The Ben Mulroney Show - Canada's overworked judicial system/A plea from Jamaica for help

Episode Date: December 2, 2025

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Welcome to the Ben Mulruni show on Tuesday. December 2nd. Thank you so much for being here. And it's a early Christmas present, possibly, possibly for the city of Toronto. Let's jump right in. Oh, before we do, I do want to extend my care and my emotional support for my intrepid producer, Mike Droulet, who fell ill. He's working from home today. And I told him, he sounds like he's sick, right? And he said, that he could join me for a few conversations today. And I said, don't worry about it. Like, I don't need you. I can, there's lots in the, in the dock today. We've put a great show together. And, and, and he got very mad at me.

He got very mad at me. He said, he's like, I'm not a baby. I can join you. No problem. As he hacked up a lung. So he may join us. He may call in. He may be offended that I, I spoke of his human frailty, his weakness. He's, he's, uh,

tender like a grape. And so anyway, it is what it is. Mike, I hope you feel better. And I'm sure you'll join us at some point today. But we're at all points in the studio. Normally we have everybody in studio at the beginning of the day, beginning of the show. But let's welcome Dave Spargala. He's the guy behind the board. Welcome to the show, my friend. Thank you. How are you? Well, how are you feeling today? I'm feeling okay. Thanks. Mike didn't give me his germs. No, no, me neither. Very lucky that he's, I mean, so he sits about, what, eight feet away from. me? Give her take. Yeah, that's good enough. I mean, he's an enormous human being, so his germs have the ability to

be projected far farther than say, you or me as normal-sized humans. Normal-sized humans. Amy Siegel. Is Amy Siegel in the other room over there? Yes, she is. You okay there? You okay? She's back. She's back, and I asked her how she's doing. She said terrible. But you always look wonderful.

And you do great work, and we're happy to have you here. And we're happy that you've joined us as well. So let's get back to this gift, this gift to the city of Toronto. Could we see a Christmas miracle? Could the Eglington LRT be running before the new year? That's the possibility. So you'll remember that it's been in the final phases of testing. And it's been this, it's been this, the axe hangs, but it does not fall sort of situation, the sort of Damocles, if you will, wondering, will it fall? And because it had to go 30 straight days. of testing with no issues.

And if it did that, then then that signaled that we were in the final phase before being handed off completely to the TTC and at which point they could decide. They could decide when it was time to finally allow riders onto this Crosstown LRT that has been the the bane of this city for 15 years. And oh yeah, Mike Troulet, by the way, is in the, in the. in the dock. We're in a Google doc right now. And he said, I'm not going to tell you what he's typing right now. But hey, I'm trying to do the show now, Mike. So back off. So, and you'll remember, it started the 30 days of testing. But the rule is, you could get to the 29th day. And if there

is some sort of incident, now what determines what an incident is, I don't know. But if it gets a 29th day and 29th day and 23rd hour and there is an incident, the clock. starts out at day one again and they got a few days in last time and the clock had to start again but now we're almost at the end we're almost at the end could it be a week from now could it be two weeks from now could we could we see riders on the cross town LRT before the end of this year it's it's entirely possible let's so it's completed the cross down alert complete its final testing on Monday and we'll be handed over to the TTC soon. Let's let's listen that Michael Lindsay, the city council, let's listen to what he had to say. What does that then mean

going forward? It means the same things that it did for the Finch West LRT. Over the course of the next week, there'll be finer resolution of minor deficiencies. The project will achieve substantial completion. It will be ready. We will then work with partners at the TTC as we are doing each and every day to think about the ramp up of passenger service and the first date that we put passengers on this system. Okay. So that doesn't sound like it's happening anytime soon. I'm sorry. That sounds like that sounds like coded language for it'll open when it opens. And just for me here, like when it opens, like it better be perfect. It better be the best GD ride that anybody in this city has ever taken after

15 years. Some people say it took longer to build this thing than the pyramids. I can't speak to that, but it feels like it could. It feels like it could. I very much want to get on it. I was also talking to somebody because I wonder, I genuinely wonder, if

ridership on the crosstown LRT will translate into less cars on Egglington. I've been told by certain people, certain city counselors, no. Actually, I was told by actually two city councilors, no it will not, which kind of disappoints me,

because I don't understand what the point is if it's not going to get rid of some of the cars on Eglinton. But I don't know. You're not up there, are you, Amy? No, but do they have the red lanes on Eglinton? Because that's like all over downtown. Yeah, yeah. They just popped up and sure enough,

they put those in without telling anybody what they meant. Yeah. Because this city loves changing the rules and not telling anybody. They threw those in, And there was no education at all. There was no, there are no QR codes by the side of the road to let people know what they are. Put us a QR code somewhere so we can all, like, access what these new lanes mean.

Does that mean we can never be in them? Yeah. You know that for sure? No. Okay. Like, from what I've seen, I'm assuming, yeah. Well, from what I've seen, people are driving in it anyway because there's, of course. I haven't seen that.

If I'm stuck in traffic and there is an empty lane and there are no buses, I'm taking that lane. I'm taking it. I'm sorry. If a cop wants to stop me, tell me, I'll say, where was the education program? Tell me where anybody told me

I can't be in that lane. I know you put down red paint, but you didn't tell me what that meant. And unless you're going to educate me, I'm going to go based on the rules of the road that I was taught on. It's confusing. Well, it's Toronto.

Yeah. It is Toronto. But yes, Eglington is a mess. Okay, so no official opening date yet. apparently is coming, quote, very soon. MetroLink CEO said the testing included all weather conditions. I think we've seen that. The opening process will mirror the Finch West LRT, which opens six weeks after the final

testing approval. Now, so, okay, so if Finch opened six weeks after the final testing approval, there are only four weeks remaining in 2025. So it might happen in January. I don't know, but the Finch LRT is not the Egglington LRT. that I think it came included with Gremlins in the system to like pull it wires and just make it not work the way it's supposed to. Our transportation minister, Prabh Mekhcari, said the project is so, so close, that's a quote, and that considerable progress has been made. Well, yeah, of course considerable progress has been made.

Construction started just for everyone to know in 2011. I was supposed to open in 2020. Oh, my God. We're almost at 2026. Oh, my God. Yeah, well, it's been taking a long time. Another thing that's been taking a long time is the fire that has been burning since Thursday in two East York condo buildings, one on Thorncliffe Park Drive and one on overly

boulevard. Burning for five days, Toronto Fire Chief says the fire is still active and next to impossible to extinguish. And it's due to combustible particle board located between the buildings in an inaccessible expansion joint. Now, we got a little bit of time. So let's listen to an update from the fire department. But this is the problem that we are talking about.

And if you can imagine a cigar burning slowly up and up without visible flames, this is what my staff have been dealing with since Thursday afternoon at 1.30 with no way to access it except very manual labor ways and very laborious ways. Yeah, I don't know how old this building is. I have no idea how these buildings are But, you know, I thought that we were living in a world where And of much respect to the fire department and the hard work that they do And the fact that they put themselves in harm's way each and every day But I just assume that in 2025 the buildings that we were building

Wouldn't do things like this. I thought that the cost of building these buildings As it's gone up over the years and decades Would make it so that this sort of thing wasn't even a remote possibility. But you get what you pay for, I guess. Yeah. Hey, we're going to take a quick break, but when we come back,

how many criminal cases would you guess are tossed out every year because they took too long to get to trial? Let me, I'll stop you. You will never guess. The number is disgusting. We'll be right back. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. In 2016, the Supreme Court of Canada imposed very strict deadlines on criminal trials. And because of that, Statistics Canada has let us know that this is derailing about 10,000 criminal cases a year, including several alleged murders and hundreds, hundreds of alleged sexual assault.

false. The affected cases are significant. The governments of Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, as well as the feds, are arguing that the deadlines are too rigid and want more judicial flexibility, which sounds reasonable to me, especially when you hear about some of the cases that are being stayed or completely thrown out. And in order to delve into this with a heck of a lot more knowledge of the law than I have despite having gone to law school. And I forgot most of what I learned. We're joined now by somebody who lives and breathes this every single day. Criminal lawyer Joseph Newberger. Joe, welcome to the show. Hi, Ben. I'm sure you haven't forgotten everything. Well, I've forgotten. I've forgotten lots, but happy to have, happy to chat about this really important state of play with you today. This is, uh, this is just, look, I know that this comes from 2016, uh, but it's said that The specter of it is being raised in 2025, at a time where it feels

like courts across this country are untethered from the reality of life in this country. In fact, feels like these decisions are making life harder for, you know, victims of crimes. Yeah, so if I can just give you some stats

just so the public can maybe help. So through the 2023 to 2024 year, 230,000 plus cases were handled by courts and adjudicated. That doesn't include a lot of guilty plea cases, which are quick resolutions when people are arrested. Nine percent of matters that involve people who are charged actually go to trial and then reach a decision, which means the majority of work that's done in the Ontario

