The Ben Mulroney Show - A Toronto flag raising like no other/A warming centre bait and switch

Episode Date: November 18, 2025

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Welcome to the Ben Mulruni show on this Tuesday, what, November 18th, or were the 18th? 18. November 18. Thank you so much for joining us Tuesday, Tuesday, Tuesday. It's Tuesday. And the liberal government lives to fight another day. Their budget passed 170 to 168 yesterday. That's almost by the skin of their teeth. So they did get the numbers. I always thought the safe bet was it was going to pass. But it was in a minority situation. You never know. Two conservatives and two members of the NDP abstained. And we're going to dig into that a little bit later. why they did, how they justified it, because the NDP interim leader gave a press conference afterwards and said that the NDP stood against it, but because of those two abstentions, it was allowed to go through.

Although even with those two abstentions, I guess the Speaker of the House is the tiebreaker and would have voted with the government, and so it would have passed. But the point that Don Davies made was, We stood against it, but Canadians were clear they didn't want an election. And they voted for this. So if Canadians have a problem with this budget, they can take it up with the liberals in the next election.

I have a tough time not agreeing with Don Davies on that. I really do. This is what the voters wanted. They wanted a liberal government. They wanted a liberal budget. This is the liberals best, like the first kick at the can in terms of budgets under. Mark Carney. And they get to live or die by it. There you go. That's it. One of the other things that we voted for was a liberal government that decided that they were going to recognize the state of

Palestine. And now that it has been recognized by the Canadian government, it was only a matter of time before we started raising those flags at city halls across the country. And so yesterday was the flag raising of the state of Palestine flag at City Hall here in Toronto. And it also, I mean, they opened it. They did so at various cities across Canada, not just in Toronto. You got to ask yourself, how many times, how many flags do we raise at City Hall? Well, since, so 60 so far this year. There have been 60 flag raisings for lots of, lots of different things.

Multiple sclerosis Canada flag day, period purse flag. on menstrual health day, black liberation flag, end polio now flag, the cooperative Republic of Guyana flag, St. Lucia, Republic of India, State of Israel, and now the newly recognized state of Palestine. And you'll remember that we were going to recognize that state after certain preconditions were met. Mark Carney was very clear on that. No recognition of that state until the commitment to governance reforms by the Palestinian Authority under President Abbas, which included unifying a Gaza Strip and West Bank under the Palestinian Authority. That had to happen. Holding general elections in 2026, a stipulation that Hamas could play no part.

And, of course, a demilitarized Palestinian state. Mike Troulet, did any of those things happen? Do I need Google to do a search? Yeah, like, I, looking, words matter, right? And Mark Carney is a very smart accomplished, man, far smarter and far more accomplished than I. But that doesn't change it. Like the definition of precondition is something that has to happen before you get the result. None of those things happen.

So explain the definition of precondition to me. None of those things happen. And so a genocidal regime perpetrated a one-day genocide, triggering a war, killing lots of people, of which Hamas is responsible for all of that. Undeniably. Undeniably. And the result was we recognize your state and you don't have to do anything for it. But, you know, again, this is what Canada voted for.

So this is our, this is the situation we're living in. One guy shows up, one guy shows up with a bunch of speakers during the, flag raising of the state of Palestine and he decides that he wants to, I guess, remind the people there that this recognition of the state of Palestine would not have happened were it not for the Canadian government. In other words, you should be thankful for Canada, for doing this thing for the people of Gaza, recognizing that you are a state. And I guess he wanted to play the Canadian anthem, which should have been well received.

It should have been. Without the Canadian government, you don't have a state that's recognized. So there should be a lot of thanks being given to the Canadian government. And maybe one of the ways you say thank you is to listen to the national anthem of the country that recognized you. I mean, I don't think that's a bridge too far. And so this one dude decides he wants to play the Palestinian, or the Palestinian, Canadian national anthem. And, well, let's listen because 22 seconds into the national anthem, something happens. excuse me

don't touch my property first of all that's all Canada you just disrespected you understand that you understand what you just did you disrespected our country man yeah a police officer

just showed up and turned it off turned it off and we want to thank Karim Assad and her team for getting that video and I just I always have to you got to flip it. Like what would have happened at any point, at any point over the past two years if the cops had gone into one of these protests, it just descended on an intersection in Toronto, clogging up traffic, making people's lives miserable, and just turned off their

sound system, which they bring with them, or they're taking away their bullhorns as they are shouting invective on, you know, every weekend as they walk through Jewish residential neighborhoods. What would have happened if they'd done it once, right? Because it's clearly okay to do it to a guy who just wants to play the Canadian National Anthem at City Hall. But if they'd done that once to somebody, do you think it would have been gone over very well? Do you think a cop? Do you think a cop would have done that? Like, I don't know what's going on in the city. I don't know what directive has come down from the top of the Toronto police to the cops on the street who are, or have to enforce whatever decisions are made at the top, right? Whatever those decisions are, that's, the result is what you see on the street. I don't blame the cop who did it. I blame the person who told the cop to do it. Cops don't make these decisions on their own.

These are political decisions that are made by somebody much higher up saying this is an unacceptable, this is unacceptable behavior. We don't want to hear the Canadian National Anthem. What we don't mind hearing is death to Canada. I love Hamas. death to Israel, death to Jews. We hear that all the time. Are we really?

Did we hear that yesterday? Did we hear? So we heard something yesterday. So, oh, Canada is unacceptable, but this is okay. You said something I like and I missed it on video. Thank you so much. Can you say it again? Say it again.

Say it again. Say it again. Make me famous, bitch. Yes. Yes. Thank you so much. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. Globalize the Intifada. Here we hear. I love Hamas. This is all acceptable stuff.

Oh, Canada, in front of City Hall by a taxpayer, that's unacceptable. That's a bridge too far. That, that's a problem. And they didn't tell him to turn it off. They just turned it off. They literally touched his property and turned it off. So if you can make sense of this for me, I'm all ears. I'm all ears. I'm willing to listen. If somebody wants to text us and let us know, I'm willing to listen to what I just, what I just painted for you is the definition of dysfunction junction. Like this, none of this makes sense. I mean, well, look, none of it makes sense unless, yet again, we go back to what I said is probably the most destructive thing that any prime minister has ever said about Canada, ever. that Canada is a country of no core identity

we're the first post-national state. We've got nothing that binds us together. Thank you, Justin Trudeau. I genuinely believe that that is the single most destructive thought that anybody has ever put out there into the public sphere because all of this stuff flows from that. All of this, all of this stuff, prioritizing somebody's right to scream,

globalize the intifada. And we've heard many times that death to Canada, death to the West, death to America, death to Israel, death to the Jews, I love Hamas, from the river to the sea, all that stuff. We've seen the Canadian flag lit on fire, ripped to shreds. And some guy just wants to play the national anthem. And that's a bridge too far. Why? Because the Canadian national anthem means nothing. It means nothing in a world where Canada has no core identity, no core values.

We have done this to ourselves. This is Canada in 2025. This is who we are. Get used to it, folks. All right. Up next, did the city of Toronto do a bait and switch with a warming station? That's next. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show.

All right, let's talk about how we share this city. And let's talk about how we care for those who need our help, who are for whatever. reasons find themselves on the streets. Let's talk about the policies of the city. Let's talk about warming centers, right? Warming centers are a big part of living in a city that gets very cold this time of year. And let's talk about what we think a warming center is. I was always under the impression that a warming center was, you know, when things got really, really cold and some people didn't want to, didn't want to go into a shelter, you'd go into a warming center for a few

hours and get warm and then go on your way. It was a way to make sure that those who slept on the streets could survive a really cold snap. That's what I thought they were. And it turns out that like so many things in this city, when it comes to certain city counselors who have extremely progressive views on all sorts of issues, what they promise something is going to be, turns out it's something completely different. And we're going to drill down into the Elizabeth Street Warming Center. It's just around City Hall. And

it's turning out to be something completely different than what the residents were told it was going to be. So let's bring Jeff Pollock into this conversation. He's part of the Elizabeth Street Safety Committee. Jeff, thank you so much

for joining us. Hi, Ben. Thanks so much for having me on. Okay, so the warming center. It's it's in the heart of your neighborhood. And talk to me about what it was supposed to be. Like when this thing was open, it was a few years ago? Yeah, it was open two years ago. Okay.

