Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Amber Morley: Toronto Mike'd #1605

Episode Date: December 20, 2024

In this 1605th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike checks in with Deputy Mayor of Toronto Amber Morley to learn how her first two years in office are going, what she's doing about the Bloor bike lane, why New Toronto is getting a new shelter and so much more. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, The Yes We Are Open podcast from Moneris and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail]

Welcome to episode 1605 of Toronto Mic'd! Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma Pasta Enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. Season 7 of Yes We Are Open, an award-winning podcast from Minaris, hosted by FOTM Al Greggo. RecycleMyElectronics.ca, committing to our planet's future, means properly recycling our electronics of the past, and Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921.

Joining me today, returning to Toronto Mike for the first time since being elected as City Councilor for Ward 3 Etobicoke. It's FOTM Amber Morley. Welcome back Amber. Thanks Mike, glad to join you. Glad to have you back in the basement. Now the first time you dropped by, do you remember your first appearance on Toronto Mic'd? I do. It feels like a million years ago but also yesterday it was a lot of fun. About two and a half years ago so it was August 2022 and that was episode 1,101 so if somebody wants to learn more about you we chatted for a

good hour about how difficult it is to defeat an incumbent in municipal politics. It almost never happens right Amber? That's right we were the only one to do it in the last election. So you, is that right? The only candidate to unseat an incumbent. All the others had been vacated, so were otherwise open. So how much credit do I get for you winning that election? Well we know how influential you are, not only in the City of Toronto, but especially here in Etobicoke, so definitely a big nod and a shout out and thank you to you.

Well, thank you for even a nod and a shout out. I'll have more gifts for you later. Better than a nod and a shout out. But I realize I have an hour with you. You're a very busy woman, but right off the top, how have the first couple of years in office been for you? Like, how is it going? Well, it's definitely going.

It's been quite a whirlwind. It's a massive job with a huge amount of responsibilities. I went in with it bright eyed and bushy tailed and putting my hand up for a lot of different pieces of work. That's what we like about you. Yeah, you know I try to keep that energy. But it's hard to keep when you say yes to everything and aren't really working towards a work lifelife balance. So here we are at the

midterm, two years in, and I'm finally starting to apply some lessons learned around better workload management and you know prioritizing the things that matter most to myself and certainly our community. So we've lightened our load in the midterm check-in and we're working to continue to improve as we move forward. Okay but if I read between the lines are you suggesting that you need to take some time for Amber? Yeah self-care is not selfish is literally the sticker. Because you'll burn out right? Yeah yeah exactly. After year one I was definitely feeling a significant amount of burnout and so we've been continuing to build our team,

establish our best practices, and course correct along the way as we do. Interesting, you were appointed as one of our deputy mayors. I was, yeah. Okay, so firstly, let's tell, of course I know everything, Amber, you know that, but for those who don't know,

what the heck is a deputy mayor? So in the city of Toronto, there are four deputy mayors, one that is a statutory deputy mayor. My incredible colleague, Deputy Mayor Malik, is the downtown sort of deputy mayor, as well as the statutory. So in the event that, God forbid, anything were to take place,

or our mayor stepped aside for any point of time, the statutory deputy mayor actually has all of the responsibilities to sort of fulfill that role. The other deputy mayors are a little bit more symbolic and it's a decision of the mayor, they get to a point. And as of now, we've got Deputy Mayor McKelvey representing Scarborough, we've got Deputy Mayor Cole representing North York and myself representing Etobicoke. Why do you think you were tapped on the shoulder by Olivia Chow as one of her deputy mayors?

Other than being fabulous, just joking. No, that's a good reason. I think that you're fabulous, that's a good reason. But like you're new to this. I think I'm young, I'm energetic. I think I really do represent the city in a way that hasn't been seen at City Hall for ever. So yeah and obviously very aligned with Mayor Olivia Chow in terms of her values. I remember knocking on doors for her back I think it was the

2014 election when she first ran for mayor. So I was really proud to be one of the first councillors that were sitting at the time to come out and do an endorsement of now Mayor Chow. So I think that you know may have incurred some favour and again I think really just the alignment and my real passion of moving the work forward is I think part of why I got that recognition and confidence from the mayor. Okay Amber so this is gonna be a very comfy chat again glad you're here it's a safe space, say whatever you want.

But I will also have questions from people along the way. And one you've kind of almost answered already. So I wanna shout out James Early, who says, "'Congratulations to Amber on her Deputy Mayor role. "'How does one manage the role of Councillor for Ward 3 "'at Tobaco Lakeshore with the added responsibilities "'of Deputy Mayor? "'I suspect if you look out

for Toronto's best interests, you're looking out for Ward 3, or should it be the other way around? So just how are you able to balance the fact that you represent us in Ward 3, the greatest ward in the city, of course, and then again, you're now deputy mayor and there's maybe a bigger... Yeah, a bit of responsibilities. Yeah, for sure. So thanks for the question first of all and thanks for the congratulations We have an incredible team that supports me in my role I've got a team of nine staff including a chief of staff and a deputy chief of staff Yeah, so we're pretty well impressive you came by he's waltzed over here a couple of years ago

And now you got nine people got a corner office at City Hall, it's a whole thing. Okay and shout out the person to your right. Yeah so big shout out to Asli. Asli is my deputy chief of staff, a long time friend and colleague who's been with me since the very first election. Yeah and so Asli actually does a lot of the work to support the deputy mayor role and a lot of that is really just stakeholder relations, stakeholder engagement. One of the things we're doing this afternoon after we're done with you here, Mike, is heading up to a topical center to drop off a scroll for one of our long time local restaurants. So we do.

What does that mean a scroll? Yeah. So there's a business in the community that's been operating for 25 years. I start up on Dixon Road at Somali Community based and owned. And so they are a hub. It's a 24-hour shop. They've got incredible food and they've been serving the community in an amazing way. So we're just going to drop off a little congratulatory recognition for them to thank them for all that they do in the neighborhood. How do we get one of these scrolls for Great Lakes Brewery? Yeah.

