Front Burner - The stories that shaped our year

Episode Date: December 24, 2025

Today we're bringing you a 2025 Front Burner wrap up, answering audience questions and bringing you behind the scenes of the making of some of our most popular episodes of 2025.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

This ascent isn't for everyone. You need grit to climb this high this often. You've got to be an underdog that always over-delivers. You've got to be 6,500 hospital staff, 1,000 doctors, all doing so much with so little. You've got to be Scarborough. Defined by our uphill battle and always striving towards new heights. And you can help us keep climbing.

Donate at lovescarbro.cairbo. This is a CBC podcast. Hi, I'm Matthew. I'm on. Today, as we get ready to head into the holidays, we've got something a little different for you. My guest is Jamie. Hey, Matt. We're going to take some audience questions

and bring you behind the scenes of some of our most popular episodes from 2025. So we'll get right into audience questions in just a moment, but why don't we start by looking back at the year that was? What do you think were some of the biggest stories that we covered here at the show over the last year or so? Oh, man. It's hard to pick. There were so many enormous and important stories this year. The wars, of course, in Ukraine and Gaza, other violence and instability in the Middle East. I'm thinking Iran, Syria, Lebanon, the U.S. election, AI. and then the dizzying and shocking pace of the Trump administration. I think for us, though, on this show, it was probably the trade war with Washington

and the Canadian election that was the biggest story for us. The system of global trade anchored on the United States that Canada has relied on since the end of the Second World War, a system that, well, not perfect, has helped to deliver prosperity for our country for decades is over. The threats by Trump to annex us. Canada and the United States, that would really be something. You get rid of that artificially drawn line and you take a look at what that looks like. The unbelievable comeback of the liberal government going from certain defeat to just a few

seats from a majority. Canada's next government will be a liberal government. It is not yet clear at this hour. whether it will be a minority or majority, become some of those close races we were talking about. This marks a fourth liberal mandate. Very rare in Canadian politics. So, yeah, a really eventful year.

I mean, when we look back at this last year, what was it that maybe surprised you most? I mean, either a particular story that we may have done or something about the way that we told stories this last year? I think probably it would be how Canada was so. whole front and center in the world. No offense to our American friends listening, but I feel like I often talk to Americans, either in my own life or on this show, who don't really know what's going on here. But for a good stretch of 2025, it felt like every American Brit, et cetera,

we had on this show wanted to kind of hang around afterwards and talk about what was happening here. A lot of Americans were like apologizing to us for all the 51st state stuff. And then I think here in Canada, that story was so shocking. All these fears of our more powerful neighbors to the south were becoming real. I think it just dominated the national conversation for so much of the year. And then I would say the second thing that really surprised me this year, and maybe this is frankly naive, in hindsight, but just looking back at the speed at which the U.S. administration has been moving, troops in U.S. cities. More than 2,200 National Guard troops in the nation's capital now armed. Many seen

overnight carrying service-issue pistols, others armed with M-4 rifles, all part of what President Trump is calling a crackdown on crime in Washington, D.C. So I think Chicago will be our next, and then we'll help with New York. People being snatched off the street by ice. Videos of ice raids, and more specifically, the tactics ice agents are using, have sparked debate and protests nationwide. The slashing of government departments doge. This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy.

Change saw. A year field. like so long ago. And I'm not really sure what I was expecting, but honestly, I don't think I was expecting this. During the first Trump administration, there was a lot of chaos. It was very eventful as well, but it did feel like there were some guardrails on, and now it does feel like those guardrails are off. Just to kind of bring things back to Canada for a moment, though. I mean, I'm wondering, how does the kind of particular audience interest in some of these domestic stories that we've done this year compared to previous years of the show.