And your city councilor is? Our city councilor is Osama Malik. Okay. And what did Osama Malik tell you it was going to be? Well, just as you described it, it's supposed to be a warming center. where homeless people can go to get a night's sleep when the temperatures drop. But the last two years, it's been complete havoc in our neighborhood. We've seen this street deteriorate into a place of drug use.

I tend to see a lot of red lights. I hear a lot of sirens. We get first responders showing up to that location on 81 Elizabeth Street. between one and three times daily when this center is open. So one to three times a day, you have first responders in the form of the police officers coming because what there is violence that's erupting inside? And is that, is that what, yeah? Yeah, that's it. We see police, fire, EMS.

There's violence in and around the shelter. There are threats made to residents on the street. I've seen people chase residents while they're walking, their dogs, threats. We've had people break into our building on Elizabeth Street almost daily. And we've had to hire an additional security guard because of it. People will break into the building. They'll sleep in our foyer. They will pull the fire alarm.

And there are costs to our taxpayers. Every time a fire truck is dispatched for false alarms, last winter, I'm walking down Elizabeth Street, and I see somebody light up a crack pipe right in the middle of the day. Yeah, yeah. So it's, and it's not just our building. There's a UFT residence, and there's a daycare 75 meters away. There's a daycare 75 meters away from this warming center. Now, warming centers, in my, I don't know much.

I'm learning about them in real time. it feels to me that by definition, these are seasonal. So is that a fair assessment? Is it closed? This is not a warming center in the summer months? That's correct, yeah. So what happens to the building in the summer months? It's just vacant.

But, of course, we're all reminded that it's there because they have to board up the windows because of the vandalism that their clients cause. So it's vacant during the spring and summer months. but it's ever present right around this time of the year. And look, let's level set with our listeners. Let's remind them that we as a city have endured a nearly 17% tax increase, property tax over the past two years. And a lot of it is swallowed.

We ask ourselves, where is that money going? Why are we not feeling a commensurate rise in the services that we supposedly as a city pay for and as citizens expect in return for our tax dollars? But much of it is swallowed up by the Toronto Shelter Support Services. And when I tell you what that budget is, people are going to be flabbergasted, it's $898 million a year. And that's to accommodate approximately 12,000 people. So it works out to just under $75,000 per person. And as a reminder, Jeff, Olivia Chow threatened to cut all crossing guards because $20 million disappeared from the revenue because of the speed cameras.

$898 million goes into this one fund of all of our money. And I just, I wonder, I wonder, could she not, can we as a city not run this service on $878 million and $20 million goes to our crossing guards? Well, you would hope so. It's just to give you an idea of the cost of this one shelter. It's about $359 per day. We're taking that number. Sorry, say that again?

$359 per day per person. And we're getting that from the Toronto Auditor General Report. The city says the capacity of this center is 70 people, and it's open for about 90 days. So that gets to about $2.3 million per year or $25,000 a day. And just to put that $359 a day into perspective, a hotel at One King West is only about $250 a night. Yeah, I mean, look, for the entire budget, for $898 million, you could build pretty much anything to house these people permanently. Not that that's, it's not that it's a simple situation like that, but just try to give people some context on it. So, listen, we're not at the end of our segment yet, but I just want to let you know.

There's a lot more to talk to afterwards. So let's continue with this conversation. So you're told that this warming center is going to be a place where people come in. At what point did you realize that the city had essentially pulled a bait and switch on you? And what you were promised was going to be plopped into the middle of your neighborhood was most certainly not the simple warming center that you were promised. Well, I can tell you exactly when it was February 2024, when I learned there was a homicide right outside the center.

