The Ben Mulroney Show - Toronto offering drug kits downtown, mental health services on Subway. Really?

Episode Date: September 25, 2025

- Guest: Stephen Holyday / Etobicoke Centre   -  Diane Chester/Niagara Neighbours for Community Safety 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. Hey, thanks, son. What do I owe you? Don't worry about it. It's payday. Payday, huh? I bet you it went straight into your bank account and you didn't even check your pay stuff. My what? Your pay stuff. Back in my day, you had to wait for a physical check. Then, you had to go to the bank. Deposit it, and wait for it to clear.

Your pay really meant something. Payroll is incredibly complex. It's art and the science. It literally keeps the economy moving. Parole professionals do a lot for us. You know, it's about time we do something for them. How about we ask our leaders to name a day in their honor, a national day to recognize payroll professionals?

I got it. This is perfect. Why don't we explain to people just how important the roles are the payroll professionals play in our lives. We can even ask them to sign a petition. We can even ask them to sign a petition to recognize the third Tuesday in September as the National Day to recognize payroll professionals. We'll rally support and bring the payroll party to the nation.

National payroll party? Precisely. Sounds like a plan, you know, just one thing. What's that? I'm choosing the music. What? And I'm sitting in the back seat. The whole way?

The whole way. Canada's oil sands produce the energy the world needs, but it's the benefits that flow to all parts of our country, like hundreds of thousands of jobs in oil and gas and along the supply chain and revenue to invest in roads, bridges, our national defense, and more. You see, we're building more than a strong oil sands sector. We're helping to build a stronger Canada. We're Pathways Alliance, six of Canada's largest oil sands companies working together

to help grow Canada's economy. Learn more at pathwaysalliance.ca. Welcome, welcome, welcome to the Ben Mulroney show on this Thursday, September 25th. It is gloomy in the city of Toronto today, isn't it? A little foreboding. And we've got some good news. We've got some bad news to talk about it. I would like to point out, you know, every now and then I come into the office.

I don't typically eat breakfast. Not much of a breakfast guy. And maybe on the weekends, you know, a late breakfast. Not a brunch per se, but a late breakfast. You know, around 9.30 on us. You wake up with your coffee and then you have something to eat. But today I showed up to the office and I might as well have had a hollow leg. I was that hungry.

And I told you guys a little while ago about sort of the secret killer of my diet, my proper eating is the... Yeah, and now you threw them at me. Yeah. It sounds like a drug dealer. I was like, the first, I literally said the first day is free. It was, I'm talking obviously of the blueberry. cheesecake timbits and did I say on this show

why I think that they're so so fantastic but also so evil because you're weak no no no it's because well first of all they're like a mini Boston cream like a variation on a Boston cream donut that's a Boston cream is my favorite donut this is a

mini a variety on that but because they're not as dense because they don't have as much cake to them I think that they are less filling but they have more sugar because of the cream cheese and the cream cheese filling. So they are hurting you far worse.

Anyway, I bring this up. I'm not going down that road again, although I just took us down that road. I'm going down this road because later in the show we're going to be talking about when does somebody wear corporate gear? When do you wear Tim Horton says open to store and they are selling their swag? And I'm glad I started this way because I want to give my love and appreciate it. Tim's and then say we may be critical. We're going to have a story. We don't know. I don't know when you

wear it and when you don't wear it. Right? So we're going to be talking about this and does it help their brand? Anyway, so that's coming up a little bit later. Speaking of brands, look how this all come together. The brand. What is the brand of Toronto? Right? So when I first moved to Toronto and everybody, we all have a feeling about our hometown. Right? And this is my hometown, even though I wasn't

born here. I've been here almost 25 years now. I remember when Americans would come here and specifically they'd come during TIF. they would either confirm the positive aspects of the city that I believed or if they said something negative about the city, I would push back with what I thought to be the truth about the city. Very proud of this city. It was respectable. It was quiet. It was boring. It was New York run by the Swiss. It was New York without all the graffiti. And I think it was Steve Martin who said

New York, it's like, or Toronto, it's like New York, without all the stuff. And you could, and by the way, I think that's the most accurate way of saying it, because the stuff could mean anything you wanted it to mean, without the great restaurants, without the great, without the crime, without, anyway, without the network of the subway. And today, visitors are reporting more criticisms of the city. There's more trash. There's certainly more discarded needles. There's more grime in the streets.

I'm hearing stories personally of cops pulling out their weapons far more than they used to. I've heard stories of police officers. We'd go their entire career without ever pulling out their weapon, drawing their weapon. And now we had a guy call in a few last week. He said his son-in-law has pulled his weapon a dozen times in the three or four short years that he's been on the force. So something's changing. and everyone has a different vision of what this city needs and our mayor went through the democratic process and got elected

so this is her time to see if she can get us to where she wants us to go and one of the decisions that she made was that crisis workers will now be working 24-7 to improve safety starting in November at three major three major hubs on the TTC. So the pilot project is launching November 15th. Mental Health Crisis Teams from Toronto Community Crisis Services will be deployed at Spadina, Bloor Young and Union Station

to assist people in distress and improve rider safety. And I think that's a fine, laudable thing. People need to feel safe as well as being safe. But this sort of initiative should be complementary to what actually does make people feel safe, which is the police. Well, that's not, well, the police make people feel safe if they were previously feeling unsafe. I don't need the police in my home because I feel safe in my home. But if my house had gotten broken into, I would really like to see the police patrolling my neighborhood. So, and so, in this case, to have mental health professionals on a permanent basis in high traffic areas,

that's great. But what happens if somebody's in crisis and they draw a pistol or they draw a knife? Well, you know what happens? They call the cops. So in that case, we actually have the whole thing backwards. Like, I think prior to the pandemic, prior to the Sammy Yatine killing, we might have been a little too black and white. The cops get called and everything else flows after. Once we arrest the guy, then we'll give him an assessment as to whether or not he's in a mental health crisis.

I think we've taken those opportunities to reevaluate and say we probably have to be more nimble than that. But call me old school, call me traditionalist. I don't know what you want to call me, but I do believe that the majority, the majority of calls or interactions when it comes to something out of the ordinary, either on the streets or in the homes, somewhere in the city, should start with the police. And it's up to us to improve what tools they have, how quickly they can respond, how quickly they can pivot. but to suggest that this move by the mayor is in and of itself going to do anything, I think is foolish. Have you been on the subway and seen mental health crisis? It seems every time I'm there, there's something happening.

There's either somebody who's stretched out in a sleep and with garbage all around them, or there's somebody who is having a mental health crisis and talking to themselves and possibly a danger to others. I've seen some things that I never saw 15, 20 years ago. Yeah. And it's, and it's, again, like I said, what are these people going to do? Now, you've seen them before because this, they've, these guys are embedded now. That's what's going to happen. As of November 15th, they're going to be embedded. They're not just there on a trial basis. You've seen it where they are interacting with, with somebody. They just have to stand there. They stand there and they watch them to make sure that they don't do anything. But

they're really not allowed to intervene and they're not allowed to physically remove someone. It's a real gray area. And it's troubling. People are nervous about sending their children on the subway. I was taking the subway on my own when I was in second grade. Yeah. I would never in a million years.

Of course not. Because the subway or the TTC rather has become, sadly, it's become a catch-all if you need to get out of the snow. You get the bad weather. You go into the subway. And it's going to get worse as winter comes, right? Yeah, if you need a place to sleep. And so it's being used as almost a pressure release valve for all the other failing agencies in the city.

And again, of course you want the right tool for the right job. Of course you do, right? I am not a hammer and all I see is nails. I know that the world is far more nuanced than that. And like I said, to go back to what I said before, I think we had some lessons to learn over how things were done not the right way back in the day. But we're not there anymore. And so to start with the belief that, oh, people don't feel safe. You know what's going to make them feel safe?

Someone with a clipboard, that's going to make them feel safe. Oh, but don't worry, they're also going to have a uniform that's going to be a vest. It's going to let people know that they are definitely not cops. That'll make people feel safe. I guess when you start from a position of cynicism towards the value of the cops, anyone who is in a cop is probably a good idea. I don't feel that way. Does this not seem like a Band-Aid that something needs is major surgery?

We need real solutions. Yeah, well, listen, this could be part of a major solution. I just don't think that this should be the first plank in a major. Because if this is the first plank, then every plank following is going to be lesser then. But anyway, look, I don't know nearly as much about this as our next guest. We're going to be joined by Stephen Holliday from Atobico Center. And we're going to see if I'm off on the right track or not. We don't want to complain.

We want solutions, and we're going to have a city council here to help us with that. Don't go anywhere. This is the Ben Mulroney Show. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. Thank you so much for spending a little bit of your Thursday with us, and thank you to our next guest for spending a little bit of his morning with us. Please welcome to the Ben Mulroney show from Atobico Center, the illustrious Stephen Holliday.

Stephen, thank you so much for being here. Good morning, Ben, and thank you for the very kind introduction, but I am really glad to be with you. So let's talk about that. I don't think anybody would say, in an ideal world, sure, of course, if we could have, if we had the manpower, if we had the money, and if it made sense, yes, of course,

let's hire some mental health experts to help us make sure that the subway and the TTC network at large feels more safe for everybody. But we're not in an ideal world. People today do feel unsafe on the TTC, and I got to wonder whether this is money well spent at this point. Yeah, I use the TTC a lot, and I have for many, many years,

traveling from Etobico into the city, and you see a lot of things. And I think everyone that uses the system can acknowledge that during COVID and just post-COVID, it was really difficult. It seems a little better these days, but there's still a lot of work to be done. There's a backdrop to this story, though.

There are two things that happened in the city. The first was the city made a choice to create a crisis response service. Some people call it a fourth emergency service. Other people say it's not an emergency response, but what it essentially does is deploy a crisis worker to someone that is in crisis. And if you think about some of the backdrop

of high-profile stories where someone took their life in the presence of police officers, You see how that works together, and you see that maybe, instead of sending a police officer, it's better to send a social support worker and detask the police. So put that in one box. The second part was that there's a lot of conversation about bringing police more into the TTC system, specifically the subways. And we know that the police were brought in in a pilot. They were very successful.

But politics got in the way. And they didn't continue that. And they put in a series of different types of workers, including community workers, mental health workers, homeless outreach, customer ambassadors as a way to have people in the system, you know, workers, eyes in the system, but not actually police officers. Yeah, but I mean, Stephen, I've got to ask that that, that to me seems foolhardy. It's not, it's not that we need eyes. It's not that we need employees from the city. We need a very specific type of I, a very specific type of employee, and that is a member of a police service because... I agree. Like, it's not a one-for-one trade.

Well, we can't do cops because there are certain people who don't like cops. So let's find somebody that other people do like, even though they are not cops. And that to me is, I don't know who makes those decisions, but those are not conclusions that make any sense to a rational human being. Well, I'd like to see all of the above in the right ratios, but definitely. the absence of the police. I've seen plenty of disturbances in my life where the individual is quite wound up. And sending somebody without the training and the protection and to deal with that is not right. And there's other circumstances where somebody's sleeping on a bench. And, you know, is that the best use of a police officer's time? Probably not. The simplest thing would be,

can I see your proof of payment? I bet you wouldn't get it at that point in time. And then where does that individual go? Well, look, here's a referral to somewhere where you can go sleep and be safe. Yeah. No, and I said in the previous segment, I said, you know, I think we probably, we probably got things wrong in terms of how quickly the police could pivot and recognize, okay, I need backup here, not of the police variety, but of the mental health support variety, right? I need, I need to get this person help as quickly as possible. That's the best way to de-escalate this situation. So, you know, there is good that comes from bad. But that doesn't mean that, just because the police recognize that they're not the right person for every interaction. What I presuppose by even saying that is that interaction must start with a police officer. Well, I mean, I guess you've got to read the situation. But my point in all this is I think the jury's out whether or not this program will be efficient and successful and the best use of resources.

But clearly to me, there's an absence of that leg, which is the police. So for the very same reasons, these individuals are justified to be pre-positioned in the system, I would say is the same justification to pre-position police officers. That's what I would like to see on. It's not, this isn't just a specific policy decision. I think you're seeing a program that exists being inserted into the system, presumably with a business case to do so. But, you know, I think a lot of people would like to see more officers and they prove themselves when they were in the system. They caught people, they got guns, they got all sorts of successes. they can point to. Yeah.

I mean, the fact that, look, they are part, the subway is part of our city. That means it's going to be a microcosm, in fact, it's going to be a heightened microcosm of life above ground. People are closed shoulder to shoulder. There are, so tensions can be more inflamed. And so we, the fact that there are people who would suggest that police don't have a role on our subway is boneheaded. There should be. And in fact, you could make the case they are more they are more important down there than they are in other parts of the city well welcome to politics at city hall but i'll at this point you know for someone like me out in the west end of toronto who who loaths the idea of having to drive into the city ever

because it's such a difficult any hour of the day it's a difficult trip that tTC service and the subway is vital for me to stay connected to the city otherwise it i don't feel like a trontonian anymore if i can't visit yeah and so i have to have access through the subway and i have to feel safe i have to feel safe taking my kids on there and and believe me uh with my experience on there i've seen a lot and i understand why people are nervous maybe i'm a little desensitized because i've seen so much of it but there are things that happen in there and you really wish that you an authority could step in really quickly to to shut something down before somebody gets hurt yeah well uh stephen before i let you go i want to

talk about uh something else with you because once i have you on the on the phone i'm not letting go until I get all my questions answered. We have a guest on next who's going to be speaking about her frustration with the downtown core. Queen and Bathurst, if you've been there recently, it's filthy, overrun. You've got, unfortunately, you've got people in the throes of addiction, passed out on the street in the alleys, garbage and drug kits everywhere, and on the door of the drop-in center that is supposed to be there for people to get mental health services, support of all kinds. There is a big sign that now says, quote, unquote,

reduction. And I'm pretty sure that that runs a foul of the rules that have been put forth by the democratically elected majority in Queens Park with the hub, heart houses that they're working on. And I asked the Minister of Health a few days ago, I said, what happens when you have a city that is countermanding your orders at Queens Park? And they said, oh, we might have to escalate if that ever did happen. How do you see it? Well, we have, a city and a city council that has been built on the philosophy of harm reduction, which means, look, we'll help you, but you have to want the help, and we'll do things to make the situation safer for you, but you're going to be able to continue to use drugs. We know

the heart model is a little different than that. It's more about intervention and treatment. And so people came to the city under those circumstances, and there's still a demand to live that lifestyle. So they're going to now concentrate in places where they can get it. And so I think that's what's going on right now. And there's still the two philosophical camps, regardless of the time of each of the elections. And I think this is really important because this is an issue that plagues cities all over north and probably all over the world, where there are very liberal and permissive approaches to continuing to use drugs or continuing to live a lifestyle on the edge, where you're not required to go in and receive some treatment for it.

And we're not going to beat it. We're not going to beat it until we change those rules. Well, thank you for saying that. And look, all you've got to do, this is going to sound glib, but it's not. Go back, go watch the documentary on Charlie Sheen on Netflix, where he goes back and recounts his last few years. He's been seven years sober. And when he did the Torpedo of Truth Tour, people were asking him,

are you, like, what do you have to say about your dad who's criticizing? He's like, I'm tired of them, I want them out of my life, I never want to talk to them anymore. He says the shame that he feels right now about how he behaved then is beyond the pale, but he was in the throes of addiction. He wasn't the one speaking, the addiction was

speaking, and unfortunately these permissive rules around addiction, around drug use. We are, we think we're talking to the addict, we're not, we are talking to the drug, we are talking to the disease, and we will never get anywhere until we recognize that locked inside, a prisoner inside is the person who wants to get out,

who wants to be free of addiction. But we are not paying attention to them. We're paying attention to the disease. Stephen Holliday, thank you very much for joining us. Thank you, Ben. Always a pleasure. Canada's oil sands produce the energy the world needs, but it's the benefits that flow to all parts of our country.

Like hundreds of thousands of jobs in oil and gas and along the supply chain and revenue to invest in roads, bridges, our national defense, and more. You see, we're building more than a strong oil sands sector. We're helping to build a stronger Canada. We're Pathways Alliance, six of Canada's largest oil sands companies working together to help grow Canada's economy. Learn more at pathwaysalliance.ca. Let's face it, finding your next favorite podcast can be tough,

but that's about to change. Curious Cast Discovery is the destination for award-winning podcasts from true crime and history like crime beat. Documentaries like Stop, Rewind, The Lost Boy, music with Uncharted, and even the paranormal, like Dead Man's Curse, all 100% ad-free for less than the price of a coffee. Curious Cast Discovery, available now on Apple Podcasts for just $4 a month. In the 70s, four young women were found dead. For nearly 50 years, their case. went cold. I'm Nancy Hicks, a senior crime reporter for global news. In the season finale of Crime Beat, I share how investigators uncovered shocking evidence of a serial killer, and hear

exclusive interviews with the killer's family. Listen to the full season of Crime Beat early and ad-free on Amazon music by asking Alexa to play the podcast Crime Beat. Welcome back to the show. Thank you so much for sticking around with us. All right, to keep this conversation going around the character of the city and the services that we rely on and the services that perhaps need a rethink. And we're joined now by someone who joined us just a few short days ago. She is the founder of the Niagara Neighbors for Community Safety lives near Queen in Bathurst. And there's a supervised consumption site just south on Bathurst that was closed in April. Well, now there's a huge sign that says harm reduction at the

West Neighborhood House drop-in center. Please welcome to the show, Diane Chester. Oh, hi, Ben. Thanks for having me on again. Thank you so much for being here. So you brought this to our attention. And talk to me about what you see on a daily basis. Walk down the street for me.

Like, you're giving me a tour of your neighborhood. So I live about two blocks from Queen of Bathurst. And yesterday I was going for a walk and I walk towards the community health center. It's called Parkdale Clean West Community Health Center. And there are between

10, 15, and 20 people in various states of disarray. There's refuse everywhere. There are, and people are just, it looks as if there are drug deals going on in the laneway and people are just in a very

difficult state. It's very, it's very disturbing. And the other thing is there's very, there's people who are, you can talk to and are homeless and are trying to do better for themselves. They're very sad stories, but there's also people who are very threatening and angry. And so while I was walking by, there were two gentlemen sitting in the front of the health center, and a young girl walked by. She was probably under 20. and they cat called her as she was walking by and she was terrified and so she started running

and that's the kind of thing that's going on there. It's a very threatening environment for those of us who walk by. There's a, I mean, I walk by and my neighbors are there. We stop to have a chat. I mean, we know everyone in the neighborhood and everyone's saying this has gotten dramatically worse and something is going to happen

similar to what happened at South Riverdale Community Health Center. There is going to be something very dangerous that's going to happen. Yesterday was, it was quite unbelievable. It looks like something like Pandora and Victoria. It's on the edge of that. And the laneway itself, there were just people bent over. It's disturbing. So I've got a few more questions for you because the last time,

time we talked, it was about the homeless shelter that was built behind your home. And the updates that my producer gave me about that experience was that they put a new air conditioning unit on the top, which is like it's an industrial strength one so you can't have your windows open. And the lights are on all the time and they are very, very bright. Is that right? Yeah. So they brought a shelter into the heart of a residential neighborhood where I live essentially 10 feet. And it's surrounded by townhouses. and they put an industrial HVAC system on the roof of the building.

I looked it up. It's, you know, hospital grade, as you would expect, for the people who are using the facility. It's for health reasons. But the noise is so loud that I can no longer have my windows open in my house. It's unbelievable. The same with the exterior lights. So what the city does and the service operators, Felix,

they didn't consider the neighborhood, which is a very common theme. in this entire situation. Like what's going on at Queen West Parkdale Community Health Center, there is no consideration for the people in the neighborhood who genuinely care. We genuinely care. We are surrounded by services.

There's another shelter that's going to open at Ticumse and Queen by the Salvation Army. It's two blocks from this shelter, 63 people. There, where Bathurst Street is clustered with these facilities and everyone is handing out harm reduction. And that's it. I'm glad I'm glad you brought that up because, you know, we've been beating that drum here that we were supposed to be ushering in a new era in Ontario with these hard houses where there were rules around where you could be offering, if any, harm reduction in proximity to schools and to daycares and so on. And it looks like, it feels like the city of Toronto has just decided that they are going to do their own thing, even though the province has said. otherwise. And I put that question a couple of days ago to the Minister of Health, Sylvia Jones, about working with the city. Here's what she had to say.

Minister, how do you fight the city on something like this? I mean, are they legally allowed to run counter to the province's wishes? So we've been very clear that any facility that offers within 200 meters of a school or a daycare has been absolutely prohibited from doing so. we will continue to work with our partners at the city who are prepared and understand the value of offering pathways to treatment. And if it gets to a point where we see that they are flaunting our goals as a province, as a government, then escalation will have to happen. So there you go. Escalation should happen.

So what would you like to see happen here? because I know that you sent an image of what you saw over the picture from the front of the West community house with all of the drug paraphernalia on the ground. You wrote, good evening, Mr. Ford. This is now happening across the street from the safe injection site that was shut down to be a heart hub. The last few days in this area have been at levels never seen before since the closure of the safe injection site. It's chaos, fights, and filth. Did you hear back from Doug Ford? No, we just sent the email to Doug yesterday, so we're waiting to hear back.

I also sent an email. Well, yesterday was particularly horrendous for everyone. I want to say the staff of these facilities are probably likely as traumatized as the residents. Well, yeah. It's not an easy situation to deal with. They came out on the street. There were three staff on the street trying to speak with people on the street. And it's chaos.

It was social chaos yesterday. And Diane, look, you said it before. You touched on it. We can talk about it some more. There are myriad reasons why people end up on the streets. There are people for whom they just got a couple of bad bounces. And there's others who made bad choices. And there are others who came from bad families.

And others have bad, uh, up, like there's any number of reasons. And, and, and, and, and those people who, you know, they want to go to that drop in facility because they needed to get out of their car, because they've been living in their car, or they just need to talk to somebody because life has been really hard and they don't know, uh, how they're going to make it. I don't know that those people would want to go into that facility if they saw what I, what we've seen on the outside. To me, that's just not the service that they're providing anymore. Yeah, I agree. It's a volatile situation. So, I mean, there are ways to manage this. They can hire more staff. They can move their services to another part of the city where it's not so condensed around homes and businesses.

The businesses on Queen Street are having a really hard. hard time because they are very threatened. And in fact, if you walk along Queenstreet, you'll see that, you know, many of the buildings are for sale and many of the, I mean, there are businesses who are surviving, but if you talk to the business owners, they say their mental health is impacted because they feel so threatened. So this drug toxicity situation and the homelessness situation needs to be completely revised. It's not what it was in 2017. We have data from Toronto Police from 2018 to 2023 for 200 meters from the community health center. And there was over 6,000 calls for service, whole range of things, right?

Assaults, overdoses. You can imagine all of the very dangerous things that happened there. And that is, there are people on Richmond. I was speaking to my neighbors on Richmond yesterday. and people are climbing over their fences to get into their backyard. Yeah. Oh, yeah. But I think there's so much unreported.

