is the president of Rideau Potomac Strategy Group where his clients include critical mineral and potash companies. He's also a fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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 of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/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.David A. Graham is a staff writer at The Atlantic who has reported extensively on the threats facing American elections. He joins us to examine Trump's latest claims, the evidence behind them and whether the U.S. president is laying the groundwork for America's next election crisis.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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 this week, which led to government warnings to limit time outside, cancelled World Cup screenings and shutdowns of public pools. And it's more than a nuisance. The Canadian Climate Institute estimates that wildfire smoke is associated with about 2,500 premature deaths per year across the country.David Wallace-Wells is a climate journalist and author of The Uninhabitable Earth. He joins us to talk about what it means that wildfire smoke is becoming a more regular part of our lives, and its place in the larger battle for clean air around the world. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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-time self-described democratic socialist. According to new Gallup polling, “socialism” is officially viewed more favourably among democratic voters than “capitalism.” It's a big shift from where we were not too long ago. So what exactly is democratic socialism? How does it differ from socialism, communism, or social democracy? Why has it returned now? And what does its resurgence reveal about this hour of history?Bhaskar Sunkara is the president of The Nation magazine, founder and editorial director of Jacobin, the former Vice-Chair of the Democratic Socialists of America and the author of books including ‘The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality.'For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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 last week, Hamas announced that they are ready to hand over the authority of governing Gaza to a group of US-backed Palestinian technocrats. Is this the breakthrough needed to get things back on track?Hugh Lovatt is a Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. He's here to talk about where things stand in Gaza and what this latest announcement from Hamas means for the Palestinian people.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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 Bulwark sees Graham's trajectory as emblematic of the Republican party's transformation under Trump. He joins Jayme Poisson to discuss the conspiracy theories swirling around Graham's death and his political legacy.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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, journalists Joe Parkinson and Drew Hinshaw on their reporting, gleaned from conversations with heads of government, ministers, top aides, as well as detailed notes of private meetings and classified intelligence assessments. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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

After a weekend of speculation, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer appeared on the steps of 10 Downing Street on Monday and announced that he would be stepping down. He's now the sixth British Prime Minister to resign in the last 10 years, continuing a pattern many thought would end after he won a majority government with the Labour Party in a landslide just two years ago. Zoë Grünewald is a freelance journalist based in London, England. She's also a regular panelist on the politics podcast ‘Oh God, What Now?'. She's here to talk about the conditions that have made it so hard for the country to hold onto a Prime Minister, and what that means for people in the U.K.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

It was a busy end to the season in the House of Commons. CBC Chief Political Correspondent Rosemary Barton is here to talk about what happened, what it tells us about Carney's majority government, and what we can expect in the months to come. 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

Even before a game has been played, this year's World Cup has been the source of controversy. Officials and staff from countries like Iraq, Iran and Somalia have been refused entry or face lengthy interrogation by immigration officials at American airports. FIFA President Gianni Infantino has been widely criticized for his proximity to U.S. President Donald Trump after presenting Trump with a ‘FIFA Peace Prize' award and sitting in the front row at Trump's inauguration. For nearly 100 years, leaders across the world have used soccer, and the World Cup specifically, as a tool of power and politics.David Goldblatt is a journalist, sociologist, professor, and the author of bestselling books such as ‘The Ball is round: A Global History of Soccer.' He joins the program to discuss the World Cup's political history, the failed promise of this year's tournament, and how soccer became “our great public and political theatre.” 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