Oh, my God. So that's when we realized this was much more than just a simple warming center. Now, what I've heard about certain city counselors, of which Osama Malik, I've heard these stories of, and you can tell me whether this happens here. Very easy and accessible, accessible when there's good news to give, but when all of a sudden things turn sour, very hard to get on the phone. Was that your assessment here? Oh, absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah. So this is. And the clip you played yesterday of Gord Perks Was very representative of the kind of response we've got Through dialogue with anyone really at City Hall So as you're talking about when he when he was talking about how I interpret it as an exceptionally condescending Speech saying hey you don't you you you're too dumb to know this but these are people's sons and daughters

And we have a charter right to uphold hold their rights. This is a sort of pushback that you get. Like you're an uncaring, shameful human being and you need to be dragged out of your cave by the enlightened progressives in the city to remind you that you have an obligation to care for these people? Yep. That pretty much sums it up. Absolutely. So what do you have to do now? Like where what, how can you're or you set up organization to what end? Well, we're concerned residents in the building, and it seems as though our concerns as they're being expressed to City Hall are really falling on deaf ears.

And I'm of the view. I'd like to see the province intervene on this because I know Doug Ford is familiar with the area. When he was a city counselor, he used to park his car right beside this building. So he's familiar with it. Hey, Jeff, we're going to take a quick break right here. We're going to pick this up right after the break. Don't go anywhere.

We've got more to talk about warming centers and more generally the priorities of the city of Toronto. Don't go anywhere. This is the Ben Mulroney show. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. We are continuing our conversation with Jeff Pollack from the Elizabeth Street Safety Committee. And if you're trying to join the conversation on Twitter

or if you're just trying to follow the news, there's a company called Cloudflare. It's an internet security provider that provides 20% of all websites, including Twitter and chatchip-D. It's down right now. It's causing a cascading effect across the internet making

so much of what we take for granted every day. Impossible to do. By the way, Cloudflare is a company worth about $71 billion U.S. that no one's ever heard of before. No, well, I watched the stock tumble of about 12%. It's back up to about seven, it's down seven percent right now. Just a fascinating story.

We'll keep our eyes on it over the course of the morning. But back to our conversation with Jeff Pollock. Jeff, thanks so much for sticking around. My pleasure. Okay, I got to ask a few questions. And, you know, just for context and for fairness sake, what do you say to people who would tell you, look, you live downtown? There are joys to being downtown, but being down to it's a double-edged sword. I don't really like it when people on the island complain about the noise of the planes.

You don't live in the country. You live downtown, and there are planes at the airport. And people who live next to the gardener don't have the right as far as I'm concerned to complain about the noise of construction on the gardener. That's where you want to live. You want to live close to transit. You want to live close to work. You didn't want a car.

so you live within walking distance of downtown and it is what it is. What do you say to those who say, listen, you don't get to live in the middle of, in the heart of the action and then complain about the type of action that you have to deal with? Well, I've lived in this building now for 18 years and my interaction with addicts have been few and far between up until about two years ago. Toronto is supposed to be a world-class city, and world-class cities protect their downtown core. It's a tourist spot. It's where business and commerce is located, but in this instance, it's also a place of a residence.

And I would say that, no, it does not come with the territory. It certainly doesn't have to. And if I were on city council, I'd be protecting my downtown core. tourists come to Nathan Phillips Square. They want to have their photo taken with the Toronto sign. Then they might walk over to the Eden Center. Heaven forbid they walk north instead of east and have to come down Elizabeth Street because they would go back home and tell their neighbors about their experience in Toronto.