So we saw an enormous appetite for Canadian politics stories this year. They've always been popular on the show, but this year people really, really wanted them. The election episode that we were recorded at 2 a.m. with Aaron Wary and David Coletto was our number one episode on Apple of the Year, which isn't really that surprising, but 17 of the 25 top episodes on Spotify and then 18 of the top 25 episodes. on Apple were about Canadian politics writ large. And I mean, it was a really interesting year in Canadian politics. I have never covered a year like this in Canadian politics. And if you just think about some of the things that happened, we had Trudeau, who was like refusing to go despite

all evidence to the contrary. We had the Christian Freeland drama where she just resigns in this letter that's pretty critical of Trudeau and sets in motion. His, his, like eventual downfall. This country deserves a real choice in the next election. And it has become clear to me that if I'm having to fight internal battles, I cannot be the best option in that election. We have Mark Carney who, you know, I know this guy didn't come out of nowhere, but in January of last year, most Canadians had no idea who this guy was. And then what, two, three months later, he becomes the prime minister. of the country with almost a majority.

Who's ready? Who's ready? Who's ready? Who's ready to stand up for Canada with me? And then on the other side of that, we have kind of the narrative of Pierre Pahliav, who just months earlier was all but a shoe-in for prime minister. This is a guy whose only job has been in parliament. He's been wanting to be the prime minister since he was a teenager. and it just kind of really slips through his fingers.

We are cognizant of the fact that we didn't quite get over the finish line yet. We know that change is needed, but change is hard to come by. It takes time. It takes work. And that's why we have to learn the lessons of tonight so that we can have an even better result the next time the Canadians decide the future for the country. And then, ever since then, there have been all. all of these questions raised about his suitability as leader of the opposition for this moment. He's got this big leadership review coming up in January.

You know, will he make it through it? Who knows, right? And then you throw in other really interesting characters like Doug Ford in Ontario, who's like pouring out whiskey bottles during press conferences. So this is what I think about Crown Oil. That's what they could do. And I think everyone else should do the same thing. start supporting companies that make whiskey here by Ontario people.

That's what we need to do is support each other. Danielle Smith, who's also in her own right, a really interesting character. She's basically demanding a pipeline and saying that if Alberta doesn't get one, like they're probably headed for some kind of referendum on whether Alberta should stay in this country. So, I mean, just such an interesting year. And maybe the most remarkable Canadian politics story of the last year, we actually covered not so long ago. That is, of course, Justin Trudeau's new budding relationship with the American pop star, Katie Perry. I totally forgot.

Yeah. So, many of the people that we heard from actually reached out with. story ideas. Some reached out with pretty pointed questions and others with some thoughts about the way that we make these episodes. So here's one from Nicole, who named a few episodes of particular interest for her. One was on our so-called meme shooters episode, which she said taught her so much that she hadn't heard anywhere else. This was the episode that we did just after Charlie Kirk was assassinated. That took a look at some of the messages, the memes that authorities say, were engraved on the shell casings. I guess the question here is,

what do you think really made this episode work in the way that it did? And what were some of the considerations that we were having to make as a team behind the scenes? So I'm with Nicole here, big time. I also learned so much from this episode. And so I want to bring you in here in a second, Matt, because you produced this episode.

But after Charlie Kirk's assassination, we were watching what I, I would refer to as a weaponization of what was printed on these bullets and immediate attempts to either put the alleged shooting in a far-left ideology or like a far-right ideology. And also at the same time, I don't think mainstream media really does a great job with super online stuff. I'm not saying I'm any kind of expert. But, you know, we were watching journalists on TV, for example, struggle to explain a Discord server. Like here's one example, the Chow Bella Chow song written on the casing of the bullets.

It was taken from what is an anti-fascist anthem. And it was reported as such, right? And some people wanted to use that as evidence that the shooter was kind of left-wing, right? But also, it's something that this far-right Internet culture, I'm thinking of neo-Nazi, Nick Fuentes, Grypers in particular, have taken as their own as well. And unless you're like super steeped in that world, you, you wouldn't know that. So basically what we set out to do here was try to find someone who actually knew what was going on here. And you and our producer's Joy and Matt Mews are younger and like way more online. You understand a lot of this stuff better than me.

