The Ben Mulroney Show - Speed cameras targeted in Toronto while Barrie's Mayor makes a bold move

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

- BARRIE MAYOR ALEX NUTTALL - Romina Hajizadeh/U of T Law school student   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

This podcast is brought to you by the National Payroll Institute, the leader for the payroll profession in Canada, setting the standard of professional excellence, delivering critical expertise, and providing resources that over 45,000 payroll professionals rely on. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Let's be honest. We've all shared our problems in some pretty funny places, the group chat, your barber, maybe even a stranger on a plane. And, hey, sometimes that helps. But when it comes to stuff like stress, anxiety, or relationships, it makes a big difference to talk to somebody. who's actually trained to help. That's what BetterHelp is all about.

They connect you with credentialed professional therapists online. And what makes them stand out is their therapist match commitment. After a quick questionnaire, BetterHelp does the hard work of finding someone who fits your needs. Most people get it right the first time. But if it's not a match, you can switch counselors anytime at no extra cost. It's flexible, totally online, and you can hit pause whenever you need to. With over 5 million people supported to date globally, BetterHelp is now available in Canada, Canada with a network of counselors who have expertise in a wide range of specialties.

With a 4.9 out of 5 rating based on over 1.7 million client reviews, BetterHelp makes counseling affordable and convenient, and you can switch counselors at any time for no cost. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at BetterHelp.com slash Mulrooney. That's better, help.com slash Mulruni. Hey, thanks, son. What do I owe you? Don't worry about it. It's payday. Payday, huh?

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The whole way. Welcome to the Ben Mulroney Show. It's Wednesday, September 10th. Thank you so much for spending time with the Ben Mulroney show. I find myself yet again today, fortunate to be here in Winnipeg, Manitoba on another beautiful day. I'm here because tonight at the Museum of Human Rights, I will be celebrating the 150th anniversary of B'nai Brith, which is Canada's oldest. human rights organization. It's 150 years young. And as part of that celebration, I'll be sitting down with Prime Minister Stephen Harper to get his take on the state of play in Canada and indeed around the

world. Yesterday, as part of my time with Benet Brith, I'm a national ambassador. I went to a Jewish community center, the Asper Community Center, not for nothing. The Asper family, storied family in the city of Manitoba. Gail Asper was the chief visionary behind this incredible museum that finds itself here in Manitoba. Without her, it does not exist. And so we went into the community center for a competition called the Diverse Minds Competition. It's an annual competition for high school kids to write a children's book about inclusion, about celebrating diversity, about building community with people who are possibly unlike you. And they have to write and illustrate this children's book, and then those books are submitted as part of the competition.

And so I got to meet six incredible kids yesterday and learn about the imagination and creativity that spawned these incredibly optimistic books. And when you meet kids like that, a little bit of your hope for the future is restored. Really, really proud to have been there. And I want to thank B'nai Berth, Canada, for allowing me to host that event. As soon as that was done, I quite literally ran out of that event to go to what about 10 years ago was awarded one of Canada's 50 best restaurants. I don't know where they stand on that list anymore, but it doesn't matter to me. I went to Pizzeria Augusto. I have been telling you for days now, actually since last week, that this was on my bucket list of things to do in Winnipeg.

because 10 years ago I was in town and I had a pizza at Pizzeria Augusto called The Dawn. And the Dawn is spicy tomato sauce, porquetta, Genoa salami, Italian sausage, and mozzarella. And you always wonder if your mind

over the course of years build something up into something that isn't into something that could be. And I am here to tell you that that pizza is one of the top five pizzas I have ever been served in a restaurant anywhere

anywhere and I spent a month in Italy a couple of years ago about three weeks in Italy and all I ate was pizza and pasta including for breakfast and I am telling you it is one of the five best pizzas that I have been served in a restaurant

anywhere in the world and I don't purport to be an expert in pizza Just telling you my, this one man's opinion, Pizzeria Gusto is a gem. It is a gem. I walked in, I asked if I could sit at the bar, I ordered my pizza, I had a tequila soda, I ate my pizza, and I left. It was a beautiful, beautiful experience.

And I was so, so happy. Also, I didn't eat anything all day yesterday because I wanted the only thing in my tum-tum to be that pizza. So anyway, that's my update thus far. All right. We got to talk about, well, we're going to talk about some serious stuff in a moment. But, you know, in the city of Toronto, we're always talking about how human beings interact with wildlife. And with increased urbanization, we are invading the natural habitat of this animal or that animal.

And it's nice to hear a story of of an example of being able to witness wildlife in its natural habitat in a way that we are not messing with it. And right now you can go, there are a number of places around town where you can watch the salmon spawning, the one, you know, when they're swimming against the current,

and there's a map that you can find. And it's one of the most tremendous things to see in the natural world, to see these fish doing what nature and instinct dictates that they must do, even though it looks like the hardest thing in the world. It's a great lesson for us, right? It is you know what you got to do. It would be so much easier to go in the opposite direction, but if you don't do that thing, then your future is not going to be what it could be.

And so I'm very, I love living in a city like Toronto where you can actually watch salmon spawning. Okay, the speed cameras. Last week when we heard that the, that infamous one, Mike, where is it, the park, park, park lawn, park, park deal? What's, what's the one that? Parkside. Parkside drive. The Parkside drive one that keeps getting torn down and put back up and torn down and put back up. As soon as we put back up last week, I texted Mike and I said it's been put up and it's only a matter of days before it comes back down again. Well, little did I know that somewhere in this city, there has been, I don't know, I don't know if these are anarchists. I don't know. if these are, I don't know who they are, but a team of vandals got together and took down over 10% of all of the speed cameras in

this city. We got 150 of them. 16 of them went down in one night. And we thought it was only five at first, right? Yeah, we thought it was five. Five was a staggering number. Yeah, 16. And so that brings the total to at least

27 destroyed and over 800 vandalized over the course of the last. year. But the fact that these all happen in one night, statistically, it's impossible that that is a coincidence, right? And there is surveillance images, but nothing definitive. Our premier's stance has been for a while that this is a tax grab, and he wants to help cities like Toronto with the financial burden of taking them down altogether. Merritt Stiles, the leader of the NDP, when she heard him say that, had some choice words. I think she said it was idiotic. I could be wrong with that expression, but it was in that vicinity.

Look, I don't know. I don't know. Let's listen to city council Brad Bradford, who has really positioned himself as the voice of opposition to Mayor Chow on city council. Here's what he had to say. This continues to happen, and it's become an embarrassment and a joke. The fact that we haven't found a resolution that addresses the chronic cutting down and removal of the automatic speed enforcement just shows that we continue to fail on the basics and we need to have a better focus and prioritization of the things at city hall all right here is

our premier Doug ford telling telling ontarians what he thinks of speed cameras it's just a tax grab and they should take out those cameras all of them if you want to slow down traffic at school you put the big huge signs big flashing lights crossing area um people people will slow down. This is nothing but a tax grab. Hopefully the cities will get rid of them like Mayor Del Ducca did in Vaughn or I'm going to help them get rid of them very shortly. You know, the easiest way, cheapest way to get people to slow down, speed bumps. They seem to work in a lot of other places, but here they want to slow down and if you don't, they want your money. Here's what Olivia Chow had to say about the state of play.

17 cameras in, you know, the last two or three days, that's not a joking matter. And, you know, if one of those cameras are missing and people are speeding and someone get hit, by gosh, okay? Then that person is responsible because the camera is down. Because we do know when we set up the cameras, where are they set up? They're setting up in community and school zones. kids are going back to school this week for heaven's sake stop tempering with a public safety device which is what these speed camera is about.

She also referred to the lawlessness that she witnessed because of this and it's very nice to hear the mayor finally talk about lawlessness given the fact that our streets have been so lawful over the past two years. We've spent two years watching anarchy and anarchists take over the public space that all of us are supposed to share. But this is the hill our mayor has decided to die on. This is the point of lawlessness that she takes great issue with.

Not the fact that at any time a band of very angry people could just take over an intersection for as long as they want. That's not the problem. This is. That is very good to know. All right, we're going to open up the phone lines. Is this a tax grab or is it about safety? That's next on the Ben Mulroney Show.

Great song, my friend. That crab bucket, I haven't heard that in a long, long time. Well done. Well done. All right. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. Appreciate you. Joining us, it's time to turn the microphone over to you.

We're talking speed cameras, 416-870-6400, 1-8-225 talk. Who's got it right? Is it city mismanagement? The fact that they put them up and don't know how to protect them? Are the people who are cutting them down, in the words of our mayor, responsible for the deaths that may be incurred? Is it something else? Should we do away with them? I mean, what was life like before speed cameras? I don't think it was the lawless thunderdome that I think we are being made to believe it was. So let's go to William and see what he has to say. Welcome to the

show, William. Yeah, good morning, Ben. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Speak cameras are not personal. A police officer sitting on the side of road with a radar gun pulling you over, writing you up a ticket for the full amount, and then your insurance company finds about it gets personal. And if you put a, I mean, you're making $7 million a year. You could two police officers there 24-7, 365 big year. And they put a dummy cop car there, and people will slow down. Look, like I said, if you really want people to slow down, put a speed bump in. I don't know what the problem is. You can't speed over a speed bump. Pretty simple. And not for nothing, William. I will point out that at least the speed camera that affects me the most is on Mount Pleasant. And it does

come right before a school zone, for sure. However, what they did prior to putting that in is they dropped the speed limit by 10 miles, 10 kilometers an hour. It went from 50 to 40. And what's that? Actually, if you ever could stop in the United States, if you're going five clicks over, you're still gaining the ticket. There's no grace. No, and that's fine. If you are speeding, that's fine, but life prior to dropping the speed limit from 50 to 40 wasn't

overly dangerous. I don't remember Mount Pleasant being the site of massive carnage where every time I drove by, there was somebody who had had a massive accident. I think it was a fabricated need to drop that speed limit, thereby making everybody who was prior

driving at 50, all of a every single person and is now breaking the law, perfect opportunity to put in a speed camera where we can just grab them all. To me, it reeks of a cash grab because I thought it was a bad faith move, but let's hear from Aaron now. Aaron, what do you think? Oh, I think it's a total cash grab there, Ben. Yeah.

I live in Peterborough area. What's at? Why? So in Peterborough, they've lowered speed limits quite drastically. In some of our schools, owns it's 30. and, of course, people are used to doing 50 kilometers an hour on those roads for, I don't know, the last 60 years. So city council said, oh, it's the Wild West now. People are out of control speeding, so now they're bringing in cameras.

They created the environment for this to happen, and then blame the citizens because they chose to lower all the speed limits. Yeah, they lower all the speed limits. And I can't speak for Peterborough, but I know in Toronto, you know, Mount Pleasant is a north-south street. So what about all the other north-south streets? you put bike lanes on all of them so people are stuck in traffic. I'm sorry. Frustration builds up in drivers. If they are stuck in an environment where just a few years earlier they were not,

they are going to pick the path of least resistance. And if it means if they're going to try to eke out a minute or two by going a little bit faster, that's because you created the environment and the possibility that you've limited their ability to get anywhere in the city. and if all of a sudden they find themselves with unfettered access on a street like Mount Pleasant, they're probably going to speed. That's on you for creating the environment that we all live in right now. Thank you for the call, Aaron. Hey, Richard, welcome to the Ben Mulroney Show.

Hey, Ben, first of all, thanks for your work on behalf of human rights and Canadian values. It's really very needed. Thank you. Thank you. I think you're welcome. I think the use of technology rather than our police forces to enforce speed is the way of the future. Are all the locations the right locations I can't speak to? I am a dad and now a grandfather, and I'm very mindful that we should be right down to the speed limit near school zones.

