The term ‘Antifa’ derives from the German word for Antifascist — and the constellation of resistance movements largely created as a response to Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler. Today, Antifa describes a decentralized anti-fascist movement with local groups and unaffiliated activists all over the world. 

Many became aware of Antifascist organizing following  Antifa’s intervention at the white supremacist ‘Unite The Right’ rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. For the last decade, Antifa has come to symbolize progressive protest and movement building – engaging in doxxing,, property destruction, and street-level physical confrontations. 

In late September of this year, U.S. President Donald Trump officially designated Antifa a domestic terror organization. 

Mark Bray is an academic, scholar of European history and radicalism, and the author of several books including ‘ANTIFA — the anti fascist handbook.’ He joins the show to discuss the rise of antifascist movements from the 1930s to today, and why Trump’s terror designation recalls authoritarian crackdowns through history, both in the U.S., Canada and abroad. 

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

Indirect talks between Hamas and Israel in Egypt are underway, with the goal of reaching an agreement on the first phase of U.S. President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposed peace plan. It would see the release of all remaining Israeli hostages by Hamas and potentially, over a thousand Palestinians detained by Israel as well as a ceasefire. The overall plan aims to end the war altogether.

But after previous hostage exchanges and ceasefires have failed to bring a permanent end to the war, what’s different this time? Are they any closer to peace?

William Christou, a freelance journalist working for The Guardian currently in Jerusalem, joins Jayme Poisson

to parse through Trump’s plan, the talks so far and how people in Israel and Gaza are reacting to it all.

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

Aaron Wherry, senior writer at CBC's parliamentary bureau, is back today to talk Canadian politics.

We get into Mark Carney’s upcoming trip to Washington and what it might mean for the possibility of some sort of trade stability with the United States.

Plus, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says her province will propose a new bitumen pipeline to B.C.’s coast to the federal major projects office. But with significant opposition from indigenous communities and the B.C. government, is she just trying to pressure the federal government to get involved?

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

When the book ends, the conversation begins. On Bookends, Mattea Roach speaks with writers who have something to say about their work, the world and our place in it. You’ll always walk away with big questions to ponder and new books to read.

Bookends does not shy away from difficult conversations … and neither does Anna Sale, the host of the popular Slate podcast Death, Sex and Money. The show is all about diving into topics that get deep fast, and Anna expands on that promise in her book, Let’s Talk About Hard Things. In this special bonus episode, Anna joins Mattea to chat all about the book, podcasting and how her own outlook on tough topics has changed over the years. You can listen to Bookends wherever you get your podcasts, or here: https://link.mgln.ai/FB-Bookends

After Donald Trump was elected for a second time, historian Timothy Snyder wrote this in the New Yorker: “Trump has always been a presence, not an absence: the presence of fascism.” Today on Front Burner, Snyder makes that case again. His warning about fascism feels particularly relevant at this point in Trump’s presidency, as the U.S. sees an escalation in political violence, the deployment of federal law enforcement in major cities, and the proliferation of masked ICE agents on what critics call ‘roving patrols’ across the country.

Timothy Snyder teaches at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs. He is the author of books like “On Tyranny” and “On Freedom”.

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The U.S. government has shut down after Republicans and Democrats failed to pass a spending bill before the end of Tuesday. Government services will grind to a halt and hundreds of thousands of federal employees face unpaid leave. How long is it expected to last, and could it have been avoided? 

Plus, President Donald Trump and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth held a rare gathering of the country’s top military leaders, detailing their new vision for the US military. 

We break it all down with Alex Shephard, senior editor at The New Republic. 

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

Last week, Canada officially recognized Palestinian statehood. 

In explaining this decision, Prime Minister Mark Carney released a statement which read, "Canada recognises the State of Palestine and offers our partnership in building the promise of a peaceful future for both the State of Palestine and the State of Israel."

Just over a week later, U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unveiled an alternative way forward: a 20-point plan they say would end the war in Gaza, but falls well short of creating a pathway for the creation of a Palestinian state. 

Today, we're talking about the creation of a Palestinian state, as well as the promise, failure, and uncertain future of the two-state solution. 

Our guest is Noura Erakat, an academic, human rights lawyer, author, and Palestinian-American activist.

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

While Donald Trump may have shocked many at the UN General Assembly when he called climate change “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world”, he may just have been the most extreme messenger of a global shift being seen elsewhere. 

David Wallace-Wells, author of “The Uninhabitable Earth” and friend of the show, recently wrote a feature for the New York Times detailing the ways much of the world has turned away from climate politics and how the era of the Paris Agreement, which was signed 10 years ago, may be coming to an end. He talks to us about why we are seeing this shift and whether the green energy transition, led by China, is enough to make up for it. 

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

It’s been about a month since the NDP leadership race began and two main contenders have emerged: longtime climate activist and former broadcaster Avi Lewis, and NDP MP for Edmonton-Strathcona, Heather McPherson, one of the most prominent New Democrat voices in Western Canada.

The NDP suffered a crushing defeat last election. The party went from 24 MPs to only seven, losing official party status. The next leader is faced with a monumental challenge to rebuild.

Today, we’ve got two people with different visions of what that looks like.

Martin Lukacs is the managing editor of the independent progressive media outlet The Breach. He’s also the author of ‘The Poilievre Project’.

Cheryl Oates is a political consultant, who worked for former Alberta NDP premier Rachel Notley. She’s also worked on NDP campaigns across Western Canada, and teaches at McGill’s Max Bell School of Public Policy.

They join host Jayme Poisson for a spirited debate about the future of the NDP.