And, you know, I think you did a really great job pulling this together. Yeah. I mean, I, what I would say about this episode is that it was one that we had wanted to do for some time. We had wanted to explore these links between the hyper online world, Gen Z, memes, and acts of material violence, and just how quickly online radicalization appeared to be changing. And then the assassination of Charlie Kirk happens, and the story of the person responsible for that killing ended up really intersecting quite closely with this online phenomenon. Our guest essentially did for us a kind of meme anthropology and framed this phenomenon as

an online world of irony and violent nihilism that by its very design was completely unintelligible to anyone outside its orbit. This includes law enforcement and the media. And so even beyond this one killing, the fact that these are incidents of violence carried out by young people that are thinking of actual material violence as a kind of joke, which is what he said, was remarkable. You know, like I think at one point, he referred to the Charlie Kirk killing as a shit post. Yeah. Right. I'd never heard of that kind of framing before. And that's why I think, you know, I mean, our guest name was Aidan Walker. And I mean, that's why he worked so well on this episode. I mean, you know, he had a substack. He had a TikTok page. He's not necessarily a legacy journalist. But he's steeped in this particular world and ended up being the perfect person for us to speak to for this. Okay. We're now going to pivot to a question from W. Wallace. And this one is about the production of the show. They wanted to know whether, quote,

The background music pauses during the show, the inclusion of media clips that support points of discussion during the show are all a part of the show's post-production process, or are these things that are part of the production while we're interviewing our guest? And there's really no one better to answer this question than our audio producer, Mack. He is who is responsible for so much of what you're hearing. So I'm going to bring in Mac here to answer this question. Thanks for the question, first of all. The answer is whichever is more impressive. no we add everything after the interview is done and there's a few reasons for that it really it's just less work on the front end so I really like to put in the audio of people saying

the things we say they've said in the show I think it's kind of always better to hear right from the horse's mouth so for example like I don't know if you've noticed but the president of the United States is a bit of a chatterbox so rather than ripping all of the notable things that he may have said in anticipation, that something he has said gets brought up. It's more efficient to wait, see what the guest references, and then grab exactly what's needed for the episode.

The other reason we use clips usually is like to add context to things that maybe the guest didn't say or context that they didn't give or for the sake of time had to be cut, but it's still crucial to the conversation and then the information that we're trying to deliver. So it's really about flexibility.

Like I can choose the perfect place for the clip, make sure there isn't much repetition, stuff like that. And then just for the music quickly, that's also done after the fact. And the thinking there is that there's a lot of information in these episodes. And some stuff can get heavy. So the idea is just we like to provide like a little 10 second digestion break. Good for the brain. Let's everything kind of sink in.

And then you can get back to the info. This ascent isn't for everyone. You need grit to climb this high this often. You've got to be an underdog that always over-delivers. You've got to be 6,500 hospital staff, 1,000 doctors, all doing so much with so little. You've got to be Scarborough. Defined by our uphill battle and always striving towards new heights. And you can help us keep climbing.

at Lovescarbrough.ca. Hi, Steve Patterson here, host of The Debaters, Canada's comedy competition judged by live audience applause. This week's episode asks if children are smarter than their parents. So tune in to find out who wears the smarty pants in their families, wherever you get your podcasts. We're going to be jumping here to Rhonda from Brampton, Ontario, who had a question for you, Jamie, about your interviewing style.

Rhonda's asked how you make these interviews and conversations flow so smoothly that she feels as though she is listening to an informal discussion. She said that she feels as though she's in the room with you, which I think is a pretty high compliment. So let's break the fourth wall a little bit here. I mean, these interviews are highly scripted and highly researched, but how do you ask questions in a kind of non-dispassionate way, in a way that can feel intimate and personal? It sounds easy, but I know from experience that it's much more difficult than it looks.

Well, first, Rhonda, thank you very much for that. if you saw my inbox or my social media feeds, I think you would. Not everyone agrees with that. How do I get that vibe? I mean, for better or worse, I never really got any conventional broadcast training. I came up in print journalism. And I would say that the interviews that I do on this show are way more focused and I do a lot more work on the front end preparing for them.

But the style is probably quite similar. to what I was doing when I was at the Toronto Star for 10 years at the beginning of my career. And just, I think as Matt, you alluded to, this informality, it isn't just like winging a conversation. We do spend a lot of time researching these episodes. And I do get kind of scripts and cue lines with a lot of notes and information in them. And so I think that that preparation actually helps you be more casual because if you really feel confident in the kind of subject that you want to try and tackle with the guest, then you can move around a bit and you can be a little bit more spontaneous and you don't have to follow everything to a T.