Of course. Of course. Diane, we got to leave it there, but I want to thank you so much. And I'm sure we'll be checking in with you again. We really appreciate it. All the best to you. Okay. Thank you very much.

Welcome back to the problem-solving portion of the Ben Mulroney show. We put the call out to you at 4168-7-0-6400 or 1-3-8-225 talk. Big cities like Toronto have big problems, and we need big solutions to address them. And right now we are in the middle of a drug crisis and a mental health crisis and a transit crisis and a lack of funds to pay for all this stuff crisis. And we need big brains to be marshaled in service of the city. And before I take your calls, let's just review what we've talked about today so far. about mental health crisis talent being available to help people on the subway, and we're talking about the drug crisis being fueled on the streets of Toronto. So as I see it, the city is

adding kerosene to the fire at street level, and then they're trying to put out the fire below ground. It makes no sense. It makes no sense whatsoever. And that's how I I see it, maybe you guys can help me figure out how we can get to a place where things get better. And we're going to start with Sid. Sid, thank you so much for calling into the show. Hi, Brian. Good morning. You're like in the time of darkness.

I'm going to say that my daughter who's been taking the subway for the last number of years, she's going to the UConnor. She's come back telling me stories of people fighting, people sleeping, people you're eating. And she's a young girl, and she's, you know, had no choice but the subway. My comment is that these politicians to send their sons and their dogs, and they have to go through the daily routine of stepping over needles and having been confronted.

She's been confronted. She was been exposed. All these issues be solved in the fourth night. Yeah. Let the politicians get into the, you know, get in there and have their sons and daughters go through. You know, I'm a common person. I have no choice. that's, you know, what needs to be done.

Well, thank you, Sid. I appreciate it. My best to you and your daughter. Thank you so much. Sonia, Sonia, welcome to the show. Good morning. Yeah, the patients are running the asylum. What can I tell you?

It's in a plan. They're destroying this city so bad. You think it's a plan? Of course it is. Like, wake up people. Our taxes keep going up and nothing gets done. There are no adults in at City Hall. they're all lining their pockets.

I mean, look at the LRT across Anglington. How long are we going to be employed for that? It started in 2012. Yeah, no, I know. I know. So what do you think needs to happen here, though? Because as I said, it seems like there are two visions for how to deal with the drug crisis, which also has an element of a mental health crisis to it.

You've got the province that says treatment needs to be first and foremost. And then you've got the city that says, no, no, no. if they want to do drugs, it's up to us to make sure that they do drugs in the safest way possible. Yeah. Yeah. Why are we doing drugs in the safest way possible? You know, it's not good for anybody. And just like that gentleman said before, Sid, like, you know, people don't go downtown

because I'm not letting my daughter go down on the subway if there's going to be drug addicts there. People need to do stuff instead of just talk. I agree. Well, yeah, as somebody who makes his living talking, I take great. I take great umbrage to what she just said. Thank you, Sonia. I appreciate it. Let's invite John into the conversation.

John, thanks so much for calling. Hey, Ben. How's you going today? I was impelled to call in. I work in emergency services and I just got off shift. And I work out of Hamilton. And the problem that your callers are addressing is everywhere. Yeah.

And I've been doing this for almost 20 years. And IKEA keeps coming back to the only solution is involuntary, inpatient treatment. How many overdoses have you seen? Well, yesterday I had, I had, well, six overdose calls, and two of those were more than one patient. What? And you've been doing this for 20 years. Yeah, it got worse after.

As soon as COVID hit, it spiked in the last six months, I don't know if there's a stronger batch out there. Yeah. It's just getting insane. So let me ask you a question then. To those people who, and let's assume. everyone is approaching this problem in good faith. In other words, everybody wants

to solve this problem. We'll take cynicism and bad actors completely out of the discussion, okay? What do you tell those people who truly believe in their heart of hearts that harm reduction and having people consume drugs in a safe environment with clean needles, for example,

clean crack pipes, that that is the best possible path forward? Well, just telling the story. So I went to an overdose. It's like, like three in the morning, gentleman overdosed. We, you know, we Narcanum. He comes around and he had this look in his eyes like, oh, man, I did it again.

