Front Burner

Today, we bring you a wrap on U.S. politics. We begin with two scandals plaguing U.S. defense secretary Pete Hegseth, from allegations of war crimes to a scathing report accusing him of mishandling classified military intelligence.

And we cover the fallout from President Donald Trump’s tirade against Somali immigrants, including a surge of ICE raids in Minneapolis. Plus, the politics behind Trump’s win of the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize.

Our guest is Alex Shephard, senior editor of The New Republic.

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

In 2015, as governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney’s ‘Tragedy of the Horizons’ speech made waves in the global climate community. It was seen as a landmark call for the financial sector to recognize the costs of climate breakdown.

But fast forward 10 years and a fierce debate is swirling around whether Carney is living up to that warning. Since becoming Prime Minister, he’s scrapped the consumer carbon tax, froze EV mandates and paved the way for a potential new pipeline to the B.C. coast.

With a Trudeau-era environment minister resigning from Carney’s cabinet in protest, we’re asking the question: has Mark Carney betrayed the climate movement? Or is he playing a strategic long game that aims for an environmental win?

Two writers from Canada’s National Observer, Ottawa Bureau Chief John Woodside and Calgary-based lead columnist Max Fawcett, join the show to take up that debate.

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

The U.S. Supreme Court is soon expected to rule on the legality of President Donald Trump's sweeping worldwide tariffs. The court will rule on whether his use of a 1970s national security law violates the U.S. constitution, which clearly states that only Congress has the authority to implement taxes — of which tariffs are a type.

But regardless of which way the court rules, Trump and his administration have made it clear that tariffs will continue to be a central pillar of both their economic and foreign policy. And, just over a year after they were first announced, those tariffs have had perhaps no bigger impact than here in Canada. They've reshaped not just our economic relationship with our closest trading partner, but they've fractured the political relationship too.

Eric Miller, president of Rideau Potomac Strategy Group, explains what's at stake in the Supreme Court's ruling, and breaks down the impact of a year of Trump tariffs.

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

Last week, two National Guard soldiers were shot in Washington, D.C. after they were ambushed by a lone shooter near the airport. One was killed and the other remains in serious condition. The suspect, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, was shot and is still in hospital facing murder charges. The picture emerging of Lakanwal is of an isolated, deeply troubled man struggling to support his wife and five kids. 

Lakanwal is a 29-year-old Afghan-national who had served as part of an elite CIA-trained and backed paramilitary group known as the Zero Units. Tasked with carrying out some of the most dangerous missions in the war on terror, the Zero Units have also been accused by rights groups of war crimes in their notorious night raids.

Kevin Maurer is a best-selling author and longtime reporter who spent many years covering the war in Afghanistan. He talks about how this shooting fits into the broader legacy of the war on terrorism and the ripple effects it’s had abroad and closer to home.  

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

Our guest today has taken a long look at an out-of-fashion principle in higher learning – institutional neutrality. Basically it’s the importance of letting students and faculty say what they want, and not have the administration put its thumb on the scale. In that he sees a whole world of problems facing post-secondary education today, from public and political support to an ongoing court case.

Simon Lewsen is a magazine journalist who teaches part-time at the University of Toronto. His new story in Maclean’s is called “The Battle for the Soul of the University”. 

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

Over the weekend, Donald Trump declared on Truth Social that the airspace around Venezuela should be considered closed. Venezuela’s foreign ministry responded by calling the comments "another extravagant, illegal and unjustified aggression against the Venezuelan people".

Late last week, Trump also said that land action against alleged drug trafficking networks in the country could start very soon.

All of this is happening amidst a serious military buildup in the Caribbean and escalating threats to remove Venezuela’s president Nicolas Maduro from power.

Is this the buildup to an invasion? And is it really about drugs? Or do Venezuela's massive oil reserves have something to do with it?

Jon Lee Anderson is our guest. He’s a staff writer with The New Yorker, and has written extensively about U.S.-Venezuela relations and U.S. interference in Latin America.

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

In a somber speech last week Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned his people that their country was on the brink of a critical choice: either lose their dignity or risk alienating a key partner, America. His speech came after Donald Trump set a deadline demanding the war-torn country accept a unilateral American peace proposal.

That proposal has been internationally panned and called a Russian “wish-list”.

The dire situation Zelenskyy warned of however, did not come to pass, at least not yet.

Zelenskyy says he is now ready to move forward with an American led peace process, but as Trump’s key negotiator plans to head to Moscow the question remains, are the Russians?

To help us understand whether this is the beginning of the end of this war, or just another false start we’re speaking with reporter from The Kyiv Independent Francis Farrell.

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

Sudan’s civil war is now the worst displacement crisis in the world, with more than 12 million people currently displaced from their homes. Earlier this year, the outgoing Biden administration designated the war a genocide. 

This war includes countless proxies fighting over billions of dollars in natural resources, access to key shipping routes along the Red Sea, and control of one of the oldest countries in the world. 

Longtime journalist Michelle Shephard has just arrived from a 10 day reporting trip to the Sudan-Chad border, for The Walrus magazine. There she met families fleeing massacres, and women who crossed the desert on foot to escape sexual violence. She returns with a rare look inside a crisis the world has turned away from.

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

On Thursday Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith are set to announce the outlines of a plan that could set Alberta and B.C. on a collision course.

It’s a potential energy deal that would give Alberta special exemptions from federal environmental laws and offer political support for a new oil pipeline to the B.C. coast, among other things.

That is, if Alberta can get through the significant hurdles of opposition from First Nations and B.C. where Premier David Eby was completely cut out of the talks.

Today we discuss the politics of all this with the CBC’s chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton and Jason Markusoff from our Calgary bureau.

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

Correction: An earlier version of this episode misidentified B.C. Liberal MP Will Greaves. He represents the constituency of Victoria.

After meeting on the sidelines of the G20 in South Africa, Prime Minister Mark Carney and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi have announced they would restart trade talks.

It’s a long way from where the two countries have been for the last several years. Relations blew up in 2023 after former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused agents of India’s government of being involved in the murder of a Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

Then, last year, the RCMP publicly accused such agents of being involved in a campaign of homicides, extortions and threats targeting the South Asian community on Canadian soil. Recently, the director of CSIS suggested that the problem hasn’t gone away.

In B.C.’s Lower Mainland, over 100 reports of extortion were made in the last year.

Two CBC reporters who have been covering this issue give us a closer look at what exactly has been happening on the ground in Canada, particularly when it comes to extortion, who might be behind it, and how this all connects to the larger context of a thawing relationship with India.

Baneet Braich is based out of Abbotsford, B.C. And Evan Dyer is with CBC’s Parliamentary bureau.

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