Friday, August 1st 2025

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced plans to officially recognize Palestinian statehood in September — if certain criteria are met — marking a radical departure on Canada’s position in the region.

Evan Dyer is a reporter with the CBC’s parliamentary bureau. He joins the show for a discussion about this landmark moment in Canadian foreign policy, the status of Canadian arms sales to Israel, and the implications that the creation of a Palestinian state could have.

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Thursday, July 31st 2025

Late last week, the UK government implemented a new set of rules from its Online Safety Act to keep children away from quote, “harmful and age-inappropriate content”.

Companies ranging from pornography websites, social media platforms, and large search engines will need to comply by building guardrails that would prevent children from accessing porn, or material that promotes self-harm or eating disorders, for example.

This includes age verification, along with changes to algorithm settings so that they’re not recommending content that’s considered harmful to kids.

For many children’s safety advocates this is a step in the right direction. But others have concerns about civil liberties, privacy and censorship.

Samantha Cole is a journalist with 404 Media. She’s been covering how similar online safety rules have been playing out in the U.S.

Samantha was also the host of CBC Understood’s The Pornhub Empire, a four part series on the biggest porn website in the world.

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Wednesday, July 30th 2025

The U.S. federal immigration law enforcement agency — ICE — is offshoring migrants incarcerated in the U.S. to detention camps in Africa. In at least one of these cases, migrants were told they would be transported to a domestic detention facility and instead were taken to a prison located nearly 10,000 KM away from the U.S.  

This decision to deport groups of people in American prisons, against their will, to detention camps in nations they have never visited marks a radical and unprecedented shift in American policy. Legal experts say it might well be unconstitutional. 

Hamed Aleaziz is an immigration reporter with The New York Times and joins us for a conversation about the offshoring of immigration detention, the future of the migration crisis, and the two facilities at the centre of Trump's immigration detention plan: 'American Siberia,' and 'Alligator Alcatraz.'

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Tuesday, July 29th 2025

A New York City billionaire and conservative talk radio host. Two of the most vocally antivax members of Donald Trump's administration. Protesters associated with the "Freedom Convoy" that occupied downtown Ottawa in 2022. What do they have in common?

They all want to save a herd of more than 400 ostriches on a small farm in rural B.C.

Earlier this year, Universal Ostrich Farms was ordered to cull their remaining birds after an outbreak of avian flu killed dozens of them. But the farm has been fighting the government's order in court, claiming the ostriches' antibodies are crucial for research into alternatives to traditional vaccines.

Marc Fawcett-Atkinson, a reporter with Canada's National Observer, explains why the farm's story has spread so widely through the right-wing media ecosystem, finding so much synergy with vaccine skepticism, climate denial, and other conspiracy theories about shadowy bids for global control.

Monday, July 28th 2025

When the Trump administration announced earlier this month that it was dropping its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein and would not be releasing any further "Epstein files," it was already an unpopular decision among the MAGA faithful — many of whom Donald Trump won over by leaning into conspiracy theories about pedophilic political elites.

In the weeks since, the rift has only widened. New revelations have come to light about Trump's relationship with Epstein, and what Trump knew about what was in the files and when. Trump has been on the defensive, calling the reports fake. But it doesn't appear to be working, with some of Trump's staunchest supporters saying they now feel "betrayed."

Anna Merlan, a senior reporter with Mother Jones who covers disinformation, explains why the Trump administration can't seem to make the Epstein files go away.

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts