Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Avery Haines: Toronto Mike'd #184

Episode Date: July 22, 2016

Mike chats with City journalist Avery Haines about her sister's musical career, her controversial episode at CTV NewsNet, her years at CityTV and sharing her story of love following the shooting in Orlando.

Welcome to episode 184 of Toronto Mike's, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a local independent brewery producing fresh craft beer. I'm Mike from TorontoMike.com and joining me this week is broadcaster Avery Haynes. Welcome Avery. Thank you so much. Is it hot enough for you out there? I was just saying, I love the fact that we're down in the basement

and it's nice and cool and cozy down here. It's stinky hot. It is hot. And I actually am like one of those annoying guys who when it's like 35 degrees, like it doesn't bother me. And I'm like, it's fine. But I went for a bike ride at lunch

and I don't know, I must have sweat like buckets of water like and my eyes were burning because like I had all this like sweat in my eyes and I'm like this is really hot I like the heat I like the heat I've got air conditioning I haven't used it once I sleep on the third floor of my house I've got a fan on yeah I like the heat but even sleeping because I actually am with you if if I were a single man here I would never use that AC But sometimes to take the edge off at night because I stick to the sheets, like sleeping, I like it a little cooler. I find like the fan just cools you down in a non-artificial way.

It's old school cooling. No, I like that. I like that. I like that. Now, did I see on Twitter that you were just in Cleveland? I was. I just got back last night. Well, okay.

So I got, I got to start with this. So is this, and also, was this your week off? Like, was this like a... I know that sounds really ridiculously nerdy. Yeah. Tell me like, so this was something you did cause you're like a news junkie. Um, I had the week off and Cleveland fascinates me. Well, Ohio, Cleveland fascinates me as a city anyway. I wouldn't have gone there had there not been the Republican National Convention on, I will not lie. And I just felt like I needed to see it firsthand. No, I get it.

I actually get it. But it's just interesting because when you first were coming on, I said, oh, she's got the week off, so she's coming on. My wife, I told my wife this. And then at some point, we're watching the Republican Convention, and I said, oh, Avery Haynes is there. And she's coming on. My wife, I told my wife this. And then at some point, we're watching the Republican convention and I said, oh, Avery Haynes is there. And she's like, oh, it's her week off.

And I'm like, yeah, I think she's one of those news junkies who just goes to where the story is, just is always like... You know, we took a road trip. Mel and I took a road trip. It's a five-hour drive. And I knew that we would have a crew down there. So I sort of acted as a producer, which was amazing.

Wow. Got into all kinds of mischief and recorded it all and got to feed all that stuff back. But I had none of the pressure of kind of reporting on and off the camera. Right, because yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, fascinating to me. So I watched, and I think I watched almost like just, it was like there was this train wreck and I had to see it.

So I tuned in every night. I want to know from somebody who was there uh you were like on the streets of Cleveland but you weren't inside I didn't go into the convention so I didn't have any accreditation so I was just sort of in the crazy well it was crazy I think inside and outside I think that's pretty safe to say so what did tell me what you thought these four days in Cleveland. So I, I mean, I think I anticipated something entirely different than, than what it was going to be. I think I was a bit worried about going, um, just given all of the history of what's happened in the States recently, knowing that there were going to be a lot of protests, knowing that Cleveland has an open gun law.

Is that like open carry? Is that what they call that? Open carry, right. So I had all this, and I also knew that Cleveland had set up this public square, and it didn't seem as though it was going to be very workable

because they had white supremacists beside new Black Panthers. They had, everybody was going to sort of be in this one square. So it felt as though it was going to be tricky, and it wasn't. Okay, good. That's good. Yeah, there was, I've never seen so many cops in my life. Thousands. Yeah.

Every single corner, there were 40 or 50 cops from all over the state. So you'd see all the different uniforms, massive man-shinery, gun, crazy, crazy, gun, gun. And they were incredibly synchronized in diffusing things when they flared up. I was really impressed by the way police, I think some people may have felt it was overly militarized. I felt like they were synchronized in this incredible way of viewing when things were going askew and moving in and stopping it, using their bicycles, using their yelling. And it worked. I mean, we didn't hear about any violence or anything scary.

Yeah, I think we all expected the worst. I think we were all relieved. There were reporters there from, there were more reporters than there were protesters. So the hierarchy, the Venn diagram of sort of 200 protesters maybe, there were 15,000 accredited journalists. Yeah. And there were, I think there were almost 4,000 cops.

So really, and so you'd see one protester say something, and it was like those cartoons where you see all the trailing media going after it. It was like a big scrum of people around this one thing. Yeah, you know, I got into a situation where there was, I think they called themselves the Revolutionary Communist Party, and they had decided they were going to burn an American flag, which doesn't go down well in the States. At the best of times, people are not so fond of...

Although you have the constitutional right to do this. You do. Is that right? You do. But most don't realize that. They think you're committing some great crime, let alone maybe treason even. Yeah.

Well, I think in a very patriotic country, that feels a little bit unpatriotic. So I was right there as it happened, and the flag starts going up in flames. People who are against the protesters are jumping on the protesters. People are getting burned. And then all of a sudden, it's like this.

Hundreds of cops swarming in, sort of ripping them off each other. A couple people got burned. I think a dozen got arrested. Okay. Yeah. So you're in the mix of all this, and it's because

like you mentioned, you only went to, although Cleveland, you wanted to see anyways, the, the main reason you went is because the convention was happening in Cleveland. That was not a coincidence. Like, oh yeah, while we're in Cleveland, let's check out. No, you know what? I think we're at a really interesting time politically and socially. I just think it's, these are crazy, crazy times. And I sort of felt drawn to witnessing it. And I saw a lot of crazy in Cleveland, I got to say. I saw a lot of crazy in Cleveland. So where would you go when the big speeches were happening?

Did you watch them or were you basically outside just seeing? I was outside watching the people watch the things. Have you ever been to Cleveland? No. It's a very cool city. It's a very cool city. It's a very cool city. I think they used to call it the mistake by the lake.

Yes. And so it's very blue collar and it's one of the few American cities where the downtown actually is thriving. Beautiful warehouse spaces with incredible restaurants

and they spent the city of Cleveland spent 55 million dollars creating this public square for this convention. Cool. Crazy. Cool, that's crazy. It's crazy.

$55 million. Okay, yeah, I know, it's crazy, but at least it's progress. Yeah, it's progress. They're building something. And the downtown is gorgeous. I'm trying to think of what neighborhood it's like here. It's just a very...

The buildings are all old and beautiful. Food's great. Lots of little pockets of neighborhoods. Okay, you know, the reputation is very poor and beautiful uh food's great lots of little pockets of neighborhoods okay can you know the reputation is very poor and i think it's become a joke sort of like buffalo too has this going on but you know those very popular youtube videos about the the cleveland tourism board you remember these yeah yeah yeah and it was like jokes about lebron the whole economy is based on lebron james and just you know and uh i think it's yeah it's fun to poke fun at cleveland but it everyone who goes there says it And I think it's, yeah, it's fun to poke fun at Cleveland,

but everyone who goes there says it's not nearly, it's not only that it's not as bad as it seems, it's actually a really nice city. I found it a beautiful city. I mean, there are massive problems with wage inequality, with poverty, definitely. And I think that it's one of those things where when you're in the good corner,

you stay in the good corner because I think it can get kind of dicey on the outskirts. So did you ever catch Donald Trump's speech last night? I did watch Donald Trump's speech last night. So it leaked because I read it like an hour before it was said

and when I read it, it actually read differently than it played out to me. So when I read it, I read it and I thought, oh damn it, Trump's got a really good speech here. I was like, oh this is really, this is going to kill. But when I listened to him deliver it, I read it and I thought, oh, damn it. Trump's got a really good speech here. And I was like, oh, this is really, this is going to kill. But when I listened to him deliver it, it seemed far more negative and angry than it read on the paper, if that makes sense. I didn't read it beforehand. I saw that it had come out.

But I also know he's got a huge propensity for going off script. And I think that terrifies everyone who's on his team. It felt really Hunger Games-ish. It felt like the Hunger Games. Somebody on Reddit, I've got to give credit to Reddit, but they had a photo of Trump and he had his whatever, there was 30 US flags behind him in a big picture and they said, this is like

from a dystopian future movie. You're watching a movie about the dystopian future and this would be a scene out of that. It just seemed kind of scary. It felt futuristic and also frighteningly historic. It felt like the past as well. We've seen similar kind of speeches. Yeah, it felt a bit spooky. Yeah. So I found it fascinating on your week off. You went to where the news was happening. I think you're a news junkie, but there's nothing wrong with that. Well, you know what? I love going to interesting places and Cleveland felt like a

pretty interesting place to be on this week. Yeah, and there's some interesting beer in front of you, I've got to point out. That's going home with you, so that's from Great Lakes Brewery, which is like Royal York and Queensway is where their HQ is, and I noticed they have,

you can go there and get for five bucks or something, they pour you a cold glass of beer, and they have a food truck that comes during the day. Like people can go there for lunch and have a beer on the patio. Anyway, they're good people. And that's your that's a gift because it's like a little goodie bag. Yeah, it's like a goodie bag. And I told the story before, but somebody and I won't name them, but somebody I did this thing I just did with you.

Like there's your beer. And then afterwards I stopped recording. And then I said, oh, don't forget your beer. And they said they thought it was a prop and just something you say, but they didn't think they really got the beer. So I'm letting you know, you really get that beer. I will be sipping on that when I go home. And that would be pretty mean, I think, to give somebody a six pack. A prop for radio doesn't work very well either, does it? Yeah, that's right. And then as you leave, I pull it back and say, no, I was just,

you don't really get that beer come on not for you uh also i want to remind everybody if they want to crowdfund toronto mic uh patreon.com slash toronto mic is where you go to do that so thanks to everybody who has and if you don't want to cough up any money and you just want to listen to this for free at least review this podcast on it. It's something that helps it get exposure there. So if you can spend, like, I don't know, it takes you like 90 seconds, go on iTunes and leave a review unless it's a negative review.

And then don't do it. I got to play a track. It's actually no joke. And you're going to think I'm making this up. But this is one of my favorite, like, songs of all time. Okay, this is... I might know this. And I know we're going back

of this one, right? Because this was a New World Underground or whatnot. Old World Underground. Old World Underground. Close, close. Close enough.

But I don't know. My brain says that's like 10 years ago, but it could even... I don't know. I gotta say, I think it's a bit longer. Okay, like 11, 12 or something.

Great album. Great album. Great album. Yeah. And this is what I would call a fun fact. Your sister is Emily Haynes, the voice we're hearing right now, lead singer of Metric.

That's right. You knew that, though. I did know that. I would win in trivia right there if you said, who is her sister? I asked on Twitter if anyone has a question for Avery Haynes, and someone said, ask her if Emily Haynes is her sister.

I'm like, that's not like something you ask. It's like, that's a fun fact you throw out. But I was going to throw it out anyway. So I guess my first question is not about you, but your sister, if that's okay. Absolutely. So when did you know she had made it? Like, was it like one day you heard this on like 102.1 or something?

Like, when was the moment you knew that this was really something for Metric? You know, I'd been going to listen to Em playing all the way. Em lived with me when she was in high school. So my family lived north of Toronto. She recognized fairly early that being in a small town was not going to be a place

that would give her a high school experience that she probably needed. Right. And she got accepted into Etobicoke School of the Arts. I know it well. Yeah. And so I was at Ryerson in Radio and Television Arts.

And so we lived together. So she lived with me through her ESA years. And so all those guys from Broken Social Scene, from Stars, Amy Milan, Kevin Drew, all those guys all went to school together. It's like this, it's like a, I always said I would love to have done a reality TV show on them.

Because they're all amazing. They're all incredible. You're right, because sometimes you'll see broken social scene and there's so many of them. I always consider it like a collective. And you're right, there's always that interweaving with stars and metric, etc.

Stars is Amy Milan. I mean, that was Em's best friend growing up. And that's a great band. A really great band. I love them. Yep, absolutely. In fact, one of my favorite songs

is Your Ex-Lover is Dead. Amazing. Which is, yeah, and it's just, I can't get sick of it. Yeah, good stuff. Good stuff. If you're out there

looking for some good can-con, that's where it's at. Yeah, you've got to check them out. I don't know when I recognized that she... So I went to every single show. I'd see her performances in high school. When did I know she had made it? You think there's that moment.

I don't have any musicians in the family, but I know 102.1 played this song a lot, Edge 102. And just the fact that your sister's band is now getting regular rotation on Toronto Alternative Rock Radio, that's got to be some validation there that this isn't just

one of those, this is really happening. There's a career here. I think we always knew there was a career. Emma is an incredibly hard worker and you know, first of all, unbelievably creative and talented, but also a real business woman.

And so I don't think that it was any surprise to any, any of us that she would be so successful and be so good at what she does. You know, I still get like butterflies in my stomach when she's about to perform of just like, I hope it all goes all right. You know, that's sort of de facto fear for her.

Yeah, for sure. For sure. So she's fantastic, but you're both, you know, you're both fantastic in your chosen field. So how did you end up such different pursuits? Like one, the creative artistry of music and then one like journalism. Like, so how did you, did that happen and you both you both were successful in your fields which is also very cool and my brother is also very successful who has this amazing record store in peterborough um he you know tim tim stuck with vinyl before vinyl was cool right and anyone ever goes to peterborough to Blue Streak, because here's a guy who does it because of love of music and also love of vinyl.

You know, he should have, if he had a business plan, he would have been completely... Oh, crap. I didn't mean to forget Tim. I didn't know Tim existed until right now. I feel bad now. That's okay. I think that's, you know, he's the oldest brother, and I think he's real happy to have his sisters take the limelight. But he's pretty amazing.

He's got this great, great vinyl record store in downtown Peterborough. Cool. I don't know. You know, I don't think in our family success was never measured by money and it was never measured by public adoration or fame at all. My dad was an incredibly successful, talented writer or fame at all. My dad was an incredibly successful, talented writer and never got, never got, nor, nor I don't, I think he probably would have loved to have the kind of

profile that he probably, that he deserved, but that was never on the radar. And I, this is going to sound flaky, but I really believe when you find something that you love, Em loves music. You don't, you can't fake that. No. And I love telling stories and I love interviewing people and I love meeting people and exploring. And I'm just crazy grateful that it actually is a job.

Yeah, if you do what you love, you never work a day in your life. Is that what somebody said? I know. I don't want it to be quite so corny, but I don't think like, I mean, Em and I didn't sit out with master plans of, okay, listen, if I do this,

I'm going to get this and this and this and this. It all sort of organically happened that we, and that's what I think is the luckiest thing when you're young, is to find something that you love. And I think that's probably a big challenge with a younger generation of not finding that. Do you think, though, today,

it's, you know, trying to crack it as a journalist today, that it can be, I don't want to say, but it can be difficult to make a living at that if you start it out today? I don't think there's a new model for how to make money in media.

There's just, you know, media is changing so much. The days of making a gajillion dollars and standing in front of a camera and reading a teleprompter are done. That really is done. So there's a massive new online

ability for sharing stories, telling short stories. There's a huge need for content, great content. It's just, how do you make money at it? I don't know. And it doesn't help that Ann Romer keeps unretiring. I just heard this. She's unretired twice.

I just heard this. Just so you know. Heads up. You don't have any insight on that, right? What do we do in retiring twice? Because you retire twice with too much fanfare, and you get your farewell gifts, and they make a lot of noise about it.

And then you come back, and there's no acknowledgement that you actually just retired six months ago. But one time we might almost forgive the one time, but to do it twice, like, are we stupid? It's like getting married a whole bunch of times and still asking for presents.

Yes, it is. Except yeah. Like pretending like each wedding is your first. I have no idea on the Ann Romer comeback. Um, I, maybe she just loves it so much.

She can't stay away. Clearly, clearly. All right. We'll move on from Ann Romer and let's talk about how you started. So correct me if I'm wrong. You mentioned Ryerson and then you end up on CFRB. Is that the first? No. When I was in high school, I worked at CKLY in Lindsay on weekends in grade 11 and 12. Okay. Which is hilarious.

I was a newscaster on the weekends. So remind me where Lindsay is. I'm going to sound real stupid here. So Lindsay's up near Peterborough, Corthas. Oh, yeah. Okay, okay. So I went in.

It's actually kind of a crazy... I met a woman. I've never been able to find her. I've had radio shows trying to find this woman. I was working at a restaurant while I was in high school, and she came in and she said,

you know, you have a beautiful voice. I said, really? She said, have you ever thought about doing radio? And at that point, I had just come from the guidance counselor, and I dropped grade 10 four-level math, which means they showed me all the jobs that I would never be able to do because I didn't have math. And I thought, oh, my God,

because I had no idea what I wanted to do. And she worked for Consumer Affairs for the government and her region was Kawarthas. And she came back the next week to my house and dropped off all of these little consumer hints like

how to clean your shoelaces with bleach. You know, like crazy little consumer hints. And she said, you should go to the local radio station and pitch a show. So I went and I had this idea. Okay.

I had this idea of Hanes' helpful hints because the alliteration seemed, at the time it just felt like it was really smart. Triple H before the wrestler. That's good. And so they turned me down for that, but they did offer me a job wearing a bikini on a boat. Of course.

And so I turned that down because nothing seemed more horrible than that. And you had the right voice for it. I had the right voice for the bikini on the boat. And then they called me a couple months later and asked if I'd come in and read on the weekends, read newscasts on the weekends. So, yeah.

You know, that lady who told you you'd get a great voice, no one ever said to me, I have a great voice. That's why I didn't end up on radio. I never had that moment where someone says, you know, you have a great voice. Never heard it. Yeah, but look what you've made happen. Like, this is kind of cool. This is kind of cool. It is cool. It's like pump up the volume or whatever. I'm Christian Slater. I heard on Harry. But maybe that woman, I know you said you haven't been able to track her down. So I'm pretty sure she's probably a subscriber to this podcast. She can reach out to me.

I'll hook her up with you. And it's funny because I'm transferring her name with someone else. I know her first name was Joanne. Yeah. But I tried to find her for a lot of years and I never could because I wanted to say thank you

because I really feel as though, you know, I'd always loved news and, you know, and our family was always about talking about what was happening in the world and being aware of the stuff that was happening in the world but yeah i feel like i owe her a lot so cklb it's neat how life has like those touchstones like those moments that sort of put that thought in your head that kind of changed like your whole like life and they're just minor

little passing moments and and people who usually uh present the moments have no idea how significant they end up being it's just i would for you to meet this woman and tell her. If anyone knows, what's it, Joanne? It's Joanne, and she worked for Consumer Corporate Affairs, and her district was the Kawarthas. Okay, someone will help us out. Somebody will help us out. All right, so does this lead to CFRB 1010?

No. I'm going to fire my research staff, by the way. Yeah, because you probably haven't heard of the other places I've worked. So I started at Ryerson. I got a job in my first year at Cozy 95 in Chatham, which was amazing. I was there when they first went on the air. It was a bunch of farmers from Chatham decided to open up a radio shop. Okay.

And so I did news for the summer in Cozy 95 in Chad. Like Les Nesman's pig report? Was it the... I actually did have to do... I had no idea. There's a farm report. It's the stocks but not the financial stocks.

Right. I actually did have to do that. Yeah. Probably definitely not the financial stocks. But yeah, I remember like Les Nesman delivering

the price of pork or something like that. I remember this. Pork bellies. Yeah or something like that. I remember this. Pork bellies. Yeah, I did that. I did that. That's good. Someone's got to do that.

Yeah. So then I went to, at the time, CFTR. I had an internship at- That's exciting to me because that's my station from when Tom Rivers was doing the morning show there. This is, yeah, I guess the 80s, I guess. But that was my station. Okay. So wait. So Larry Silver was there. Yeah. I was there. This is, yeah, I guess the 80s, I guess. But that was my station. Okay, so wait.

So Larry Silver was there. Yeah. Why was there? Evelyn Macko. Yeah, well, that's when, okay, so then, yeah, because the news team stays on when they turn to,

so they switch to all news and like, I want to say like 93 or something. I'm going to say, I think it was about 93. So they fire all the guys like Tom Rivers who are music DJ guys

and they keep the news guys which includes the curmudgeon guy with the... Dick Smythe. Dick Smythe. No, but I was there when it was a radio station. Right, right. When it was music. When it was Top 40. Yeah, when it was Top 40.

Great. That's when I listened, when it was Top 40. I didn't want to make it sound like I'm listening to the 1010 traffic and weather together or whatever. 680, 680. Right. Okay, cool. CFTR, yeah. So you're at. Right. Okay, cool. CFTR, yeah. So you're at CFTR.

So I was at CFTR. Second year Ryerson. I applied for a job at CFRB. And they offered it to me. And I was in second year Ryerson. And the guy who offered it to me, David, God, I'm going to blank on his name because he's a really sweet guy. It'll come it to me, David, oh, God, I'm going to blank on his name because he's a really sweet guy.

It'll come back to me, was really concerned about my ruining my education by taking this job. For me, it was like CFRB was it. That was the station for news in this country. 100%. It was the place to be if you love news and you love radio. And they were offering me an afternoon anchor job. which was just killer i was yeah i was 19 yeah no that's amazing yeah that doesn't happen anymore no no i think he and in fact unless i believe he had a conversation with my parents that's how young i was are you okay and my parents knew that you know i wasn't after the degree i was

after the job right no that No, that's amazing. Yeah, so I started there when I was very young. And you worked like 11 years there? Yeah, just about 12 years, yeah. And you worked for Bill Carroll. Bill Carroll came near the end. I worked for Dave Agar, Taylor Parnaby, Torben Withrup was one of the guys from back then.

This was a man's newsroom, right? I mean, it was really, I'd come in in the mornings and they'd have Leave Naked Playboy magazines on my desk. It made me tough. Let's just say it made me tough. It made me tough. Oh, yeah. I can imagine.

So what kind of years are we looking at here so this is like so that was up until 2000 okay so like yeah through the 90s yeah yeah i mean i don't see i have to admit that was never my station but the uh like the reputation that was that was the station you know the older set would listen to or whatever to hear like they're yeah that was the that was the station 1010 wally crowder i mean these it was older very kind of waspy um radio listening it's changed a lot i mean they've they've definitely made themselves more relevant and sort of street yeah uh nothing's a street is the they don't even want to be CFRB anymore.

Now it's News Talk 1010. In fact, I once got a note from somebody reminding me when I would refer to it as CFRB, reminding me that it's now News Talk 1010. Yeah, there's a whole generation that would never know what CFRB was. It's the call letters, Mike. At some point, I guess the call letters,

except some exceptions. You still call it CHFI, I noticed. Like there's some exceptions and it's still Chum FM. But more or less, like with CFNY and things like that, at some point, the call letters became, I guess, uncool and everything had to have like a nickname or whatever. And they just got dropped at some point. I think part of it is that people are still,

I mean, radio is also dying. You know, they need to get their call letters in there. Because if you say CFNY, that's not telling you exactly where it is, right? I mean, 1010 has to be 1010, so you got it. Right, right, right. You're right. But now, yeah, now they want Edge 102, for example. But, yeah, you got to tell them where it is.

But, yeah, radio is, but I've been hearing the radio is dying. This is a whole different episode here. But, I mean, the radio is dying. I'm sure it's dying. But, I mean, stations like, sure it's dying, but stations like CHFI, and even the 1010 there, and Chubb FM, they seem to be making

lots of money. I guess this is the last water in the well or whatnot? I don't know. I think that everyone's been so off on predictions. I think everything is morphing. I think it's actually kind of a cool time to be in the media because everyone's got to really be thinking about how to stay relevant.

Well, all of a sudden, everybody has to sort of multi... Everything. You know what I mean? You've got to go to Cleveland. You've got to drive down there. I don't have to. You know, the interesting thing is I didn't tell my bosses I was going to Cleveland because I didn't want it to be that I was going for work.

I just helped out when I was there. And the thing, yeah, now we all have like, we all have video, what am I trying to say? We all have a camera in our pocket and we can all take video in our pocket. We all have a mic, we can all record in our pocket with our smartphones.

So it's just like everybody's everywhere and it's all multimedia and digital. Well, for Citi, you know, we feed, as a reporter, we're feeding a two-hour, because we're from five to seven, we're feeding a two hour because we're from five to seven we're feeding two hours of broadcast content but we're also supplying digital web stories uh 680 is also one of our uh one of our companies so we're also filing filing for 680 so the days of

sort of doing one story at six yeah so long gone yeah yeah it's a whole holy bargain all right so the bill car, though. So he comes in at the end. I guess I just wondered if you ever kept in touch with Bill Carroll because it's one of those, like, I don't want to say polarizing,

but I seem to get a lot of notes about Bill Carroll, like asking me where he is now, what happened and all this stuff. I know he's in Ottawa. Oh, is he in Ottawa? Yeah, because he was in L.A. He was in L.A.

And then he came back. He was just doing 640 in Toronto. I thought that was simulcast with L.A. No was in L.A. And then he came back. He was just doing 640 in Toronto. I thought that was simulcast with L.A. No, no. Or he was doing, you know what? He was doing it from L.A. He was doing it from L.A. Yes, but it was a whole separate project.

Some of it was live and maybe some was recorded, I think. But bottom line is he's not at 640. He hasn't been there. I think he left six months ago or something. But he's in Ottawa. I haven't stayed in touch with him. Really nice guy. Good guy.

I don't know, touch with him. Really nice guy. Good guy. I don't know, you know, on air. I think that when you're a talk show host, you kind of have to learn how to make everything a thing. And so that pisses people off or they love it. Well, yeah, the worst thing, I guess, for a host would be to be immemorable, like to be, sorry,

somebody who's bland and boring and forgettable. You need to be sort of noticed, whether it's up. I think you need to stand out, I would think. Well, you have to have an opinion on everything. I got approached a couple of years ago about doing talk radio, and I just don't think I'm that angry. You do have to be angry about lots of things. I don't. Sometimes I just want to actually listen to what people

who are far smarter than me think about it. I don't, sometimes, or sometimes I just want to actually listen to what people who are far smarter than me think about it. Right. I don't want to be pontificating and there's a time where. Right, yeah. And they call it, now the new term,

I can't stand it, but it's hot takes and you have to have a hot take on everything and you need it right away and sometimes you don't have time to like do your homework and come up with

what you really think. You sort of take, I'm going to, this is the side everyone's on, I'm going on that side because that'll get people hitting the phones and talking and listening. And don't you find though, I don't know, this is a, this is probably a flaw of mine, but I'll feel, I think a certain way about

something and then I'll meet someone, I'll listen to them. It's like, yeah, you're right. And then I'll hear someone else's arguments. Like, yeah, but you're kind of right too. I don't think I'd make a good talk show host. It's true. It's like, I just, I just went through, I had Ed Keenan on from the star and like, we're all like hating on this one-stop subway station in scarborough whatever like i'm like yeah like i'm really into it and then later i just read something else that i sort of warming up like okay i see like it's part of this whole bundle and you lose the whole bundle if you lose that and it's you're right it's like you know you need some time to sort of like absorb all the like facts yeah and then you then come up with...

You can't have that hot take instantly unless it's for therapeutic purposes only. You need a little bit of time to sort of hear both sides before you come to your hot take. But I think that's the flaw in talk radio that relies on agitating people. I think that radio is such a fantastic venue for longer-form interviews and, you know,

the stuff that CBC does where you're actually learning something. What somebody from Etobicoke or downtown Toronto feels about an issue is far less sort of relevant to me than someone who's an expert or sort of into whatever the topic is. Yep. And, you know, the reason this exists, this whole Toronto Mic thing, is because everything was in sound bites and, like, 15-second clips and everything was...

I felt like there was no chance to actually, like, follow up and kind of dig beneath the surface and, like, have... You said you like to tell stories. Well, I like to hear stories.

Yeah. So, like, I just try to, like, extract stories from people and see how all the pieces fit together and whatnot. But you can't do that in like two minutes. You need some time. And I think that that's kind of, except for CBC, I don't think

many people are doing that anymore. No, and most podcasts I listen to these days happen to be CBC productions because they'll give an hour to a topic and they'll do a deep dive with experts. It's fascinating. It is. Cool.

All right. Now, we talked about the great CFRB, but at some point you end up at CTV Newsnet. Is that after CFRB? So that was after CFRB. Christy Blatchford, it seems like so long ago, thankfully. Christy Blatchford, because she was, as she is still now doing stuff on 1010, Christy Blatchford and I were having this conversation.

She says, you've got to get into TV. And I said, I don't know. I love radio. It's so intimate. I can wear mismatching socks. I just don't feel like it's really my thing. And she got me connected with Doug Bassett, who I think that was back before Rogers and Bell and everybody else.

That was when CTV was a family-owned business. Right. And so I had this meeting with Doug, and he connected me with Joanne McDonald, who's this incredible woman who's still at CTV. And they offered me a job at this very beginning stages of, of Newsnet. I don't even know how long it had been on the air. Um, so I hadn't, you know, zero television. I knew news. I didn't know TV. And on my first, uh, my first drive out there, you know, it's way out in Asian court and it's early in the morning on a weekend. And to get to my mom's, I drive up the DVP to go up north. And as I'm driving, this sickening feeling in my stomach of,

I don't think I want to do this anymore. I think I just want to go back to CFRB. I thought I could just keep driving. And I honestly thought the turnoff was coming to go into the agent court. And I probably should have just kept driving. But I didn't. I went in, and it was what it was. Okay. So people like, in fact, even when I was like, okay, I have Avery Haynes coming on and

you're on City and we're going to get to that. And you're great at what you do, but everybody likes to talk about the incident at Newsnet. So funny, I haven't had, maybe people's attention spans are short. I've done so much since then. I don't get that anymore, at all. I did for a long time. I don't get it a whole lot, but ask away. Alright, I have to do this, or they'll write me hateful emails.

How could you not talk about this? And they'll say, come on, Mike, you've sold out. Alright, so basically, you're reporting. Speaking of, since you like to talk about farming, this is your go-to news topic. I think you're talking about like Farm Aid, this clip. I don't know. That's what I read online that you were having a discussion. You were doing some news piece on Farm Aid. The important detail here is that it's a pre-recorded news piece. This is not going live to air. This is pre-recorded. Well, the thing that nobody sort of knows or especially knew at the time then

is that Newsnet was not live. So it was this very strange setup. And so you would come in as the anchor. You would come in, and they would give you 20 stories to read, and you would have no idea. So as you read the story, it would be recorded, and don't ask me technologically how it happened,

but it went into some file and then they would choose the lineup of the stories and they would just pick each story, put it to the top and move it around. So it never made for a very watchable newscast because if there was a happy story, you could never read it with any kind of happiness because you never knew if it was coming after some horrible thing. Right. It was very strange. Very, very strange. Yeah, yeah.

Because I didn't have any TV experience. It still felt weird. But when you told me there that CTV Newsnet was not live back then, I had my moment of like I had no idea. So when there was breaking news, they would throw that format out. But they called them wheels. And they would inject that format out, but they create, they called them wheels and it would be, they would inject the weather in, they would inject all of these things into this wheel of,

of the newscast. So your day started with about an hour in makeup where they piled crazy amounts of stuff and turned you into someone. My mom said, I don't even recognize you. It's like, yeah, sorry sorry mom um and then you would go in you would sit in the chair um which at that time initially i don't know if you remember all the jokes about it they used to have a chair that rotated do you remember it was on a set that would move only vaguely this hour is 22 minutes did some really funny things where they'd have it spinning really fast and the anchors would be flying around um So you'd go in, and you'd read all your stories. And I had just, so while I was doing this interview with,

interestingly enough, the Civil Liberties Association, Alan Borovoy, but I was doing the interview in the studio, and I was also on air at the same time. And I get out of this, I finish this interview, it was really interesting, I honestly don't remember what it was. And one of the guys that I worked with said, something crazy has happened.

They accidentally put the wrong thing on air. And I'm thinking, okay. At the time, I'd been there, I didn't make my three-month probation. Okay, this is early days for Avery. No, I did not make it. You look really sad for me right now. Only because I feel almost a little bit bad

making you relive this, but look at how great things are today. So we're going to do this and then it might be therapeutic for you. Maybe you'll get some catharsis from it. Honestly, I don't need catharsis. It doesn't feel like reliving. It feels like, of all the amazing things that have happened in my life, I don't know. It's nothing that I

hang on to. And in fact, when you wrote to me about the things we talk about, it's like, oh, he wants to talk about that? That's so 2000. Well, you know, I know it is definitely. It happened a while ago. But I don't know how to do this. We're going to talk for like an hour, and I don't even know how to have this chat without... If I mention it, it's going to be one of those things that's almost like... hour and I don't even know how to have this chat without, if I mentioned,

it's going to be one of those things. It's almost like, there's nothing that you have. You ask away. Okay. So here we go. So, uh,

first thing to set this up is that, so this is not live and you, so you do, you do a stutter during your farm aid report. You do a stutter. It was a farm aid report. You're right. I found that someone had a blog where they like was really deep details and

I'm like, Oh, cause I had no idea. Okay. So basically you do a little stutter. You're right. I found that someone had a blog where there was really deep details. Oh, because I had no idea. Okay. So basically, you do a little stutter. So I'm going to play this. This is only like 18 seconds. When Josie Dye was on, I played her. She sang O Canada before a game, and she was awful.

To be honest, it was awful. And that was a cruel and unusual punishment that I played like way too much of that O Canada when she was on. So this is only 18 seconds. We're going to do an 18 second clip here and then we're going to chat about it. Let's find it here. Here we go. I kind of like the little stuttering thing. Equal opportunity, right? We have a stuttering newscaster.

We've got the black, we've got the Asian, we've got the woman. I could be a lesbian folk dancing black woman stutterer and we'd get all in a wheelchair. Okay. So I will say my opinion. Okay. It is, there's nothing, I don't see anything really offensive there.

Like I don't, there's no, nothing racist there. Or in my opinion, there's no, nothing racist there or, uh, in my opinion, it's, it's not live that, that off the cuff remark to me doesn't seem particularly affection, shouldn't have aired. But of course that wasn't your job. That was somebody else's job because clearly somebody messed up.

Somebody messed up. I, you know, there were all these conspiracy theories that someone had been out to get absolutely not true. It was an amazing woman who was a director who pushed the wrong button. Racist, no. Homophobic, no.

I mean, I never accepted any of that as being a narrative that was in any way accurate. My whole, you know, if you sort of take yourself back to 2000, that was at a time where employment equity was an issue because companies like CTV at the time weren't hiring people of colour. They weren't hiring anybody beyond a very sort of homogenous look. And so they were super, super sensitive about that.

It was the wrong... You know, Citi, who eventually hired me right away, was always about that. It was the wrong, you know, Citi, who eventually hired, well, who hired me right away, was always doing that. They were hiring people to completely reflect the community. But I think there was such, at that time, the reason why that became

a front page news in China, and it did. Yeah. The reason why Howard Stern tried to get me on his show and I didn't. Why, you know, The View talked about

it was because it was at a moment in time where people were feeling really oppressed by political correctness and they saw me as some poster child for the person who stands up against it, which I wasn't trying to be. I was making a joke and really, I'm a lot funnier than that. It's not even a funny joke.

It's not even a funny joke. Not a bad joke, though. It's for an off-the- It's not even a funny joke, so. Not a bad joke, though. It's for an off-the-cuff remark to a colleague on something. In your mind at that point is that that is never going to air because you did the stuttering, you're going to do another take, so this is not really, you know, it's just an off-the-cuff. I mean, I guess I feel bad for you because I could see myself doing that. And there really is, when you parse the statement,

like I'm not going to read it, but when you parse the statement, And there really is when you parse the statement, like I'm not going to read it, but when you parse the statement, you're kind of making a kind of a clever little joke about diversity and checking all the boxes at once. And then at the end, you throw in a wheelchair. And it's not the least funny thing I've ever heard. Like, it's kind of funny. It's definitely, in my opinion, not grounds for dismissal. I know you're on some probation, so they're probably ultra-sensitive or something. You know what the thing was for me?

And I was two months into a TV career, and I was so terrified of what I was doing there. I would go to work praying that there would be no breaking news so I wouldn't have to do something live. I messed up on a take, and I was embarrassed, and I was trying to make light of it. Really, I wasn't making any kind of political statement, even in the control room. I was trying to be the—I felt like an idiot, and I was just trying to be silly. CTV at the time, you know, Citi wouldn't have had to fire me.

CTV, I think, did have—iti wouldn't have had to fire me. CTV, I think, did have felt as though they had to fire me. I remember coming in the next day and my boss said to me, well, first of all, I have to edit a bit. But my boss did say to me, you know, we have to sort of see how this is going to play out. And so why don't you go home? And so I went up to my mom and dad's, and my dad was massively searching to find out whether people were writing anything about it. And it was online all night. And we thought that there was nothing written.

And so I thought, okay, you know what? Okay, this is really going to be embarrassing, but I can pull myself back from this. And so I was ready to, and it was the front page of The Sun on the Monday morning. And I looked at my dad, it's like, Dad, this isn't going to go well. Yeah, that's, so I guess that when you see that it's, I guess, I'm trying to think back then, I guess you had to actually see the physical paper.

Do they have the front page online? I don't think that they were solely online then. So I did see the front page of the paper. And then it just kind of snowballed from there. the front page of the paper. And then it just kind of snowballed from there. And I remember CTV called me and said, we'd like you to come in for a meeting.

And I said, okay. And so my mom and my dad were going to drive me to agent court. And I'm so naive. I thought it was just a meeting to talk about how I was going to. And I said, okay, so do I just come into the newsroom? And she said, no, there's an HR office. And even then I didn't get it.

Because you were, yeah, young. Well, yeah, I was just naive. No, you're naive. Yeah, because you're right. Today if somebody calls me in a meeting and it's like, oh, there's going to be an HR guy, there's going to be a folder. You know it's done. You can smell it coming. But you're right.

The first time it's like you're kind of naive and you're thinking maybe they just want to talk about how to improve or maybe get better. Maybe next time we're going to work. And maybe they were going to tell you, oh, it's the technician's fault. We don't blame you. By the way, what happened to the technician? I think they put her on a three-day suspension. I think they gave her a three-day suspension.

I mean, I'm definitely not naive now. They had to make, as anyone, if I was in management, they had to make a decision. They had to make, as anyone, if, you know, if I was in management, if they had to make a decision, they had to figure out what was going to be the best. They weren't invested in me at all. I'd been there two and a half months, and already I was causing trouble. And also, you're easy to get rid of because there's no sever.

You know, when you're in probation, you don't have to sever somebody. I'm pretty sure there's some loophole with that. I don't even think, honestly, Mike, I don't even think it was that. I think that they weighed their options of, okay, here's this chick we just brought over from radio. She's got no experience. She's not that great. She's just publicly humiliated herself on air.

I think we had one complaint, by the way. There was one complaint. And so that was a great experience. I mean, a really interesting experience for me to be on the receiving end of a media firestorm. Taught me a lot. Okay, so prior to this instance, I don't know how many people heard of Avery Haynes, but after this instance,

a lot more people heard of Avery Haynes. I know there's some people talk about how there's no such thing as bad publicity. You could make an argument that this suddenly made you like a brand, a sexy brand name in Canada. For example, I didn't listen to CFRB. I learned who you were and that you existed following this controversy. I think maybe I probably would have had a really good career at CTV.

That was gone. And I'm really happy with where I am in my life right now. But I think it could have been very different. Um, I, I wouldn't wish that, you know, I wouldn't wish that I'd be out, I'd be out at, uh, I'd be out for dinner and I'd hear two people having an argument about me while I was sitting right there, not knowing that it was me because, because I didn't look without all that makeup and that bionic hairdo. Oh, can i ask you about the hairdo yeah okay so i it uh because i i uh how do i describe it was it like a platinum streak down the middle can you tell it's right

it's still right here it's it is natural white i see the here's the thing i've had i've had this streak of white hair which my brother also has, since just around high school. Now my hair is going all white, so I dye everything except for this one white. But when I was pregnant with my daughter, my second child, I was in at Mount Sinai, and the genetics ward all of a sudden came swooping over me, and they were saying, can we talk to you for a minute we need about your hair and they're measuring the distance between my you've got a similar kind of honestly i was going to go there is that uh now it's starting to come in on the sides but for the

longest time i had a patch okay or you have it which is just white have you ever been diagnosed no no i'm gonna diagnose okay go ahead what is this okay? Is it a Harry Potter thing? Okay, this isn't a lie. Okay, I'm listening. So, in fact, they wanted to take my DNA samples. I don't know which ones they were wanting to take, but I declined. But they're measuring the space between my knee and my ankle. They're measuring the distance between my eyes. And they tell me that I have something called Van Wardenburg syndrome.

Van Wardenburg syndrome. Okay. And the predominant feature of Van Wardenberg's is a white forelock which you have as well but you're also like me well yeah but i but when i first started going white i called because i didn't get the gray like i just started going white uh pretty young actually but it was originally it was just and i the guy who has it is del curry so you know del curry okay well he played for the toronto raptors in fact he's the father of steph curry who won the nba mvp last year so del curry and i remember when i first saw him and this is going back a little bit now 15 years or something i said

hey he's got what i got like del curry's got my it looks almost like you bumped into a white a wall that was painted just freshly painted white and you you sort of bumped. Indira Gandhi. Indira Gandhi had the same thing. Okay, so now that we have this in common, can you tell me what this thing is? What do you call it again? Van Wardenburg syndrome. So I was told I was more likely to have children who were deaf,

which I didn't have, more likely to have hearing loss, that my eyes are, I don't know, do my eyes look, I actually never asked anyone, do my eyes look widespread apart? Okay, I'll be very honest with you, because let me just, yeah. I'm moving away from the microphone. You told me I wasn't allowed to do this. I told you, don't you dare do it, or there's going to be a problem. Okay, let me look.

See, yours look really close together. I think you, like. Is it too close together? No, not too close. Like, they're good. They're good eyes. I honestly think yours are good, too. Okay, all right.

I honestly don't think they're too far apart. My kids, none of my kids are deaf. And I have four kids, and none of them are deaf. Yeah, so I don't know. Maybe it's a lie, but he should. Okay, the other thing is, and he brought out this book, this magazine, and it's like, you know, Van Wardenburg cover girls,

all these young men and women, children, with this white forelock. Wow, this is like a, I didn't expect this comment to turn like this, because I remember that hair, for some reason, I thought maybe

you were faking it or something. I know. Everyone thinks I dye it. It's like, it's white. It's white. And now,

if you'll notice, I've gone quite blonde. Yeah. Because the one thing that I hate more than almost anything is the hairdresser. And I was having

to be dyeing all the, because now, I think I would be completely white. Yeah white and I just can't quite do that. I just feel like I'm too young to go completely white. Well, this is kind of cool. I like it.

I don't know. It looks cool. And you look, I will say this cause I, I went to your wiki page cause I needed to look up some details and you look much younger than your age for what that's worth. Like I was, you look younger than,

cause I'm old. I turned 50. I will turn 50 in November. Yeah, no, I think you look younger than your age for what that's worth. Like I was, you look younger than me. Cause I'm old. I turned 50. I will turn 50 in November. Yeah, no, I think you look younger than I do. Okay. Uh,

40, just turned 42. 42. Oh, so I had a great tweet yet the other day. Um, I was, I was in Buffalo,

uh, after the five cops were shot in, um, in Dallas because there was a black lives matter protest there. And we wanted to kind of get a sense of what it was like to be a cop in the States, what it was like to be living in the States. So I'm doing, we're doing a two-hour live show from Buffalo with a live-eye truck, a cameraman, and me.

So it was a bit crazy. And we didn't get down there till one. I mean, it was, you know, I was a bit harried. And there are many times in my career of television that I love radio because I get this tweet from someone, hey, this is for your own good. And you know that whenever someone says that, you're not going to like whatever they say. Your hair makes you look like you're 100. So I sent back a message and I said, and I don't normally respond because that's fine. And I said, yeah, well, I am 100. I am almost 100. And then someone else wrote a tweet, said,

no, I don't think you look a day over 30. So it became this whole bloody conversation. And then somebody said, 30 in dog years, which I thought was kind of the icing on the cake, hilarious. Terrible, terribly mean thing to tweet at somebody. I actually thought it was kind of funny. Yeah, that's the crap that comes of being a public figure. You've got to have people think they can tell you this stuff they would never say to your face.

I kind of don't mind it. I feel like Twitter, you know, I have to say I like Twitter. I like Twitter, too, but I'm not a public. I don't consider it. I didn't put myself on, you know, City TV or whatnot. I feel as though if you're asking for a conversation, you've got to be able to deal with the stuff when you don't like it as well. And, you know, if it's really hateful um i've got a guy who really wants to rub my feet and he i've had to mute him because it's i will i know by the way i know but no one can see

that until you told them so thank you for that they're nothing but how do i not look at your feet after that call man you're in barefoot you're barefoot yeah but no one's ever told me they want to know he's he really has a fascination with that. So I have had to mute him. Oh, yeah, like foot fetish guys are a little creepy. So I'm on mute, but mostly I kind of feel as though if you ask for the conversation, you've got to kind of deal with it all. I'm still reeling from this diagnosis. I actually, when you first told me there was like, whatever, Von...

I know, you started Von Wurtenberg. I actually, because now we've diagnosed or something, and now I'm waiting to hear what are the ramifications. In my mind, I've decided there might be a bunch word. Yeah. I actually, because now we've diagnosed there's something and now I'm waiting to hear what are the like ramifications. In my mind, I've decided there might be a bunch of positive things.

I'm thinking, well, maybe there's like, they're smarter than right now. Yeah, I think that's what it is. Yes, I forgot to mention that. They live longer. Like I'm ready for the list. Like, oh, they're healthier.

Their heart is healthier. And then I hear, oh, their kids are deaf and their eyes are far apart. And I'm like, oh, crap, I don't think my eyes are too far apart. No, they're not at all. So Del Curry, now you know there's somebody else in the club, Del Curry.

And his kid's not deaf. His kid's an MVP of the NBA. That's pretty good. All right, now I have a Twitter question before we move on. Why didn't you do Howard Stern again? Because that would be kind of cool. You know what? I had so many requests for interviews over that and

i felt like it was getting away from me and i felt as though uh people were sort of massaging what i said to to prop up i i didn't feel like being asked to put a bathing suit on and uh talk to howard but you don't have to put a bathing suit on yeah but i always say no i kind of felt super sensitive and that's the second time in your career somebody's trying to put you in a bikini. Not that he would have, not that he would have. But yeah, Howard Stern scares me. I think that would be a... See, I happen...

I know he's a polarizing guy. I happen to like his interview style. He is an incredible interviewer. But you know what? He's become an incredible interviewer. Well, he's soft. And because now I think he's friendlier now to the famous, if you will. I think he's warmer than he used to be. I think he stopped trying to be shocking. And I think that

we're tired of fake shock and humiliation of people. And he gets great guests. And I think he's a fantastic interviewer. I agree. I agree. In fact, I tried to borrow some of his techniques for this little show. So, you know, any comparisons to Howard Stern is fine. Now go get that bikini on. All right. Now I have a Twitter question here. James asks, considering the incident that got her fired at CTV, how does she feel about PC witch hunts and online call out culture? Online call out culture. Online call-out culture.

Are we too PC now? Because your comments, I think, like I said, it seems like a little bit of a PC run amok that you would be fired over those comments. Honestly, I've never, maybe in some people's minds, it's still fresh and foremost. I mean, I haven't thought about what happened at CTV 16 years ago until you sent me an email.

Honestly, no one's ever brought it up. I don't see it as an issue. Do I think that call-out culture... Social media culture is worrisome. The entire thing, if you're not strong enough, is worrisome. You know, I don't know. You're potentially too exposed, I don't, I don't know. You're a potentially too exposed baby, like too accessible.

I think that anybody can, uh, I think that things can, I guess what James is asking is whether or not I, cause I was at the brunt of something like that before, before the days of social media. Do I feel more sorry? Like the tenor guy,

I guess, like, I don't know what he, this is my own words now, but like, uh, the tenor guy changes the words, Oh Canada, know what he... This is my own words now. The tenor guy changes the words to O Canada, which in itself is this great

crime against Canadiana. Canadianity. Is that a word? No. I think that was invented by Torrens and Taggart. But anyway. But then, of course, there's the whole all lives matter. Now, he said it, I think, ignorantly. I don't think he knew what he was saying.

But just once the words are uttered, there is a racist man, and it's sort of like now the social media critics will just pounce in his lane. I think we're all too quick to knee-jerk. I really do, and to react to things. And I think that as a society, we've kind of lost the ability

to give people the benefit of the doubt on anything. And because it's so easy to send sort of hateful things on your phone in such anonymity. You could say in dog years, for example. I don't get a lot of Twitter hate. But do I think that we should be calling people out on Twitter? Is that what, I'm not quite sure. Yeah, I know. Maybe we'll, Yeah, I think he just wanted to know if you thought maybe we're too PC right now. Maybe we're too hair-triggered to people who are not PC,

and then we pounce via social media maybe, what he calls witch hunts. I don't know. The politically correct thing always feels so loaded. I really want to never hurt anyone's feelings. I think that intentionally, my dad gave me very few life lessons that were corny. But I remember him saying to me that we so often

in life inadvertently hurt people that we should never try to hurt someone. And I don't know that that speaks to the Twitter culture, but it's a pretty hateful, I feel like we're in a pretty hateful time. I agree. And that doesn't mean being soft on people who, you know, in my job, I'm, I'm happy to go after people to get answers on stuff or to ask questions that may be uncomfortable. But I think that, that, that hate is kind of, I'm a bit done with it. It feels a very hateful place at times. Before you joined City TV, was there a moment where you considered leaving for the States? Because I heard you're

an American. Is that correct? I'm a new Canadian. I became a Canadian a couple years ago, but I'm a dual citizen. So yeah, after I got fired, Diane Sawyer's agent contacted me in New York and said come to New York.

And I went with logger tape. So at a TV station, everything that goes to air is recorded on this logger tape. And it's just kept somewhere in a basement. But I had no demo. And I'd done two months fairly

unspectacularly on Newsnet. You could just show that one demo reel. I'm getting all that attention. He saw that. Trust me. That's why he contacted me. So I went, you know, I felt like Anne of Green Gables or something off to New York with my little, uh, I had to ask someone at CTV to pull the logger tape to give me, you know, sort of three minutes of me being fairly benign news anchor. And I went into this flashy office. My sister was living in Brooklyn at the time, so I went and hung out in her crazy cool loft with her band and stuff

and went to this office in Manhattan and showed the guy my tape. And he said, that is so unforgettable. And I said, no, I know. I really know it was very unforgettable. He said, you should not be doing sort of straight newscasting like this. You've got so much personality. You've got to do something more than that. He said, you tell me where you want to work in the States,

and I'll get you a job. And I realized I didn't want to work anywhere in the States. I really wanted to be in Canada. Cool. I love Canada. Yeah, that would be because to work anywhere in the States. I really wanted to be in Canada. Cool. I love Canada. Yeah, that would be because you, you know, the natural, I would feel you would have more opportunity. You know, you had a big opportunity here and you took it,

but it feels like the American, they would want to, they seem to embrace the controversial person more than Canada seems to. Canada seems to shy away from it a little bit. I think we have a... Yeah, I don't know what it was. At that point, I wasn't even a Canadian citizen. I did only take my citizenship

a couple years ago. It was one of the proudest moments of my life, really, because I adore this country. Did they make you in that ceremony, did they ask you to recite tragically hip lyrics? Only Bob Cajun. at least you could do that when you're in but yeah i know so uh i had i thought about it do i want to live in new york do i want to be somewhere in the states i really i really didn't didn't feel like it and i and i you know it felt like canada was my home

um cbc interestingly was the first first to call me for a job, CBC TV. And then their union got involved, and it was like, no, you're not hiring her. Oh, no. And then City, which I had no desire to work at at all. I felt like I was more serious than that. I felt like I was a more serious news person than what my perception of what City TV was at the time.

Okay. And Steve Hurlbut called me in for a meeting. I didn't go. I didn't go. And finally, he called me in for a meeting. Totally connected with him. And this crazy vision that he had of recognizing that, A, everyone can tell a story, which is true. And, B, everyone has a story.

And I just completely bought into the way of telling stories at City, of being an urban downtown, take away the fake hair and makeup anchor kind of fake person and be the real person on air. And in fact, it was so much that way that I thought, you know what, I don't wear makeup in real life. I'm not wearing makeup on TV. I said, okay, Steve, I'm coming to you, but I'm telling you I am not wearing makeup. And he said, that's fine. And I did one day without makeup. It's like, I'm wearing makeup on TV. I am wearing makeup. Because yeah, I mean, there's a makeup to make you look like you're not wearing makeup, but you still need that base because you look washed out or whatever. It was not good. I came back and looked at myself. It was like, okay, I am vain. I am wearing makeup on TV. Oh, great. So, uh, you're at City TV and, but you have like two tours of duty at City TV,

right? Yeah. So I, so I took, so I started at City almost immediately after, um, after I got fired from CTV. And then I got pregnant with my daughter, Eva, who's now 15. And I was on mat leave. And I had applied for the morning show for BT when I was on mat leave. I just thought the hours of doing news are crazy. I felt like I'd done a fair amount of sort of local news. I was ready to kind of branch out and do something else. And so I applied. I don't know what I was thinking, but I applied for, I asked them if they would give me the BT show with Kevin Frankish. Right. Realistically, I mean, they knew, I didn't know it at the time, and I don't think that would have been an absolute disaster. Do you think so? Because I'm actually now just visualizing you there, and I could see you doing pretty well. I'm kind of, see, the thing is I'm kind of raunchy,

and the great thing for me on TV is I can really control that because I'm doing my own thing, and I'm telling stories, and it's everything else. I just think, I don't think that I would be too good freewheeling for a morning show. You know, it's kind of, so, and it's very happy. It's very, morning shows are very, very happy.

you're right. You're right. You gotta be very happy. You gotta be kind of up and happy and be able to talk about sort of lots of entertainment-y stuff that I'm not really interested in. Oh yeah. You know, the Oscars were last night.

Yeah, no. Or who's, who's on The Bachelor. I don't watch all that. Yeah, you're like me. Cause it's like,

um, you gotta be able to talk about like Taylor Swift versus like Kim Kardashian, Kanye West. I couldn't do it. And really like you got to have a certain mindset to kind of dive in and treat that seriously. Yeah. And there are lots of people like I get how exciting that is. I'm just not one of them. So I did a couple of auditions with Kevin.

And they didn't feel like I would be a right fit, which I think they were absolutely right in saying. And I just kind of felt as though, okay, what am I going to do? I just don't know that I'm up for doing five days a week of this full-on crazy reporting, and it's a lot. And I got a phone call, or I happened to check my work messages because I was on mat leave. And I get this phone message from like three months earlier saying um hi we're calling from alliance atlantis we're putting together a show

on the discovery health network and we really want you to come in and do an audition and the deadline is and it was like two weeks earlier and I thought damn I think I just missed something really good and I called up the number and, and they had not been able to find anybody and they were continuing to hold auditions. I went in and did an audition. It felt like I was home. I loved it. I got the job. And so it was a phenomenal five-year run of a live one hour health talk show. And I moderated a medical ethics debate show that was half an hour. talk show and I moderated a medical ethics debate show that was half an hour. I could bring my, my, my new, new baby in. It was a great, great, great experience. And because you might not mention it,

I need to tell everyone you won Gemini awards. Yeah. You know what? We won Gemini awards. Uh, we, which, and we're this tiny little, tiny little startup. Uh, when I watch it now, it was kind of painful. It was very long. And I wish I could do it again because I think I could have come up with lots of ideas to help make it great. But it was, you know what? We did a lot of great stuff. Incredible people that I worked with. And I loved it. Taught me a lot about interviewing.

Taught me a lot about storytelling. And it was a great experience. And the Gemini Awards were for Best Talk Series. Yeah, and I think I got nominated for Best Talk Host, and we did well. We won some Medical Association Awards. Where's your Gemini's today? I actually, I lost one. I actually think I lost it. I have one in my bedroom, which sounds kind

of dirty, but I promise you there's nothing sort of dirty about it. It was in the basement for a long time. I brought it up. I have things hanging off it, like all of my media passes and stuff hanging off it. So it serves a purpose. It has a function. You know what? The Gemini is a beautiful looking, it's a gold, beautiful looking

statue. I've told this before, so I'll keep it super brief. But I had a buddy who got a Gemini for like camera work on some CBC documentary or something. And I was at his house and he had it like on the mantle. And I said, can you just take a picture of me of the Gemini? So I took, he took a picture. So this is way like 2003 or something. So way back when, when blogging was just starting. And I had this blog, Toronto Mike.

So I posted on Toronto Mike and I wrote, I just won a Gemini for best blogging on the movable type platform. So I made up some crazy title, like thinking this is pretty funny because no one's going to believe this.

And honestly, I've got so many congratulations. Like even now when I... It's now on your Wikipedia page. Yeah. Well, if I ever get one of those, yeah,

I'll get one of those right after I'm verified on Twitter, so maybe never. Hey, you can do that now. People can now have themselves verified even if they're not... Even if not connected to a real media company? Yes. How do you do that?

I don't know. I just read about it on Twitter. You can now get yourself verified. I'll see what I can do because I thought that'd be kind of neat. But yeah, so even to this... Once in a while, there's some people who have congratulated me on winning the Gemini

who I think, I believe they really believe I won the Gemini. Why not? I don't want to even tell them it was a joke now because it's gone too far. You know what I mean? So I just accept the congratulations. So we both are Gemini winners. Yes. And you go back to City TV.

So like senior reporter and anchor, you return to City TV. Well, no i i actually sold everything in uh toronto my husband and i my husband at the time and i uh sold everything in toronto after the show ended i just you know i really felt like like i wanted to have an amazing adventure with our kids and so we sold everything and we bought some land in costa rica and we lived in costa rica for a couple years in the jungle. That's amazing. Yeah. That's a real adventure. Oh no, it was an, it was an absolutely, uh, incredible adventure. You know, the kids went to a little, a little school on the beach where they threw mangoes instead of snowballs. And, um, I learned

Spanish and really I felt, I felt as though we got around on, on ATVs, quads, because the roads were so bad. There were, you know, where we lived, there was a howler monkey path every night. They'd come by at night. There were toucans and coates, which is kind of like a koala bear, raccoon creature. And we lived in the wild. And every single day, you had to have your camera because there was something incredible. I'm so insanely jealous right here because that is cool. I want to do that.

You can do it. That's the thing. Can I? You can do it. I don't know because I share custody of the two kids. I don't know if I can just take it because they're reading it. You cannot do it. I read every name.

See? See, don't cut the checks if you can't catch them. The time for us was really great. And the funny thing is, so we bought this piece of land, and it's overlooking the ocean in this magical, it's a place that you either find magical or it's just too hard because it's not Mai Tais on the beach. But who wants that anyways?