Contrary to what Premier Ford was saying, that, you know, five miles an hour, or five kilometers an hour over, 10 isn't much of a thing. It is much. We must keep our streets safe. I don't see it as a cash grab. There is money flowing in. I see it first and foremost as a technology solution to a labor problem. And listen, I absolutely want our school zones to be as safe as humanly possible. But tell me why a speed camera works better than Rumble strips, which I also know slow down cars,

followed by a speedbook. Like, that's a low-tech solution. The difference is it doesn't yield, it doesn't yield millions of dollars to the city. That's the biggest difference. Yeah, I think the big issue is in our climate, those speed bumps are applied. I've been involved in a company that produces those strips, and they're really not convenient for our climate with snow plows and other things. There are a problem for cars.

So, you know, in some occasions, maybe they work. I just love the idea of using technology. Yes, there's money that's coming along with it. Maybe the fines need to be progressed. In other words, first fine, you get a lower fine, and then as you go along, you know, you get an increasing fine, but we've got to get people to slow down then. We're in a busy city, everybody's rushing, our kids and grandchildren. you have kids. One day, God willing, you'll have

grandchildren. We've got to keep them safe. I think you and I will find common cause on that last point for sure. Thank you so much for the call, my friend. Okay, Jeff. All right, let's go to Frank. Frank, thanks so much for calling into the show. Very great show. A lot of good points. Listen,

I would take a speed... I like speak cameras. I'll take a speed camera any day, like your other callers, a little too. Some cops sticking his snout in my car and running me through his computer. You know, you might have a suspension. your insurance might be outdated there's a little there's i think it's one in five or one in four drive i don't know if it's that much uh drivers on the road have some sort of issue with their

license dude send me that ticket all day long just don't yeah frank frank i i keep coming back to the lowest uh the lowest tech solution i mean it if if you want people to slow down as do i want i want i want kids to be safe i don't want anybody getting hit um what's wrong with a speed bump? Because the only difference is the city's not making any money off of it. Well, actually, two differences. One, and no one can mess with a speed bump. You're not going to have vandals coming digging up a speed bump. It's there for as long as they want to keep it there. I don't know how much it costs, but you can install it in a day, and it's there forever. I think they're dangerous when they wrecked cars, but, yeah. Well, they're dangerous that people

speed over them. Isn't that the point? Here's what I think you get more people on board, and this is typical of the government. thing. Let's see the accounting on it. You've got all this new revenue from these cameras. Wonderful. Have you put it to a good place? Where's it gone? Oh, I'm sure. Like everything else, it's new money, right? Let's see the accounting on it. And if you've done something positive with it, I think a lot more people will be on board. Well, I think a group like Integrity, T.O. would love to get their hands on the finances of the city. They want to do a massive audit of every aspect of how our city spends our money.

So thank you very much for the call, my friend. Time now to welcome Tom into the conversation. Tom, thanks so much for calling in. Yeah, hi. It's a cash grab because they put it in busy places, not places where kids live, like on Elmcrest Road in Tobacco, where people go 80 kilometers. It's supposed to be 40.

And for over 20 years, I've never seen a cop or anything there. Yeah. But they'll put it on Dundas, and you're going 62, and it's supposed to be 50, and you get an $80 ticket. Like, that's ridiculous. Put it where it is a danger. Kids live on Elmquist Road in the Tobacco. I agree.

Put it there if you want. But no, they got to put it where there's a cargo in every 10 seconds. Exactly. Hey, Tom, thank you very much. We got time for one more, and we're going to finish this up with Annabelle. Annabelle, thanks so much for calling into the Ben Mulroney Show. Thank you. Yeah, I just wanted to make the point that street cameras, they give out the fines.

The cop, practice, you driving dangerously, you get demerit points. You dangerous drivers who are going way. faster than the flow of traffic, they're weaving in and out, they're speeding faster than anybody else, they get a fine, they can afford to pay it. They just keep paying the fine. It's not doing anything to remove safe, dangerous drivers. All it's doing is ding, ding, ding the safe drivers who are going to flow of traffic. Well, and one of the reasons they can't give you a demerit point is they can't necessarily prove that you're the one driving the car, right? Especially if they're catching you from the rear, right?

So they can see that your car is speeding, but they don't actually know that you are speeding. And that's why they cannot take demerit points off of your license. Because for all they know, you let your car to somebody, your kids driving it, your wife, or whoever. And so that in and of itself presents a problem. Annabelle, thank you very much. And thank you to everybody for calling in. That was definitely a topic worth exploring with our audience. Coming up, what leadership at the municipal level looks like.

You're going to want to tune in for this one. This show is sponsored by Better Help. Let's be honest. We've all shared our problems in some pretty funny places, the group chat, your barber, maybe even a stranger on a plane. And, hey, sometimes that helps. But when it comes to stuff like stress, anxiety, or relationships, it makes a big difference to talk to somebody who's actually trained to help. That's what Better Help is all about. They connect you with credentialed professional therapists online.

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Plus join Tim's rewards today And get enough points for a free donut Drink or Timbits With 800 points after registration, activation, and first purchase of a dollar or more. See the Tim's Out for details at participating in restaurants in Canada for a limited time. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. We appreciate your time.

Thank you so much for joining us. It's Wednesday, September 10th. And we here at the show have been sounding the alarm over what we've witnessed across the GTA, whether it be ramp and drug use on our streets with no meaningful off-ramp to recovery, Whether it's homelessness and no meaningful off-ramp to get people housed, whether it be home invasions, whether it be carjackings, whether it be people stealing from retailers with impunity, we have been beating that drum saying something has gone awry. We are accused of rage farming. So what we're going to do instead is pass the microphone to someone on the front line, someone who was elected by people in this region to build a better city. And what he has witnessed is despite his efforts, that has proven to be so impossible, not impossible, but so difficult that he has now had to take the extraordinary step of declaring a state of emergency in his city.

Please welcome to the show, the mayor of Barry, Alex Nuttall. Mr. Mayor, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for having me today, Ben. Really looking forward to today's conversation. Okay, so what was the straw that broke the camel's back? What was the thing that made you say enough is enough? Well, I don't think I could say there's just one thing, but let me give you the most obviously visible things. We had a double murder occur inside of an encampment over a number of months.

We found out in July with the police force that this had occurred. And obviously, as the police let myself and the public know in August, that included dismemberment of bodies. inside of the encampment. Clearly, not just violence, but that type of treatment of bodies is also incredibly terrible. And we ended up having to go in after the police had removed the encampment to deal with what the province declared was an environmental, not disaster, but an emergency to shut down the encampment

and start cleaning everything up. As we did that, we invited the local health unit and others to give us some advice on, you know, what's happening here, what are the environmental contaminants? And unfortunately, we were not able to get anyone else to the testing. So I asked our staff to go figure that out. We came back with five times the level of closure for E. coli, which is essentially from species, right? Yeah. Correct me if I'm wrong. So there is an encampment. in your town, in your city, that is close to the water?

Yeah, it's actually right on a pond that moves into a stream, and that pond is about 780 meters from our beachfront. And if you've ever been to Barry, we have an incredible beach that's focused around GTA come to. Yeah, and so this is an issue of community health more than anything. Well, it leads to our drinking water, right? So essentially what happens is we have a big straw that goes into the lake, and that straw obviously pulls water and it gets cleaned and then it gets sent around the city.

But when you have folks doing what was happening over at that encampment, you get massive E. coli levels, that then goes out into the lake at large. And obviously that's an unsafe situation. What was worse, what was worse is this, is that we have a wellhead that was inside of the area where the encampment was active. and in the case where we had to shut down our water treatment plant, our redundant water source is the wellheads around the city. So, you know, you're in a position where if one thing goes wrong, we are into massive of coli levels right beside a wellhead. And that's just obviously not good

for the city, not good for the people of the city, and certainly not what we would expect in Canada. So, Mr. Mayor, what would you say to those who would push back and say, hey, the courts already adjudicated something like this when it was declared by, I can't remember which court it was, but it was a charter violation to bust up an encampment because if these people don't have anywhere else to go, you were depriving them of their charter rights. Well, I'd say that's a few things. First of all, they have lots of places to go. We have, you know, freedom of movement across this country. The second thing I would say is we are providing lots of places for them to go in the sense that if folks want to come inside and they want to get help,

they want to get mental health support, they want to get addiction support, they want to get into rehab, they want to move their lives towards transitional and then affordable housing and that market and, you know, getting back into a life of success, then there's lots of places to go because we're making... So, wait, Mr. Mayor, I don't mean to interrupt, but I want to be clear. You're saying that the city of Barry has these resources available if this community wants to take advantage of them, but you're saying that they're not necessarily doing that? What I'm saying is exactly that, but it's a little nuance.

