Front Burner

A trial that was seven years in the making came to its conclusion with all five former Hockey Canada players found not guilty of sexual assault.

Michael McLeod, Carter Hart, Alex Formenton, Dillon Dubé and Cal Foote were acquitted in a London, Ontario courtroom by Justice Maria Carroccia.

McLeod was also found not guilty of being a party to a sexual assault. All five had pleaded not guilty.

The Athletic’s senior enterprise writer Dan Robson explains the decision and its implications.

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

Many First Nations leaders across Canada are furious about two laws just passed by both the federal government and Ontario's provincial government.

The Protecting Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act and the federal Building Canada Act, better known as Bill 5 and Bill C5, are meant to fast-track large development projects and have faced similar criticisms.

Many Indigenous people say the bills stomp on treaty rights and ignore the need to get their consent for development in their territories –– and this could shape up to mean some big battles across the country.

Alvin Fiddler, Grand Chief of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation, a political organization that represents 49 Ontario First Nations, joins the show to unpack the controversy.

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

Groups known as "active clubs" are growing across Canada. They often meet in public parks or martial arts clubs, and say they are building community and fitness while standing up for Canada's European history. But they're part of a decentralized network with deep ties to white nationalist, neo-Nazi, and other far-right groups — and they're spreading fast.

An exclusive CBC investigation has uncovered exactly how and where these groups operate, who's involved, who they target, and their connections to other extremist groups in Canada and beyond. The CBC's Eric Szeto explains what his team uncovered during the months-long investigation. Then, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue's Mack Lamoureux puts the clubs into the context of growing far-right extremism worldwide, and the broader goals of the movement.

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

Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, told journalists earlier this month that he has instructed the military to draw up plans for a camp in southern Gaza, which would eventually house the entire population of the strip. According to Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, Katz said residents would not be allowed to leave once they entered — although he and other Israeli officials are still talking about plans to deport, or “voluntarily relocate,” Gazan civilians.

While Katz described this as a “humanitarian city,” critics — including a former Israeli prime minister — have decried the plan as a “concentration camp.”

Today, we’ll first hear from a man in the area of southern Gaza from which people would theoretically be moved into this proposed camp. Then we’ll speak to Dahlia Scheindlin, a Tel Aviv-based pollster and political analyst, and author of the recent book The Crooked Timber of Democracy in Israel: Promise Unfulfilled.

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

In the rapidly growing world of generative AI chatbots, Grok stands out. Created by Elon Musk's xAI and touted as a "politically incorrect," "anti-woke" alternative to models like ChatGPT, Grok has become a pervasive presence on Musk's social media platform X. So a lot of people took notice earlier this month when Grok started spouting anti-Semitic stereotypes, making violent sexually charged threats, and dubbing itself "MechaHitler."

xAI says it has fixed the issue that was introduced in a recent update, but the incident has raised concerns about the apparent lack of guardrails on the technology — particularly when, a week later, the company launched personal AI "companion" characters that included a female anime character with an X-rated mode, and won a contract with the U.S. Department of Defense worth $200 million USD.

Kate Conger — a technology reporter with the New York Times and co-author of the book Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter — explains what led to Grok's most recent online meltdown and the broader safety concerns about the untested tech behind it.

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

U.S. President Donald Trump promised to make America the cryptocurrency capital of the world and he’s been working to make good on that. This week, in what House Republicans dubbed “Crypto Week”, he pushed Congress to pass three major pieces of legislation championed by the industry.

Trump hasn’t always been a fan of crypto but after his sons caught on and tens of millions from the crypto industry poured into his re-election campaign, he’s gone all in. Now, he’s got multiple ventures but none as big as World Liberty Financial, the start-up that’s earned his family an estimated $500 million so far. 

But who is he striking these deals with? And why are some Democrats calling it all a “vehicle for corruption”? To untangle this complex web of policymaking, moneymaking and influence, we’re joined by Jacob Silverman, the co-author of “Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud” and the host of The Naked Emperor, CBC Understood’s four part podcast series about the rise and fall of FTX CEO Sam Bankman Fried. 

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

After more than four decades of activism and advocacy, David Suzuki is one of the most renowned and respected voices in the environmental movement. So when he says it's too late to stop climate change, people take notice. And that's now exactly what he's saying.

He's delivering this message as Prime Minister Mark Carney's government focuses on fast-tracking major projects it deems to be of national interest, which could include a new pipeline for fossil fuels from Alberta. Suzuki says that, despite his understanding of the climate crisis, Carney — like all of us — is trapped by the economic and political systems we've created. And for Suzuki, our only hope for survival is to scrap those systems entirely.

David Suzuki joins Jayme Poisson on the podcast for a wide-ranging discussion from what a world of irreversible climate change looks like to what he describes as the "madness" of continued investment in fossil fuels to the lessons environmentalists of the future can take from the past.

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

Zohran Mamdani’s win in the Democratic primary for mayor of New York is one of the most stunning upsets in the city’s political history. The 33-year-old assemblyman led a campaign focused on affordability, with a platform that included a rent freeze, free public transportation and free child care.

Zohran’s win garnered international attention. It also marked the introduction of the first star the Democratic party has produced in many years, appealing to voters that the party has struggled to retain. 

But since then, political forces - including many from within his own party - have been trying to stop his rise. Why is that? And why is the Democratic Party establishment in particular, hesitating to back him?

Errol Louis is a reporter with New York Magazine and a local anchor in New York City. Louis has written a number of pieces about Mamdani, and joins the show to talk about his rapid ascent to stardom, and the identity crisis at the heart of the Democratic Party. 

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

U.S. President Donald Trump wrote letters to over two dozen trading partners last week, threatening a fresh set of tariffs. Canada was among them and is now facing the possibility of 35% tariffs on all Canadian goods that don’t comply with CUSMA, the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement, if a deal isn’t reached by August 1st. 

Where do our negotiations with the Trump administration stand and how much worse could things get if these tariffs come into effect? What cards can Canada still play at the negotiating table? And what does Trump’s ongoing tariff approach mean for the world? To help make sense of it all, we’re joined by Eric Miller, trade analyst and president of Rideau Potomac Strategy Group.

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

To kick off the week, we tackle a few big stories in two realms of Canadian politics: the military, and the federal public service.

First, the Ottawa Citizen's David Pugliese tells us about the investigation into a Facebook group where military members of one regiment regularly share misogynistic, racist and derogatory content. He also shares his thoughts on another story involving the Canadian army: the charges laid last week by the RCMP against military members accused of planning to form an anti-government militia.

Then, to get a sense of what Prime Minister Mark Carney's goal to cut tens of billions in government spending might look like, we are joined by Yves Giroux, Canada's Parliamentary Budget Officer, the non-partisan watchdog whose job is to promote budget transparency and accountability.

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