Court of Justice is usually resolution-based work. So we're looking at now in 2025, my estimate is well over 300 or 350,000 across Canada for cases. It's a large number because we have a larger population, especially in a place like Toronto or the GTHA. So by and large, we are dealing very effectively with 91% of the cases that come into the court system. Yeah. So take me back to 2016 when the Supreme Court ruled that it was a charter violation to make. you know, people standing trial, a criminal trial, to wait too long for a trial. What was the reality there that they were responding to? Excellent question.

So we were experiencing some significant backlog because of delay in getting disclosure to defense counsel. And in particular, in the Superior Court in Toronto, I can tell you, we were having great difficulty getting trials on. which continued well up till probably about 2023. And that was because the federal government, Justin Trudeau's government, were not appointing judges to the Superior Courts across Ontario and other provinces. We were chronically, chronically short anywhere between 9 to 11 Superior Court judges in Toronto. I remember just in the city of Toronto. Justice McMahon, one of my favorite judges of all time, would start. court apologizing that we are chronically short of judges and he would make that statement

because he wanted to make a political statement about it. That finally got solved around 2023 and the full complement in Toronto is now, is now solid. We have everybody appointed. So things are moving much faster. They are moving much faster, but that doesn't change the fact that we are still living with the sort of the, um, uh, the, the, the, the, the, the issue. from the past few years. I mean, the 2023, 2024 stats can data suggests, it doesn't suggest, it says 9,560 cases exceeded the Jordan limits. 525 of those were sexual assault cases the highest since 2016. So it's still a reality that we're dealing with. And the impact of it is that you've got 22 sexual violence victims suing Ottawa for $22 million, claiming harm from these stays. So this

This is dysfunction in our judicial system, the likes of which I didn't expect to read this morning. I hear you. I mean, you know, I have some concerns about that lawsuit. I think there's some legitimacy to dealing with the Jordan decision because when it came out, it was a direct response to a chronic issue at the time. But prior to the Jordan decision, we had a more complicated but nuanced approach to dealing with complicated cases. So there were exceptions for cases that had complexity, multi-accused, more complex homicides, possibly more complex sex assault. So there is much more flexibility in determining whether an accused was prejudiced.

I think that's something we have to revisit now to address this. But again, when you're looking at 500-some-odd cases of sexual assault that have not gone all the way to trial, there are thousands of others that are, and many are being resolved by guilty pleas. So by and large, when you're dealing with a system that is funded by the government and chronically underfunded, I have to hand it to the judges into the Crown attorneys and defense lawyers, they're doing a good job. You know, I have an analogy. You have a two-lane highway from, you know, let's say Vaughn to downtown Toronto, and it's only two lanes. It's the only way to get downtown.

But every year you have to put on an extra three, four, five thousand cars, you're going to have backup unless you build more infrastructure. We still need more infrastructure. Yeah, we need more infrastructure. And look, the way the article in the Globe and Mail reads is that this is a miscarriage of justice for victims. And given the backdrop of the stories that we share so often of what feels like a judicial system that places the rights of the alleged accused over the victims, it's hard not, it's hard not to read it that way. Right. And I'm worried about the language because it talks about victims. There's no victim until a court determines beyond a reasonable doubt. I've got a trial study Monday where I have a falsely accused. 21-year-old man is looking

at three years in jail. And I've got plenty of evidence to establish it's a lie. So I'm telling you now, and the public has to understand, not everybody who's charged is guilty of an offense. Oh, and look, and Joseph, I agree with you. And listen, back in the day, the idea of, what was the expression, better 100 guilty men go free than it? a single innocent man spend a day in jail. I mean, that was, that is, that is such a noble ideal. And I guarantee you, you would have had far more buy-in for that concept a few years ago than you have today. Because if people feel like they are, the, the honest, law-abiding citizens are not the priority of the judicial system anymore.

