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

As President Donald Trump threatens to send federal forces into Chicago — a city he’s referred to as the ‘murder capital’ of the world — we have a look at Trump’s long standing focus on Chicago, and how the city became a favourite metaphor in conservative politics.

This month, Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to send federal forces into Chicago to confront what he calls 'the most dangerous city in the world.'

His fixation on Chicago stretches back more than a decade, echoed across conservative media that cast the city as a symbol of urban decay, plagued by “Black-on-Black crime” and in need of harsher policing. In reality, violent crime in Chicago is falling, and the nation’s highest rates are in southern states firmly in Trump’s column.

So why target Chicago? And how did this Midwestern city become a metaphor for America — from gun violence and race to policing, housing, and migration?

Natalie Moore is a longtime journalist in Chicago with WBEZ and author of ‘The South Side: a portrait of Chicago and American Segregation.’ She now teaches journalism at Northwestern University in Chicago.

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