For the last year, Canada’s premier literary award The Giller Prize has been embroiled in a controversy that has split the Canadian literary community. Last years gala was interrupted by protestors who rushed the stage carrying placards emblazoned with ‘Scotiabank Funds Genocide.’ 

What they were referring to was the fact The Giller’s lead sponsor, Scotiabank, was a principal shareholder of one of Israel’s largest weapons manufacturers. They also objected to a pair of Giller sponsors invested in the Israeli military and settlements in the occupied West Bank. 

Since then, a number of former Giller winners, along with hundreds of bookworkers across the country have committed to a boycott.

Winner of the 2005 Giller Prize David Bergen joins the show to discuss his decision not to attend this year’s Giller Prize – and a broader conversation about the duty of a writer, and whether it is possible for artists to reconcile their personal convictions with the interests of corporate sponsors. 

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

Earlier this week, after months of debate and hesitation, the U.S. decided to allow Ukraine to use American made ATACMS missiles on targets inside Russia. Escalations followed, such as Russia signing a new doctrine that lowered the threshold for nuclear attacks.

As the tensions ratchet up, there’s still the question of what will happen once Donald Trump takes office. 

To break down the gravity of this moment, we talk to David Sanger, longtime New York Times national security correspondent and the author of “New Cold Wars: China’s Rise, Russia’s Invasion and America’s Struggle to Defend the West”.

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

Nearly a million Canadian workers have taken job action in recent years, with Canada Post employees being the latest to do so. That included work stoppages at airlines, railways and Canadian ports.

You might assume, from the many headlines about strikes, that union power is growing in Canada. But in fact, over the last forty years, the number of workers who are members of a union has decreased by nearly 10 percent.

At the same time, jobs across many sectors have gotten worse, from stagnating wages to reduced benefits.

Barry Eidlin is an associate professor of sociology at McGill University and the author of "Labour and the Class Idea in the United States and Canada".

He'll weigh in on why work sucks, what unions can do about that, and what is and is not being done.

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

Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, recently returned from a week-long trip to Canada. She was given standing ovations at sold-out speaking events, yet also faced backlash from groups who called for the Canadian government to condemn her, and advocated for the UN to remove her from her position.

Today, a wide-ranging conversation with Francesca Albanese.

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

In the past week, U.S. president-elect Donald Trump has announced many members of his upcoming cabinet, giving a window into his second term’s priorities.

There’s little known about the wider implications of these appointments, but one area that Trump has emphasized as a “day one” priority is immigration.

This was Trump’s single biggest talking point throughout his presidential campaign, and heading into a second term, it’s a clear policy priority.

Nicole Narea is a senior reporter covering politics and immigration at Vox. She’ll go through what the next four years of American immigration policy could look like.

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

They needed certainty. They got chaos. For over a decade, countless people from at least five different countries put their trust in a company offering prenatal paternity tests. It promised clients “99.9% accuracy” — but then routinely, for over a decade, identified the wrong biological fathers.

In the brand new season of Uncover: Bad Results, investigative journalists Jorge Barrera and Rachel Houlihan track down the people whose lives were torn apart by these bad results, the shattered families and acrimonious court cases that followed, and the story behind the company that continues to stand by its testing and is still operating today.

More episodes of Uncover are available at: https://link.chtbl.com/a9dREAtd

There are a reported 13 million full time influencers in the U.S. today. According to Goldman Sachs, the influencer economy is worth around $250-billion, a number expected to double by 2027. 

Despite its quick rise, the influencer economy remains a nascent industry that, in many ways, has no meaningful oversight or standard and practices. 

We're joined by Emily Hund, author of 'The Influencer Industry: the quest for authenticity on social media' to better understand one of our quickest growing cultural and economic sectors, and the need to professionalize the industry, before it's too late. 

In this episode, we refer to a previous installment of Front Burner, which you can find below:

The Dark Side of Family Influencers Apple/Spotify

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

In the mid 1980s, the Canadian government tasked a commission to investigate whether a considerable number of alleged Nazi war criminals settled in Canada after the Second World War.

The Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals was headed by retired Quebec judge Jules Deschênes. It looked into this issue, but for decades, many of the commission’s findings were not made public.That includes a list of 900 names of alleged Nazi war criminals who lived in Canada, and the files and documents about them.

Last week, Ottawa rejected the freedom of information request to get it released. Officials at Library and Archives Canada said that after a comprehensive review, they decided to withhold the list because it could cause harm to Canadian interests, and international relations.

David Pugliese is the Ottawa Citizen’s defence reporter. He helps us understand who might be on that list, how so many suspected Nazis entered Canada after WWII, and why the Canadian government has not released the names.

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

For decades, conservatives worried about losing the fight for cultural relevancy. 

During his campaign, Donald Trump aggressively courted Gen Z and young millennial men — appearing on podcasts, streams and alongside influencers, discussing everything from combat sports to cocaine use. A PR campaign which many have credited, in part, for his election victory. 

Hasan Piker is a rare political streamer on the American left; on election day, his coverage garnered 7.5 million views overall. He joins the show for a discussion about why many young men have drifted rightward, and he addresses what that appeal is fundamentally about.

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

In Canada, we've spent a lot of time and money studying the prospect of high-speed rail, as enjoyed by many other countries — transit infrastructure that has transformed countries like Japan and France. This week, the federal government is expected to announce plans for a high-speed rail line between Toronto and Quebec City, which could finally make that prospect a reality.

But are Canadians — and their politicians — ready to spend the billions of dollars it would take? Does this particular line even make sense? And even if the answers are yes… is Canada even capable of building this kind of megaproject anymore?

Reece Martin — a transit planner and creator of the YouTube channel RMTransit — explains the boon high-speed rail has been around the world, and the reasons why it continues to elude us here in Canada.

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