And I know it's different everywhere. But Barry Simcoe County delivers the social services. So we've requested the county of Simcoe to provide those services. They have already started delivering that. And I also, inside of my emergency order, gave the ability for the city staff to go out and procure our own housing, our own rehab, our own additional resources. is to make sure that nobody can say that they weren't offered a legitimate solution.

The problem is too many of these folks don't want the solution and they don't want to come in out of addiction and they don't want to come out of the tents inside. And my response to them is this, look, if you want help, Barry is here to help. We are an incredible community. We care about people. We want to help.

But if you don't want help, Barry's just not the place for you. There are places that, you know, accept this stuff. It's just Barry's not one of them. Yeah. Yeah. I got to ask, when was the last time the city of Barry declared a state of emergency? Well, put it to you this way. We had an ice storm that shut down the entire region and our city for 48 hours, and we didn't declare a state of emergency.

We don't do it all the way. So Mother Nature threw her worst at you, and you didn't declare a state of emergency, but a sort of an emergency of our own making, is so bad that you had to do so. 100%. When kids can't walk down the sidewalk to school, that's a problem. Right? When they can't drink the water, that's a problem.

They can't swim in the water? That's a problem. So listen, trying to figure out where the buck stops on issues like this is like playing a game of whack-a-mole. You never know. You look at the feds and they say, look to the province. You look to the province. They say, look to the cities. Where is, like, who are you looking to for leadership on this? Well, I think all of the above.

You know, one of the things, Ben, if you go back for me six years ago, I asked the city of Barry to declare a state of emergency on the opioid crisis then. I think we could have done some really good work back then if the city had agreed to it. But fast forward to today, I think the feds have a whole lot of work to do. Like these drug injection sites don't work. They're still, you know, approved across the country. Yet all of the data is saying that you have. increased crime, you have increased ovaries, you have increased all of the things you don't want to

have around them. And we need to have a whole lot more funding going into rehabilitation. If you look at what Portugal did, that's what we need to do. I wrote this report, I'm not kidding, I'll send you the report. It was seven years ago, I think, we wrote this report saying, focus on rehab, focus on long-term help. Yeah, it's going to take a while. But you know what? If you start today, you get there sooner. Instead, we've been trying to warehouse drug addicts for the last seven years. Mr. Mayor, I was under the impression that when Canada, or it was British Columbia at the time, but now it's pretty much everywhere, decided they were going to model our position on drug addiction

on the Portuguese model. I just assumed that we would actually go whole hog. I didn't believe that it would be the disaster of an unfinished symphony where we did not follow through on the most pivotal part of that program, which was to open up an entirely new off-ramp towards rehabilitation and recovery. They did so, and that's why they have had the success. We did none of that, and that's why we have the disaster that we have. 100%.

Couldn't you said it better. Yeah, so I would love to read that report. I would love to read that report. Okay, we only have in just about 30 seconds. I'd love your take on this. You've declared a state of emergency, by definition, emergencies move fast. What are you going to be doing in the next 24-48 hours? well we're already doing it so we have folks out giving notice to anybody who's in the first set of encampments which would be you know beside critical infrastructure and critical public spaces that's happening as we speak over the next couple of days the trespass orders will be given out and then the removal will happen following that we're obviously going to operate with care for folks and compassion for folks but that doesn't mean that we aren't going to restore the standard and restore order in our city very mary nuttle thank you

you so much for being here. Please come back and give us an update as soon as you can. Love to. Thanks so much for having me, Ben. All right. U of T. Law gets a record-breaking $80 million gift. How it could change? Who gets to study there? Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney

Show. And again, I want to give a thank you and a shout out to our listeners, to our viewers, to our followers. Without you, I'm just a guy shouting into a microphone, and that's no fun for me. I mean, it's cathartic sometimes, but it's no fun for me. We're building a show that I think is of value, and it is important, and I know from the people who reach out that we are, I think we're doing some good, and the more people who listen, who engage, who participate, who contribute, the more good I think we can all do together.

So I want to thank all of you for taking time out of your very busy lives. lives to join us, to contribute, to help direct this conversation. It means a great deal and hopefully we can do this for a long time to come. I want to go back and spend a little bit of time but on that conversation we just had with the mayor of Barry. The fact that he went so far as to declare a state of emergency as it relates to sort of the public health dangers that are, we're being caused by a massive homeless encampment. I mean, it speaks how bad things have gotten there. And I commend him for not being afraid to say that thing that is going to trigger a whole bunch of people who just want to keep their heads in the sand. If we are going to ever

improve where we are and find ourselves in a better place tomorrow, it requires being honest about where we are failing. And I don't necessarily need to ascribe responsibility all the time, but can we at least have honest conversations that what we've done in the past hasn't worked? I commend the mayor for that. I commend the mayor for saying, you know what? What we've done has led us to this point. We have to do something different.

And so I look forward to following the story of Barry and hopefully those in the encampments find their way into a better living situation and their health improved. and their mental health improves, and if they are struggling with addiction, they have the resources available to them so that they themselves can contribute to the glorious and wonderful social fabric that is the city of Barry. All right, let's move on to a conversation I'm very much looking forward to. Canadian universities, when we talk about them, we typically talk about how they are cast-strapped, how they have funding gaps, how they are under fire. A lot of the news is negative, and I'm really happy to be talking about. talking about a positive story because the former lieutenant governor of Ontario, Hal Jackman, donated a record $80 million to the University of Toronto, the largest ever donation to a Canadian

law school. And heretofore, the law school will be named the Henry N.R. Jackman faculty of law. So that's a great, it's a great moment for the school. It's a great moment for the Jackman family. But where that money goes is what I think is really interesting. A lot of it is going to student support nearly half the funds 35 million are going to financial aid scholarships and a new leadership program aimed at ensuring that no student declines admission due to financial barriers. That is huge. So the impact on access is going to be incredible. And the academic growth that the school will see because of this, I don't know if we can even measure it at this point. We're now joined by a student at the U of T law school. Romina Hajidizade. I hope I pronounce that

properly, Romina. Welcome to the show. Hi, thank you for having me. So you're a second year student from British Columbia. You found your way to U of T law school because apparently it was more economical than law school back at home. Talk to me about that. For sure. So yeah, I mean, I was really, really fortunate to receive offers admission from a lot of really great law schools in Canada. U of T was my dream school for a couple of reasons. I mean, obviously, it's a really excellent school, great faculty, great academic programming. So I definitely wanted to go. When I saw the sticker price of tuition, I was kind of like, wow. But then I found out about the financial aid program, and that really changed everything for me. So they have, UOT as accessible financial

like calculator that prospective applicants and students can use every year to kind of get an estimate of how much of a birth rate they can get. And when I saw my estimate, I realized, wow, like attending UFT actually is slightly cheaper than attending any other law school in Canada. I mean, it's a little crazy to think that coming to Toronto, in any capacity, is affordable compared to anywhere else? I mean, of course, Toronto is still definitely an expensive city. Of course, there are other costs associated with moving here that I definitely had to consider. But, I mean, the nice thing was tuition wasn't something that I had to worry about because of the financial program. So when you hear about this new, this gift by former lieutenant governor Hal Jackman,

and so much of that is going towards student support and increasing accessibility to the university for anybody, making sure that nobody gets turned down because of financial consideration. What does that say to you as somebody for whom that was such an important factor? I mean, it's just, it's very touching and very moving. Yeah, like I would hope that no one has to turn down law school because of financial reasons. But obviously, like, the reality is that that's very true. a lot of people put off law school for financial reasons. So far, like, the financial aid program, I think from my classmates as well that I've talked

