Robert Land Academy is a “military-style” school in Wellandport, Ontario. Since it opened in the 1970s, it’s used military-like structure and uniforms in a bid to mould struggling boys into confident, capable citizens. But last week, The Walrus contributing writer Rachel Browne published a piece with former students' allegations that they experienced violence, sexual abuse and racism at the school. The school maintains it has a zero-tolerance policy regarding corporal punishment. Today,...

Liberal ministers are hunkered down in Halifax right now for their annual end-of-summer cabinet retreat. It’s a chance for the party to get together and set the agenda ahead of the fall session of parliament. But this year, a shadow hangs over the retreat, as the party contends with dismal polling numbers, calls for leader Justin Trudeau to step down, and the looming reality of a general election that’s at best a year away. Today, JP Tasker, a senior reporter with the CBC’s parliamentary...

Earlier this month, Ottawa mayor Mark Sutcliffe warned the provincial and federal governments that his city was facing a public transit funding crisis. He says that at this rate, the city won’t have enough money to run the light rail lines currently under construction. From Metro Vancouver to Toronto, we’re seeing similar issues in major cities across Canada. These cities are dealing with what planning experts call a “transit death spiral”. When ridership drops, they can’t keep up with the...

Just one month ago, the Democrats were a deeply divided party, caught in a tailspin after President Joe Biden's disastrous performance in the first presidential debate. But in the wake of him dropping out and endorsing his vice president Kamala Harris, the party has found new optimism about its chances in the next election. All that excitement came to a head in Chicago this week at the Democratic National Convention. But excitement aside – is this still an uphill battle for the Democrats?...

In politics, a “third rail” is an issue that’s so volatile, so dangerous, that politicians are afraid to touch it.  The firm Abacus Data has just come out with a new poll that looks at the “third rails” of Canadian politics — the issues that would make people vote for or against a political party who promised that idea. And some of their findings — and the way they cut across the political spectrum — are actually pretty surprising. David Coletto, the founder, chair and CEO of Abacus Data,...

 A new federal political party, the Canadian Future Party, is pitching itself as a centrist alternative for voters disillusioned with the Conservatives and Liberals. It’s already announced candidates for two upcoming byelections. Front Burner host Jayme Poisson spoke with the party’s interim leader, Dominic Cardy, about why he believes voters are so dissatisfied with the major parties, how he says there’s a “drive towards more and more extremism” among the Liberals and Conservatives, and...

After the events of Sept. 11, sweeping changes were made to U.S intelligence and counterrorism practices as part of the American-led 'war on terror'. Agencies like the CIA started focusing less on traditional forms of espionage, and became more of an organization centred on assassination and hunting non-state actors. As part of that broader effort, a plan was born: what if the CIA were able to conscript a white American man to infiltrate the inner workings of Al-Qaeda?  Journalist Zach...

Two and half years after Russia first invaded, Ukraine has launched what might be its boldest counterattack yet: a push into the Kursk region. It's the first military incursion across Russian borders since the Second World War, drawing Russian troops away from key battle zones in eastern Ukraine. Tim Mak, a Kyiv-based journalist who publishes the newsletter The Counteroffensive, explains why Ukraine is betting big on such a risky strategy, and whether it could change the course of this...

Over the last two weeks, Liberal Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault has said he's considering tightening Canada's temporary foreign worker program. This is amid criticism of its growing use and the conditions facing those who are in it. Since the Liberals first loosened the rules in response to the pandemic in 2021, the program has played a bigger part in our labour market, including with staff at large food and retail chains. Some Canadians believe that that’s suppressing wages and...

Israeli prisons have been making headlines in recent weeks, after far-right protesters stormed the gates of the notorious Sde Teiman detention facility to protest the arrest of nine soldiers accused of sexually assaulting a Palestinian prisoner. The incident reportedly left the man in life-threatening condition, and it has led to a furious debate within Israeli society, with some defending the use of torture against Palestinian detainees. But the case is far from isolated, according to...

The arrest of a father and son north of Toronto accused of being in the late stages of planning an attack for the benefit of the Islamic State. A canceled stop in Vienna on Taylor Swift’s Eras tour after the threat of an attack with the main suspect allegedly inspired by ISIS. A deadly attack in March on a Moscow theatre leaving over 100 dead, allegedly committed by members of an ISIS affiliate.  While the Sunni Muslim militant organization hasn’t been in the headlines regularly since 2018,...

It’s been a year since Meta banned Canadian news on platforms including Facebook and Instagram, punching a significant hole in how audiences engage with outlets online.   At the same time, the continued descent of the outlets’ revenues has meant mass layoffs and closures, and the rise of news deserts around the country.  Today, two journalists weigh in on whether Ottawa should further intervene and increase its financial support of news media, or whether it should heed worries about...

ChatGPT took the world by storm when it launched in November of 2022, prompting massive investment in generative AI technology as tech companies rushed to capitalize on the hype. But nearly two years and billions of dollars later, the technology seems to be plateauing — and it's still not profitable. After tech stocks took a hit in early August, concerns are growing in both the tech press and on Wall Street that generative AI may be a bubble, and that it may soon burst. Paris Marx — author...

