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.