And then maybe that's how you can get that kind of casualness and informality a little bit better. And then, you know, the last thing, what I will say is that I'm pretty cognizant that a lot of people are listening to the show with AirPods. And, you know, I think I think I know what I like to listen to when I listen to podcasts and and I appreciate kind of the news being delivered to me calmly and in a way that that feels like a little bit more kind of intimate. So, you know, I do, I do try to do that. I do try to kind of keep as close to myself as possible. I do hope that if people met me, they wouldn't get something very different.

No, I would say from working with you every day, this is similar to the in-person experience. So I'll be listening. Okay, so next up, we've got Ethan, who is wondering whether CBC or media organizations more broadly tend to offer more liberty or freedom to podcasts than they might a more traditional broadcasting form, like television, radio, or print media. Essentially, whether we are allowed more editorial independence than other forms of traditional and legacy media. So I've gotten questions like this before. I've heard kind of comments like this before. So this show and all the programs and news at the CBC are beholden to this journalistic Bible of sorts. This is like shorthand around here, we call it JSP, but it's called our journalistic standards and practices.

And you can look that up online, you can read it. And generally it kind of lays out best practices around fairness and balance and accuracy. I mean, I think because of the nature of podcasting, you do have more time to bring your audience through a conversation. People are more forgiving if the conversation me injures a bit. You don't have to worry so much about length and about brevity. And really, we don't have like a clock that we're running up again. So if we need to take 40 minutes, we do. So, you know, I personally love podcasts because I do think that they lend themselves to a more.

thoughtful approach to your story. The other thing I was hoping to say here to kind of dispel this idea that say public broadcasters are controlled by the government. On a day-to-day basis, no one tells us here at front burner what questions to ask and guests to book and subjects to cover. There is a lot of editorial independence and I do have a lot of leeway. We have a lot of leeway. That is not unique to this show. All shows and news have that. So, you know, if you think that we have really messed up an episode, I have to say, like, we did that all by ourselves, probably. So now, I guess, for the question that we were asked really more than any other. And this is about our coverage of the United States and Donald Trump. Some were asking

why a Canadian news podcast concentrates such focus on the U.S. and others were thanking us for providing thoughtful coverage of the country from a Canadian perspective, particularly at such a complicated historical moment. I wonder how you think about our coverage of our southern neighbor. So look, I understand where this critique is coming from. There is no shortage of American news sources and journalism in this country in Canada is not in a great place. So I'm really, I am very empathetic and I do understand this critique. We are. are constantly trying to keep this balance in mind, and we do prioritize Canadian news. We're constantly talking about that balance in our morning story meetings, and we do try to do a majority

of Canadian stories each week or a majority of stories that we can at least add a Canadian angle to each week, right? And also, we are really trying to represent Canada nationally. our producer Matt Mews has been working out of BC with our senior Elaine Chow. Our producer, Lauren, is in Winnipeg. If I could defend the American news coverage a little bit, though, I think everyone will agree that this administration, this American administration is extraordinary in the breadth and scope of what they're doing. They are remaking the world order. They are remaking their own country, which happens to be the most powerful country in the world in our neighbor. They have some of the most powerful country. companies in the world. You know, I'm thinking this year of Open AI in particular. And one of the things that we are really interested in doing on this show is holding a critical lens to power. And there is a lot of power in the United States. And then they are also doing a ton of stuff that affects us here in Canada. The trade stuff obviously, but just recently, we had Canada's former ambassador to the U.N. on to talk about Trump's new national security strategy.

And the first chunk of that conversation really focused on how the goal of dominating the Western Hemisphere would affect us, would affect Canada. And so that headline was Trump's vision for a new world order. But there was a real attempt to home in on Canada there. And I'm not saying we're always doing this perfectly. And I want to work more on bringing in Canadian angles next year. But we are trying to do that whenever we can. And also, look, I, I can also see how given the large rule of the trade work coverage and how much that's played in tandem with more U.S. news in general, it can seem to take up too much space. I mean, it is also the case. And we're not necessarily governed by what performs well necessarily. And I think we're going to talk about that in a bit. But it is also true that these episodes tend to perform pretty well when we do cover Trump in the U.S.

Big time. Yeah. They're among our most popular episodes. Okay, Matt, I'm actually going to flip it here and ask you a question because you produced this episode that we're going to talk about. This was one of the top ten episodes on Apple and Spotify this year. It was titled Trump, Hitler, and how democracies die. We spoke to a leading scholar on Hitler in the Third Reich about how we've seen leaders. use the rule of law to control, manipulate, and ultimately subvert democracy. And you and our exec, Nick, went back and forth about this one a lot. And so what were some of the considerations that we had to make during the production of this episode?

So I think what I'd say is, I mean, this episode really started as an examination of Donald Trump's ability to use the power of democracy to subvert democracy, like to use the law to defy or challenge the law. And this was around the time that members of the Trump administration were threatening to end habeas corpus and how the Constitution could be manipulated to permit a third Trump term in office. So the first thing we did was, you know, look for historical analogs. And we landed on the work of a guy named Timothy Rybeck, who was a scholar of Hitler in German history, and particularly on how the Nazis and Hitler's bureaucratic enablers subverted democracy through constitutional means. to this point as well, I mean, both Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, among others, had been openly comparing Trump to Hitler as well. So, you know, although this episode was more centered on this question of what it looks like to legally subvert democracy,

we had to take care in how we were navigating a conversation, which included discussion of the current U.S. president and Adolf Hitler. And I think ultimately we were able to accomplish that by really relying on the expertise and work of this scholar. Yeah, and I think when you listen to the final product, You see this, you know, very storied historian make some rational and calm parallels. Based on his work. Based on his work between these two men and in the early years of the third Reich. You know, our exec, Nick, is actually in the room with us. Hi, Nick.

Hi. Since you're here, Nick, another episode like this was the war game episode, right? where we mapped out what a full-scale American land invasion of Canada could look like. The title of that episode was literally, what if the U.S. invaded Canada. And on its face, that is speculative, quite speculative, and maybe even alarmist. And, you know, I think this ended up being a survey of Canada-U.S. relations

and some of our very real vulnerabilities geopolitically. I think that you came away with the sense that we are really on our own over here. if something went terribly sideways. But Nick, what were some concerns or questions that we navigated in the creation of that episode? A bunch. So to take it back, like, so the 51st state thing had been going on for a while.

Like Trump was tweeting these memes of him standing on the mountains overlooking the 51st state. At the same time, he was refusing to rule out using military force to take Greenland and the Panama Canal. I mean, right now, Trump is, enforcing a naval blockade of sanctioned oil tankers often as well. So we were kind of just talking about this at the office, you know, for day in, day out, literally over like the span of weeks.

And usually when we're talking about something that much, it's a sign that this is a good conversation that there's enough to talk about and it's interesting probably for the audience. But like the problem is that that's just kind of office talk. Yeah. Right. And like we talk about a lot of stuff that I'm not going to bring up right now. so like because there's a line between office talk and like what is journalism yes so we had to put some thought into that and I think that what you really want to do is there was this anxiety in

the moment and you kind of want to capture the reality behind that anxiety people were really worried about what Trump would do he was he's an erratic guy he's got a frightening amount of power at the time Canada's former vice chief of defense staff wrote quote in the emerging reality, are we as Canadians any different than Ukraine is to Russia or Taiwan to China? Yeah. So we saw that and we're like, okay, like this is kind of not just office talk anymore. So that kind of tip the skills. And I think the other thing that we were trying to do here is there was this real sense of sort

of patriotic fervor in that moment, this sort of elbows up thing. Like it was really kind of in the ether. Yeah. Take the booze off the shells and you're good. Right. But there's like a big difference between, you know, Doug Ford dumping a lot. a bottle of, I don't know, bourbon on a parking lot floor and thinking that like we can legitimately stand up to an American invasion, right? So it's this like, you can get high on

your own supply of patriotism. And we're like, let's just check, check this. So then from there, you've got the kernels of a good conversation. You've got a kind of news motivation to do it. And then you just start asking like real questions. What would a first military move look like? How many planes do we even have in this country? All these kind of things. And then you've got to guest who had the information and you do it like you were saying earlier in this sort of calm, deliberate way where you've built trust of the audience. And then that's what we ended up doing. So I should also say that Ali who produced this was constantly course correcting and aware that what you don't want to do is contribute to fear. Like all the like

