The Corner Booth

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...

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...

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...

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 Br...

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 adjus...

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 t...

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...

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...

Charles Milliard is the last man standing in the race to run the Quebec Liberals. The runner-up less than a year ago to Pablo Rodriguez was teaching at Bishop's University when controversy unfolded in the party, which thrusted the political neophyte back into the leadership conversation. With the only other known candidate, Mario Roy, not being permitted to run, the coast is clear for Milliard...

In the wake of Premier François Legault’s resignation announcement last week, there’s a void in Quebec politics a number of suitors are looking to fill. One of them is Conservative Party of Quebec Leader Éric Duhaime. He’s trying to differentiate his party from the sovereignist Parti Québécois, as well as the Quebec Liberals and Coalition Avenir Québec, who are both looking for new leaders. Will Q...

It was not a total surprise François Legault resigned as Premier of Quebec this week. But the timing of it caught many off-guard. Legault's resignation on Wednesday sent shockwaves across the political landscape, and with a provincial election coming up in October, there's even more uncertainty about what's to come for Quebec. To make sense of it all, former Quebec Liberal cabinet mini...

In the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump's ousting of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and his increased rhetoric about annexing Greenland, how worried should Canadians be about entering Trump's crosshairs? Two Americans living in Montreal — Jacob Blanc, Associate Professor, McGill University and Graham G. Dodds, PhD, Political Science Professor, Concordia University — joined hosts Bill...

Times have changed in the world of organized crime. Not only are things becoming less and less centralized, younger people — including teens — are getting involved. With the criminal underworld in flux, will Montreal police be able to adapt to these new challenges? Retired police detective Pietro Poletti shared his unfiltered thoughts on the state of organized crime and Montreal police with hosts...

Marc Miller hasn’t been Official Languages Minister for long, but he’s already made some noise. The former Justin Trudeau cabinet minister joined Mark Carney’s cabinet in the most recent shuffle, after being snubbed the first time. He drew immediate backlash from some, including Quebec Premier François Legault, when he said he was “fed up” with the debate over the decline of French. Miller sat dow...

On this week's special year-in-review episode of The Corner Booth, guests Martine St-Victor and Raphaël Melançon, along with hosts Bill Brownstein and Aaron Rand, were given a near-impossible task: How do you cram 12 months of jaw-dropping headlines at the federal, provincial and municipal levels into one episode? Incredibly, they got it done. And without letting their Snowdon Deli platters ge...

There's never a dull moment in Quebec politics, but even by the province's standards, these recent times appear to be unprecedented. And that's coming from some of the province's most-respected legal experts. According to the head of the Quebec Bar, three bills from the CAQ recently presented at Quebec’s National Assembly — the proposed constitution, one on unions and the other on...

The Parti Québécois are leading in the polls with a provincial election coming next year. At the moment, their competition is in disarray. The sagging CAQ and premier François Legault are facing the wrath of doctors over Bill 2's proposed renumeration reforms, while the Quebec Liberals are imploding over an alleged vote-buying scheme. So even though leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon is sitting p...

With all the controversy surrounding Bill 2, which will change how doctors and specialists are compensated in Quebec, there's been little said about the equally seismic Bill 7. This lesser-known bill would  force the amalgamation of many government agencies, including Urgences-santé. Should Bill 7 become law, paramedic services in Montreal and Laval would be controlled through Santé Québec. Wh...

When there’s a complaint about languages in this country, it often lands on Raymond Théberge’s desk. As the commissioner of Official Languages of Canada since 2018, Théberge is tasked with protecting language rights, both English and French, in federal institutions. He joined hosts Bill Brownstein and Aaron Rand on this week’s episode of The Corner Booth at the Snowdon Deli to talk about support f...

Even though the Quebec referendum happened 30 years ago this October, there are still behind-the-scenes stories being uncovered. Jack Jedwab, president and CEO of the Association for Canadian Studies and the Metropolis Institute, recently penned an opinion piece for The Gazette on the lessons learned from the referendum, and this week he joined hosts Bill Brownstein and Aaron Rand on a new episode...

A majority of Montrealers are undecided on who to vote for in the upcoming mayoral election on Nov. 2. But one thing the polls have made clear: people are ready for change. Does that mean voters are willing to look beyond the two entrenched parties — Projet Montréal and Ensemble Montréal — and elect someone new to City Hall? That's what two other parties on this November's ballot — Action...

Three candidates have entered the race to become Westmount’s next mayor: Councillor Mary Gallery, lawyer Lynne Casgrain and accountant Michael Stern. All three are vying to replace outgoing mayor Christina Smith, who announced in January she won’t be seeking re-election. They joined hosts Bill Brownstein and Aaron Rand on the latest episode of The Corner Booth, recorded at the epicentre of the cit...

The downtown district of Peter-McGill, which includes the Golden Square Mile, Mount Royal and Cabot Square, promises to be a hotly contested battle in the coming municipal election on Nov. 2. In one corner, there's Leslie Roberts with Ensemble Montréal. The former journalist and broadcaster is a familiar name and face for anglophone Montrealers of a certain age. He's a political neophyte w...

Projet Montréal's Luc Rabouin, Ensemble Montréal's Soraya Martinez Ferrada and Transition Montréal's Craig Sauvé joined hosts Bill Brownstein and Aaron Rand to make their cases on a special episode of The Corner Booth, filmed on Thursday at the Segal Centre in the Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough in front of an audience. In the spirit of the show, Brownstein and Rand eschewe...

om Mulcair didn’t hold back in his scorching Corner Booth debut. The former Quebec Liberal MNA and leader of the federal NDP joined to hosts Bill Brownstein and Aaron Rand at Snowdon Deli to dish on a number of hot button political issues — everything from Canada’s dealings with U.S. President Donald Trump to Quebec Premier François Legault’s fate.  The longtime Outremont MP also pulled no punches...