Front Burner

Russia’s elite class of billionaire oligarchs have become major targets for Western sanctions over the war on Ukraine. Last week, Canada announced it was freezing assets and banning business from Russian figures including Roman Abramovich, who has been ordered to sell his Chelsea Football Club in the United Kingdom. The U.K. and European Union have taken similar measures against Abramovich and others, and the U.S. has convened a multilateral task force dedicated to sanctioning these elites. But while oligarchs traditionally wield outsized political influence in Russia, President Vladimir Putin has consolidated power over his decades in leadership. Questions remain about whether Russian billionaires — however incensed by the limits placed on their Western-style lives of excess — can pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war. Today, Forbes’ John Hyatt uses his experience on the billionaire beat to explain where the oligarchs’ wealth comes from, and what Western pressure on their wallets could mean for Putin.

The most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is scathing: it lays out the stark divide between rich and poor nations’ ability to withstand global warming’s worst effects. This, just months after COP26 in Glasgow, where many delegates and activists were asking rich nations most responsible for greenhouse gas emissions to pay for the losses and damages that many developing nations are already experiencing from climate change. Demands for a specific compensation fund were not met. Today, Canadian human rights lawyer Payam Akhavan is here to explain how some small island nations are looking at how they can use international law to make rich countries pay up. He’s a senior fellow at Massey College at the University of Toronto, and a former UN war crimes prosecutor who has served on tribunals investigating genocide in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Now, he’s helped establish the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law, and is serving as the group’s legal counsel.

It’s been three straight election losses for the Conservative Party of Canada, and now three consecutive races to find a new leader. MPs booted Erin O’Toole as leader last month after he failed to best Justin Trudeau in an unpopular 2021 election. Now, the race to replace him as leader is underway, with the first week of the race marked by attacks, ideology and differing tactics for how to return the party to power. Five candidates have put their names in so far: Conservative finance critic Pierre Poilievre, Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown, former Quebec premier Jean Charest, Conservative MP Leslyn Lewis and independent Ontario MPP Roman Baber. Today, Power and Politics host Vassy Kapelos returns with an overview of the candidates, their strategies and what’s at stake for the party beyond just winning.

Russia is stepping up its bombing campaign against Ukraine. So for weeks, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has been making a desperate plea to the United States and its NATO allies to impose a “no-fly zone” over the country — to keep Russian warplanes out of the sky. But a no-fly zone hinges on the notion that if a Russian plane violates the terms, it will be shot down. And the idea of entering into armed combat with a nuclear power is a clear and potentially catastrophic risk for Western leaders. This week, Zelensky is planning a virtual address to Canada’s House of Commons and the U.S. Congress, in the hopes of winning more support in his country’s fight against Putin’s military. Today on Front Burner, we speak to University of British Columbia’s Allen Sens about the case for and against a “no-fly zone,” whether there’s a red line in this war, and the ways in which it could escalate.

Rents in Canada are skyrocketing, and tenants are struggling to keep up. One in three Canadian households rent, and yet much of the public conversation around Canada’s housing crisis focuses on homebuyers. Today on Front Burner, Shaina Luck brings us her investigation for the Fifth Estate into Canada’s rental crisis: what’s driving prices up, the role of institutional landlords, and the absence of government action.

Peering inside Russia – and it’s complex web of state propaganda – presents a very different view of the war in Ukraine and who the real victims are. As nations around the world condemn Russia’s invasion, many within Russia are supporting Russian president Vladimir Putin. How is Putin selling the war to the Russian people? Will thousands of anti-war protesters challenging the Kremlin make a difference to the government? This week, Nothing is Foreign takes you inside the alternate reality being created by Russian state propaganda, explores how fear and new laws have choked off dissenting voices and listen in on the difficult conversations between a Ukrainian son and a Russian father in the war over disinformation. Featuring: Alexey Kovalev, investigative editor of Meduza. Sergey Utkin, researcher and head of strategic assessment at Primakov Institute of World Economy and International relations. Misha Katsurin, Kyiv resident and creator of Papapover.com. Yulia Zhivtsova, anti-war protester in Moscow.

Oil prices in Canada skyrocketed this week as sanctions on Russian energy effectively shut the world’s third largest oil supplier out of the market following its invasion of Ukraine. The United States and the United Kingdom moved to ban Russian oil imports. Even the European Union, Russia’s biggest oil customer, announced its plan to slash Russian oil imports by two-thirds this year. Although Canada has never really relied on Russian oil, the impact of sky-high oil prices is already being felt in Canada, as prices at the pumps remain at record highs across the country. It’s forcing a moment of reckoning inside Canada’s oilpatch, an industry facing a choice — transition away from fossil fuels or ramp up production. Today on Front Burner, we speak with CBC’s Kyle Bakx about the fork in the road for Canada’s energy future.

As he declared his war on Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin made an odd promise to a country with a Jewish president and an annual Pride parade: He said he was doing this to "de-Nazify" the country. Sam Sokol, a reporter with Israeli newspaper Haaretz, was taken back to a time moments eight years ago — when Russian media advanced fictitious stories about Jewish communities targeted in Ukraine, around the time that Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula. Sokol is the author of Putin's Hybrid War and the Jews: Antisemitism, Propaganda, and the Displacement of Ukrainian Jewry. He has covered Ukrainian far-right movements in depth — and explained how those groups have been weaponized by Russian propaganda to legitimize the mass violence we are seeing today. He's joining us to separate Putin's rhetoric from Ukraine's reality, and to break down what all this means for Ukrainian Jewish communities.

As pandemic restrictions continue to lift across the country, we’re joined by Zain Chagla, an infectious diseases physician at St. Joseph's Healthcare in Hamilton, for a look at where we are with COVID-19 in Canada, and how to weigh the risk factors for yourself. (And we promise — there’s plenty of good news!)

In a flash, a view of Ukrainian civilians fleeing down a street in Irpin becomes only concrete dust. The scene captured in a video Sunday shows a mortar shell falling in the street, killing three family members and a family friend — including two children. This is the kind of danger looming over the people of Ukraine. Some have decided to leave their homes and loved ones behind to risk an escape. Others who must stay are helping to ready a resistance to the overwhelming Russian military power. CBC senior correspondent Susan Ormiston is in the city of Lviv in Western Ukraine, where she’s been talking to Ukrainians, both those who are fleeing and those getting ready to fight. Today, she brings us to a train station, a border crossing, a bomb shelter and a barricade, and explains how Ukrainians have made these impossible choices — if they had any choice at all.