Shortly before Vladimir Putin was re-elected for a fifth term as Russia’s president he eliminated his last possible rival for power, Alexei Navalny, who from all available evidence was murdered in an Arctic labour camp. The deaths of dozens of Putin's opponents, often in mysterious circumstances, have been a hallmark of his time in office. Tortoise’s Giles Whittell sets out to find out why so many of Putin’s enemies have met an early end.This is episode 1 of Putin's Murders from Tortoise. You...

Online rumours and disinformation surrounding the identity of the suspect in a mass stabbing incident that left three little girls dead in a British seaside town led to an explosion of anti-immigrant and anti-migrant riots throughout the U.K. The unrest was led by mostly white far-right groups. As sudden as the riots came, the festering of resentment towards immigrants and anti-migrant rhetoric has been circulating online and throughout British politics for years.  Freelance journalist and...

The condo market in Greater Toronto, whether it’s resale or new, is struggling. According to a recent CIBC Economics study, sales have “have dived off a cliff” to their lowest level since the late 1990s. Some condos in Toronto are now sitting empty for six to seven months, despite an ongoing housing crisis in the country. John Pasalis has been looking into why this is happening. He’s the president of Realosophy, a realty brokerage in Toronto. He’ll talk to us about the road that led to this...

By ideas, dollars and in personal connections, Republican vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance is intimately tied to an amorphous ideological movement known as the “New Right.” Some of its major players, which include billionaires and tech elites, want to gut the US’ institutions and upend democracy in what they see as necessary, radical action to reverse the tyranny of liberalism.  So what is the New Right? How far would JD Vance be willing to go to advance its ideas in the White House?...

Last week’s boxing match between Italy’s Angela Carini and Algeria’s Imane Khelif lasted just 46 seconds. But it has ignited a firestorm online, and led to a slew of misinformation about Khelif’s sex and gender — leading commentators from Elon Musk to Donald Trump to Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling to allege that the International Olympic Committee is allowing a man to compete in women’s boxing. Those claims are not true. Imane Khelif is a cisgender woman, something both she and the IOC...

Tested is a new podcast series from CBC and NPR that asks the question, who gets to compete? Since the beginning of women’s sports, there has been a struggle over who qualifies for the women’s category. Tested follows the unfolding story of elite female runners who have been told they can no longer race as women, because of their biology. As the Olympics approach, they face hard choices: take drugs to lower their natural testosterone levels, give up their sport entirely, or fight. To...

Olympic FOMO is your daily Olympics recap, in 20 minutes or less hosted by longtime radio duo and media best friends Mark Strong and Jemeni. Together they provide a fresh perspective to the Olympic conversation as they chat with athletes, entertainers and celebrities to get their take on the Games. In this episode, Mark and Jem chat about how Simone Biles battles haters left and right and still manages to score gold, and how a Turkish sharp shooter went viral for his hitman vibes. Mark and...

Since US President Joe Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to take over as the next Democratic nominee, the US election campaign has been awash in memes. Memes about coconut trees, weirdos, Brat and even intimate relationships with couches.   But as both U.S. and Canadian political parties are learning, the power of the internet is a double edged sword that can energize campaigns or severely backfire. So when do memes work? Why do they fall flat? And what is the risk of trying to...

On Tuesday, the leader of Hamas’s political wing, Ismail Haniyeh, was assassinated in Iran. The killing is widely believed to have been an Israeli strike, although Israel has not claimed responsibility.  News of Haniyeh’s death came just hours after Israel announced it had killed a top Hezbollah commander in Beirut, Lebanon, which it said was in retaliation for a deadly attack in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights a few days before. Now, the two attacks — coupled with Hamas and Hezbollah’s...

After the Bank of Canada hiked interest rates at an unprecedented pace the last couple of years, there’s been a lot of talk about whether we’ll be tipped into a recession. Now, as rates have finally started to come down, a lot of people are struggling. Unemployment’s gone up, people are accumulating debt, and despite inflation cooling, everything still seems really expensive.  So, it can start to feel like we’re in a recession. But most experts aren’t calling it one. So what is it? BMO...

Canada's women's soccer team went into the 2024 Olympics with their title as defending gold medalists on the line — but they now find themselves mired in allegations of cheating after a team analyst was caught flying a drone over a New Zealand training session. Canada is certainly not the first soccer team to be caught spying on rivals' practices. But why would they try it at such a highly scrutinized tournament? And what could it mean for the future of the sport in Canada as allegations...

This is the second episode in our two-part series on the past, present and future of the US-Israel ‘special relationship.’  In Part 2, we’re going to look at how that relationship affects Americans living in the US — sometimes in surprising ways.  In this episode, we refer to a few previous episodes of Front Burner, which you can find here: The US and Israel’s ‘special relationship’ — Part 1 Apple / Spotify At the McGill encampment: Calls to divest from Israel Apple / Spotify The growing...