to, it's been a very life-changing experience from my UOFT. And, I mean, just the sheer amounts of money that's been donated to the financial aid program, I don't know it transformed and helps so many more students. Yeah. And to me, there's something really forward-thinking about this gift, because you never know where the next great legal mind is. going to come from you never know where where that that that spark of genius is going to i went to law school and i know i was not built to be a lawyer i always felt that the best students the people who loved it

the most were those who had who felt they had a personal stake in the law that the law was something organic it was living and breathing and it was their responsibility to care for it in one way or another i didn't see that i saw words on a page and so you don't know where that you don't know where that sensibility is going to come from and so to create an environment where anybody can access it if they have that passion, if they have that drive, that is to me sort of what should be definitional of Canada. Like that's, to me, that is the best aspect of this country, that perspective. Absolutely, absolutely.

I agree. I think having lawyers from diverse backgrounds and diverse lived experiences and allowing people to attend law school who previously wouldn't have been able to for financial reasons, I think that will hopefully contribute to a much more diverse legal profession, and therefore help clients that are in it, again, contributes to just like overall Canada. So it was very, very exciting. Romina, what kind of lawyer do you want to be?

I'm still figuring that out. I think I am leaning towards litigation. You want to, you want to tussle? Perhaps, perhaps, and probably a mix of things. Like, I do find on the one-handed find criminal defense very interesting. I also find, like, civil and commercial litigation interesting. So we'll see what's in the cards for me. Do you want to take what you learn at the U of T and take it back to British Columbia?

do you think Toronto is going to be your home? Oh my gosh, that's such a hard question. That's why they pay me the medium-sized bucks. So that's also something. I'm still my coming-of-age story about this. I love both British Columbia and Ontario. They're amazing provinces. I've had amazing experiences and memories in both so far.

So we'll see what happens. What's the most difficult part of law school? Wow, that's a good question. I mean, I think for me, fortunately, like, cost has not been something that has been the most difficult to bring it back to the gift. Like, because of the financial aid program, like, I haven't had to stress so much about the cost. I guess the bigger thing that's been stressful is, I mean, certainly, like, obviously law school is very challenging. Like, academically, it's very rigorous. Like you said, there are a lot of words on pages that we have to read.

So the workload, the volume of work, and also the difficulty of the work can be a lot. Sometimes it's very rewarding. I really enjoy it for that in some ways. And, I mean, the last question, what does it mean to your family that you're in law school? Oh, my gosh, that's such a, that's a beautiful question. I haven't asked my parents, like, on a deep level, but I do think, speaking for myself, I think it's been life-changing for my family. Like, I was the first in my immediate family to get a bachelor's degree, let alone at 10 law school.

My parents were immigrants to this country. We weren't able to access higher education in their home country. So I think, I think hopefully it's been life-changing, and I hopefully, yeah, hopefully, been good in their hobby. Well, look, Romina, I know you got a little more time in law school. I hope you enjoy every bit of it. You sound like the perfect person, the type of person with the right temperament and the right ambitions to be in law school.

I think you're probably there for all the right reasons. And even though you haven't spoken to your parents about it, I guarantee you they beam with pride. And when you're not there, they tell all their friends how accomplished you are and all the wonderful things you're going to do. Romina, thank you so much for joining us. Good luck with everything. enjoy U of T, enjoy Toronto, and we wish you the very best of luck.

Thank you so much. Have a great day. You take care. All right, well, Russia never does anything by accident. So what the heck are they doing in Poland? We're going to dig through that next on the Ben Mulrooney show. We're renovating a hotel, expanding our resort, and breathing some life back into the lake house. Out of here. All while raising a family.

It's messy, it's real, and it's all us. Exciting. I can't tell if that's your exciting face. This isn't just construction. This is our life. Who needs sleep? Building Bomber, all new Sundays, on Home Network. Stream on Stack TV.

I do. No.