And I wouldn't want that to happen, nor should any resident of the city. Well, you know, I can't help but thinking. I keep going back to this. nine years ago, a woman by the name of Zara Ebrahim, who is Osma Malik's best friend. She signed Osamamalik's nomination papers in 2022. She's one of the founding members of Progress Toronto, which is sort of the political action group,

the vehicle by which so many of these progressives get elected in Toronto, she gave a TED talk nine years ago, and she proudly proclaimed, we are the people who let cities break. She said it many times during her TED talk. In other words, if there's an issue, we don't fix the pothole because the pothole isn't the problem. The problem is inequity in the city. So we let it break until it gets to a crisis point so that we can then fix that problem.

We can fix the inequity. At least that's what I got from her TED talk. So when I tell you that, when I tell you that Osama Malik and her friends are people who believe that we are the people who let cities break, what do you think? because it feels like she's deliberately letting the city break in this in this in this uh in this moment and with this warming center yeah well i think that any constituent who lives in spedina four york would like to see things get done rather than watch our city crumble and a road and maybe it is indicative that we need a new city counselor there's anybody thinking of running in the next municipal election you would get

at every vote in this building, and I would canvas every door for you. Yeah. And if you look at municipal turnouts, you know, you don't need that many votes to get elected. In the last municipal election, I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I was shocked at how few people voted. Well, that's something I want to talk about as well, because it does feel, based on the videos that I've been watching of the turnout at a lot of these community events where city counselors or come together with residents to discuss the issues, it feels now that people

who used to just sit on the couch as opposed to get out and vote because they're busy with their lives and their jobs and their families, feels like there's an activation that's happening. It feels like there may be a mobilization by people who otherwise would just stay silent and let the city do what it's going to do and let let the people who want to run it, run it. Feels like a lot of people like yourselves are saying, no, not this time. This time we're going to be paying very close attention. Is that a sense that you're getting? Absolutely. I think all politics are local. And when you're walking outside on Elizabeth Street and you're confronted with vandalism and drug use, at what point is enough enough? And I think

we're certainly hitting a breaking point here. And it's not just our street. I interact with lots of people in this ward and the riding. And many people are concerned with what they're seeing at our local level of government. So, you know, you've detailed some of the violence that has spilled out from this warming center into the broader community. Are you as a group opposed to the original concept of a pure warming center? You know, not one that allows for what I'm sure is, I'm sure there's drug use inside. I'm sure that there's all sorts of behavior that's leading to this feeling of lack of safety in the neighborhood. Are you guys against a warming center or just the fact that it's been run so poorly?

Well, it's been run so poorly. If it were just a place for people to visit at night when it's cold and get a good night's sleep, that's one thing. But this has developed it to something entirely different. And it's got to the point where we think that it's not properly staffed, but we don't want to see improvements. We want this thing out of here. Yeah. And this is not the place to put it. It's, I mean, you would think at City Hall, whoever was determining locations, there would be a checkbox of indicia to look at.

For example, does anybody live next door to this proposed center? Yeah. But no, it completely was overlooked. and we think that it should be removed from its present location and put somewhere where there are not residents who are affected by, you know, the drug use, the violence, and the vandalism. Yeah. Well, let's just remind people that, you know, based on what you've described and you guys have chronicled

all of the violence and the interactions very well. But, you know, if one to three first responders are called every day, per day every day the sender is open then the estimated daily emergency response cost is somewhere between $2,350,000 per day

yeah and so you know a fire truck dispatch it's $1,500 a hour EMS is $500 to $1,000 per call police is $300 to $500 per call and more if multiple units respond you know emergency calls

alone on top of the daily operation are between $138,000 and $330,000 a day. And again, I'll remind people, for the four months, yeah, for the four months, it's open. And I'll remind people that just last week, Olivia Chow, the mayor of the city, and her most responsible voice, said, listen, we can't make the math work if you're going to take our speed cameras away, and we're going to have to get rid of the crossing guards that keep your kids safe.