Well, next milestone that they've got, reach out to us and we'd be very happy to accommodate. Okay. They got, I think the big four oh is only a couple of years away. I'm going to talk to Peter Bullitt over there and we're going to get, at that point, you might be Mayor Mayor. I don't know. I'm going to talk to you about that later, but I will get a scroll to Great Lakes. Yes, we'd love to do that. We love our friends. And to help, you know, grease the wheel here. I've got some fresh craft beer for you right there, Amber. That's from Great Lakes Brewery in your

ward. It is the holiday season. We won't say no to that. I appreciate it deeply and yeah, thank you for that. Okay, more gifts coming, but I wanted to get to another question. Well, first of all, a fun fact before I get to Eric's question. So in 2018, you ran for Councillor of Ward 3. Correct. And you had 27.19% of the votes in 2018. Then you appeared on Toronto Mic'd and you got 46.44% of the votes. Like that's incredible because we talked about how difficult it is

to defeat an incumbent. So I just want to read Eric's note here, and then I'm going to get Scott's note to piggyback on Eric's note. But Eric writes in, "'How did she win so decisively? "'The incumbent had Ford-style popularity. "'Congratulations to her.'"

I mean, people are still, I don't think they should be surprised because I picked you to win in the 2022 election, but you went from 27% against the same guy who, you know, had won how many times in a row and then suddenly 46.444% beating the incumbent. That's incredible. Yeah. I think there was a couple of factors that went into it. And one of them being that the ward was expanded significantly, very quickly before the election. So the ward expansion happened, I think officially in about July of the election year,

two or three months after the election started. And so a lot of our residents in the northern part of our ward, north of the Queensway, I don't think really had any familiarity of the former councillor. Mark Rimes. That's the one. And you say his name three times, he might appear. So yeah, so I think, you know, some folks looked at it and okay, well, who's the incumbent, who has the experience, and whatever went into their calculation of who they chose to decide and folks had four years under the representation from the former councillor to get to know them as well as for us to engage with them through the second time around right and I think the other thing

that voted really well was that we had such a strong showing in the 2018 election. And I think it gave folks the confidence that we were a serious candidate and that there was a groundswell of support already starting, you know, to come our way. And I worked my butt off to get to the finish line. You know, you did. You were out there working

hard. And again, it's been said already a couple of times but congratulations thank you amazing I'm still pinching myself two years well again you said it no other incumbent who ran again lost except for our incumbent because you beat him you beat his pants off and shout out to our community for showing up and delivering that win for for us and and for me and I do remember because this name will come up again in a moment Very shortly, but Doug Ford you ever heard of this guy So he I remember now he reduced size of council went down to 25 counselors or whatever and then you great It's not the same

Writing that Grimes had won how many times before so many okay. Okay, look, there's always a make some sense here. Scott, by the way, says, Ambers, my counselor. After Grimes, we were glad to have someone more progressive and less creepy. And this is Scott's words. Okay. I'm just reading a verbatim. If I had to describe her tenure so far, it would be, and this is Scott's words, careful. Don't rock the boat. Don't stick your neck out, etc. Fine and again, she's more progressive than

many and maybe ask her if that's deliberate. So Scott's curious, because you're only two years into this thing, is you know you can't come in like a bull in a china shop. This is politics baby. Yeah absolutely. Yeah I think you know for me I'm not actually the biggest fan of politics themselves, but I do believe deeply in the democratic process and I believe in the importance of leadership. And so I really try to take that seriously

as I navigate this very difficult role, understanding that you can't please everybody and there's always going to be a lot of considerations, a lot of different opinions, et cetera, et cetera. So I do believe that representation is important. I want people to feel confident in me as their representative. And so I try to keep it uncontroversial

and thoughtful and considerate as I move forward. Certainly I am a progressive, I'm a young woman of color who grew up low-income, so I have a lived experience that informs my politics and informs my values and approach, which I am very deeply grounded in and serious about. But yeah, I don't want to ruffle feathers along the way, right? We're here to get things done, not upset folks. So people are already upset enough as it is. So we try to really be as unifying, collaborative and thoughtful in our approaches as possible.

And I'm about to ask you about Bill 212 here. But a question came in from Ryan who's curious, what's your relationship like with the other Etobicoke counselors? Particularly, he's wondering how is your relationship with Holiday? Yeah, so I have a good relationship actually with my council colleagues. Councillor Holiday obviously chairs our community council and has been a fairly long-standing member of council. His father was there before him and actually I came in to City Hall as a staffer just as former Councillor Holiday Senior was heading over to the province. So you know then again this is for me where the politics versus the leadership and you know all of that kind of comes to pass. We don't agree politically I think it's clear to see based on

sort of the way that our votes come down and the positions we take on different issues. We definitely have a very different lived experience I think in world view generally speaking which obviously will inform our politics and our leadership style. But I would say that Councillor Holliday particularly is a good colleague you know he's kind and considerate as a person and as a colleague and I really appreciate that. And I think it's important for us as leaders and as representatives to show what it can look like to disagree fundamentally in a lot of important issues but still be able to get along and be civil in the process. All right, before I ask about Bill 212 here, your ward

includes the Blue Heror bike lane in Southern Etobicoke. It sure does. Okay. So now there's a lot in that build 212. So I'm just specifically going to ask about this plan to rip out bike lane infrastructure. Okay. I need to know I'm looking in the eyes right now.

