A pre-debate state of the race

As the federal election reaches the homestretch, four party leaders squared off in Montreal Thursday evening in the only English-language debate of the campaign. Liberal leader and polling frontrunner Mark Carney took heat from all sides as the Conservatives' Pierre Poilievre, the NDP's Jagmeet Singh and the Bloc's Yves-François Blanchet kept the barbs coming his way all night.Aaron Wherry is a senior writer with CBC's Ottawa bureau. He breaks down how everyone performed and what we learned from them — as well as the controversy surrounding the debate commission itself, and the drama that led to post-debate reporter scrums being canceled.Make sure to watch our election night livestream on Monday, April 28 starting at 8pm Eastern. You can find it here on the CBC News YouTube channel and on the CBC News TikTok.

With just over a week until election day, Canada's main party leaders go head to head tonight in the only English language debate. So, where does the campaign stand? Is anything shifting? How do people feel about the leaders at the moment? Where are parties drawing their biggest support and losses from? David Coletto, the CEO of the polling firm Abacus Data, joins the show today to tell us what the latest polls are saying.He will rejoin the show as just one of several special guests on our election night livestream, Monday, April 28. Watch it on the CBC News YouTube channel and CBC News on TikTok. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

A big part of Donald Trump’s global tariff regime targets the Chinese economy in a bid, he says, to force the country into a deal favorable to the United States. Despite this, officials in China have been undeterred — claiming that tariffs will hurt Americans more than Chinese, and drawing comparison between the actions of Donald Trump and Mao Zedong’s ‘cultural revolution.’Chinese officials have also responded to Donald Trump’s tariff program saying, in part: “if war is what the U.S. wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war or any other type of war, we’re ready to fight till the end." David Rennie is a columnist with The Economist, where he formerly worked as the magazine’s Beijing correspondent. He joins us for a conversation about the China-U.S. relationship, why officials in China view Trump as a ‘revolutionary’ figure, and this as a one of the great moments of opportunity in China’s modern history. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Three terms and a decisive majority under Stephen Harper. Erin O'Toole's leadership run — and subsequent castigation. Pierre Poilievre's meteoric ascendency to within striking distance of the country's top office.What do these things all have in common? Jenni Byrne, the longtime Conservative powerbroker running Poilievre's campaign, who has moved in the party's inner circles since first joining the Reform Party at age 16.Simon Lewsen recently profiled Byrne for Maclean's. He takes us through her biggest wins, her most crushing losses, and why her unwavering commitment to populist conservative principles has been her greatest strength — but may now have become one of the campaign's biggest liabilities.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Election day in Canada is only two weeks away.All the major parties have been holding rallies across the country, with some Conservative supporters bringing “Do you believe the polls?” signs to a party event.Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is facing scrutiny over limiting media access, and Liberal leader Mark Carney is facing questions about his time working in the private sector and billion-dollar funds he oversaw in tax havens.Rosemary Barton is the CBC’s chief political correspondent. She’s here to catch us up on the latest developments in the campaign.Plus, we get the story behind how two Liberal party staffers planted ‘stop the steal’ buttons at a conservative conference.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In the wake of 9/11, anthrax-laced letters unleashed a new wave of terror across the nation. But who was behind the attacks — and why has America nearly forgotten this story?As government buildings shut down and law enforcement scrambled to track the perpetrator, the FBI launched one of the largest and most complex investigations in its history. Untangling a web of scientific evidence and false leads, the case took unexpected turns with lasting consequences.From Wolf Entertainment, USG Audio, Dig Studios and CBC, this eight-part series grants unprecedented access to declassified materials and firsthand accounts, revealing how the anthrax attacks reshaped America—and the hidden impact that still lingers today. More episodes of Aftermath: Hunt for the Anthrax Killer are available at: https://link.mgln.ai/nDyBn7

U.S. President Donald Trump announced a 90-day pause on much of what he calls "reciprocal tariffs" barely a week after first imposing them — while also implementing a 10 per cent tariff across the board on most countries, and a whopping 145 per cent tariff on China.Markets first soared at the news, then went back into freefall. Members of Trump's cabinet claimed this was the strategy all along. The chaos even brought the stability of U.S. government bonds into question.Justin Wolfers, a professor of economics at the University of Michigan, unpacks what's really going on here, and why Trump's past dealings with Canada could provide some insight into how it will all shake out.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a 90-day pause on his sweeping global reciprocal tariffs for all countries, except for China.Trump has long expressed his love of tariffs. Just last week, he spoke about how believes the U.S. was founded on tariffs, and that they could have helped the country avoid the Great Depression. Then, referring to the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, the President said: “They tried to bring back tariffs to save our country, but it was gone. It was gone. It was too late. Nothing could have been done — took years and years to get out of that depression.”Today on Front Burner, what lessons do the Smoot-Hawley tariffs offer during this moment of global economic chaos?Asa McKercher is the Hudson Chair in Canada-U.S. relations at the Brian Mulroney Institute of Government. He’s back on Front Burner to talk about that and much more.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Today our guest is Jason Kenney, the longtime federal Conservative MP and former United Conservative Party premier of Alberta. Kenney worked closely for many years with now-Conservative party leader Pierre Poilievre, and he has been outspoken on the trade war with U.S. President Donald Trump. So today we’re having him on to talk about tariffs, the Canadian election, and tensions within the Conservative movement.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Donald Trump’s trade war has revived calls for the building of east-west pipelines within Canada, as a way for the country to unleash its natural resources and reduce its dependence on the U.S. as its key trading partner.But do the economics of building new pipelines — or the logistics, or the environmental realities — actually make sense here? And what are the parties actually saying about them?Today we’re speaking to Andrew Leach, an energy and environmental economist and an Associate Professor at the Alberta School of Business at the University of Alberta.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts