The Ben Mulroney Show - Is Ford's 401 tunnel a distraction? And gaslighting on bike lanes in Toronto

Episode Date: September 17, 2025

- Cody MacRae (Founder, Balance on Bloor)  - Yonah Budd/Corus addictions & counselling expert If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠ Twitter: ⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠ TikTok: ⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠ Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome to the Ben Mulroney's show. I guess it's Hump Day, right? At the end of this show will be done with the show. In the meantime, it's the beginning of Hump Day. Thank you so much. Wednesday, September 17th, that's three days in a row. I haven't had to look at the calendar to know what the date is. Three days in a row.

Good for you. Yeah, I feel like I'm evolving. I really do. But then something I'll think I'm, I'll think I'm becoming a more fully formed human being, more responsible. And then I'll leave my wallet in an Uber. Well, you know what? I'm going to put one of those signs on the wall days since Ben looked at the calendar. And then it's going to go to 0-1, 0-1.

Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining us. It's been a busy week. But before we start with a lot of news today, I thought I would start with a public service announcement. As you know, well, if you've ever watched me on TV, just go watch. I wish, I mean, somebody could do it. The ever-evolving shape of my head. It's, on TV, it was, it was really interesting.

I would put on weight and I would lose weight. There's some people who are consistent and have that discipline that they were grown, they grew up with. I had none of that. And what happens is I will, I'll eat well and everything will fit again. And then I'll say, oh, sure, I can have pizza for lunch. I mean, look at me. I'm a size 32 waist.

And I don't have to go to the gym today. I went like eight times last week. And then that's the rapid descent back into a place. place where my pants don't fit. And so I'm keenly aware that the older I get, the less runway I have to make those changes and make them stick. Now, this has been a fairly consistent good period. But you have to remain vigilant because the food scientists out there come up with all sorts of things to trick you and to make you think, oh, that's just one a little bite of food. And then next thing you know, your pants don't fit. And so I say that I found

the quickest way for me back into wearing sweatpants all the time. And I say that with sweatpants on today. And that is the blueberry timbet, the blueberry cheesecake timbitt. I don't know if you've tried this thing. It is, it is delicious. It is, it is, it's the best Timbitt. Don't know what to tell you, man. sorry, it is. And I was in Muscoca on Sunday, rather than pay like 30 bucks for a breakfast at hotel, I drove a few minutes to go get my breakfast at Tim's. And I knew it was going to take a few minutes because it was long. The weight was long for my hot food. So I said, hey, can I get three Timbits, please? And she said, well, it's probably easier if you just get 10. I was like,

that's a good point. I should get 10. It's me and myself. I need 10 timbits. And I ate 10 timbits waiting for my breakfast sandwich. Just think about what that means. I ate 10 timbits and not any timbid. This is a thing I'm pretty sure has more sugar and it's less filling because it's not as bready so it gets you. They get you to drive through.

Remember what movie was that? Oh man. Lethal weapon three. Yes, that's true. Okay. So anyway, that's my public service announcement. Be vigilant. Be careful. It's delicious. It's deadly.

It's just really good. All right. So that's all I have to say about that today. All right. We know about this story that we're following the ongoing saga that is what will be the projects of national importance that the liberal government will decide to put into their, essentially their fast track system that will speed up regulatory approvals and get shovels in the ground and help us build the country that we should have been building for 10 years. years. Every province has their own, I mean, I say pet project, but that's, that's, that's, that's, that's not accurate. And these are issues of massive importance for each province and by extension, the country. And in the first tranche of projects that were released by our prime minister,

less than two weeks ago, was, you know, the Darlington nuclear facility that is central to Ontario's future as they want to increase the amount of money on the grid, amount of energy on the grid, and on and on and on. So Darlington, that's on the list. But our Premier believes his tunnel, the tunnel underneath the 401 is going to get the green light. Now, take, I've said before, I want to live in a world where things like that happen. But until you, until you, show me that it's feasible, it can work, I just want it to live in my head. I just like the idea. It's fun to think about stuff like that. I haven't seen a feasibility study yet, so I can't allow myself to say, yeah, let's get this thing done. I do believe that if we lived

in a world where these things got done, where a giant tunnel, the longest underground tunnel, they're all underground I guess the longest tunnel I mean ever ever in infrastructure history would I believe that it would

make sense you would be able to carry more people and all these people say induced demand give it up of course it would be a good idea of course it would be beneficial

and so therefore given the fact it's the most busy and important highway in Canada and some would say North America yes

project of national importance. It fits a couple of boxes, right? But here's the problem. If there are a lot of people who are a little bit miffed with the prime minister, because he's not keeping his eye on the ball that everybody else agrees is important, i.e. the ring of fire. The ring of fire with the critical minerals that we need for supply chains in the EV market, as well as myriad other applications, has just been sitting there waiting to be developed. And it's like trying to play two hands of poker at the same time. You're splitting your attention, unless you're really, really good at poker

and you're splitting your attention and you can't necessarily give the one project that so many people know and appreciate and needs to get done the attention it deserves. And so that to me is a little bit of an issue because I agree. I would love to live in a world where we have massive tunnels and big projects like that.

But if I got to pick between a tunnel that'll probably never get built. Which a lot of people have called fantasy. really they have. Think about the Eggleton subway. That's a small tunnel. Those are two small tunnels

that's taken, what, 15 years? It's a ridiculous amount of time to be able even just to bore through. And this, think about the 401, you're talking, what is it, six or eight lanes in the ground? Oh, yeah, but that is, but it would be unbelievable. So what I, but it's not just six or eight lanes, the way it's been described is it's going to be multi-leveled.

So you're going to one level is going to be for, I think it's going to be for public transit. and for emergency vehicles. And the other one is going to be for cars. It sounds like science fiction to me. It sounds like, it sounds like something with Jetsons. It sounds like, you know, in the 60s, when people had these massive,

they were very bullish on the future. There were plans that we were going to live high in the sky and the star, and we were going to have tunnels like this. I just don't know, I don't know how it can get built. We're going to have flying cars. We've talked about the issues involved in building. Building a tunnel is not the problem.

problem. It's everything else that goes into incorporating that. Where does everything go? What do you do with the people who live around it? How do you, how do you, how do you build the on ramps and the off ramps? Like, seriously, what are you going to do there? It's, it's beyond me. And obviously you would have to have some. Yeah. It is a, it's complicated, very complicated. Let's let's listen to Colin DeMello of global news on his take on this. It was supposed to be one of Ontario's key projects building a road to the Ring of Fire. But last week, as Prime Minister Mark Hardy announced the first set of nation building projects to be fast-tracked, Ontario's top proposal was left off the list. Premier, how disappointed are you that the Ring of Fire wasn't on the list of approved

projects by the Prime Minister? No, it's all right. I talk to them. It's going to be on the next tranche, and we'll get up there. But the list of projects given to the federal government also included the Premier's 401 Tunnel, a project that Critics have argued would take decades and billions of dollars to bill. You know, I look at some of the projects, for example, that the premier decided to push, like his fantasy tunnel, and I think maybe we should be a little more focused. But Ford insists the tunnel should remain on the list because of the economic cost of gridlock. And while the tunnel hasn't been mentioned by the prime minister, Ford is confident.

I believe he will. Has he said anything to you about it? I just believe he will. Yeah, so. Belief is a wonderful thing. Yes, and hope is not a strategy. If we learned anything from those commercials on Air Canada, hope is not a strategy.

Okay, we're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, we're going to have a conversation I've had before about bike lanes, why the ones that were put down in this city were dumb. It was a dumb move, built on misdirection, built on false data.

On hope. On hope. And we have the data to back it up. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back on the Benmoreney show. Welcome back to the Ben Moorne show. All right, let's talk bike lanes. Now, you've heard me on this show before, give you my anecdotal personal experiences,

and then I will hear from the city or I'll hear about a court case, and I'll give you my assessment based on what I have seen in my experience going up and down Young Street with the bike lanes choking the life out of that area. And I always say I don't have the data and I don't need the data because I believe that the data that the city has been using to defend this inane city killing initiative is the books are cooked. If you're telling me that bike lanes are not responsible for the gridlock that we see and I see gridlock and you tell. tell me that these bike lanes are being used at the level that they are when I know they're not. I don't need your numbers. Your numbers are BS. And so this is not about being pro-bike or being anti-bike. It's about honesty. It's about transparency. It's about public safety.

Residents deserve the truth about the costs and first responders deserve roads they can use to save lives. So on that point, let's bring in the founder of Balance on Bloor, Cody McCrae. Cody, thank you for being here. Hey, thanks for having me, Ben. And let's let's let's let everybody know you are a cyclist i am and uh majority of our board members of uh of our not-for-profit balance um blora are cyclists all right yeah well yeah you got that if if you can't you got to know as much about the messenger as you can so that you can understand the message so let's let's talk about that message you know you uh you you and your group took it upon yourselves to watch the watchers yeah precisely like uh the whole neighborhood went uh when uh when

went absolutely, was devastated, quite frankly, when they brought them into our community. And, you know, there wasn't any proper consultation ahead of time, and they just kept using all this, you know, made up facts and figures talking about how it doesn't cause congestion. And everybody in our neighborhood knows that it has. Well, so I've been thinking long and hard about that, Cody, and we've got lots to get to, but you brought it up when that's a very,

that's a tried and true point that one side uses. bike lanes do not cause congestion. And I've been thinking about it. I'm willing to live in a world where bike lanes don't cause congestion. However, the consequence of the bike lane is fewer lanes of traffic and inability to take a left and take a right, for example, which then has a knock on effect at every single intersection. So in that way, the bike lane itself does not cause traffic.

It's the lack of lanes caused by the bike lane that causes traffic. So it's a, it's a, it's a word smithing with the goal. of gaslighting. Correct. Yeah, absolutely. And again, it's a road loss. Like, eliminating a live lane of traffic on a major arterial roadway is like it's going to cause congestion.

No, no, yeah. It's, yeah, and they make, they make us all feel like idiots. I remember years ago when John Torrey did his blitz on delivery vehicles, because they were causing traffic, right? Anytime somebody stopped to go pick us something up, that was causing traffic and he did a massive blitz.

What is a bike lane except a permanent row of those vehicles the entire length of a street? Yeah, exactly. Anyway, you go on now. Tell me what you've learned. Yeah, so we, you know, we've been recording data. We've had cameras up on Bloor Street for over a year now. And like even last month, like in a warm sunny August morning between 9 and 10 a.m., there were seven cyclists and 5 e-s scooters on the stretch.

Yeah. You know, August 13th, 25 degrees, between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. There's 23 users. 23 users versus how many cars? Oh, there is. At that day, I think there was actually 3,100 cars. 3,100 cars. Okay. So, yeah. And that's another thing, Cody, I want to point up. I knew that they were going to cook the books the day that they didn't put up a minute-by-minute counters. Like, in Montreal, say what you will. I think they're a disaster there, too. But at least on major, in major parts, of the city, they have counters that tell you how many people have used those bike lanes at any

given point in the past, what, 24 hours or so. We have no such accountability here. We're just told trust us. Yeah, exactly. And actually, even at a meeting last year, we had a city engineer who said, quote, we are well aware that our high park bicycle counter is inaccurate, end quote. Yeah. Yeah. You know, like, that's what we're using. We're utilizing these, these numbers that you know that are inaccurate. You know, and then, you know, people that come up and say, oh, you know, it doesn't cause any, you know, any delays in emergency response time. Well, through freedom of information request, if you look at Bloor and Old Mill, prior to

installation was 242 seconds response time. After installation is 385 seconds. Yeah. That's 143 seconds than a difference. I've seen it with my own eyes. I've seen an emergency vehicle try to go north on young. Young Street and they can't go anywhere. There's nowhere because the cars can't move out of the way.

Now, here's an issue. I want to push back for a second here because the, we had a, there was the, what, the deputy fire chief said that there was no, in fact, he said that response times were improving. And so who are, so, you know, who is your group to come out against that man who is now the chief? Yeah, so instead of addressing it directly, exactly, at the time he was deputy chief and at a residence like he just he misled our residents at a community meeting because he said

quote response times at ward level have improved and you know him using ward level averages it's including areas down here like lakeshore and brown's line and stating statistics from 3 a.m. when traffic is you know no existence so oh i see so he so he was diluting the bad news with like if you threw if you throw in if you make the data set big enough then you're you're going to be able to point to an improving situation. But if they drilled down specifically on the area affected by the bike lane, you're saying that's where the issue is. Exactly. Yeah, because, you know, obviously with all the construction

and everything that's been down there that's now completed, obviously response times award level would improve. But what we're talking about is the corridor that's affected by the bike lane. So we should be providing real and specific response times data without forcing residents and groups like mine to use the FOI process. I don't understand what is so hard about speaking, the truth now with our city. You know, we're not talking about Ward level, as I said.

And by the way, Lakeshore has great bike lands down now. That makes sense. Yeah, of course. Richmond Street makes sense. Richmond works. I got no problem. I see people, I see hundreds of bikes at sometimes on a single block. That's a great use of the space.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Okay, so what do you do with this now? Like you, because I remember when this, when, when Doug Ford's government was taken to court by the biking cabal, they came, they showed up at court with their data, which was persuasive enough to convince a judge that cyclists would be significantly harmed, were Doug Ford to move on his election promise that not for nothing was part of the reason he got reelected. And so, so that stymied his dream.

So they went into court with, I have to assume some version of this, of their side of this data. So with the cooked books, and the judge, who probably, I mean, clearly, was swayed by the false data, was able, they were able to get what they want. What do you do with this? They weaponize their data. What do you do with yours? Yeah, I think we just start getting the message out and, you know, not really, just not gaslighting citizens and actually taking this data and presenting it to everybody and getting the message out because, you know, a lot of people feel that way. they're disheartened now because they've just been they've just been quite frankly lied to during the entire process and a lot of them feel like there's nothing that they can do but i think we really

need to unite as trontonians and come together yeah and the the 80% of us that are pretty rational reasonable people need to get back to having open and honest conversations and building our communities for the better yeah we have a city that works for everybody and not just the point three percent of the of the radical people who you know are making the decisions unfortunately right now i would urge everybody to read this data and then go back and find your city counselor and if you're a city councilor with someone parroting back that false data

they should be held to account on election day I've got one more thing to say to you sir couldn't agree more our councilor definitely and thinks that they're amazing and thinks that 99% of the community is delusional one more question for you

the city says you know because this is their backstop the backstop if you get rid of this it's going to cost us almost $50 million, to which you say? Yeah, so, yeah, the absolute lunacy of that claim, you know, I know our counselor, Amber Morley, and our mayor love wasting money, but, you know, we've asked experienced contractors, and their estimate for our 80-kilometer stretch was $1.2 million. That's a one-tenth of what the city is telling taxpayers.

So my question is quite simply this. Do you find that this is an acceptable use of your taxpayers' money of this city? I think Toronto, we have a right to know if City Hall is incompetence or dishonest because either is unacceptable. Well, look, if someone can prove that they cook the books, I don't think that they should be let go with just like the airing of grievances. I think people should be held to account. People have lost their jobs over this. Businesses have closed. The amount of time that we have lost with our families has, you could count it.

I think somebody needs, I'm going to say, somebody needs to pay. Somebody needs to pay. Absolutely. And that's the other thing, too. I'm glad you brought it up. You know, the city always says, oh, businesses love it. Well, if that's the case, why are there over 45 plus businesses in our area having a lawsuit against the city? And I hope they get every dollar they deserve.

I want to thank you very much for joining us, Cody McCrae, founder of Balance on Blur. We'll talk to you soon. Keep up the fight. Yeah, I will do. Appreciate it. All right. When we come back, we want to hear from you on this. Now that you know the data, has your opinion on the bike lanes changed.

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Before the break, we had the data that was laid out for us, chapter and verse by Cody McCray, the founder of balance on blur. They did what all of us wish we had the time to do. They put cameras up. They counted. They, they've seen the traffic. They've seen the congestion. They've seen the frustration. They've seen the store is closing. They've seen it all. And then they took the next step. They got the metrics. And what the metrics are is that the city has been cooking the books and has been telling us one thing. They've been gaslighting us, telling us that no, no, no, that's not that congestion isn't because of the car because of the bike lanes and oh emergency vehicles are actually moving around faster with less space to get around and oh if we were to get rid of these

bike lanes it would cost us nearly 50 million dollars in each case uh balance on blurr showed up with the receipts and proved that the city has been driven by ideology over what they should be doing is listening to the taxpayer and giving us value for our tax dollar. And so I want to hear from you. Give us a call 416-8-60-6400 or 1-8-2-25 talk. We now have the data that tells us our feelings are in fact rooted in fact. And I want to know what you have to say.

Frank, welcome to the show, my friend. Good morning, Ben. Good morning. Just a few points that I'd like to add here. Sure. The fact that the judge disregarded or ignored relevant facts and relevant evidence is grounds for legal error. I think the province has an appeal in place. They can put forward an evidentiary record to prove that.

By the way, Frank, thank you for being the first call on this because that was going to be my last question. I didn't have any time to get to it. What do we do with the judge and his ruling that is so clearly, I mean, he was swayed by false data. Absolutely, Ben. You're absolutely right. What we can do, I think Doug Ford had stated this a little time ago, is he can use a not, with standing clause. And I'll just explain it briefly how that applies. If they impose legislation to prevent this from having a judge's decision from being to enforce and effect, there's a five-year

period that Ford can do what he wants to. During that period, he can collect evidence and facts to reinforce and support his position and a province's position on the bike lanes. Yeah. That in fact, then after five-year period, he'll have all that evidence put together to put before the court, and everything will be resolved by it at that time. I agree. I agree. I agree, Frank. Sadly, we live in a world where people who support the charter but hate the notwithstanding clause, not appreciating that they are one and the same. And we would not have the charter today were the notwithstanding clause not proposed as a way to bring everybody on board. So it's this juvenile view of the notwithstanding clause. And I don't have any time for it. But Frank, thanks for laying that out. And we, oh, guess what? It's Frank Times 2. Frank the second, welcome to the show.

Hey, good morning, Ben. Good morning. Listen, you got to pay attention to these bike lanes. From day one, I knew there was a mistake. Okay, the way they design it, it's very difficult to drive. Like, a bus barely fits in one of those lanes. Yeah. Okay?

Yeah. And the one that blows me away is the car's parked on Bloor Street going towards Young and everything. Yep. If you're not careful, that guy opens the door. He's in your lane. Yeah. Oh, no. 100%.

And I'm going, who designed this? Like, who came up with this idea? Yeah. And I'm going, there's a war on cars. And I see with my own eyes on Bloor Street, a fire truck coming to a full stop. And I'm thinking, what happens if they're late and someone dies? You're wrong. No, no, Frank, Frank, you're wrong.

You're wrong. What you saw is not what you saw. You didn't see that with your own eyes. You're mistaken. You're mistaken because bike lanes don't cause congestion. We take away real estate and there's the same amount of space. You didn't know that? The rules, the rules of time and space don't apply in the city of Toronto.

