The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Do Politicians at Queen's Park Really Hate Each other?

Episode Date: June 12, 2025

Has the level of toxicity in Ontario politics today gotten out of hand? Does Premier Doug Ford ever come across the floor and talk to the opposition members? And how big of a problem is it for the Ontario Liberals that their leader, Bonnie Crombie couldn't win a seat in the last election? Parliamentary leader for the Ontario Liberals and the MPP for Ottawa South, John Fraser, joins host Steve Paikin for a wide-ranging discussion on life at Queen's Park. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There was a pretty funny moment in the Ontario legislature last week. MPPs from all parties rose to note the fact that the agenda would be coming to an end at the end of this month. But one speaker had a bit of a hard time getting through his speech. That would be Liberal MPP John Fraser, who wanted to say something nice about the show, but found himself somewhat conflicted. Here's what he said. been invited to the agenda. All my colleagues, all my colleagues, all my colleagues, everybody, even the new ones, okay? And then she said, she said, she stopped, she said, John, you know I love you.

I said, yes. She says, you're just not that interesting. So, she's right. She's right. Well, this seemed like a fairly simple problem to rectify, so without further ado, let's introduce the parliamentary leader for the Ontario Liberals and the MPP for Ottawa South,

John Fraser. And we're going to dare you to be interesting today. I'll do my best. I mean, you're in that chair, so are we good now? I think we're good. We're good now. Check the box. Well, look, I'm glad you're here, and there's no kind of single big story that I want to

talk to you about today other than to sort of cover the waterfront a little bit. And I want to start with an issue I hear a lot about from people and that is the amount of toxicity in politics today because they watch Question Period and they assume that all of you people down there hate each other. And I want to know if that's on the level. Do you all, in fact, not like each other? No, that's not true. I mean, I think there is some acrimony at times,

and animosity, and there's conflict. But I like to describe us as one big family, a dysfunctional family. And families disagree sometimes. And we have different points of view, different world views. Our job is to ask questions, right? Actually, everybody's job is to ask questions. And so, and sometimes they're hard.

And we have to, you know, have to show how much we care about the questions we have. So that's why sometimes, you know, people might, you know, mistake it for, we really hate the other guys, but we don't. Do you have friends in the other parties? Oh yeah, I have coffee every morning with John Van Toth, who's a house leader. NDP. NDP and some of his colleagues and then Tory members will stop by. And it's something I look forward to every morning, it's like half an hour.

We make fun of each other, occasionally talk about serious things, but just relate to each other as people. Before or after question period, does Premier Ford ever come across the floor and shoot the breeze with any people on the opposition benches? Yeah, he'll come across every once in a while. You know, just he's not a lot of question periods these days, so it doesn't happen quite as frequently. you know I think look we have to have relate you know the thing that we leave when we leave that place we're gonna do things and our names will be on bills and we'll remember things but it's actually the relationships that you have are the things that are gonna

last. Well let me ask you about bills. When a government there used to be a day and I don't know if it still exists there used to be a day when a government minister would introduce a bill but before before doing so, he or she would extend the courtesy to consult with his or her opposition member, a critic, to see whether there was anything in the bill that they thought ought to be there. Does that still happen? That doesn't happen. That does not. And often, you know, we had Bill 11, which is a really important bill in terms of personal

health information and health care. It didn't even go to committee. It didn't actually get to the committee stage. in terms of personal health information and health care, didn't even go to committee. I didn't actually get to the committee stage. And so there should be more, committee has been kind of lost at Queens Park. We don't, you know, we don't have, we don't travel bills.

So there's not that kind of collaborative relationship that I think existed in the past. I think it all depends on who's leading the government and the approach that they want to take. So. Okay. Let's talk about your party right now because of course for the last two previous elections you were not an officially constituted party because the liberals didn't get 12 seats.

You did in the last campaign. What are you at 14? 14 seats. How is the life for those MPPs at Queens Park for the liberals now different? It's a sea change. So, you know, first of all, we have more staff that are able to help us with research and communications and outreach, which is really quite helpful.