and be alarmist about this. So just that you've got to keep all those things in mind. We've also spent some real time this year, bringing listeners as close as possible to a number of conflict zones and incidents of violence, from East Africa to Gaza. These episodes can be difficult to listen to. They are often detailing violence and brutality because we'd like to reflect things as honestly as possible, without being gratuitous, of course. But I know we've had a lot of discussions privately, and we've heard from listeners about, you know, a kind of compassion fatigue or news of when it comes to a deluge of bad news or stories of violence. How does this show think through these kinds of episodes and what kind of questions are we asking ourselves around this concept of news fatigue? So the honest answer here, and I don't want to sound too earnest, is that these stories matter. You know, we started this episode talking about just how interesting politics are.

And I do really like talking about politics and how important it is on our show to like put a critical lens on like powerful companies. But if you asked me why I wanted to get into journalism, I would tell you it was to try and give voice to people who do not have power and to the suffering. And so, you know, at the core of all of those stories this year is human suffering. at staggering levels in Gaza, in Sudan. And there are also major global implications here. And also a lot of questions that can be asked of powerful actors involved in all these words and conflicts. You know, these stories, they do not always make their way up the charts like U.S. politics

or, you know, Epstein, frankly. But we are a public broadcaster. And we don't always have to do what crushes on the charts. And, you know, we talk about that a lot. We all talk about that a lot. A lot of our decisions are not guided by what is going to be number one. And, you know, I think some of these conflicts in particular, like Sudan, for example, they are very underreported. And despite the enormity of what's happening.

So, I mean, I would make the argument that these are the most important stories that we do. Yeah, I would be compelled to agree with you. So why don't we talk about what we're planning to do more of next year? Like, what would you say are some of the ambitions that we have as we head into 2026? So a couple of things for sure. We have had the chance to get out and report on the ground in the last little while. Our producer Derek and I reported on a protest outside a synagogue that was marketing occupied land in the West Bank. Ali and I went to the campus encampments at McGill.

Elaine and I went to Alberta to talk to separatists. Joy brought us this really, really wonderful episode from her own community where she went out and spoke to people in the South Asian community, fearful of the onslaught of hate that they were seeing. And I think that these episodes have value on their own, but also because they allow us to put sentiments and questions that we hear directly to people who have power in this country. So we took what we heard in Alberta and we asked Natural Resource Minister Tim Hodgson and Alberta Premier Daniel Smith directly about that stuff. And so we're hoping to do more of that.

And really, for everybody listening right now, tell us, too, please, what you would like to see from us this year. Frontburner at cbc.ca. We love hearing from you. Okay. And finally, I mean, we are heading into the holidays. I'm wondering, what are some things that you guys have lined up to watch and read? What are some of the things that you're looking forward to getting into? Oh, I'm very excited.

I have Ken Burns' new documentary series about the American Revolution at the very top of my list. What about you guys? I know, Nick, you like wake up at 5 a.m. to read every morning. So I'm going to finish the Bleeding Edge. This is the Thomas Pynchon book. It's about like depolitics, 9-11, tech corruption, financial scams, you know. Yeah, your wheelhouse is right in your bag. I was going to say I under that.

I like playing board games. So I just got a copy of Watergate, where somebody plays Richard Nixon, and you get to, like, try and survive. This is also right in your out. And somebody else plays the investigator, so I can try and play Watergate, and I'm going to watch the bills. I feel like we're introducing Nick is a very interesting character on Front Burner right now. Okay. I'm going to watch a Jason Mamoa show called Chief of War. It kind of tracks the story of Hawaii's unification, you know, kind of the violent resistance that was mounted in Hawaii to the,

threat of Western colonization. It's one of the, I think, only kind of mainstream portrayals of Polynesia that I've seen. It's, yeah, and it looks really beautiful. Then also, I'm going to read as much Jesmond Ward as possible. My favorite novelist, I'm going to try to read as much of her as I can. I'm also going to take some naps and drink some wine. Naps and wine sounds pretty good. Thank you guys all for doing this. Thank you. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca.ca slash podcasts.