Whether that's real or just a feeling, it has, that's the reality today. I get that, Ben. And what I'm trying to push back on is the framing and the language. The judicial system, if people sit there and watch judges, especially in the set date courts and the assignment courts, they're moving these along. What we have to focus on is the rights of everybody, the rights of the accused, the rights of the complainants. And we want to make this a system that's sensitive to both and uphold those rights for all people so that they can seek the justice that they deserve. Okay, so I only have about, I have just over about a minute left. What do we need the Supreme Court to do? do to establish that balance? I think they need to revisit Jordan such that there will be a valve, a relief valve, put in place so that where we have complex cases, those are the ones that will go through a more complex analysis such that they're not automatically stayed if you're at 19 months or you're at 32 months because there's separate differences.

And the federal government can maybe do something by way of a legislative change to the criminal code. Yeah, and I think you're right because the way the article reads, of course, you know, find the writers of it found cases where, you know, something, one of the cases went over that limit by four days, right? And it was stated. And that's a bridge too far. Yeah, it is ridiculous. I think we need a little more nuance and a little more understanding that stuff happens every now and then in order for this to make sense for people who don't appreciate the ins and outs of the judicial system as you do. But I do thank you for joining us and for clearing this up just a little bit.

We appreciate it. Joseph Newberger, thank you very much. Thank you for addressing and for having me on. Take care about it. All right, take care. Listen, when we come back from the break, Jamaica is still picking up the pieces after hurricane season. Should Canada step up and help it get back on its feet? We're going to talk about a great Canadian, born in Jamaica, made his life here. Everybody knows him.

Wes Hall of Dragon's Den Fame joins us next. Don't go anywhere. This is The Ben Mulroney Show. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. Thank you so much for joining us on this Tuesday. And look, yesterday we were having a conversation about the different types of aid and how Canada can help and where the value is. And I don't think anybody would disagree that Canada and Canadians need to do anything

that we can, especially at this time of year, to help our good friends in Jamaica. Hurricane Melissa struck Jamaica on October 28th of this year as a powerful Category 5 storm, the strongest hurricane ever to make direct landfall on that island in modern history. And the damage, I mean, to say significant, would be an understatement.

And so here to talk about that is a great Canadian, a fantastic Torontoian, and a very, very good friend of mine. Please welcome to the show from Dragons Den as well as a great investor and somebody who is invested in not just this city, but this country. And for everybody to succeed, please welcome Wes Hall to the show. Wes, thanks so much for joining. Great to see you.

First of all, I've got to say, Ben, like, why did you take this long to get me on your show, man? I'm sorry. I'm sorry, my friend. I'm so glad. It took a natural disaster for you to bring me on. So I've been told, my friend, that you're joining us remotely today, but we have a commitment of you to join me in. studio at some point soon. We'll talk about anything you want, I promise.

Done, done, done. I'm in. Well, thank you for having me. I really appreciate you keeping the attention on this thing, right? Because the disaster happened and people think Jamaica is just back to normal. Yeah. And man, there is, it is rough down there. In fact, I'm going there next weekend. And I've seen some of the images. Family members of mine are sending me stuff of what they're going through. Yeah. And it is going to be a long, hard road to recover. Well, look, they're saying they're saying the damage caused by the storm is estimated to be around $10 billion and it's expected to rise. But, you know, $10 billion is relative, right? A $10 billion in had a hurricane made landfall in the United States and miraculously for the

first time in a decade, no landfall of any hurricanes in the United States for the entire season. But $10 billion in the United States is one thing. Ten billion on an island nation like Jamaica is a whole other order of magnitude. And let me just say, this the 10 billion that's u.s. dollars yeah okay so if we think about Canada for example and Canada has about 15 billion dollars in damages from a hurricane in this country 41% of our GDP could you imagine how long yeah it will take for us to dig out of that hole yeah that is the position that jamaica is in right now that's right like and and if you think about the it's just not about the there's 45 people dead and 15 missing and it may not seem like a lot but uh the after