And, you know, sort of as importantly, we have equal lifetime. Before, even in question period, you know, I get one question every eight days. Now as parliamentary leader, I get two questions with two supplementaries every morning. That's huge. We get more questions in question period.

We get five. We have more debate time. It's a huge change. It's a lot more work, which is great. And it allows us to have some legislative tools that we didn't have before. With the filibuster that we just and the... The 4,000 amendments you proposed for Bill 5.

We couldn't have done that without the recognition, the status that we have inside the legislature. So it's been a great thing. You are, we said at the outset, the parliamentary leader of the Ontario Liberals, meaning you're the guy who's in the good seat in the front row at Queen's Park. You're not the actual party leader. You're the leader in the House. Your party leader, Bonnie Cromby, didn't win a seat in the last election and I wonder how problematic that is for the party right now. I don't see that as being problematic. You know, Bonnie

didn't have a seat for the last year and a half after she won the leadership and the work that you do to get elected is a largely not inside the building it's outside the building it's in writings it's on Main Street and towns and cities and so that's that's the work that was being done before the election you know it would be a great advantage for her to be there right now but you take it you take advantage of the things that happen to you and use whatever there is in in those things and right now it gives her the freedom to be able to go to any place in Ontario she's not tied down to the legislature so there are advantages to it and and she's doing

that right now so yeah there was some speculation after election night that well is she gonna hang around will she stay till the next election and fight the next election given that she doesn't have a seat? She's always said yes. Is there any doubt in your mind? No. But that she's hanging around? No, no doubt in my mind.

No doubt, okay. Let me ask you one other thing. As we sit here talking today, they are taking the cladding off the statue of Sir Johnnie MacDonald on the South Lawn of Queens Park. And you can confirm this for me. I don't know if it's true, but I suspect it's true, that the special legislative committee called the Board of the Internal Economy or something like that, which makes the decisions

about the precinct, it's always been a stalemate for the last five years, but because you guys are an official party, you now have status and are on that committee. And therefore, do I assume the liberal voted to take the cladding off and that broke the stalemate? Yes. That's what happened. That's what happened. Yeah, just because, look, we can't hide from our history. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

And I think it was important that we do that. I think we need to acknowledge that. And personally, myself, I'm not a big believer in statues. But the reality is the statue's there. It's a monument. It should be a monument to the things that period of time. And during that period of time, there were some things that happened that were good,

and there were some things that happened that were very, very tragic. And it is, and we have to do more to acknowledge that. But leaving a box up is not getting us there. And so I've always believed that. And I think there's a way forward to make sure that we acknowledge that history. The Globe and Mail, editorially, the other day said,

okay, fine, we're taking the cladding officer, John A. Let's have another monument somewhere at Queens Park acknowledging the suffering of indigenous people over the last hundreds of years. So the the the assembly voted unanimously to allow the the the committee that's doing that work has been doing that work all to continue that work we had to do that because it's a new session and we had to say you can continue to do this work you were doing in the last session and so there's a commitment to get it making that happen and so and I think it's important that we do that and you know and you know, I you know, I

When I think of Sir John A and look at Sir John A I I just don't think about nation-building I think residential schools and as a matter of fact, that's the first thing that comes to my mind now When I look at that. Is that good? It's real. That's the truth. And so maybe exposing the truth is the right thing to do. Let's talk in our remaining five minutes here.

Time goes fast when you're having a good time, eh? So here we go. Five minutes to go. What, in your view, is the biggest problem with the Ford government today? The biggest problem? It's very performative. You know, communication's heavy.

I was thinking about that this morning. It's easy to build things. There's always people, you can borrow money, you can build buildings. It's harder to make what happens in those buildings work. And the government struggles with that. You know, 2.5 million Ontarians don't have a family doctor. Wait times are longer.