You know, I'm a 12 month a year cyclist and I have actually I'll be on the bluer bike lane After your recording I have a date with my oldest and I will be taking the bluer bike lane from Royal York To run a meet that's happening. You know cameras can follow me. Okay, if the Karl Hanski is listening cameras can follow me What are your thoughts on this part of build 2-1-12, which has already passed? Yeah, I think it's silly to use a quick short word. I think it's short-sighted and I think it's disappointing. We are really glad to see the community residents in the city of Toronto who appreciate and understand the value and importance of this infrastructure

turning up and turning out and protesting and showing up to, whether it's the MPP's office or down at Queens Park. It's important that we use our voices and that we're really clear as a neighbourhood that, and as a know community generally that this matters and that there are a lot of contributing factors to congestion but ripping out bike lanes is not in my humble opinion a wise or thoughtful way forward.

So to read a specific question about it then I have more questions about these bike lanes. So their plan to rip out protective bike lane infrastructure is not evidence-based. I'm reading this question. And isn't about congestion or safety. Why is the Premier hell-bent on ripping up well-planned municipal lanes when he knows it will worsen congestion, cost millions and cost lives? My honest answer I think it's largely politically motivated. I think when we examine you know typically the small percentage of people who show up to vote and the interests of you know an even smaller subsection of that group who are influential evidently who respond to polls and things of that nature. It's an unpopular thing

amongst those folks. And so I think it's really honestly to score points politically and to demonstrate responsiveness to concerns from residents who have been inconvenienced. Absolutely, we acknowledge that. Change is bumpy sometimes right and it takes patience and it takes time but there are a number of people who don't have feel that they have the time or evidently the patience to exercise as we navigate our growing city and standing up you know best practices. So yeah it's really frustrating because as the question very clearly stated and I think is a fact, a provable fact, this is not evidence-based. Well, every report you can read on it suggests that this will actually worsen congestion. So it's expensive and it costs lives, of course, which is paramount. But has the city, because I mean, again, I've had Keenan on every quarter,

Ed Keenan from the Toronto Star. And we've had discussions about this encroachment, like that, that this is clearly, is there anything we laugh about? Is there anything more municipal than bike lanes? Right? Like if you were going to write down the things this belongs to the federal government, you know, healthcare and education. Okay, this is provincial responsibilities. And then you were going to write down the things that belong to a city. Bike lanes would be at the top of the list. So the fact that, you know, he's even in this space is like, you called it silly. I think that's probably a pretty good word for it. But does the city of Toronto have any plans to maybe because the bike lane is still there, I mentioned I'm going to

be on it today. So it's not gone yet, but I consider it's going to be imminent before it's been dug up in the middle of the night or just disappear, whatever. But please, is there any loopholes you've been kind of investigating? I don't even know if I should call them loopholes, but Toronto Boris writes in and wonders, has the city thought about converting any of these bike lanes into bus lanes as some sort of a way around this bill 212? Is there any hope? Or these things done like dinner? So the reality of the way our systems work is a lot of, you know, political discussions are had and objectives are, you know, raised and obviously legislation is passed in this case but ultimately in order to implement and realize anything there are civil

servants who are the actual experts in these areas that are required to you know get together to create you know operational plans and figure out the way forward. So I know for sure that our civil servants specifically those in the Transportation Services Department responsible for this type of infrastructure are very actively engaged with their provincial counterparts, sharing information, sharing facts and evidence, and trying to identify in the corridors in question what a possible path forward will look like. In some instances the part of the legislation is if in the event that a traffic lane is removed is when they

would need to come out. So I know like alternate modeling for example of is it possible in some of these corridors to reinstate like an additional traffic lane and not have to take out the bike lanes. So there's a lot of you know complex conversations happening amongst experts to figure out a path forward here and obviously to be as much as possible aligned and responsive to the legislation that governs us from the provincial government but it's it's tricky it's complicated and it's a very live issue. I didn't finish Toronto Boris's question.

I see here, cause you know, no, that's not gonna be you. That's on me because he wants, he points out that currently the red painted bus lanes are for buses and bikes. And he thinks this might be a go-around for the premier's plan. So just throwing it out there, maybe we just designate these bike lanes, bus lanes, and then everything kind of remains the same.

There's a suggestion. All right. So put that in the suggestion box. It's I'm glad to hear that you do not support Bill 1 sorry, 212 and that so the city is going to do everything within its power. I mean, what can you do? It's one of those things where it's like you don't have this power. So I can tell you this that, and I've pledged this on social media that if and when the bluer bike lane is removed, I'll make it my job to take a lane on bluer street every day of the week when I go for my bike lanes, my bike rides, I will take a lane and then let them all honk at me and threaten me and scream at me because I don't care

I want my kids to be safe bike in the city. There you go. And I don't think you'll be alone in that Okay, good. Yeah, it'd be me land Rick and all the bike people But just a point of the obvious which this came up at a recent episode We did at Palma's kitchen, by the way, I have a lasagna and my freezer for you from Palma's Poma pasta This one is my favorite. Okay, my freezer for you. Okay. Thank you Palma's Pasta. Lasagna is my favorite. Okay, it's in my freezer for you. Okay, thank you Palma's K. This came up, but if you know the city and you bike in the southern Etobicoke here, then you know you've got a separated bike lane in Eglinton. So we're going up Eglinton. We're on the waterfront trail right now. Of course, I love it. The waterfront trail. I took it to the Scotia

Bank Arena for the Raptor game yesterday night. Okay. So we got that. But between no joke, between Eglinton and Lakeshore, what is that 10 K or something? There is no East West corridor for a cyclist to have a bike lane that doesn't exist. So, you know, yeah, you at some point at Jane, there's a net has a bit of a bike lane and you can kind of whatever, but which is not by the way, still quite enough. So I know I'm a Allen's why it's going to tune out if I keep going on the bike lanes, except please do what you can and let me know if you need me to, I don't know, chain myself to something. Maybe I chain myself to the bike lane on Bloor Street. I think if you keep using your voice and your platform to advocate for a better way forward is

very helpful and it really helps people assure they are not alone in wanting to have rational thoughtful solutions to our existing challenges versus creating more chaos which is what I think ultimately the Result of this legislation will be My also my one of my concerns is that when we remove this bluer bike lane It will increase the number of customers that Ridley Funeral Home has. Okay, so what I have for you again, this is really right in your wheelhouse.

This is a new Toronto, 14th and Lakeshore. So these are your constituents as well. But Ridley Funeral Home has sent over a measuring tape for you, Amber Moll. That is very sweet. Thank you, Ridley. We are neighbours. We appreciate Brad and the team out there. They were out giving out hot chocolate over the Santa Claus Parade, which always is a treat and I look forward to it. So big shout out to them.

So shout out to Ridley Funeral Home, shout out to Great Lakes Brewery and Minaris is at Bloor and Islington. Is that your still we're still there, right? Okay. And they have sent over a wireless speaker for you. Very nice. Thank you. That's very kind. You can listen to anything you like, but you must listen to season seven of Yes, We Are Open, which is an award winning podcast from Monaris hosted by FOTM

Al Gregor, who went to Winnipeg to collect inspiring stories from small business owners. So you can enjoy that and be inspired there. OK, a couple of housekeeping notes. One is, are you joining Blue Sky because there's a councillor Amber Morley, Blue Sky account. And the concern from Mark blue sky because there's a counselor amber moorely

Blue sky account and the concern from Mark Shaw is that it's a fake account. I am NOT currently on blue sky So thank you for the flag mark shot See LL are amber moorely my team have they message have they tweeted any or whatever? What are we calling blue sky? What's a mess? Post posted? Okay. Yeah yeah, sorry. Even the Twitter's not Twitter anymore. But any plans? I know I should look at your... Well, we're both making a face right now. That's the only place I live now. Okay, no, that's wonderful.

Because it's a cesspool of Nazis. I've heard that there's great feedback about Blue Sky, and I don't actually myself participate too much on social media because of that cesspool energy. They bring and you know the first time you visited I played 311 They have a song called amber amber is the color of your energy. I think bring that yeah beautiful song, too Okay, that should be your theme song and please bring that energy to blue sky. Yeah, you know what well first we need to investigate Well, first we need to investigate who's recording to be on Blue Sky. But yeah, I appreciate that. And I do think we will be joining because it sounds like the kind of place we want to

be. Okay. Good to hear that was Mark Shaw who wanted to know, wanted you to know about that fake account on Blue Sky. It's not you. Okay. Thanks, Mark. My staff thanks you as well.

They will get on it. Now David writes in, can you ask Amber how, and again I'm just reading verbatim here Amber, how it's appropriate to put a shelter in an area that is approximately 3.2 square kilometers that already has 12 government assisted housing projects. Long Branch has one, by the way this is specific to New Toronto, I know your jurisdiction is more than New Toronto but that's our neighborhood here another issue is that this shelter which looks like it could be primarily or solely for adults is

going to be placed within 500 meters of two schools can you speak about this is only a recent announcement when we booked this visit this hadn't even been announced but there will be a shelter in New Toronto I can't remember third and late 66 Third Street right can you speak you know, why it's going there and maybe what it will be? There are many Torontonians, unfortunately too many Torontonians who don't have a place to go, a warm place. And today, as the winter is upon us and it's cold outside, I trust people could put their empathetic hats on and consider what it would be like to be in a situation

like that. We as an office have dealt since we've been in office with multiple situations of folks camped out in our parks, in local community centre parking lots and in other inappropriate spaces without dignity and without the kind of wraparound supports that they need to get back on their feet and to be successful in our city. So as I'm sure folks can appreciate there are huge costs not only to the individuals themselves in terms of the challenges that they're continuing to navigate but as a city right whether it's short-term temporary shelters hotel shelters which we're working really hard to get out of because it's inexpensive and inefficient.

We need as a city to have permanent spaces or you know temporary spaces that are purpose-built so that people have somewhere to go that is not our local parks or our local public spaces. So you know I think it's a it's a multi-fold attempt as we work really hard on the housing file to prioritize building more housing, getting more affordable housing online and things of that nature, which we've made really big strides on since Mayor Chao's come into office.

But in the short term, these are the realities. My team's worked incredibly hard. It takes months to resolve an encampment situation, finding appropriate spaces, etc., because there are none. So if people want to call us to be concerned about the impacts of having an encampment close by within 10 metres of your home or whatever the case may be, we want to be able to respond with real solutions, not clearing people out who have nowhere to go, overburdening our local Tim Hortons and coffee shops and TTC stations and buses, which is what we're seeing

and we know has a real impact. We're trying to stand up real solutions that are going to address these problems in the long term. Okay, so there's a need in this city to have more shelter space for our unhoused. Correct, a sincere need. A sincere need. Right. Now, the question that kept coming was basically, isn't New Toronto doing enough, like punching above its weight somehow? And they keep referencing this 12 government assisted housing projects

and everything in New Toronto,. So New Toronto was chosen because... So there were a list of a hundred potential options that city staff assessed. I'm sure folks can appreciate that there are a number of different criteria that need to be met for a site to even be you know considered eligible. So this was one of those sites that were shortlisted because of some of the local supports that are and local partners that are in the community providing wraparound supports, providing primary care, you know, the access to transit and things of that nature. So it's, you know, we really do try to do a fulsome assessment of all of the available options and of course we need to work with whatever rises at the top of the list.

