Advertise on podcast: Front Burner

Canada is complicated. Alberta has opinions. Ride shotgun with host Kathleen Petty on West of Centre for conversations about the state of politics in Canada, as power and influence shifts West. Whether you live here or just can't look away, you’ll get the no-nonsense analysis you need to make sense of it all. In this episode Premier Danielle Smith joins host Kathleen Petty after a divisive Alberta referendum. Albertans are clear on their desire to remain a province of Canada. But parts of the province, and Smith’s own party, remain at odds. Separatists still hold United Conservative Party memberships. The premier says they should find a new party. But can she kick them out? And will she? Also, Smith did not get a mandate on the four referendum questions on constitutional reform, and she failed to get a strong mandate on the other five questions on immigration. There's a clear divide between urban and rural voters. Will she push ahead with planned legislation to remove some social services for temporary residents? And how do conservatives address sagging support in the big cities? More episodes of West of Centre are available wherever you get your podcasts, and here: https://link.mgln.ai/WoCxFB

Two weeks ago, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he’d struck a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to supply the world with millions of tonnes of Russian diesel. It stunned Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who said he felt betrayed. Trump responded by saying it was time for “Ukraine to get a new president.” Soon after, Ukraine said its access to SpaceX’s military-grade version of Starlink called Starshield was throttled. Their drones slowed to a near halt and they were no longer able to intercept all of Russia’s attacks as Russia hammered Ukrainian energy facilities and civilian areas. Ukraine blamed the White House. The White House denied it. The Wall Street Journal reported Elon Musk gave the order. He denied it too. But the incident raised questions about the implications of the world’s richest man exercising that kind of power. Sharon Weinberger is a longtime national security reporter and the author of several books including her latest, 'Valley of Death: How Big Tech Is Fueling the Future of War'. She joins us to unpack what’s happening with this Starlink debacle and the consequences of Silicon Valley's ever growing role in global conflict. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit:  https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

France is in the midst of a weeks-long, nationwide protest that began with high school students lamenting the conditions of their public schools and issues like overcrowding, teacher shortages, and deteriorating facilities.  But these protests quickly became a national uprising, the largest the country has seen in decades — drawing in trade unions, public sector workers, and others frustrated with the conditions of life in the country.  France is a country where street protest is part of the political culture, and for many around the world France has become a nation synonymous with uprising.  Emile Chabal is an author, historian of Europe's political history, and professor at the University of Edinburgh. He joins the show to talk about how a student protest became a national demonstration of anger at the French state, and how France came to be viewed by many as "the land of protest." For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

For more than a year, the Biden administration said it wanted to limit the destruction in Gaza, increase humanitarian aid and bring the war to an end. But as the humanitarian crisis accelerated, the U.S. continued to supply Israel with weapons and diplomatic protection. In his book 'Crossing the Red Line: Biden, His Advisors, and Israel's War in Gaza' journalist Akbar Shahid Ahmed draws on nearly 175 interviews to reconstruct the internal debates, political calculations and decisions that shaped the administration’s response.  Akbar Shahid Ahmed is the diplomatic correspondent for The Washington Sun. He's our guest today. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

After a historic referendum, Albertans have voted to remain in Canada. When we recorded this episode, just over a third of the votes had been counted, and 76 per cent of them were in favour of staying. CBC Alberta reporter Jason Markusoff joins Jayme to break down what the result means for the future of the independence movement and for the country. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Jayme Poisson travels to Edmonton to take you inside two rallies where campaigners for a united Canada – and campaigners for Alberta independence – make their last pitch to voters before Monday's referendum.  Plus, what we know about the deadly fire at CFB Wainwright in Alberta that left four service members dead and at least 19 in critical condition.  For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Prime Minister Mark Carney is in Alberta this week, making a final pitch for unity in the lead-up to the province's referendum on potential separation. Meanwhile, the government is threatening legal action against steel company Stelco over layoffs related to the trade war. And the U.S. Ambassador to Canada has raised concerns about potential election interference by Canadian government officials in the U.S. midterms.  Aaron Wherry, senior writer for CBC's parliamentary bureau, joins us to break it all down. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Today we are going to spend some time trying to understand the expanding front lines of two ongoing wars, where the battlefield isn't just marked by trenches, snipers and fortifications, but also by energy infrastructure, supplies and distribution. Think of them as energy wars, currently being fought in Ukraine, and in countries around the Persian Gulf. We're joined by Ravi Agrawal, Editor in Chief at Foreign Policy and host of their podcast, FP Live. Together, we’re looking at energy and how it can be used as a tool or weapon of war and why after decades without them, energy wars are back. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Alberta's referendum is next week and advance voting is already underway. Much of the attention has centred around the separation question. But there are actually ten questions being put to a vote next week. Today on Front Burner, Jayme Poisson speaks with CBC Calgary's Jason Markusoff about the other nine questions: what they mean, why they're being asked, and how the polling shows they could go either way. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts.