impact of like diseases that people are going to have to deal with because they don't have fresh water and so on is a massive thing but there's about 4.8 million tons of debris that has to be cleared from the island and they have no place to put it all yeah okay so you know there's 31% of the island is still without power the government just agreed to put $150 million and put in infrastructure back, power infrastructure back. But even with that, people won't see power until April in most of these communities. Imagine that. So the work is ongoing and the scale is large. Wes, what does it mean for you? You've got family there. You hail from there. It is a part of

the world that is that you carry with you all the time. It's part of your story. It's part of who you are. What does it mean to you to see where you're from be affected so significantly by a natural disaster? So just so people can put it in perspective, right? And it's given Tuesday, so I'm glad we're having this conversation today. If you have relatives in Jamaica, I came from rural Jamaica, St. Thomas Golden Grove. And last weekend, we have to get food supplies and other medical supplies to that community. There's about 150 families in my community, including relatives of mine. And so we have to land the product in Kingston, but we now have to hire vehicles, trucks to actually bring the supplies to these communities, right? They don't have the money to pay

for that. But when I, somebody sent me a video of the distribution and in the lineup are my family members including people that I grew up with that were in that lineup waiting for aid supply and it just goes to show that's when it brings it close to home for you right here I am in canada life is relatively good for me and here are people that I grew up with family members lining up just to get their basic necessities food and water and medical supplies and this is just one shipment that will last them for one week next week there will be others and others and others until they're actually recover. And in some of these communities, to get access, you can't get access by road, you've got to get access by helicopter. So it is, again, the scale is large and we need as much

support as we can get. And the financial support is obviously critical that we need right now. Well, we're going to talk about it at the end, but there's one other question I want to bring up with you because I was talking with my producer this morning about the Haiti earthquake, right, devastated that entire country. And I remember when I worked at CTV, we mobile. CTV, CBC, and global for a telethon on all three networks simultaneously. Meanwhile, what's happened in Jamaica is, it's probably not on that scale, but the devastation is significant. And yet, as you pointed out, this happened in October, and it hasn't stayed on people's

radar. How do you account for the difference in focus between then and now? you know i think you know sometimes when you're not impacted by something directly it's easy to just move on to something else and uh and our attention span is uh is you know it takes two seconds before we move on to something else right the bottom line is that when you're actually living it it's almost like it's an eternity for those people since the hurricane in certain parts of jamaica it's like an eternity yeah one of the things that we haven't really talked about is the fact that we're going to be impacted here in Canada.

A lot of these, the most hardest hit areas, are where we get our farm workers from in Ontario, for example. And so if these people don't have homes, they can't get back on their feet, they can't come here to work in our farms. And so as a result of that, prices will be higher for us in come summer. And in some cases, we can't even get the produce on our shells this summer.

So that's why we can't just say, it's too bad. We move on to the next news story. In fact, we're going to see the impact of it very, very soon in our economy. So tell me, before we, I've got about a minute and a half left, and I want to make sure that we get to it. What is the best way in your estimation for Canadians to help? Because, and I've said it before, this, I mean, these are our neighbors.

These are people who help build Canada, either who've moved here and built this country as Canadians, or as you said, seasonal workers. They are our neighbors, hemispheric neighbors, helping Jamaica today. is actually the definition of an investment, right? It's an investment that will pay off. So how can Canadians help rebuild this country that in a lot of ways we depend on? Well, Ben, you look enough a product of Jamaica

that came to Canada to help with this economy. I came here September 27, 1985. I have hundreds of people hired in this country. I've paid millions of dollars in taxes to help the Canadian economy. How can we help Jamaicans? We can do it by donating. Harmony's of Hope is a concert.

You can buy tickets, but if you are not able to make the concert, even if you are able to make the concert, please, we need your donation. It doesn't matter the amount. It doesn't matter. We need food. We need clean water. We need building materials. Kids need to go back to school.