In this case, the site in our ward on 3rd Street in New Toronto is the one. When is it going to open? Good question, I believe sometime in 27 or 28. We are at this point we're still far out from that right and it's really critical and we are very deeply devoted to the community engagement process to hearing from neighbors. There's a wonderful local group actually shout out to Public Progress, Bruce Davis over at Public Progress is working with the City to facilitate the engagement. So they've got, you know, a hotline, frequently asked questions, we will be holding space for

multiple community meetings and touch points. Well, to interject, so this is good that you're going down this road because Iham wrote in, he had a few things that have kind of been covered by that first because he's concerned about daycares in schools within 500. Like what would you say to Iham up there because his big question at the end is what can be done to push back on this? That's from Iham but it sounds like there's some consultations happening right now. Oh yeah so that's gonna be a really intensive process to start the conversation right. The site's been selected but it needs to be responsive to the community and it needs to reflect

the needs concerns and desires of the local community and that's the work that we will be doing over the coming number of months and probably into the year before there's a final design and you know all the operational pieces come together. We know that we got to get this right. We know that there are real concerns and real fears from residents about what this might mean and what potential negative impacts there could be. We've seen this done well in other areas of the city and we know what it takes to get to a good place where we're implementing in a thoughtful responsible way where residents feel respected as

stakeholders in this process. So IHAM is under the impression that upper, this is his words, upper-class neighborhoods don't have to, don't have such shelters being built in their neighborhoods and that it seems to happen in places like you know, third and Lakeshore. I know, so that's a quote, that's a direct quote here. I'm not, I don't even agree with the premise except he seems to think that places he specifically talks about areas like High Park with a more wealthy demographic don't have to carry some of this burden.

Yeah, I mean, thanks for the question. I think again, right, there's so much nuance to this. We can't just plop something anywhere. We've got to look at what do we own, what is surplus, you know, what is serviceable in terms of you know the site and things like that. Like there's so many considerations that go into this. It's not just as simple as like closing your eyes, putting on a blindfold and putting your finger down on a map, right? You don't just play darts. Yeah, it's quite an intensive and, you know, thoughtful

process just to get to this place and again that work continues before we get shovels in the ground. And the bottom line is the City of Toronto needs this. Absolutely. We literally had 12 individual folks camped out, encamped immediately beside a daycare in our ward, up against the fence of the daycare. That is not something we can accept and the only way forward from that is to actually create solutions that people can, that are more supportive you know and better resourced etc. But I understand the concerns and the fears that people have, I truly do.

But I also know that we all need to dig a little deeper and do a little better for each other and ourselves. Look you weren't City Councillor when they were going to put the shelter at 8th and Lakeshore, okay, right by the rogue byway. And I remember, you can ask Monica about this afterwards, there was a protest outside against this. I saw pictures of it recently. Right, right. And I, oh, that guy's on my street. Oh, there's my buddy there. And I never forgot the faces I saw.

I said, we need a protest in favour of these shelters for our unhoused. I said, I will lead the charge there. So when I'm taking that lane on Bloor, maybe I'll have signage that this whole NIMBYism pisses me off, to be very honest. We need more neighbors like you Mike. It's a big city. Absolutely. Biggest city in the country. Exactly. Look it up. Exactly. And not everybody here has the same access to opportunities as the rest of us, right? So, you know, it's the holiday season, you know, I think it's important for all of us to think about how we can be better neighbors, how we can be better individuals, and how we can appreciate that someone else's problem is our problem.

If, and the more we ignore it, the bigger it gets. So one more question on this front, because I think this is a fair question. It's from Brent, and Brent says, could you ask Amber about what is the plan for service improvements to account for the increased needs of the residents of this new home? LAMP, a place you're very familiar with Amber, and if you listen to our first visit, you'll learn why. LAMP is significantly understaffed and can barely manage the needs of the community today. At last check, there are zero family physicians accepting new patients in the new Toronto

area. And the closest hospital is 13 kilometres away with no direct transit routes or 7 kilometres to the closest urgent care, again with no direct transit route. So just speak to that and again this is not opening until maybe 2028 but of course there will be a need for these support institutions. Absolutely. So on the healthcare piece I would just say, yes, we're very lucky to have primary care available

at LAMP, for example. And unfortunate that the entire health care system is incredibly under pressure right now. So Doug should focus on that maybe instead of the bike lanes in Toronto. You got it. Oh, I heard today, I saw today on social media that he's going to meet with Trump about the tariffs so he wants to be Prime

Minister and Mayor of Toronto but he has no interest in being Premier of Ontario. I won't argue or comment on that but what I will say is that you know we do absolutely need more engaged leadership around the healthcare issue because whether it's mental health, addiction, you know again and talking about the necessary wraparound supports and the necessary pieces that we need people to have access to in order to be able to be successful. It's not all on the city and the city always punches above our weight and stepping in in areas that are a little bit outside of our purview, but that we ultimately pay for and have responsibility for when we shape our form.

So just in terms of the wraparound support piece and the resourcing around that, the intention around this shelter is that it will be a city-run site. I took it upon myself to go visit another city-run site similar to what is under consideration here to meet with the staff, to speak with some of the people who were calling that space home, you know, in the short term, and to understand exactly what it was that the staff do every day, what other round services and reports are available, etc. etc. So I have a lot of confidence in the approach that the city has. There is an incredibly

dedicated group of people and this is like really hard work. This is soul work. When you're taking care of people that are living rough, that are unhoused, that are needing to get connected, it really I think is commendable and important. And so anyways there's a great number of folks at the City of Toronto who do this work, get people connected to skills training, get them connected to all kinds of things to get onto their feet, get them onto housing wait lists, help them find long-term affordable housing,

getting connected to other level of government supports as well, so that they can move through, out of, and into stability once they leave the shelter system. And so that will all be in place and that will all be part of the operational plan that we stand up for the site coming to our community. Okay. I realize I promised an hour with you and I keep my promises down here, but I might need

several hours. Who knows? But I'm going to change the channel here. We'll come back again. Don't worry. You better come back, please. Just for the lasagna at least, and the fresh craft beer. Ian wants to know what moment or moments are you most proud of from your first two years as a counsellor?

Great question. Thanks Ian. I haven't quite gotten to the holiday season yet, so I'm not in my reflective mode, but I have been looking forward to having some time to unplug and really think about that question more intentionally. But something that came up this past year that I was proud of and I think was fairly well received was our work to advocate and stand up for something that I understand is still, I don't know how popular it is amongst the general public, but it was something I felt strongly about was the renaming of Yonge-Dundas

Square to Sankofa Square. And so, you know, that had been a fairly contentious and controversial issue, but I think it's something we needed to stand firm on and to see through for a lot of different reasons. And yeah, I don't often give speeches at council because I like to save my words for when they matter most or when they mean the most. But I did let the spirit move me that day at the debate and I stood up to say my piece and I was quite proud of how that landed because I think a lot of people were impacted by that and you know how to reached out to share thanks and just sort of acknowledging the importance of not only you know my sharing about my perspective on this work but also the value of having a leader who wants to follow through on the commitments we make and not just say things for popularity, but actually really, really commit themselves to equity, inclusion, truth, reconciliation, like all of the kinds of words that we all

love to throw around or, you know, think about buzzwords. Yeah. But, but, you know, there's a lot of real work and energy and attention that needs to go into these things to continue to move forward in a better way. All right, pop quiz hot shot. What does Sankofa mean? Sankofa is an African proverb that means to go back and sort of reflect and go back and get it kind of thing. So you can move forward in a better way.

And I think that's really reflective of the moment we are at as a society, as a civilization. And I think it's really important work that we all should be reflecting on in our own personal lives, in our history, our shared history. And as we vision and co-create the future that we will all share. Okay, I was actually hoping our women's professional hockey team would be nicknamed the Toronto Sankofas. The guy was lobbying, you can ask Ed Keene in that, he's got the season's tickets. Luke writes in, hello to Luke Murphy, good Irishman, he wants to know if you have an update on the Park Lawn Go station.

Yeah, so the Park Lawn Go station is a piece of work that we're excited to have. They're going to stop right there, it's a piece of work. He said it's a better piece of work. Yeah, so that was a site we inherited, as folks may know, as part of the redevelopment of the old Christie Cookie Factory in Park Long. There are quite a large number of high density buildings coming to that site, and as part of that their requirement for the developer to deliver a park long go station. So there's been a

lot of pre construction work underway. There's just one last sticking point that we've been convening staff to to move through and working with the applicant and the owner of the site there. But we expect construction to be starting in 25 and we hope will be delivered a couple of years after that. OK, as long as it's going to be built faster than the Eglinton Cross. I'm confident this set of builders, because I don't have that many years to go. Here, Amber, I can't wait for that. OK, by the way, Mr. two thoughts on Mr.

Christie, because I grew up in that area and when I go by the water tower, it's not really a water tower, whatever it is. Yeah, yeah, it's still there. But you, not you necessarily personally went up there on a ladder or anything and if you're white paint, but the Mr. Christie part has been blocked out. So was that like, because it's an existing brand name, there was some legal advice to get rid of the Mr. Christie? I wish I had an answer for you on that. That's a tough one.

This is the first question in time I've got that question. I asked a tough question. But we can look into it. And secondly, when we do finally open this, could we have, I don't know, some artificial system that pipes in the smell of cookies because that was one of the best smells in the city was going by the Mr. Christy. Yeah, it reminds me of Campbell's as well. We lost our Campbell's recently.

Yeah, did you get a smell? You're right, the tomato in the air. I miss that smell too. I smell the chicken noodle soup, yeah. I don't know that we'll be piping it in, but we will be having quite an extensive additional sort of network of mobility. We'll be having lots of other great things to support that community in a better way.

Yeah, but what is that gonna smell like? Including bike lanes. I don't know, good question, we'll see. Yeah. And then I know you're merely one of 25 on council, but why can't I bike to the island? It actually seriously pisses me off. There should be absolutely why can I there's a Already you got some kind of a tunnel going to the airport for the Porter, right? Why can't we bike via on the other side to the Portland's area?

It probably wouldn't even be very long bridge or some kind of bridge. And it can go up, lift up or whatever. I don't wanna rely on a ferry. These things are aged and expensive to maintain and for a million reasons. I mean, I got a kayak. So now I'm kayaking, but I wanna be able to bike to the Toronto Island. Yeah, you know what?

I think we might've had an item before us at council on this. I don't know that it went anywhere. I think it may be that Diane Saks. Who's putting in that good work? Because I'm good client of mine. I actually recall. I think it actually might have been Councillor Burnside. So worth looking into.

But yeah, I would defer to Deputy Mayor Malik. I know she's been working really hard on this. And we also have recently invested in some green, green electric ferries to better support that getting people back and forth from the island. I'm not sure if Bridges in the future but okay. Could be one of those ones that lifts up in case a boat or something needs to go by. I can visualize it you know I'm gonna be talking to Ed Keenan in a couple of weeks and I'm gonna be revisiting this desire of mine, this passion of mine to be able to bike to the island. Yeah.

Well, also the other thing I'll just flag is, you know, we do have budget season coming up and that's always a fun time at City Hall where we recognize that we A, have a structural deficit. So, it's very difficult for us to appropriately fund all of the responsibilities we have, including roads, TTC, you know, all of all of the whole suite of things. And there's more. You know, it kind of irks me to here because we're in the home stretchers.

I have a few more questions, but now I'm shooting from the hip here, which is it's going to cost however million, whatever it costs to rip up these bikes. And it's not just blue or I focus on blue because that's in your ward. Okay. But university and young. Okay. and I use all of these and they're great So when they rip these up is gonna be very expensive and then the minute The progressive conservative party is defeated and that might not be for a while But the minute is defeated we're gonna spend all that money and put them right back It's gonna become a symbolic principal thing that these bike lanes are going back

So it's going to become a symbolic principle thing that these bike lanes are going back. So it's just to me, it's like, it's so ludicrous, the expense and all of this, just to make it more dangerous and not to help at all. I actually had to go to Oshawa for work because I had to record with the good people at Rush and I'm sitting there in this traffic and I was thinking, oh, what bike lane do I blame for this traffic? I mean, to even consider that removing these bike lanes would alleviate congestion in this city, asinine. You can quote me on that, asinine. And you can leave out the inine part. I think there are a number of people

who follow that train of thought. And in fact, we were driving into City Hall just yesterday and above a couple of the bridges going across the Gardiner, they have the exact question you've just raised, right? Yeah, I've actually seen that. Yeah, so I think it's important though, right, that we kind of all are thinking about this, because as you say,

it's incredibly expensive to build infrastructure. It's incredibly disruptive to build infrastructure. And it takes time for people to adjust their, you know, patterns of behavior, et cetera, et cetera, and to better utilize the infrastructure once it's in place. So to expect that it is going to be the most bustling thing overnight is just not realistic and neither is taking it out and expecting that that's going to make anything better. So there are so many critical priorities including housing, including healthcare, that Torontonians

and Ontarians desperately need our leadership to be thinking seriously about and better utilizing the precious resources that we are all paying into and aren't always serving us as well as they should be. Chris Drew, no, Chris Drew comes out to my events. You did one, you at least one time I saw you at Great Lakes Brewery for a TMLX event in 2025. I got to get you back for another one. Yeah, we one time I saw you at Great Lakes Brewery for a TMLX event in 2025. I got to get you back for another one. Yeah, we'd love to join you. You got to give us like a two to three months heads up so

we can come on the calendar. Well, you know what? I'm thinking a Thursday in late June at Great Lakes Brewery, so I might have that heads up for you sooner than you think. But Chris Drew, who I've seen at a few events, writes in, for people who haven't been, what are some of your favorite local restaurants in Long Branch? He wants me to also tell you he tells people to check out Long Branch since there's a go station there plus multiple TTC routes and the waterfront trails. So Chris Drew, big fan of what's going on in Long Branch, my neighbor to the west. Yeah, Long Branch is wonderful. We love Long Branch. Long Branch is most, I think, famously known for the trees, the parks, and the waterfront,

which are all kind of my favorite things about Long Branch. Marie Curtis. Marie Curtis is one of them, yeah. There's Len Ford. There's a couple of really nice parks along the waterfront trail that you highlighted earlier. There are some great restaurants down in Long Branch and unfortunately I don't get out to them as much as I would like. In the second half of this term you're going to make more time for Amber and you and I are going to go to that, what is it, 800 and something.

850 degrees. 850 Fahrenheit. Yeah, yeah. The Pizzeria Pasta Shop, there's Holy Canoli really close to there as well, which has been wonderful. We saw them out at the Santa Claus parade and a fairly new one. George the Greek has got a good brunch place here.

The Greek is really good. Yeah. Um, there's, there's a number of ones and a very active BIA in the area, um, as well. So, you know, they do things like supporting the Christmas parade along the, along the lakeshore. Um, and so, yeah And so yeah, it's a wonderful place and space. So get out to the Long Branch folks if you haven't come to check

it out. I thought you were going to say it's a wonderful life. I thought, tis the season. Attaboy Clarence. All right. Jonathan, this is because now that we celebrated Long Branch, I was contractually obligated to mention them. Okay, Jonathan says, I would be curious to know what Amber's doing to help improve new Toronto's. See, it's a little new Toronto heavy. I don't apologize for that actually.

I'm a new Toronto gal. Yeah, that's true. You are one of ours. Okay, you're one of us, one of us. To improve our business area, to make it more attractive for new local businesses, to move into the numerous empty spots within the area.

For the seven years I've been here, Jonathan's been here seven, I've actually been here longer than seven. It feels like we've seen much less growth relative to Mimico, Boo, Mimico, Boo, and Long Branch. Yeah, I mean, again, thanks for the question. We work closely with our local BIAs, right? So we've got a Long Branch BIA, we've got a Lakeshore Village BIA. They meet monthly, my team is engaged with them.

We support things like the Grilled Cheese Festival, which I hope folks are familiar with and are planning to participate in the next annual. Great Lakes won it last year. Yes. And Ridley Funeral Home always does very well. Absolutely. It's Franklin Horner making the grilled cheese, not the funeral home. That's it, that. Yes. And Ridley Funeral Home always does very well. Absolutely. Franklin Horner making the grilled cheese, not the funeral. That's it. That's it. So, yeah, we support a number of the the festivals

and sort of large community events that are taking place to bring people on down and invite them out. In terms of the growth, like obviously, there's things that the city can do in terms of the like tax rate for small businesses and we fund our BIA offices and we do cost matching for things like streetscape improvement within the BPAs and things like that. So we continue to be engaged on those opportunities and doing the best that we can. I mean, like I said, I'm a new Toronto girl, so I do a lot of my own shopping and you know, I'm down at Kitchen Off 6,

I go down to the shoppers, right? Like my nail lady. The clog factory is- Yeah, the clog factory. That village vinyl. I was just gonna say, it still feels like a village here, right, in New Toronto. Like I go to, shout out to Angelina Nails on 10th Street.

But you know, no actual, we have a couple of places you can get your fruits and vegetables and stuff, but no actual grocery store in New Toronto. So you have to go to Mimico if you want to like do a big load for your family. Or to Long Branch. Yeah. Yeah. Or to Alderwood, right? We've got Farm Boy down in Alderwood. Oh, they got Il Paisano up there.

And we've got Il Paisano. I was going to call out Il Pai at the Long Branch thing, but I was like, actually, technically, I think that's Alderwood. So anyways, but great pizza. Shout out to South Etobicoke regardless. We love it here. Yeah, I'm not moving. Okay. So on our home stretcher, I did say that was the last question. I lied to you Amber, because Stephen,

and this is just an interesting- You should be a politician. Yeah, I got to talk out both sides of the mouth. I learned the trick here. And you got to wink when you're calling someone out in their bullshit. That's important. I will call out someone in their bullshit

and do a little wink and then it's okay. Yeah, we can still be friends. It's not a bug in my eye or anything. Steven with pH. I like that way of spelling. Steven, no judgment against the V's. That's just my preference. But he goes, I'm curious to know how Amber prioritizes the requests she

receives for local improvement. For example, speed zones, crosswalks, bike lanes. And I asked that to say that, I find anything my buddy Tyler, who was campaigning for you, but I get all the credit for your election, not Tyler. But he's like, oh, we need more lights in the Sam Smith dog park. And I was thinking, oh yeah,

like she must get a million of those requests. And then I was thinking, we need more bike, pole lockup things outside of Mimico arena, because there were three, a car hit one and it's gone. And the ring part is missing from the other so we're down to one. Just one, okay? My son and I might be the only two humans who actually bike to his hockey practices but that's another story in itself. So you must get a million of those kind of things. Like how do you prioritize those kind of requests from your

constituents? Yeah, I love the question. Thank you. So teamwork makes the dream work, baby. I do not do it on my own. I promise you that. We have 142,000 residents here just in Etobicoke Lakeshore in our little ward. And when I say little, I'm just kidding. It's the largest and fastest growing ward. Yeah. So I have a team, an amazing team of colleagues who work in my office. We specifically have a group of five constituency advisors. They each have responsibility for various neighborhoods within the community, and they navigate and support residents through those kinds of, you know, hyperlocal or various individual

or specific requests and needs. So we have a process, we've got a system. If folks ever need anything from me as their local counselor, we encourage them to send us an email we've got a system. If folks ever need anything from me as their local councillor, we encourage them to send us an email or give us a call. Our email is councillor underscore morley at toronto.ca for anybody in need. And there's a process. My deputy chief of staff, Ossie, who's with me here today, she oversees and supports those

teams or that teams rather. And as a former constituency assistant myself, we have a pretty good feel for how to navigate and how to work through the city. Sometimes it's a matter of education because people have requests or desires for things that are not possible or not under purview or we have policies against or et cetera, et cetera. So there's a lot of sort of, you know,

just constituency management in terms of receiving, providing information, and then getting into the queue. So for example traffic calming was one of the examples. We're really proud actually of our record in the last two years of implementing traffic calming in our ward. We've gotten really I think quite good at it and have great relationships with staff so when we hear from residents with requests like that we know what to do. They often flow through community council. So if it's a tree cut request, which please don't send those, we really hate them.

We love our trees here in Etobicoke. But of course we deal with those fence, exemptions and traffic calming are some of the things we do at community council. And my team and I work closely together to steward those opportunities. So it's like a giant Google spreadsheet I envision. It's huge.

Well, we've got a click up. We've got a for action. You know, got a constituency management system. It's been a whole thing, which we built from scratch because we inherited nothing when we started this job. Really? Oh, yeah. There's a little insight into what was going on before.

OK. But so the two things we can add to the list, obviously, because this is a recorded legally binding conversation, is of course, there will be more lights in the Sam Smith dog park. That's for the VP of sales Tyler Campbell. And I'm going to get a you're going to fix those two screwed up bike posts inside a MIMICO arena. So we got the MIMICO arena note for sure. We'll have to double check because we do have some policies around park lighting, generally, so that it would be an opportunity for education,

but we'll take it back. I will say this, Tyler does need to be educated. Yeah. Won't be the first time we had to get you in. And shout out to you, Tyler, thank you for helping us on the campaign. Absolutely. And I actually, my son plays on the same team as TJ's son.

TJ of course, was I believe the person who put me in touch with you back in 2022 when you made your Toronto Mike debut. TJ's a legend. We have lots of big love for TJ. He was part of our campaign team and still a good friend in the neighborhood. And just before I thank our sponsors and wrap up this episode, you're now like your deputy

mayor. You said there's four in this city? There are four, that's correct. Okay. You're a first time counselor, two years deep into this important role. Two years to go. I peg you as a future mayor of this city. Okay, honestly, I'm telling you.

So you had my vote two years ago, you'll have my vote again. Am I aiming too low? Like, are you thinking MPP, maybe MP or maybe PM? Any desire to become mayor of the city one day? I'm taking it day by day and you know ultimately I am very much a servant leader. I believe that we need to have good people doing good work to move us all forward in a better direction and I'm deeply devoted to that. So wherever the call calls me, I will more

than likely put my hand up and show up. But for now, it's all about Etobicoke Lakeshore, it's all about Toronto and we're so proud and privileged to be here and hopefully making our community proud and confident in our ability to do this work. And Amber, I love this very much. You're very good on the mic chatting with me down here. We should have an official Amber Morley podcast recorded out of this basement TMDS production. That's me, myself and I. And we should, this would be a great way for you to communicate with your constituents. I love it.

I really do. And we are trying to amplify that. We're taking on a little bit less workload at City Hall and trying to be a lot more engaged locally and finding more ways to bring people in and along this really important journey because we all got a role to play. So I will follow up with you on that offer, Mike. Thank you. And thanks for dropping by today. My pleasure.

Thanks for having me and happy holidays, everyone. Happy holidays. And that brings us to the end of our 1,605th show. Go to torontomike.com for all your Toronto Mike needs. I'm on Blue Sky as I said at torontomike.com and hopefully Amber's there at some point soon and I can tell everybody this is the real Amber Morley except no substitutes. Much love to all who made this possible. That's Southern Etobicoke's own Great Lakes Brewery. Southern Etobicoke's own Ridley Funeral Home. Kind of going to go with it. Southern Etobicoke's own Ridley Funeral Home. Kind of going to go with it.

Southern Etobicoke's own Monaris because they're at Bloor and Islington. Come on. RecycleMyElectronics.ca, the guy who runs that show, does live in Southern Etobicoke. And this somehow, Palma Pasta is in the mix, even though they're in Mississauga. Come on, what's going on? But thank you, Palm Apostas. Don't leave without your lasagna. See you all for the annual Festivus episode with my buddy Elvis that records on Monday. See you all then. So So Music