We got an exemption from the universe. You didn't know that? Oh, no. I want these guys to come and see me at my place and talk safe to my face. Yeah, yeah. Because I'm ready. I'm ready to go to-to-to-to. And I want him to face the people that get kicked out of the subway because something happened.

Yeah. And in the minus 35 degrees, you're standing there waiting for one lousy bus. I'm down to one lane. Yeah, you're right. And I'm going. Yeah. Frank, I got a run. Thank you, my friend.

Who do we have? We got Joe. Joe, thank you for calling the Ben Mulroney show. Good morning, Ben. I was just telling your screener that I came up Sentinel Road this morning. It goes from Shepard all the way into York University. I did not see one cyclist on that road. And they spent millions of dollars, I'm sure, to narrow the actual road and put

bicycle lanes on both side and people are parking in the bicycle lanes yeah because it's a residential area and so it blows my mind because i don't think they've really done any studies at all no no no think about it they know they know what the numbers are they know they're causing congestion they know they're slowing down traffic they know they're making it hard of course they know that those are the rules of how the universe works if you take away space but you don't take away the things that fill that space i.e. you take away roads but you don't take away the cars you are going to cause congestion they know this they're not dumb but if they agree so of course so they're not going to do studies because to do a study would confirm what they already know but they don't want you to know that's that's it that's it and it's not it's not it's not rocket science it's simple. They know they've caused this problem. They don't want any studies to prove it. And they don't like the fact

that this story came out because the data now exists. What they do with it, like I told our our guest, I don't want, I don't want this to just be a study. I need, this is a weapon in a war and it needs to be used to the benefit of Torontoians.

Thank you for the call. Claudio, welcome to the show. Claudia, are you there? Yeah, I'm here. Go ahead. Okay, hey, Ben, how are you doing? I'm well, thanks. Well, I agree with everything you're talking about in Toronto. I drive a truck, and I'm always downtown, and then it took me 25 minutes to get from King's Street,

on Spadina from King Street, all the way to Queen Street. 25 minutes, but forget about that. I'm in Branting. Listen to how it is in Brantling. They've cut down arteries that go to neighborhoods, you know, with a street branch off. Yep. They've cut them down to make bike lanes on either side. Yeah.

So, you know, that's, that's a congestion. So what do people do? Now they race through neighborhoods to get from A to B, right? Yeah. So the genius is thought, this is bad because there's people are complaining. There's people talking to the neighborhood. It's really bad. Let's put up speed bumps every 50 feet.

There you go. Yeah. We have bike lanes. And we have speed bumps on every other road that there is. Yeah. But if they're even worse, they're putting up another 150 speed cameras. Ah, there you go. Yeah.

Yeah. Sure. Hey, thank you for. playing out the crazy town we're living in. I appreciate it, my friend. We got time for a couple more. Let's go with Steve. Steve, welcome to the show.

Tunnels, guy. Just get them all in tunnels under the ground. Doug Forre would love it. But straight up, if we don't get out of the UN 2030, 20, 2050 agenda, you're all going to need bicycles because you're not going to be allowed to own a car. We need help so bad. This UN shit has... Let's watch it there.

Steve, hey, thank you very much. We've got time for Ben. Welcome to the show, Ben. Hey, good morning. I've been at the meetings in, I live in the High Park area. I also Park Kingsway area, which is even more of a challenge. In the meetings, for example, Councilor Holiday held, the data presented by the city and the staff that's in charge of the bike lanes, they don't have kids, they don't

drive, it's a bunch of 30-year-olds, and that's, who's in charge of doing all this. Yeah. No, it is. Listen, the city staff for the past, I don't know how long it's been. I think the NDP realized a long time ago they were not going to form government in any significant way, either provincially or federally. So they started marshalling their resources to start populating city staff at cities across

the province and indeed across the country, which is why we have these, like, oh, you know what? You know what? I don't have time to get into it. That's a whole other rabbit hole. But thank you for the call. Saved by the bell. All right, when we come back, we're going to be talking about our liberals floundering in parliament already. It's been, oh, that's not it?