That's $20 million. We have to find that somewhere. I'm detailing here a government service, a municipal government service that's close to a billion dollars a year that doesn't seem to be solving any problems. This is, this is crazy. This is crazy. And I'll give you the last 30 seconds, my friend, to say whatever you want to say on the subject. Well, I would just say this doesn't just affect people on Elizabeth Street. skillfully mentioned the resources that this requires for the EMS and the fire and police and everybody requires those first responders at one point in their life. And if those EMS people and fire and police are on this street,

that means they're not somewhere else where they could be otherwise. So I think that we want to see this location moved. and for our safety and Toronto should be a world-class city and this is just totally inappropriate. Jeff Pollock, thank you so much for sharing. Sorry you're going through this and we really appreciate your time today.

Oh, thanks so much, Ben. All right, so what do you think? Has the city been misleading people? Is it NIMBYISM? Give us a call. 416-870-6400 or 1-3-2-25 talk. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. We want to take your calls at 416870-6400 or 1-3-8-225 talk.

We're talking about what happens in this city when a community is promised that something is going to be dropped in the middle of their community and turns out it's something completely different. And the people around Elizabeth Street who are dealing with the Elizabeth Street Warming Center have realized since last year that it is anything but a simple, warming center. And just give you a quick, before we get to the calls, I'll give you a quick example, a list of some of the calls to first responders that this neighborhood has had to deal with. So February 19th of 2024, a client overdosed on fentanyl, so not so much the warming. EMS called twice. A knife threat. And I'm just going to list them off without the dates. A knife threat, an unprovoked attack on a security guard. Unconscious client found in smoking area due to possible overdose.

Client found in a smoking pit with blue lips and shallow breathing. Client unresponsive in upstairs washroom with shallow breathing and blue lips. Three overdoses, three doses of the naloxone administered, transferred to hospital and possibly die.

There are kids. There are elderly people. There are people with disabilities living in close private. There's a daycare, 75 meters away from this. Keep in mind that this is all happening on the backdrop of us as people

and people in that area being asked to pay nearly 17% more in property tax over the past two years. Make that make sense. Let's welcome Mike to the show. Mike, thanks so much for calling the Ben Mulroney show. Hey, a long-time listener, first-time caller, Ben. Thank you. Toronto doesn't have an income problem.

They have a spending problem. Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's for sure. Oh, absolutely. They like shiny things like electric fairies and all that stuff. We were promised in Don Mills under Denton Min and Wants, a community center when they revamped shops of Don Mills. never happened

got moved to young and X so it's pulled out from under us every single time that's all I gotta say well but what before Mike before you leave don't you think it's incumbent then

on the people who are affected by these things if we are if residents are promised one thing and they get something completely different and what they were promised was one thing

and what was delivered with something that has such negative impact on them don't you think it's incumbent on people to to vote to make decisions at the ballot box

because a lot of people don't show up at the ballot box a lot of people do not vote I agree with you there's a silent majority out there

who can't be bothered who don't think they can change a system who say okay the NDP rallies all these people come out and vote whereas other people

quite frankly think they can't warrant change so they don't bother people don't want to go and carry signs I mean God forbid a Canadian went out

and protested we'd be arrested but a guy yesterday I just tried to play the national anthem and it got turned off. Can you believe that? They shut it down.

Oh, I can absolutely believe it. Mike, that's the problem. That's where we are now. This is not surprising anymore. Mike, thanks so much for calling. All right. Thanks, Matt. Bye-bye.

Ron, welcome to the show. Hey, Ben. Your last guy said it perfectly. People don't vote. There is a lot of not in my backyard. But I live in Barry. And, you know, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're in. enforcing policy rather than starting help at home.

You know, a lot of it's... Wait, what do you mean by that? What do you mean by that? Well, okay, I told your screener, nobody woke up in the morning saying I want to be a crackhead and sleep on the street. Yeah. We're misappropriating funds and the funds aren't going towards helping people that have serious problems at home.

