Discount retailer Dollarama Inc .announced on Wednesday that price tags up to $5 will begin appearing on its store shelves in the coming year. Until now, Dollarama’s highest price point was $4.

GUEST:  Bruce Winder, Retail Analyst & Author

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GUEST: John Best, Founder of the Bay Observer

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The President signed an executive order Thursday securing production of critical minerals used in high-capacity batteries, in a bid to reduce U.S. reliance on Chinese supply. He also touted tighter energy-efficiency standards for home appliances and billions of dollars of spending to retrofit older buildings.

Mr. Biden has already rejected calls from Republicans that he reverse his moratorium on new drilling leases on federal land and from Canada that he rescind his cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline. The White House has said that it is looking only for short-term supplies, not to build long-term oil and gas infrastructure.

ALSO: Russians leave Chornobyl as fighting rages elsewhere

GUEST: Elliot Tepper, Emeritus Professor of Political Science with Carleton University

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Pope Francis has delivered a formal apology for the grave harm caused by Canada’s harrowing residential school system.

In a livestreamed audience with more than 170 Indigenous survivors, elders, knowledge keepers, youth and community leaders on Friday, he said he was “deeply grieved” by stories of abuse, hardship and discrimination he heard throughout the week.

GUEST: Dr. Dawn Lavell-Harvard, Director at the First Peoples House of Learning at Trent University

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The Liberal government’s deal with the NDP to keep them in power until 2025 comes with promises of a pair of health programs that estimates indicate could cost $13 billion combined per year.

While nothing is announced, the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) costed the NDP’s pharmacare plan during the 2021 election at about $11 billion per year.

How much could the government’s new pharmacare and dental promises cost?

GUEST: Colleen Fuller, Health and Drug Policy Researcher

The Bill Kelly Show Podcast:

Premier Doug Ford’s government has laid out a four-year plan to address Ontario’s housing crisis, including a slate of changes to municipal planning rules.

But the legislation tabled by Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Steve Clark on Wednesday failed to implement many of the 55 recommendation his own Housing Affordability Task Force released in February.

Clark conceded that “perhaps the recommendations were a bit too bold for some communities,” forcing the Progressive Conservatives, who face voters in the June 2 election, to be more collaborative.

GUEST: Michael Collins-Williams, Chief Executive Officer of the West End Home Builders’ Association

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Latest on the Vatican trip by the Canadian indigenous delegation.

GUEST: Crystal Goomansingh, Europe Bureau Chief for Global News

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Canada is heading towards a potential sixth COVID-19 wave, experts say, as cases and hospitalizations have started to creep back up again across the country.

While average daily case counts have levelled off nationally, there continues to be regional variability across the country with several jurisdictions reporting increases, said Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer in her latest weekly update on Friday.

GUEST: Dr. Dawn Bowdish, Tenured Professor of Pathology and Molecular Medicine at McMaster University and Canada Research Chair in Aging & Immunity with the DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research

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As the war in Ukraine drags on, Russian tankers carrying crude oil and petroleum products are increasingly disappearing from tracking systems. Where is all the oil going?

GUEST: Ian Lee, Associate Professor with the Sprott School of Business at Carleton University