The Corner Booth

Perhaps no Montrealer bleeds bleu, blanc et rouge more than The Sick Podcast's Tony Marinaro.

So after all the hours poured into watching, analyzing and commenting on the Montreal Canadiens, does Marinaro think the young Habs have a fighting chance against the more battle-tested Tampa Bay Lightning?

That's the question posed to him by hosts Bill Brownstein and Aaron Rand on this week's episode of The Corner Booth, recorded at Snowdon Deli.

The Montreal area is the epicentre of the Canadian political landscape this week.

The federal Liberals, including Prime Minister Mark Carney, are in town for their policy convention. Tomorrow, the next CAQ leader will be announced a hop, skip and a jump away in Drummondville. Then on Monday, the riding of Terrebonne will decide their next member of parliament in a byelection that will reverberate across the country.

Former Quebec Liberal cabinet minister David Heurtel returned to The Corner Booth podcast this week with hosts Bill Brownstein and Aaron Rand at Snowdon Deli to unpack it all.

Everyone is looking for a break at the grocery store these days, even former Gazette fine-dining critic and cookbook author Lesley Chesterman.

" It's unbelievable the amount of money that we're all spending on food these days. I mean, we're all talking about gas, but let's talk about the price of beef, the price of coffee, the price of chocolate.

"All of these things have skyrocketed," Chesterman said on this week's episode of The Corner Booth with hosts Bill Brownstein and Aaron Rand at the Snowdon Deli. She's promoting her latest book, A Montreal Cook.

Montreal police Chief Fady Dagher announced on Thursday the SPVM's five-year plan to root out discrimination within its force and in how it deals with the general public.

This week, Dagher joined hosts Bill Brownstein and Aaron Rand on the latest episode of The Corner Booth at Snowdon Deli to explain why he considers himself "part of the solution" when it comes to weeding out racism from the inside.

Depending on how you look at things, Montrealers can be considered a pretty optimistic bunch. On the one hand, according to the recently released annual World Happiness Report, Canada has slipped to 25th among countries.

“But if you separate Quebec, they’d be fifth,” observed Gazette columnist and author Josh Freed, who is this week’s guest on The Corner Booth with hosts Bill Brownstein and Aaron Rand at the Snowdon Deli. “Quebecers know that despite all of our complaining, we have a lot to be happy about.”

The Montreal Olympics are turning 50 this year.

And to mark the anniversary, The Gazette’s own Terry “Aislin” Mosher has returned with a new book titled Jean Drapeau’s Baby, a visual memoir of the Montreal Olympic Games, featuring his favourite cartoons from this exciting time in Montreal’s history.

The longest running continuously working political cartoonist in North America joined hosts Bill Brownstein and Aaron Rand on this week’s episode of The Corner Booth at Snowdon Deli to look back on the memorable cartoons of the era and the larger than life people who inspired them.

The spectre of trade tariffs under U.S. President Donald Trump continue to loom over Quebec and Canada.Quebec’s business community greeted the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last week against Trump’s tariffs with tempered expectations, and then Parti Québécois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon said the exact timing of a potential referendum within a first mandate of a PQ government had to remain adjustable because of economic threats from Trump.John Parisella, political analyst and former delegate-general of Quebec in New York, along with Julian Karaguesian, economist and McGill professor, joined hosts Bill Brownstein and Aaron Rand on this week’s episode of The Corner Booth at Snowdon Deli to explain how instability in the U.S. is affecting our politics and economy at home.

This week, Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette said anglophones are “invaluable”, helped build the province and are full-fledged Quebecers amid tensions over language and constitutional issues.

But former MNA Robert Libman and TALQ director general Sylvia Martin-Laforge aren’t buying it.

They joined hosts Bill Brownstein and Aaron Rand on this week’s episode of The Corner Booth at Snowdon Deli to talk about how Jolin-Barrette’s olive branch was “giving you a kiss while stabbing you in the back."

Soraya Martinez Ferrada is about to reach her first 100 days as mayor of Montreal, and a lot has happened so far.

On this week's episode of The Corner Booth with hosts Bill Brownstein and Aaron Rand, the mayor talked about entering city hall having to deal with STM strikes that paralyzed the city. More recently, she went viral on social media for blowing out the tires of her car on potholes on Notre-Dame St. E., and had to contend with downtown businesses pleading for relief from construction woes on Ste-Catherine St.

She also discussed job cuts to the city’s white-collar workforce and a plan to reduce the number of orange cones while using AI to plan work sites.

Jacques-Cartier MNA Gregory Kelley has been caught in the middle of the Quebec Liberal Party crisis.

His wife, fellow MNA Marwah Rizqy, was suspended from caucus in November for firing her chief of staff, Geneviève Hinse, without consulting then-party leader Pablo Rodriguez. After weeks of pressure, Rodriguez resigned as leader amid allegations over fundraising.

Rizqy remains out of the party, but returned to legislature on Tuesday. Kelley was by her side, also returning after taking a step back in the wake of the scandal. Kelley joined hosts Bill Brownstein and Aaron Rand on this week’s episode of The Corner Booth to talk about the mental toll of the scandal.