In late September, amid mounting warnings about the risks of AI, the CEOs of six of the world’s most powerful technology companies signed an agreement on artificial intelligence. U.S. President Donald Trump called the accord “morally binding”. But it isn’t legally binding – it’s essentially a pledge from the world’s biggest tech companies to police themselves. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jill Lepore has a name for this: the “artificial state”. A world run not by democratically elected governments, but by the billionaires who control technology companies. Lepore’s new book, The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State, explains how we got here, why she thinks it can’t last, and how the public can push back.   Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

How did sports betting go from being illegal to being EVERYWHERE? The answer lies in the convergence of daily fantasy sports apps, a bombshell New York Times op-ed, and the potential of a multi-billion dollar payout. This episode of Understood: The Big Bet tells the story of how a pivotal Supreme Court ruling set the stage for one of the biggest scandals in sports history — one involving a Toronto Raptors bench player named Jontay Porter.  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 — we explore the stories that define our digital age with hosts and characters embedded in the heart of the action. More episodes of The Big Bet are available wherever you get your podcasts, and here: https://link.mgln.ai/TBBxFB

Right now former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is on house arrest, after being sentenced to 27 years in prison. On Sunday his son Flavio won the first round of that country's presidential elections, his wife, and two more of his children were voted into office. A runoff election is three weeks away.  It's a stunning political turnaround. In part, because the man who could be toppled by the return of the Bolsonaros, is a towering figure of leftist Latin American politics: Lula da Silva. Under Lula's leadership, tens of millions of Brazilians have been lifted out of poverty. He's currently serving his third term as President. These early results in Brazil mirror a right-wing surge across the region. One that aligns with Donald Trump's so-called 'Donroe Doctrine' where America has free reign to influence, coerce and pick favourites to further U.S. interests. We're joined today by Brian Winter, author of several books on Latin America, editor in chief of Americas Quarterly and Vice President of policy at the Council of the Americas. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Since last week, there have been a series of alarming bits of news emerging from Siberia. It began with the mysterious death of a woman who worked at a plague research institute. Russia has said she contracted pneumonia but has been slim on details. But the World Health Organization wants more information, including details about whether or not there has been a second case, which has been rumoured, but not confirmed. All of this, including Russia’s moves to quarantine, has people scared of an outbreak of one of the most aggressive forms of plague: the pneumonic plague.  So we wanted to talk to someone who looks at global health risks and biosecurity to get a temperature check. Gregory Koblentz is the Director of the Biodefense Graduate Program at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government. He’s also the co-director of the Global Bio Labs initiative which tracks high containment labs around the world. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

With the election of the Parti Québécois in Quebec Monday night, it's the first time in twelve years that Canada will have a separatist government in power.  Over the course of the campaign, the party's leader, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, made clear some of the fights he could take up with Ottawa, over issues like immigration. He also vowed to hold a referendum on separation in his first term, a promise he doubled down on this week despite only securing a minority government. With the Alberta referendum coming up, this means Mark Carney is now dealing with separatist movements on both ends of the country, at a time when he's trying to lead a united front against U.S. aggression.  Montreal-based journalist Martin Patriquin joins us to talk about what this election means for the country right now.  For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Celebrated author Naomi Klein joins the show to talk about how Mark Carney's response to Trump's trade war echoes themes in her book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. We also discuss her latest work "End Times Fascism: And the Fight for the Living World.  For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts