The Big Five Podcast

Joining Elias on this morning's show were 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 Akil Alleyne, Reporter and commentator with extensive experience analysing legal, political, and social issues.

Among the topics discussed were:

• Prime Minister Mark Carney is defending a major shift in Canada's foreign policy after becoming the first Canadian prime minister in 26 years to visit Saudi Arabia.
• Despite there being seven opportunities in the coming months to get a seat at the House of Commons, NDP Leader Avi Lewis says he will not be running in the byelections.
• The first Chinese EV from an actual Chinese company under the new Canada-China tariff deal has landed in the country. How much does it cost?

Joining Elias on this morning's show were Dan Delmar, political analyst and co-founder of TNKR Media, and Victor Henriquez, Public affairs and crisis management specialist at Public Strategy and Conseil.

Among the topics discussed were:

• Air Canada has a new CEO; Anko Van der Werff. He can speak French. But he’s not Canadian. Is this an improvement?
• With signs that read “Not one more inch,” people living around Jarry Park are banding together to fight Tennis Canada’s proposal to build a new retractable roof stadium on the site.
• What if every young Canadian spent a year serving their country, not just in the military?
• Quebec will start testing certain truck drivers from Ontario that want to start driving commercial vehicles here.

Joining Elias on this morning's show were Karim Boulos, Political Analyst, and Jonathan Kalles, Senior Vice President at Vantage, a Government Relations and Strategic Communications Firm and former advisor to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Among the topics discussed were:

• Prime Minister Mark Carney appointed four new people to the Senate yesterday, with two names getting special attention
• A new survey by KPMG shows that 42 percent of Canadian manufacturing companies are thinking of moving to the U.S because of the trade tensions between both countries
• The B.C. government is pursuing legal action against OpenAI over the Tumbler Ridge mass shooting tragedy
• Have you ever heard of Bryan Johnson? He's the tech entrepreneur who spends about $2 million a year trying to slow aging, measuring just about everything in his body in the hope of living much longer than the rest of us

Joining Elias on this morning's show were Sue Smith is a Montreal journalist and broadcaster, and Raphaël Melançon, political analyst for CTV Montreal and CJAD 800, and columnist for the Montreal Gazette.

Among the topics discussed were:

• One of the latest recruits for the Quebec Liberal Party, former Big 5er Justine McIntyre, gave her first interview as an official candidate on Monday.
• Montreal Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada is taking another look at the plan to turn much of Old Montreal into a “pedestrian kingdom.”
• Would removing public trash cans help Montreal's littering problem?
• If you had to wear one piece of clothing to tell the world ‘I’m a Montrealer,” what would it be?

Joining Elias on this morning's show were Jimmy Zoubris, Montreal businessman, longtime activist and former special advisor to Valerie Plante, and Anthony Koch, Former National Spokesperson for Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre and current managing principal at AK Strategies.

Among the topics discussed were:

• Justine McIntyre will run for the Quebec Liberals this October after a month of speculation. The Liberals also announced a former CAQiste, ex-Minister Pierre Dufour, and a former Quebec Conservative, Ange Claude Bigilimana, are also joining their ranks.
• Canada's richest families are pulling even further ahead, according to a new report from Canadians for Tax Fairness.
• The soccer world is up in arms after FIFA decided to rescind a match suspension of a U.S player ahead of their match versus Belgium
• Communities across Ontario who are along the proposed corridor of the Alto highspeed track have planted “Stop Alto” signs in fear of losing their land.

Joining Elias on this morning's show were Paul Gott, Lead singer and guitarist for Montreal Punk Rock band the Ripcordz and a journalism professor at Concordia, and Meeker Guerrier, Commentator at Noovo and RDS.

Among the topics discussed were:

• The United States of America turns 250 years old tomorrow. Great country, or greatest country?
• A new report from RBC says it is now more affordable to buy a condo in Toronto than it is to buy one in Montreal.
• Taylor Swift is getting married this weekend to Travis Kelce, and the world is abuzz over the ceremony taking place at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
• Another sign that physical media might not be long for this world… Sony announced yesterday that it will stop producing physical discs for Playstation games as of 2028.
• Canada’s men's soccer team is in action tomorrow at 1pm as they face Morocco in the round of 16 of the FIFA World Cup.

Joining Elias on this morning's show were Caroline Codsi, Founder & Chief Equity Officer, Women in Governance, and Graham Singh, CEO of Releven.

Among the topics discussed were:

• Former Quebec Premier Francois Legault took to X to share his version of a patriotic message for July 1st.
• If you are the owner of a heated pool, hot tub or heated driveway, Hydro-Quebec is coming after you.
• A Montrealer wants to take Google to court over something we’ve probably all encountered: Connected devices listening to us, and then delivering ads to us based on what was heard.
• A judge in Ontario has handed down a tougher sentence to a man who keeps robbing liquor stores because he doesn’t believe that the Canada Border Services Agency will deport him.
• New research says Canadians who have made the decision to move to the U.S are doing it not only because of job opportunities but for better access to health care.

Joining Elias on this morning's show were: Dan Delmar, Co-founder of the content marketing firm TNKR Media and co-host of the podcast Inspiring Entrepreneurs Canada, and Tasha Kheiriddin, a writer and commentator for the National Post, GZero Media, and Substack.

Among the topics discussed were:

• A new Leger poll out this week says that 84 percent of Canadians are proud to be Canadian.
• Prime Minister Mark Carney says the Liberal climate plan he inherited was "too expensive" for Canadians and "too divisive" to be sustainable, arguing today's world demands a different approach.
• U.S. authorities say they have seen a significant increase in illegal crossings of the U.S. border from Quebec to Vermont in recent weeks.
• When you ask AI chatbots for answers, should they be politically biased?
• The 60 people came from 20 different countries, including Angola, Chile, China, Colombia, Greece, India, Ireland, Romania, Senegal, Spain, Turkey and the United Kingdom.

Joining Elias on this morning's show were Raphaël Melançon, political analyst for CTV Montreal and CJAD 800, and columnist for the Montreal Gazette, and Akil Alleyne, Reporter and commentator with extensive experience analysing legal, political, and social issues and Manager of the GemStar Circle of Excellence Scholarship Program.

Among the topics discussed were:

• We had Dr. Karim Elayoubi on the program yesterday. The doctor is the Quebec Conservative Party’s healthcare critic. He used the opportunity to present his party’s vision for Quebec healthcare, saying his party is looking to Europe and Asia for solutions to healthcare, not the United States.
• More than 1,800 St-Henri residents have signed a petition calling on all levels of government to intervene in a situation they say has worsened since La Maison Benoit Labre opened the city’s first supervised consumption site two years ago.
• Québec solidaire says it has an answer in order to stop landlords who buy buildings, increase rents before selling them at a profit, while evicting tenants.
• A new report from the Greater Montreal Observatory is not giving any optimism as it ranked the greater Montreal area 42nd out of the 43 major metropolitan areas in North America in terms of housing availability.

Joining Elias on this morning's show were Jimmy Zoubris, Montreal businessman, longtime activist and former special advisor to Valerie Plante, and Andrew Caddell, columnist for the Hill Times and President of the Task Force on Linguistic policy.

Among the topics discussed were:

• Mark Carney is on the defensive over his government’s massive B.C. condo bailout plan. Even usual backers of the government, like the CBC, are openly questioning what’s going on here.
• Ontario is set to announce a change to their highways. The province will increase the speed limit from 100 km/h to 110km/h.
• An investigation by the Washington Post finds that most chatbots typically shared left-leaning positions. OpenAi’s ChatGPT only gives left-leaning arguments 80 percent of the time.
• A 24 year old man who is severely disabled is asking for medical assistance in dying because he is unable to find a supervised apartment outside the health system.
• Canada’s men soccer team are going to the round of 16 in the World Cup after defeating South Africa 1-0 yesterday in the round of 32.