No, okay. Here we go. Oh, are you comfortable dropping your kids off at the local library to study? What if that same library is now being used as a frontline mental health unit for the homeless? Come on back. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. Okay, let's talk libraries, folks. We've got, you know, I remember, oh, yeah, we got, okay.

I remember when there was a debate about whether or not, when was it, recently, we were going to close some libraries, right? And how do I start? How do I back into this? Because it's so crazy. Well, remember when the city, when they decided we're going to open up the libraries 24 hours a day. Why? Why?

Well, because they want people to be able to go in there at night. Well, do you remember when the library was part of the connective tissue of a neighborhood, right? This is where your kids could go, and they would be safe, and you knew your kids could. I remember growing up in Ottawa. I loved going to the Ottawa Public Library. I would go in there. I could get out of the house, and I could, oh, my God, I had so much fun there. And I did, I learned so much about so many different things.

And it was my place. And my family, listen, I had police protection, so they always knew I was safe. But this is where you could go at any point. And it was this positive city-run contribution to the city. my question to you is this you got a 10 year old kid 11 year old kid you're going to be you're late for school

you're late to pick them up there's a library right around the corner would you feel safe with your kid at 11 12 years old and a couple of his friends being in that library waiting for you

knowing something I didn't know before but I know now that the city has taken 12 of our city libraries and is pretty much converting them into front-line mental health support stations for the homeless population of Toronto. People experiencing homelessness, mental health, or substance use challenges can now have

a welcoming space in our library system. Now, this has been going on for a while since launched more than 8,000 people have accessed 1,000 wellness programs with nearly 13,000 crisis workers engaged. They offer short-term counseling, suicide prevention workshops, mental health recovery education, group activities. And this is all from the city. They've seen an inclusive and preventative connecting people before crisis escalates and on and on and on.

Listen, I'm not suggesting that these services don't have a place and when they're used, when they're done effectively, they don't lead to good outcomes. Is the library where this stuff should be taking place? That's my question. And so, look, it's a question. I know with my tone, it makes me sound like, I know what I'm talking about.

but I don't. So let's bring in somebody who does. Let's welcome Yona Bud, Chorus Addictions and Counseling Expert to the show. Yona, thank you for being here. Oh, did we lose them? Okay, so listen, then I'm going to get back on my high horse, and I'm going to keep talking.

Look, I find it really interesting that when someone on the right, let's tell you, we have in a period of austerity, and someone on the right says, you know what, just to save money, we're going to have to limit the hours that people can access the library. And you might as well say you want to burn some books.

For people on the left, they're going to lose their mind. Now, you want to close the library? The library should be open 24-7. Okay. So, and kids have to be able to access that library. Okay. Now tell me, do we have full use as taxpayers of the library as we did before? And the answer is categorically no.

So let's go back to Yonabud, chorus addictions and counseling expert. Yonah, welcome back to the show. Good morning, Ben. How are you? Well, I'm good. I'm perplexed by this. This is not, this is not, the library is not purpose built for this. It's built for a completely different purpose. Yeah, so there's a bunch of things. First of all, I think there's, I think we're on some kind of track to try to reach people in better places than we do today.

Is the library the place to do that? Listen, I think if there's restrictive hours and there's a separate entrance and it's properly, and it's properly managed like any other drop-in center, any type of social service center, maybe it works. But you're right, I don't want my grandkids there. I don't want my wife there. I don't want anybody there that's going to potentially run into someone who might not be at their best friend. No, and Yona, here's the problem as I see it.

We have been living in, and we'll take Toronto as an example. There are myriad examples of families who say that, you know, and this might be an unfair characterization, or they might be too harsh, and they're going with a motion over what's actually happening to say, my kids can't go to the park. We can't walk down the street because the city put in a safe injection site or because of our permissive laws on public consumption of drugs.