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

Dan Wang is a tech analyst and a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover History Lab. He’s one of the leading China analysts in the world right now and his new book is called “Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future”.

Today on the show he explains his novel way of understanding the clash between China and the United States: China owns the future because it is an “engineering state” whereas the U.S. is a “lawyerly society” that often gets in its own way.

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

After a brief suspension for comments he made in the wake of the Charlie Kirk killing, Jimmy Kimmel has made his return to late night.

It was just the latest example in a string of cancellations, resignations, lawsuits, settlements and potential mergers that tell the story of a media industry buckling to Trump or consolidating under a wealthy and powerful few, many of whom are friendly with the Trump administration. 

Eoin Higgins, independent reporter and author of “Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left” joins us to talk about the bigger story of what’s happening with American media and the changes still to come.

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

Health professionals around the world are disputing  the Trump administration’s claims about autism and its potential causes. U.S. Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr., along with President Donald Trump himself, said this week that taking Tylenol while pregnant may cause autism in babies, and the U.S. FDA said it would reclassify the drug leucovorin — primarily used to mitigate chemotherapy side effects — to treat autism symptoms in children.

But the established, peer-reviewed research on autism and its causes does not support either of these claims — or a number of other statements made in that announcement. Health experts have called the claims premature, misleading, and even dangerous.

Deepa Singal, the scientific director of the Autism Alliance of Canada, explains what the science actually says about autism, why health professionals aren't changing their recommendations, and why autism is so hard to get definitive answers about in the first place.

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

Beloved children’s author Robert Munsch has chosen medically assisted death. Canada is one of the few places in the world where MAID is legal for patients like Munsch, who are not terminally ill. Today, a conversation with journalist Katie Engelhart, on the legacy of one of the great Canadian writers, how dementia has impacted his life and ability to come up with stories. Plus we take a broader look at how MAID works in Canada today, who can access it, and the persistent moral and ethical questions it raises.  

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

Today, a wide-ranging interview with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.

She talks to host Jayme Poisson about Alberta’s future in light of the Carney government’s push to fast track major projects, arguing that energy development is an issue of national unity for her constituents.

Smith also responds to the controversy around her potential use of the notwithstanding clause in protecting three laws that affect transgender youth. She also offers her thoughts on Charlie Kirk’s assasination and its aftermath, something that has clearly resonated with Albertans who took part in large vigils in Calgary and Edmonton.

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

Memes have been written on weapons, quoted in manifestos, and cited by young attackers as the inspiration for acts of mass violence. It's a phenomenon that springs from groups of disaffected people communicating on the web through a convoluted language of impenetrable memes and irony.

Utah Governor Spencer Cox has said about the 22-year-old man charged with the killing of Charlie Kirk: "There was a lot of gaming going on. Friends have confirmed that there was that deep, dark internet — Reddit culture and other dark places of the internet where this person was going deep. You saw that on the casings. I didn't have any idea what those inscriptions meant, but they are certainly the memeification that is happening in our society today."

Aidan Walker is a journalist and content creator whose work explores the "video game to meme to extremist" pipeline. And he's joining the show to pull back the curtain on a world where irony, gaming, and fascist subculture blur together, and how it has become such a powerful engine of radicalization.

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

For the first time since June, MPs returned to the House of Commons to decide the path of Canada’s future. And just a few days into the fall session, it’s already looking like a busy season.

After more than a decade in politics, Chrystia Freeland announced she is calling it quits. Pierre Poilievre and Mark Carney faced off for the first time in question period, and we learned when we’ll see the Liberals’ long-delayed budget –– and got a preview of some of the obstacles the minority government will face in getting it passed.

Rosemary Barton, CBC’s chief political correspondent, is back to discuss an eventful week in Parliament and what we know about the national interest projects that are so key to the Prime Minister’s agenda.

The Liberal government has launched its $13-billion agency called “Build Canada Homes” which Prime Minister Mark Carney says will supercharge housing construction across the country.

Today, Housing Minister Gregor Robertson talks to host Jayme Poisson about Canada’s housing affordability crisis, how the Liberal government is meeting the challenges around it, and why he thinks he’s the right person for the job.

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

Following the assassination of Charlie Kirk we're joined by Bruce Hoffman, a Senior Fellow for counter terrorism and homeland security at the Council for Foreign Relations.

He helps us understand the history of assassinations, the connections between violent rhetoric and incidents of material violence, and the online meme-world that communicates motives that are unintelligible to those outside that ecosystem.

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

Donald Trump has declared a war on drug cartels. He’s wielded the flow of narcotics, namely fentanyl, into the U.S. as one of the major reasons behind aspects of his global trade war. He’s added a number of cartels to the foreign terrorist organisations list. 

And last month, the Trump administration stepped things up by quietly signing a Pentagon directive to allow the use of military force against drug cartels. That led to a U.S. drone strike on a Venezuelan boat on international waters, killing all 11 on board. Now, the possibility of more attacks hangs over Venezuela and Mexico, another target of Trump’s cartel war. 

Alexander Aviña, an associate professor of Latin American history at Arizona State University joins us to talk about the impact of these recent escalations and what history tell us about how effective drug wars really are..

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

American conservative media figure and activist Charlie Kirk was one of the most prominent young voices of the American right. The founder of Turning Point USA, a close ally of Donald Trump, and a figure who helped shape the culture and pipeline of the MAGA movement.

On Wednesday, he was shot at one of his trademark campus debate events at Utah Valley University.

Will Sommer, a senior reporter with The Bulwark, joins the show to break down the shooting, how rhetoric around the killing is escalating, and how it all connects to the growing atmosphere of political violence in the United States.

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