Our schools, kids with exceptional needs aren't getting what they need. So that's the hard part of it. And I think governments that understand that you can't just build things. You need to build people. You need to help them grow. Our college system is in which is

something that came from a conservative government is essentially under threat and the deal in Ontario is if you're sick don't worry we'll take care of you and your kids don't worry they'll have opportunity they'll all have relatively equal opportunity and that's not true because the stuff that happens inside, the people who help, it's not working well. And the government's not focused on that. They need to be focused on it. I know you've been saying that for the 12 years that you've been an MPP at Queen's

Park and the opposition, writ large, has been bringing that to the public's attention for the last seven years. And yet the guys won three straight majorities. So how do you explain that? They called an election before what I call the tipping point or the inflection, because what happens eventually is you get a critical mass of people who experience, and I've seen it happen before in the Harris days, at about seven years he left, and what happens is enough people experience the things that don't work that they go,

I've had enough. Maybe the government called an election early. I spent a lot of money doing it. I mean politically it's politically that's a great thing for them. Was it good for the people? I don't think so. You don't think so? No. No, I don't because I don't think that they I'm not the only one. I think I know that they're not focused on the things that matter most, the things that happen inside those buildings. There's a polling company that surveys the popularity of all the premiers of Canada, I think you know three or four times a year.

Doug Ford's usually number one or number two on that list. Well he's number one or number two, that's not exclusively in Ontario. I'm not saying he's not popular. Right now he's running against Donald Trump. Donald Trump. Donald Trump won't always be there. And then you have to run against yourself. That's harder. Could you tell us one thing the Ford government has done that you like?

What do I like? Well, the work that they've continued on in palliative care, I think is really important. I think they've done a good job of that. It's something that I was involved with and that for a long time and I was concerned that that would not continue and so and from what I've seen and talking to people in the field there's a lot more work to do but it didn't stop right so and I think you know that we have to I think it's important for us to focus on how we take care of each other at the end of life.

And so I'm just pleased the government did that. Okay. You're the member for Ottawa South. Who held the seat before you? Dalton McGinty. Are you still in touch? Yes, I usually talk to him... I wouldn't say frequently, but I talk to him every couple of weeks. Every couple of weeks? That sounds frequently. Yeah, lots of things in mutual interest.

He's very good at giving his time to all sorts of people. How's he doing? He's doing great. I learned a lot just working for him for 14 years. So I give him most of the credit that it just came. A lot of that came through osmosis, right? Just watching him and listening. I sort of have two Ontario political heroes, but people, Bill Davis, Dalton McGinty.

That's right. You're not a liberal. They understood what was important. Making sure that the health care and education was put always at the top of the list and taken care of. I will not be the first person you have heard observe that you have a lot of Dalton McGinty mannerisms. Did you pick that stuff up from him?

I say he got it from me, but no, no, no. No, I think, yeah, look, yeah. When you spend a lot of time with someone, and you listen, and you watch, you pick things up. And so I want to say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. So yeah, and yeah, no, Linda says that to me. Whether you're what?

She cheats, yes. Well, you've known since kindergarten. Well, not quite. Well, actually, no. I was three or four. I lived a block, like on the other side of the block, away from her. And we moved after that. So I probably met her at some point.

And then we ended up, we were married very young. And so we've been married 45 years in a couple of weeks. Congratulations. Thank you. OK, that is clearly your greatest accomplishment in life. But let me ask you finally, your political career, however long it lasts, the thing you will leave proudest of is what?

Just helping people. I have a great office in Ottawa that helps people with their, with, you know, just their everyday problems. And, you know, we can do lots of, I mean, there's lots of things that I'm proud of, but once they're done, you forget them. And but when you have somebody come to you on the street and say, your office really helped me or I had this situation and you fixed it and it made all the difference, it just, that has more of an impact on you.

So, and I think it's the relationships with like, with people I have in my riding. And I think the relationships that I've established inside the assembly, which is to try to work with everybody and be a reasonable, thoughtful person and not set my hair on fire every time something happens. Well, I'm sorry it took 12 years to get you here, but I hope it was worth the wait.

It was 100% worth the wait, and thanks for inviting me on. And I could have asked earlier, so I totally agree. And tell your wife, I thought you were pretty interesting, so she may need to change her opinion of you. Well, 45 years. Maybe that's... You can have too much Fraser. That's John Fraser, the can have too much Fraser. That's John Fraser, the parliamentary leader of the Ontario Liberals and the MPP for Ottawa South.

John, thanks for coming in tonight. My pleasure.