The Big Five Podcast

Elias Makos welcomes back Akil Alleyne, Reporter and commentator with extensive experience analysing legal, political, and social issues and Manager of the GemStar Circle of Excellence Scholarship Program, and Anne Lagace-Dowson, political analyst.

• Faced with what they say is a growing sense of insecurity, wealthy neighbourhoods around the city are pooling their resources to hire security guards for their protection.
• Canadian border agents are searching for nearly 600 foreign nationals with criminal records who were set to be deported — but have vanished.
• A 140-year-old downtown building went up in flames yesterday - and the owner of the building is furious with the city of Montreal. 

Elias Makos is joined by Catherine Hogan, high school teacher at Westwood Senior High in Hudson, and Meeker Guerrier, Commentator at Noovo and RDS.

• Rogers is mandating that employees come back to the office four days a week by October, and five days a week by February of next year.
• Elections Canada has decided to go with an adapted ballot, similar to a special ballot, allowing voters to write the name of the person they’re voting for.
• Women and Gender Equality Canada released their budget document last month and it depicts a $407-million budget this year, a $284.7-million budget for 2026-27, and a $76.3-million budget in 2027-28.
• Cleveland Guardians pitcher Emmanuel Clase has been placed on non-disciplinary leave in relation to a sports betting investigation. 

Elias Makos starts the week with Dan Delmar, Co-founder of the content marketing firm TNKR Media and co-host of the podcast Inspiring Entrepreneurs Canada, and Anthony Koch, Former National Spokesperson for Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre and current managing principal at AK Strategies.

• Montreal has fined a local church $2,500 for hosting a concert by controversial U.S. Christian musician Sean Feucht.
• We are only a couple of days away from the deadline outlined by U.S President Donald Trump to get a deal done between the U.S and Canada.
• Prime Minister Mark Carney unveiled a plan back in May to double the number of homes built annually in Canada to nearly 500 thousand. 
• The team behind Just for Laughs Gags took to Reddit to warn the population that it has begun to record its 26th season in the city. 

Elias Makos caps off the week with Neil Drabkin, a lawyer who served as federal prosecutor and a political commentator who was a chief of staff in the Harper government, and Justine McIntyre, Strategic consultant and former city councillor.

• Five former members of Canada’s 2018 world junior hockey team were acquitted Thursday of all charges
• Quebec City has cancelled a scheduled concert by US Christian singer Sean Feucht,
• Faced with a federal government mandate to slash costs by 15 percent within just a few years, a new report says that could lead to the public sector shedding almost 60,000 jobs.

Elias Makos welcomes back Caroline Codsi, Founder & Chief Equity Officer, Women in Governance, and Political analyst Karim Boulos.

• Fresh off cancelling The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and ending that franchise’s three-decade-plus run, Paramount signed a $1.5 billion dollar deal with the creators of South Park who came back with a season premiere last night and immediately took aim at Donald Trump.
• A Quebec man is warning Canadian boaters to steer clear of the US border after he says he was wrongly detained by the US Coast Guard while fishing on Lake Champlain.
• Hydro-Québec’s new CEO, Claudine Bouchard, could earn up to $988,500 this year if she receives her full performance bonus
• Uber is rolling out a new safety feature that pairs women drivers with women riders. 

Elias Makos is joined by Paul Gott, Lead singer and guitarist for Montreal Punk Rock band the Ripcordz and a journalism professor at Concordia, and Christina Chough, Spanish teacher and Chair of the modern languages department at Dawson College.

• A new national poll finds that most Canadians, including a majority of immigrants, believe Canada is accepting too many newcomers. 
• La Presse this morning reports that paramedics in Montreal and Laval are responding to nearly three opioid overdoses per day requiring naloxone, triple the rate from five years ago, amid a growing crisis fueled by increasingly contaminated drugs.
• Former Montreal mayor and longtime politician Denis Coderre says he's stepping away from politics for good.

Elias Makos is joined by Andrew Caddell, a town councillor in Kamouraska, and President of the Task Force on Linguistic policy, and Justine McIntyre, Strategic consultant and former city councillor.

• US Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra said President Trump views Canada as “nasty” to deal with, partly due to Canadians avoiding travel to the US and provincial bans on American alcohol
• At the Council of the Federation meeting in Ontario, Quebec Premier François Legault urged the federal government to reach a trade deal with President Trump by August 1st to provide economic stability
• There are now 138 candidates in the upcoming federal byelection in Battle River-Crowfoot, Alberta
• Oumaima Chouay, a 29-year-old Quebec woman who left Canada in 2014 to join ISIS, has been sentenced after pleading guilty to participating in terrorist activities

Elias Makos kicks off the week with Jonathan Kalles, Vice President at McMillan Vantage, a national public affairs firm, and former advisor to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Catherine Hogan, high school teacher at Westwood Senior High in Hudson.

• A Quebec judge has sentenced a 22-year old woman who drove drunk and injured another motorist to a year in jail.
• Residents and business owners near Montreal’s Plaza Saint-Hubert say a stretch of Saint-André Street has become a dangerous hub for drug use, prostitution, and violence.
• Quebec’s ministry of cybersecurity wants Sante Quebec to stop its expensive and delayed IT project SIFARH. 
• In the latest Coldplay concert affair saga… The CEO of the US tech company Astronomer, Andy Byron has resigned.

Dan Delmar caps off the week with Neil Drabkin, is a lawyer who served as federal prosecutor and a political commentator who was a chief of staff in the Harper government, and Political analyst Karim Boulos.

• A St-Léonard barbershop owner says he’s being unfairly targeted by Quebec’s language watchdog over English on his storefront and Instagram
• As you heard on this program yesterday, independent city councillor Craig Sauvé is running for mayor and starting a new progressive party, Transition Montreal
• CBS has announced that it will be ending The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in May 2026…
• Britain will lower its voting age to 16. The centre-left Labour government argues this will boost interest in democracy.

Elias Makos is joined by Caroline Codsi, Founder & Chief Equity Officer, Women in Governance, and Jonathan Kalles, Vice President at McMillan Vantage, a national public affairs firm, and former advisor to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

• Montreal city councillor Craig Sauvé has announced he's running for mayor with a new political party called Transition Montréal.
• Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced quotas and tariffs on non-U.S. steel imports in a bid to protect Canada’s steel industry, in a move that targets China. Is this elbows up or elbows down?
• Montreal's parking agency is warning drivers not to scan QR codes on parking meter signs, saying they are fraudulent.
• Quebec restaurants can now charge up to $10 per person for no-shows, under new rules that take effect today.