Yeah. We're importing problems. Yeah. Well, look, but also we got 12,000, approximately 12,000 people have. avail themselves of these services. And the budget is, it's creeping up to a billion bucks. If we can't make a dent, if we can't bend that curve with nearly a billion dollars of our money going towards helping 12,000 people, then the way that we're going about it is

wrong, wouldn't you say? Yeah, absolutely. And like the last caller said, get out and vote. I've heard it too much that, you know, people say my vote won't change anything. Well, if there's a million like you, it absolutely will change. Yeah, I mean, the last municipal election saw, I mean, I think we had less than 30% turnout. It was god-awful. That's not reflective of the will of the people.

It's reflective of the will of the people who showed up. And so in that way, you get the government you vote for or you get the government that you chose not to vote for because you stayed home. And hopefully in the next election, people who are reticent to take time out of their day to vote municipally will change that. They will see how important it is for them to get out there. If everybody voted, I don't think you could have a problem with anybody should take issue with who wins because it is a true reflection of what the city wants. You would see responsible government at that point, I would suggest. Well, thank you very much for the call. I really appreciate it. And who do we have now? We got Roe in Scarborough. Are you in Scarborough?

I'm in Scarborough. Okay. So what are your thoughts? My thoughts are this. I have an encampment literally. on Birchmouth, five minutes away from my work, okay? And they have broken into my business and other business multiple times. These people that are in that encampment, the city has gone out because I've been in contact with the city for over a year and Toronto Hydro to get them out and have offered them resources.

They choose to stay there. And they choose to stay there because they know they cannot go out at two, three in the morning if they're in a shelter and go steal from businesses, steal from people in the community, and go and score whatever drugs they need to survive. So they've stolen our propane tanks, they've stolen broken in, and they've just caused havoc in Scarborough for no reason whatsoever, and they don't want to go to a shelter. So I personally feel no remorse for them.

They need to be gone, and we need to be able to walk through our bike path. and have our businesses. I have a very small business. The small businesses have been hit. The big businesses have been hit. And the counselor's office has done nothing. Well, that was going to be my question to you. Who is your city counselor?

So we have Michael Thompson's office here. Yeah. I've been dealing with his assistant, named Walden. And, you know, it's the same thing all the time. I have documentation for over a year trying to get rid of this encampment. And they just moved. They started fires. And the city has done nothing.

Nothing whatsoever. You know what it really gets me is when politicians at any level, when you say, here is my problem. It's a very real problem. And what they'll do is they'll back up and they'll push back with process and procedure. And they'll say, oh, well, this is not the proper venue. to discuss this. We have a protocol in place. And if you really have an issue to address, you've got to go through this office or that office, or you have to wait for this particular day

to be able to come give a deputation on X, Y, or Z. When they fall back on process, you know that my opinion is that they know they've lost the fight. And so they are going to beat you down with process. I'm not saying that happened in this case, but it happens a lot. Oh, this is not the right place for you to be complaining about the fact that your neighborhood's on fire. If you want to do that, you've got to wait until a week from Tuesday because that's the day that people come in and complain about fires in their neighborhood.

I have been bounced from Toronto Hydro to the city. Nobody's taking responsibility back to the Hydro until I'm back to Councillor Michael Thompson's office and I have a rash and string of emails and phone calls. This

is over a year now. Just to get them out. And what they're going to do, they're going to move the encampment five minutes away to another location, and they're going to set up shop there. I got to leave it there, Roe, but thank you so much for sharing. I appreciate it. Margaret, you're my last call on this. So if you can give it to me about 30 seconds. Okay.

More people would go out to vote if we had elections where there was no advance polls and no mail in ballot. that our elections rate that have been happening for the last four or five election ever since we've people don't trust the elections and that's why they're not going out to vote oh i don't know if that's it margaret i think there's just i think i think there's a mobilization on the left that simply doesn't exist with the people who that who are not overly overtly political i think if there are a lot of people who aren't political and for that reason they kind of just hey i got i got bills to pay i got a job to make it easier and easier for people to vote and people And we don't even know whether it's a majority or minority.

Margaret, I got to leave it there. Thank you so much. Thanks to everybody for calling in. We're going to keep beating the drum on this as long as it looks like it's a problem. So.