They're scared. They can't go anywhere. Well, you know where they could go before, where they felt safe? The library. And now we're being told, no, that's being given over again. That's being given to these people who need our help. And if I'm one of these people in one of these neighborhoods, I'm like, how much more can I give until you realize that this current track we're on is not solving the problem, it's making it worse?

Yeah, we're not even talking about neighborhoods, brother. We're talking, you know, one of the locations is the central library at Young and Bloor where a lot of university students go to do research, a lot of law students go to do research. You know, it's, it's not just in a tenderloin neighborhood where we're reaching people that are homeless. We're now drawing homeless people for that location. And, like, I just, I don't know where it ends. Like, I understand, yes, there's a problem. This is not how you solve it. And there's going to come a time where, Yona, like, I don't know, I don't know what the metrics are, but we're opening up more homeless shelters.

And now we're taking over libraries to deal with mental health and drug addiction issues and homeless issues. Like, maybe we should look at the underlying cause of what's causing the homelessness and the mental health issues and the mental health issues and the. drug addiction so that we don't have to take over libraries. But this seems to me treating the symptom, not the cause. Yeah, absolutely a band-aid, brother. It's absolutely a band-aid. I mean, you know, what we've got to do is we've got to get people off the streets and give them a place to live where they can eat properly, sleep properly,

and get some kind of counseling if they want it. Yeah. And the library is not the place. You and I talked about this before. We have so many empty parking lots behind hospitals. Yeah. Behind institutions that are properly set up in case someone goes sideways. they're in a position to help them.

What do we do at the library? God forbid someone overdoses. Now you've got emergency responders. We're cutting off the streets with ambulances and fire and fire trucks. It's just not the appropriate location. Yona, you know what the city should do. They should take over the old Nordstroms or the old Hudson's Bay. Well, there you go.

Those things are sitting empty right now. They sit on city property, which means the city can give each one of those title holders a break on their taxes. to give them access for certain hours a day. This is crazy. It's crazy because as somebody, like, you've got, you've got people saying, my property tax has gone up.

I'm not safe going down the streets. My kids can't go, can't play in the playground. And now the one, and now there's one place where they're supposed to go, no, no, that's not yours anymore either. Like, come on, come on. A little bit of leadership, a little bit of vision. That's all we're asking for.

Yeah, and the issue goes beyond the physical location. Now we're talking about transportation to and from. these locations, which means, you know, kids are coming home from school on the bus or subway, you know, kids are, you know, kids are going to after school programs on a bus or subway, you know, other people that are coming up from different locations. So now, you know, when you move people to a particular location who are somewhat challenged with their mental health and addiction issues or whatever their challenges are, you know, it's, we got to be, we got to be safe for them too, but at the same

time, we got to be careful who we're mixing and matching with. Yeah, well, exactly. Like if someone doesn't feel, if a kid doesn't feel safe walking down the street because of all sort of, because different people are colliding, but it is the street. Like I have a little bit of grace there. The streets are a public place, right? This is not that. This is not. This is where kids are supposed to go for quiet time to learn. And I'm not saying that everybody goes in there.

It's going to turn into, you know, Mad Max and Thunderdome. But it's not what the, that's not what it was built for. And it's not what our tax dollars are paying for it to be. no i agree and i think i don't know how this decision came about but i can tell you the decision came about without talking to the neighbors i'm sure of course of course now they don't talk to the neighbors when when you are stuck on an ideological track you don't need to talk to anybody the track takes you where you need to go and and the question would be how many people are actually accessing these services in that environment and how many people are we actually helping

with this you know rather ridiculous rather ridiculous yeah well they've got But they've got numbers here, Iona, that suggests that this is a massive, massive success, but they also have data that says that the bike lanes are a success. So, on that note, my friend, thank you very much. All the best to you. A pleasure. Stay, be careful in the library. to pay attention.

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