People need their homes rebuilt. So whatever you can do to help, please do that, especially on this given Tuesday. money is key right now and we can spend that money to bring those families back to normal as soon as you possibly can. Wes, thank you so much. I'm sorry that the first time you're on the show

it's to talk about something so devastating but if there is ever somebody who could help cut through the noise and put this front and center for as many Canadians as possible, I know it's you. Thank you for joining us. My best to you and the entire family

and I look forward to seeing you soon. All right, take care. Thanks, you appreciate it. Thank you so much. Yeah, this is It was the reminder of the attention that we gave to the devastation in Haiti versus what the people of Jamaica need today. And like I said, you don't need to convince me that the people of Jamaica helping the country of Jamaica is the definition of the aid that a country like Canada should be putting on the table. That is what we should be doing.

And that should cross every single party line, left, right center, up and down. it's the right thing to do, and I hope that we do it as far as we possibly can. All right, in just a few weeks ago, Mayor Chow threatened to cut off crossing guards. No money, she said, and yet somehow we found a whole bunch of that for bike lanes. Make that make sense next. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show, and I was driving into work early this morning. I couldn't sleep, and I woke up, I was lying in bed, I was like, oh, you know what, I'm going to watch that show all her fault. By the way, I highly recommend it is a fantastic show available on Stack TV.

Anyway, so I'm driving in, and I hear Dave Bradley in the newsroom tell me that we're building 20 kilometers of new bike lanes across the city. That's interesting. I don't remember a debate over this. I don't remember groundswell of talk about this, but okay, 20 new bike lanes, 20 new kilometers of bike lanes. And they seem to have found a solution where we're not going to lose any lanes of traffic and we're still going to have the bike lanes. That's a great solution.

I'm a big fan of that. I've always said I want to share the road. I'm not somebody who doesn't want bike lanes, but I don't want them at the expense of lanes of traffic that people depend on. And so I'm a big fan of this. As a matter of fact, let's listen to our transport minister, Pratmeet Zakaria, talking about how these bike lanes are okay. We've seen gridlock at an all-time high here in the city.

But for us, if the vehicle lane is still there, that is in compliance with the legislation. If there is a way in which you can have both a vehicle lane and a bike lane on the same street, then that is okay. we'll continue to work with the mayor and others to move this city forward. All right, they're going to work with the mayor. Over to you, Madam Mayor. From day one, I said there's a win-win solution.

We keep the car lanes, we put the bike lanes in, everybody's happy. And we keep cyclists safe. So that's what's happening. It's not a loophole. It works. It's just better design. Okay, yeah, listen, if this is where we're going as a city and we have found a way to add bike lanes without removing actual lanes of traffic,

you're not going to get a complaint for me on that front. However, here's my problem. Here's a very real problem. The cost of these 20 kilometers of new bike lanes are estimated to be $30.4 million. And when I read that in the city of Toronto, I expect that to go up to at least $50 million. Call me crazy, call me cynical. That's what I expect.

Okay, $50 million. But let's stick with the original sticker price of $30 million. Can we get in the way back machine to two weeks ago when the speed cameras were taken down? And the mayor said that because of that loss of revenue, she was losing $20 million in the city of Toronto. And because of that, she may very well have to fire every single crossing guard in this city that keeps our kids safe who go to school. We don't have $20 million to pay them to keep our kids safe. but you have somehow found $30 million for bike lanes that I don't know anybody is necessarily asked for right now.

So I'm trying to make that make sense. You're playing politics with the safety of our kids and you're going to extend the bike network. I'm sorry, I have a real problem with that, a real fundamental problem that kind of makes me angry in the cockles of my heart. And so I want to put the call out to you, 416, 8,000.000. 870-6400 or 1-3-2-2-5 talk. That's 416-8-8-6400 or 1-3-8-2-5 talk.

How are we going to pay for this? We were going to lay off crossing guards, and now we found money for bike lanes. Somebody needs to answer for this. Somebody needs to tell me where the money came from. We don't have $20 million for crossing guards, but we have $30 million for bike lanes. Make that make sense. Somebody please justify that to me. I'm open to hearing it.

416-8-8-60-6400 or 1-3-8-2-2-5 talk. So apparently what we're going to see is lanes narrowing speed limit reduction. So Keel is going to go from 60 down to 50. And apparently you're going to lose 62 parking spaces on Kingston Road. It's not ideal for the businesses there. I'll let them stand up for themselves. I can't pretend to know that area of town well enough. to stand up and say that that's an issue.

But if you still have the two lanes of traffic, that's a compromise I'm willing to live with. Like I said, the idea of this is fine for me. The cost of it is what I take issue with, especially given how cavalier the mayor was willing to just throw away all of our crossing guards because she lost her speed cameras. Joe, welcome to the show. What do you say?

Ben, I was just telling your screener that I was driving up Sentinel Road. They just narrowed that street down. The bus can hardly go up if you have to make a right-hand turn on to Grand Reveen. He's got to go into the oncoming lane of Grand Reveen. The garbage cans on Garbage Day are right in the middle of the bicycle lanes and the traffic's backed up because the garbage truck is going so slow. very dangerous and nobody's using those lanes. So now we're making more bicycle lanes

and there's a threat that she's going to defund the crossing guards. Yeah, see, that that's the thing that offends. That's the thing that offends. We can have a conversation and listen, you know that area better than I. And so I'm not, like I said, I'll defer to anybody in that neighborhood about whether or not those bike lanes

are appropriate for the area. Like I said, I don't believe that we've had a fulsome conversation about it. I haven't read a single headline over the past few months about the need for bike lanes there, but that's not, that's neither here nor there. The issue for me is the playing politics with the safety of our kids and saying, should we're going to get rid of bike. And meanwhile, we've somehow found $30 million for new bike lanes. That I find is problematic to use the words of the left. I'd say very low, in my opinion. That's like a low blow to public safety.

Yeah, yeah, and by the way, do you believe that the cost is going to end at $30 million? Because I suspect it's going to be a lot higher. It will be a lot higher. And again, if there was a need for bicycle lanes on Sentinel or on Chesswood, I go up that street every day. No one uses it. And that's the thing. Where is the study that justifies spending the money? If you have a study that justify spending the money, well, that's a different story.

Maybe, you know, we could say, okay, there's a lot of people using this, so it's justified. But in this case, I've seen one person in the last month that's using the bicycle lanes. Yeah. In morning rush hour. Yeah. Well, it's at that time of year as well when really the traffic in those bike lanes picks up tremendously. Hey, Joe, thank you so much for the call. I appreciate it.

Have a great Tuesday. Thank you, but you too. All right. Let's bring Dave into the conversation. Dave, what do you think? Am I taking this too seriously? well first things first you're doing a hell of a job there oh thank you thank you very much you just get better and better as time goes on you're like fine wine what can i say thank you

oh i like i listen i'm a former tv guy so flattery works on me absolutely okay so yeah so so tell me what you think what what are we to make of this 30 thousand 30 million dollars of found money well i could probably do it for way less we don't know whether there's barricades going up whether it's just painted lines. We know that this, uh, something Toronto, whatever their group is, they're nothing but a bunch of lines, even, uh, underhanded bastards and, and bitches there they are, and so on, so forth, so forth. So we don't know what the problem is, but as usual, anything the city of Toronto comes up

with, just start multiplying it. Yeah, and look, I, uh, thank you very much, thank you very much for the call. Again, I, I, I'm, I'm, I'm not ideological about this. I think there's a real, there's, there, of course we want bicycles. to be able to go all over the city. But we didn't have the money for crossing guards two weeks ago. We got time for one more call. Ted, welcome to the show.

Please tell me what you think in 30 seconds, my friend. Ben, good morning. I think they're appropriate where they could be and they could work, but not where they can't. I'll give you one example, Leaside Bridge. When you go from Leaside to Lake Dolands, and you turn left, you're coming out to the oncoming cars. Before, that used to be three lanes each way, and it was a meridian of three feet that divided. The cars coming from Laird to go into Dullin. Yeah.

Now it's just a yellow line, and cars are coming out to cars. Almost got into an accident yesterday going up to the Laird Bridge. Really? And if she's talking safety, they have to change the model. That's not safe. Yeah, and thank you for the caller. I appreciate it. Sorry, Ben.

Yeah. There's two lanes of bike lanes on each side of that bridge. Yeah. Yeah, no, I know exactly what you're talking about. And that's, look, I truly believe that the, one of the reasons the roads are more dangerous is because we've changed the dynamics of the roads without necessarily educating the people. Anyway, thank you so much for your calls. My name is Jordan. to invite you to join me on the Canadian Gothic, a podcast covering stories of Canadian

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