Yeah. And so I say it was his moment of clarity. And at that moment, I should have been able to offer him the help he needed. And I had nothing to offer him. Like, I could not. Really. Like, yeah. Like, you want it to be able to say, hey, treatment is available for you.

If you want it, please take it. Because you know, I'm sure, that the next time this guy overdoses and he will, overdose. He may not make it. And I don't know, I don't know what problem we have solved by simply, um, rinsing and repeating and having these, these addicts experience the worst version of Groundhog Day that has ever been imagined. And nobody wants to live on the streets, Ben. Like, nobody wants to go through this. And we see these people and you see them get worse and worse. And, you know, they need, they cannot make the choice to go to treatment. They're just that far gone. Yeah. For that small percentage of people.

I mean, for our city, I think we're about, you know, five or six hundred people, they just need, there has to be a threshold when you're lying in a gutter covered in your own body fluid and we revive you. You can't just get up and walk away. You have to get in at that point. And because, you know, to those who would say, who would criticize this perspective and say, oh, you are, you're dehumanizing these people. You're taking their agency away. You are depriving them of their choices in life. It's like, no, well, no, right now they're incapable of forming they don't have the requisite ability to form a proper idea. They can't consent. They can't decide. They don't have that ability right now. And that's... If there's a cat, those people will be going crazy. Save the cat.

Save the cat. But it's a human. And they just let these people just do it over and over again. And it's heartbreaking. And it's costing us, you know, it's the monetary that what's costing us in resources. And it's just, I can't believe this is still happening after all these years. Well, you know, I want to thank you for, for, for, joining us. This has been

some real insights and I really appreciate it. So thank you very much, John. Thanks, Ben. Wow, that was a powerful one. Karen, welcome to the show. Hey, how are you today? I'm doing okay, thanks. Great. So what I'm going to say is it's not just a Toronto

as we have heard and it's everywhere. And the problem being is once upon time staff, I worked in mental house for many, many years and they ended up with you know, we had as staff a lot of rights.

Well, now they have, you know, gone the other way where, you know, if they're in bed-based homes, then, sorry, bed-based hospitals, they don't have to have a shower. They don't have to appeal to what is expected of them. And so anyway, there's always the thoughts of what do we do. need to have another bill come about that brings that pentilum back into the middle somewhere so that it's not ruled by staff, it's not ruled by the individuals who have lost their way, but somewhere of a compromise. And I have to look at, you know, going out into the wilderness, as harsh as it may sound, but now all of a sudden you have to figure it out. There are no backyards to jump into and steel and sell.

Karen, that's how my take. Thank you, Karen. I appreciate it. We got time for one last one. So, Frank, I'm going to give you about 30 seconds. Hi, Ben. I think the city's got some wrong, unprincipled strategies and priorities on this issue. What's more important?

Ensuring the security and safety of the people that live in the community or ensuring the safety of a drug addict taking drugs. I think the city or the people in the community that are complaining should complain to the Toronto Ombudsman. It's an opportunity to do it. It's no cost involved. And if they fail at that, in that aspect of their complaint, let the province step in, the province can go after the city and even follow an application for charter breaches against the city.

Well, there's also the fact that there's an election coming in about 13 or 14 months, and people should be arming themselves with what's happening in their neighborhoods, what's happening to their homes, what's happening to their communities, and ask the questions that will elicit response that will crystallize in their mind, whether that person running for office deserves their vote or not. When I found out my friend got a great deal on a wool coat from Winners,

I started wondering, is every fabulous item I see from Winners? Like that woman over there with the designer jeans. Are those from Winners? Ooh, are those beautiful gold earrings. Did she pay full price? Or that leather tote? Or that cashmere sweater?

Or those knee-high boots? That dress, that jacket, those shoes. Is anyone paying full price for anything? Stop wondering. Start winning. Winners, find Fabulous for less.