With just under two weeks until he re-takes the Oval Office, U.S. president-elect Donald Trump has outlined a mind-map of sorts to, as he says, “make Canada the 51st American state.” He has referred to the border separating Canada and the U.S. as an “artificial line,” called Justin Trudeau Canada’s “Governor” and said Canada would “dissolve” without U.S. assistance. At the same time, he’s not ruling out forcibly incorporating the territory of Greenland into the U.S. and seizing control of the Panama Canal, a crucial shipping route. Threat, negotiation tactic, or meaningless bluster? CBC Washington correspondent Katie Simpson unpacks where it’s all coming from. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts 

Nearly a decade ago Justin Trudeau rode a wave of hope and optimism — his so-called "sunny ways" — to the prime minister's office, leading a once-flailing Liberal party out of the wilderness. A lot has changed since that time. Not only for Trudeau and his party's fortunes, but for the world — and how many people feel about the kind of hopeful vision that once helped propel people like Trudeau into power. Today we're going to grapple with Trudeau's legacy, and how he may be remembered: the accomplishments, the failures, the scandals — and whether, as the world transformed around him, Trudeau was able to adapt with it. Our guests are Aaron Wherry, CBC senior writer and the author of Promise and Peril: Justin Trudeau in Power, and Stephen Maher, author of The Prince: The Turbulent Reign of Justin Trudeau. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

After months of non-confidence votes and growing pressure, Justin Trudeau has stepped down as the leader of the Liberal Party. He’s still the Prime Minister, for now, after proroguing Parliament until March 24th so that the Liberals can hold a leadership race and find his successor.  Wayne Long, a backbencher from New Brunswick, was among the first voices from within Trudeau’s own party to call for him to step down. Now that it’s finally happened, he talks to us about what the “internal battles” in the party actually looked like and what he thinks needs to happen next for the Liberals to have a fighting chance in the next election. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

For the last couple weeks, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has apparently been thinking about his future. At the same time, he faced new calls to resign: from his colleagues, the country and political rivals. Will he make it through the day, the week or the election? Tim Powers shares his thoughts on Trudeau’s political future. He’s the chair of Summa Strategies, managing director of Abacus Data, a former Conservative adviser and a regular columnist at the Hill Times. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

What is the point of Hollywood? There are two obvious answers, right? To make good stuff that entertains people. And to make money for the big studios and the people who work for them. Those two things don’t have to be mutually exclusive. But writer Daniel Bessner believes increasingly they have been. Bessner spent a year working on a deep dive into how Hollywood has evolved for Harper’s Magazine, called “The Life and Death of Hollywood”. Bessner is also a historian and host of the podcast “American Prestige”. He spoke to host Jayme Poisson last April.

For some time now, there’s been a growing trend on TikTok and Instagram of young women sharing about their daily lives as “trad wives.” “Traditional wives” forego the workplace, extol the virtues of homemaking, and often talk about the ways they “submit” to their husbands.  So why do these women say they’ve chosen a life at home? How does their messaging cross into religion and politics? And is this “movement” a reaction to the burdens on modern women, or a threat to feminism’s progress? We revisit a conversation with journalist Sophie Elmhirst from last April, who wrote a piece in the New Yorker called “The Rise and Fall of the Trad Wife”.

Céline Dion is having a moment. It’s not her first. And millions of fans are hoping it won’t be her last. While Céline’s international stardom seems obvious now, it was all so unlikely. This is the final episode of the four-part series from Understood, the anthology podcast that takes you out of the daily news cycle and inside the events, people, and cultural moments you want to know more about. Hosted by Thomas Leblanc.  More episodes of Understood are available at: https://link.mgln.ai/n5NBQC

Murray Sinclair — an Anishinaabe lawyer, judge, senator, and, most consequentially, the chair of the Truth and Reconciliation commission — died in November at the age of 73.  Sinclair helped bring to light the stories of thousands of Indigenous residential school survivors and advocated for justice for them. He's been recognized by many as someone who fundamentally changed the country and what Canadians know about ourselves and our history. Today we have a documentary featuring the voices of three people who knew Murray Sinclair well, about the personal lessons he taught them and how he transformed Canada. We'll hear from journalist and filmmaker Tanya Talaga; Phil Fontaine, the former national chief of the Assembly of First Nations; and Kim Murray, the Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites associated with Indian Residential Schools. A national Indian Residential School Crisis Line is available to provide support for survivors and those affected. People can access emotional and crisis referral services by calling the 24-hour service at 1-866-925-4419. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts This episode originally aired on November 11, 2025.

In the next two years, Canadian millennials will stand to inherit as much as one trillion dollars from their boomer parents. Today, we take a look at what this consolidation of family wealth could mean for Canada’s economy, and Canadian society writ large with Katrina Onsted, freelance reporter and producer for the Globe and Mail’s tech business podcast, Lately.

The Apprentice is a Donald Trump biopic that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival this year and got an extended standing ovation. But it quickly came under fire from its subject. Today, we bring you an encore of host Jayme Poisson’s interview with Dan Beckerman, one of the producers behind the film. He’ll walk us through the film’s complicated journey to theatres, and the challenges of making art about powerful people. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Céline Dion is having a moment. It’s not her first. And millions of fans are hoping it won’t be her last. While Céline’s international stardom seems obvious now, it was all so unlikely. This is the third episode of the four-part series from Understood, the anthology podcast that takes you out of the daily news cycle and inside the events, people, and cultural moments you want to know more about. Hosted by Thomas Leblanc.  More episodes of Understood are available at: https://link.mgln.ai/yrMjPh 

Céline Dion is having a moment. It’s not her first. And millions of fans are hoping it won’t be her last. While Céline’s international stardom seems obvious now, it was all so unlikely. This is the second episode of the four-part series from Understood, the anthology podcast that takes you out of the daily news cycle and inside the events, people, and cultural moments you want to know more about. Hosted by Thomas Leblanc.  More episodes of Understood are available at: https://link.mgln.ai/EnVXBB

Got some money burning a hole in your pocket? You could go online and place a bet about whether or not Canada will become the U.S.’s 51st state before July, whether or not there will be an election before the New Year, or whether the U.S. will ban TikTok before May 2025. And you could do it all on a website called Polymarket. Polymarket is a “prediction market”  that allows users to spend crypto to place bets on the likelihood of life events. The site is not without controversy.  Polymarket is illegal to use in the US, researchers say there’s rampant “wash trading” taking place on the platform, and in November the FBI raided Polymarket CEO, Shayne Coplan’s New York apartment. Today we speak with New York Times reporter David Yaffe-Bellany about whether Polymarket is a new more accurate way of polling, or just another gambling site. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

People talk about Donald Trump as a singular figure. A one-of-a-kind politician who's made conservative history in the U.S. But where exactly does Trump fit in conservative history? In what eras does he stand on common ground? What are the big differences? Is he a revolutionary figure or a natural evolution of the movement? To work though that, we've got Sam Adler-Bell and Matt Sitman. They are the hosts of the Know Your Enemy podcast, which explores the underpinnings of contemporary conservatism. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

After Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, historian and professor Timothy Snyder wrote a long post on Facebook. Here's how it started:  "Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience." Snyder went on to share twenty lessons about authoritarianism from the 20th century. They would lay the groundwork for his 2017 book On Tyranny. Fast forward to 2024, and Snyder's warnings about authoritarianism are being amplified once again.  He joins the show to look ahead to the next four years of the Trump presidency, through the lens of his latest books: the just-released On Freedom and On Tyranny. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

The fallout from Chrystia Freeland’s resignation is far from over. As more people demand Justin Trudeau’s resignation he appears to be in no hurry to heed the calls. Meanwhile, U.S. president-elect Donald Trump pokes fun at Canada’s ongoing chaos, reprising his jokes about the country becoming the 51st state. What does the drama in Ottawa mean for Canada’s position as it prepares for a potential trade war with Washington? We're joined by J.P. Tasker from CBC's parliamentary bureau and Alex Panetta, a Washington-based CBC News correspondent.   For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

The charge of ethnic cleansing is not, on its own, considered a crime under international law. Experts consider it to be part of the overall charge of genocide.  In this episode we take listeners to northern Gaza and examine the words and actions of politicians, academics and settlements organizations in order to better understand whether Israel is perpetrating a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Gaza.  Our guest is Meron Rapoport, a 30-year veteran of the Israeli news industry who formerly worked as the head of news at Israel's Ha’aretz newspaper. Today he’s an editor at the Israeli publication Local Call. He joins the show to discuss whether Israel is guilty of committing a program of ethnic cleansing, and the prospect of a ‘Second Nakba’ in Gaza.  For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Chrystia Freeland's bombshell resignation as finance minister has thrown Justin Trudeau's fragile government into chaos. The decisions that led to this are raising questions about the Prime Minister's judgment, loyalties, leadership and ability to stay in power. Paul Wells and Stephen Maher are our guests.  Paul has a substack under his own name and has written about Canadian politics for decades.  Stephen is a longtime federal politics reporter and author of The Prince: The Turbulent Reign of Justin Trudeau. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Late last week, federal labour minister Steven MacKinnon recommended that Canada Post workers, who have been on strike for more than four weeks, be ordered back to work until May 22, 2025. In the meantime, an inquiry would look into the roadblocks preventing the two parties from getting to an agreement. This labour dispute has led to a lot of debate and discussion about the future of Canada Post. Ian Lee is an associate professor at the Sprott School of Business at Carleton University and has studied Canada Post for many years.  He walks us through the crown corporation’s grim financial situation, how its business could adapt, and its uncertain future. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

The Bank of Canada cut interest rates again this week. Economists say wages are up, inflation is on target and the stock market is in the green. But most everyday Canadians are living a very different story. One of insanely high grocery prices, impossible housing costs and a suffocating economic squeeze. Recently, Canadian finance minister Chrystia Freeland announced a temporary GST holiday on a bunch of stuff to give relief to people feeling the pinch. But she went on to muse that the economic pain people were feeling might be the result of a "vibecession". Think recession – but you know – only in your head. Today, so are we in a 'vibecession'?  Economist Armine Yalnizyan is our guest. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts