Elias Makos is joined by Lionel Perez, Former city councilor and former leader of the Official Opposition at Montreal City Hall, and Justine McIntyre, Co-Founder of Civica Strategies and former city councillor.

• A Liberal majority was officially confirmed last night. The Carney government got a clean sweep in the three by-elections.
• Should young Canadians, thinking about heading south for better pay and bigger opportunities, write Ottawa a cheque for half a million dollars on their way out?
• Christine Frechette held her first press conference as Premier designate yesterday, looking for unity in a party that might be showing signs of cracking.
• The cumulative deficit for road maintenance now stands at $24.5 billion. So how can we fix it?
• Are you paying more than the person standing next to you… for the exact same product — and you don’t even know it? That’s the concern behind a new push from Avi Lewis and the NDP, who want Ottawa to crack down on what’s known as “surveillance pricing”.

Elias Makos welcomes in Denis Coderre, former mayor of Montreal, and Jimmy Zoubris, Montreal businessman, longtime activist and former special advisor to Valerie Plante.

• The results are in and the next premier of Quebec is… Christine Fréchette. Fréchette won the CAQ leadership race against Bernard Draiville yesterday with 57.9% percent of the vote.
• We have three federal byelections today, the most interesting one being the rematch in Terrebonne.
• The U.S military will set up a blockade this morning of all Iranian ports and coastal areas on the Arabian Gulf (Persian Gulf) and Gulf of Oman.
• A Quebec judge is warning of a “two-tier” justice system in Montreal, alleging prosecutors often seek lighter sentences for offenders at risk of deportation.
• The Montreal Canadiens won again last night and another milestone was achieved by one of their players.

Elias Makos ends 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 Anthony Koch, Former National Spokesperson for Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre and current managing principal at AK Strategies.

• Big weekend for the Federal Liberals as they’ve assembled in Montreal. The party is in a celebratory mood, welcoming another floor crosser with rumours of more to come.
• Big weekend for the CAQ as they will select their new leader - but not before they play a 45-minute video montage honouring François Legault. Up for the top job, Bernard Drainville and Christine Frechette. Who should the party pick and why?
• The new leader of the NDP wants to cut grocery prices by anywhere between 30 and 40 percent at a cost to the federal government.
• Paul St-Pierre Plamondon gave an interview to Rebel News. The Quebec media class is not happy about it.
• A self-driving car in Austin, Texas has hit and killed a mother duck, sparking neighborhood outrage.

Elias Makos is joined by Justine McIntyre, Co-Founder of Civica Strategies and former city councillor, and Paul Gott, Lead singer and guitarist for Montreal Punk Rock band the Ripcordz and a journalism professor at Concordia.

• Marilyn Gladu is the latest MP to jump to Mark Carney’s squad.
• MNAs won’t return to the National Assembly until May, giving the CAQ’s new leadership time to get organized.
• It is official, renters will not be able to lend their units on Airbnb in Montreal during the Formula 1 weekend, at the end of May.
• About 20 per cent of Gen Z and Millennial Canadians spank their kids.
• Canada’s Wonderland is tired of teenagers causing havoc inside their amusement park.
  With Quebec struggling to keep up with the maintenance of its road, one town in the Laurentians is arguing for a return of gravel roads instead of asphalt.

Elias Makos welcomes in Kyle Matthews co-founder and Executive Director of the Montreal Institute for Global Security, Daniel Tran, Director of Communication and governmental relations at Casacom, and Akil Alleyne, Reporter and commentator with extensive experience analyzing legal, political, and social issues and Manager of the GemStar Circle of Excellence Scholarship Program.

• Iran, the United States and Israel agreed to a two-week ceasefire in an eleventh-hour deal that gave U.S. President Donald Trump room to step back from threats of a sweeping bombing campaign against Iran.
• Francois Legault says he was not lying when he said he wanted to try and run again before ultimately resigning as Premier of Quebec.
• Québec Solidaire MNA Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois says the province’s three-tier school system is partly responsible for the difficulties encountered by boys.
• One of the leading A.I. companies right now, Anthropic, says it has built a model so powerful it won’t release it to the public.

Elias Makos is joined by Andrew Caddell, columnist for the Hill Times and President of the Task Force on Linguistic policy, and Raphaël Melançon, political analyst for CTV Montreal and CJAD 800, columnist for the Montreal Gazette, and president and founder of Trafalgar Strategies.

• The Artemis II crew set records yesterday afternoon and evening. Does this mission have your interest? Are you in favour of space travel?
• Voting opens at 10 am this morning for members of the CAQ to elect their new leader and thus the new Premier of Quebec. But just a day before the opening of the vote, major news broke out of the Drainville camp. Drainville received support from Justice Minister Simon-Jolin Barrette, Health Minister Sonia Bélanger and Transport Minister Jonatan Julien.
• Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is striking a softer tone as his party launches a new advertising campaign aimed at affordability and national sovereignty.
• More and more towns across Quebec are monitoring how residents live their lives, using water meters and incentive-based garbage programs to influence habits and make those who use the most pay more.
• We are just over two months away from the FIFA World Cup. Montreal will not host any matches but a new investigative report by Radio-Canada's investigative program Enquête reveals we may have dodged a bullet.
• The American middle class is shrinking. According to research from the American Enterprise Institute, more households are actually moving up. About 31% of U.S. households now qualify as upper middle class — roughly triple the share in 1979 — making it the largest economic group in the country.

Elias Makos is joined by Meeker Guerrier, commentator at Noovo and RDS and Jimmy Zoubris, Montreal businessman, longtime activist and former special advisor to Valerie Plante on The Big 5.

• Despite last night’s loss to the New Jersey Devils, it is a great time to be a Montreal Canadiens fan right now.
• Over the past five years, the number of people in Quebec who say that the main cause of their financial problems was gambling addiction has increased by 45%.
• The Liberal government is pushing back on criticism of its $90-billion ALTO high-speed rail projec

Joining Elias on The Big 5 today were Sue Smith, Montreal journalist and broadcaster & Daniel Tran, Director of Communication and governmental relations at Casacom.

Among the topics discussed on The Big 5 were

• The Quebec government has unveiled a new tool to track fuel prices across the province.
• And as gas prices reach those historic levels, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is calling for federal gas taxes to be scrapped for the rest of the year, arguing the tax holiday would bring immediate relief to drivers facing rising fuel prices
• Add Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet to the list of people against the high speed rail project
• Add Maple syrup to the list of things you can’t trust. Radio-Canada’s Enquête program began investigating the sweet stuff when a journalist opened a can that “seemed off.”