That's someone else. I don't want that. No, okay. So it's hard living. You've got, your water is a hose pipe that's being brought up for 20 miles up the jungle, and so you're going days without water. Electricity we had sporadically. There'd be big blackouts for long periods of time.

Torrential downpours. There were tsunami warnings when we were there. Everyone stayed at our house at this massive party because we were high up. But it was kind of hard living. But when we bought our piece of land, it was just kind of a surfer wash-up place. So there were lots of interesting characters of people who had checked out. Yeah, I guess if you want to go off the grid or something. It was a funny place

you have an interesting collective there and then before we knew it Giselle Bündchen bought a piece of land with Tom Brady right on the other side of us and Mel Gibson bought a big piece of land on the other side of us and now, and I've got a friend who still lives there

who owns a little cafe, came to visit me actually and never left and she's got this amazing art cafe. And it's become this sort of hipster haven, really amazing hipster haven. But it wasn't quite that when we were there. And you were two years? Just under two years. Wow.

Yeah. That's amazing. And then is that where you, then you come back and go to City TV? I couldn't get a job. I came back and I could not get a job. It was a, you know, I'd been out of it for a while. The industry was at a complete dive then. So we're talking six years ago, seven years ago.

Nobody was hiring. Everybody was cutting. It was mass layoff, mass layoff. And City started talking to me. And I thought I was sort of a step away from getting a job, and that's when they did their really mass layoffs where they let go of Ann Roszkowski, Laura De Batista,

a whole bunch of people from the newsroom. And I thought, okay, this is it. I'm going to have to figure out something else. And I was actually, I had been interviewing for a job in public relations, which if you knew me for longer than this hour, you would know that is like the worst thing. Is that because you have to lie?

I think it's... Or they call it spin. I think, you would know that is like the worst thing. Is that because you have to lie? I think it's... Or they call it spin. I think, you know, it's kind of like crisis response. So how do crisis... Oh, sure. Like, yeah, I hear you. Like if a company has like a listeria outbreak or whatever. Yeah, like how should they respond?

And I think because, you know, going back to the CTV thing, that all worked out fine for me. I mean, I handle... the sort of outrage over my firing eclipsed the outrage over what I said because my response to it was completely and honestly from my heart of what my intention was and what the kind of impact it had on me um so I think that someone in PR thought maybe I'd be great at helping other people get through similar things so it's just about to sign something to go into public relations when Citi called me.

Hey, that's your phone. Sorry. Let's answer it. Ignore that. I'm not supposed to. Answer it. Who is it? Actually, I need to answer it.

Okay. Real quick. Really? Hello? How rude. Hi. It's my daughter. I don't know if I'll edit this out or not.

I'm recording a podcast, but I'm going to bike over at 5. Yeah. So it's going to take... Maybe I start at 10 to 5 and I can be there at like 5.10. So, yeah. Okay, I can start at 5. Yeah, I can start at 5.

Okay, love you. Bye. That's called multitasking. It was a time-sensitive daughter thing, so I would never normally answer that phone. How old is she? She is. What is she?

She's turning 12 next week. Oh, wow. So that's the same age as my little guy. So I'm going to bike over and get her, and then she's going to come here for the weekend with her brother, and then we're going to have a good time. Awesome.

That's what's happening here. Oh, I'm sorry. I think I'll keep it in there. I don't know if it's going to annoy anybody, but I don't like to do too much post because I feel like I'm doing work on this thing. You know what I mean? But anyway, sorry about that.

So you couldn't get a job. Couldn't get a job. City then came to me shortly after, I think sort of six months after all those layoffs, and hired me. And it was just, you know, it's been a really interesting last five and a half years, for sure. And we mentioned, you know,

you went off to Cleveland to be where the action is, but you kind of made some noise beyond City TV when you were just like in your neighborhood and somebody had a sign after the Paris, the incidents in Paris, France. Somebody had a sign, and I'm just going to read what the sign said, but it said, I have one question.

Members of the Muslim community, are you sorry for the slaughter of innocent people by whom represent your religious beliefs? And then not one, not two, but three question marks. So you saw the sign in your neighborhood? It wasn't in my neighborhood. I was actually driving my son to hockey.

And the other thing that I don't like, this is going to make me sound like a really bad mom, the hairdresser is high on the list. Watching a hockey practice out in the middle of nowhere on a Saturday morning, I struggle. I struggle. Practices are tough, actually. Practices are tough.

It's usually the moms that practice this. The dads usually go to the games. The moms go to the practices. I do both, but I might not stick around for the practice. Like, I might drop off and then go walk around and do something and come back.

So that's what I had done. I dropped Paul off, and I was driving around, and I came across this sign, and it wasn't after Paris because it was some... It wasn't... Oh, no.

It was another... It was earlier because it was last winter. It was another terrorist. Oh, no, you're right. you're right. It was Paris. You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. That's how sad it is. My crack research staff is trying to make up for those mistakes earlier on. Isn't it sad that we have, that we're sort of figuring out which one it was? Because there've been so many. And so I drove, I drove by and I thought, I'm really curious about how somebody would feel so strongly that they would make a sign like that. So I went and I knocked on the door. And they were lovely.

They were lovely people who came out and talked to me. And it wasn't about taking them down. It was really about trying to figure out sort of what they were feeling. Yeah, I know. I like how you approached it because you weren't like making fun of them or like, you know, oh, you're racist or whatever. You're Islamophobic or whatever. You just treated them

like you were respectful and you wanted to know what they meant. And you had some good questions like if a Christian were to commit a similar crime, would you be apologizing on behalf of your religion?

Like all that kind of interesting questions like that. And I guess it's, and I get the sense from you that you are, I called you a news junkie because it's, when you see that, it doesn't matter if you're on the clock or whatever, but you want to hear the story.

You want to hear why they put that on their lawn. You know, I grew up in India. I lived in a country where I didn't speak the language for a couple of years. And I may, I've done it, I lived in, in a country where I didn't speak the language for a couple of years. Um, and I, I may, I've done it and I've traveled, I really have traveled the world and I've been in a lot of countries where I don't speak the language. And I, I remember very specifically coming back from Costa Rica saying to myself that, you know, it's so many times when you're, when English is your, when, when English is not not the first language you can't interact with people you want to know things about what are going on but you can't ask

if i i see so many so many stories when i was in cleveland for example um i'm in the lobby of the hotel and we're about to go out uh to go into the craziness of the public square and i'm in i'm in a travel lodge 20 minutes outside of the city and it it's, I mean, it really was a dump of a hotel. And there's a guy in a wheelchair in the lobby. And, you know, a far younger me would have felt, would have just kept walking past. But beside him was this big box. And he was with another guy.

And the other guy is pulling out of this big box what looks to be a robot. To me, it looks like it's a robot and the other guy starts putting this device on the guy in the wheelchair so now he is like a robo man and the guy the other guy lifts him the guy's name is dan lifts him up so dan is now standing so he's out of his wheelchair and it's like i started chatting to me to me because and my instinct is to know about what i want to know what the heck is going what is all this but it's also to record it because i want to share this amazing story this is a a 31 year old um american soldier

who went to afghanistan in 2011 and got his legs blown off in an IED. And he, um, is what was being delivered to that hotel room as a prototype that they're using in hospitals. That is a machine. And he walked for me and it blew me away and it blew me away. And those are, those are the kinds of stories too, that we need to be sharing more of because those are stories that you watch and you think, man, this guy, he is a, you know, I don't use the word hero easily. This man is a hero and here he is walking for me with his machine.

And I felt like I wanted to share it with the folks on Twitter. No, that's also why this Twitter is so cool because you can share it with so many people. I shot it and I edited it on my phone. And the aforementioned lady who had the sign about the Paris terrorist attack, essentially that went Toronto viral anyways.

I saw it all over my Twitter feed. I think because so many people were struggling with that, with how to separate a religion from terror. And I don't think that there's a right answer or a wrong answer if everyone is rationally having a discussion about it. So I think, again, it was because of the time that that kind of... Right. Another, you mentioned it was hard to tell them apart now because that was Paris, but we recently had a shooting in Orlando.

And following the shooting in Orlando, I read a great piece from you, but essentially this is you coming out of the closet, essentially? Is that what this is? You know, I wouldn't say coming out of the closet in any, and in fact, when I was talking to the folks at McLean, I said, as long as you don't put like coming out of the closet. Don't use that term I just used. Well, only because, and that's just my own personal thing. I haven't been living any kind of a secret. I've been with Mel for the last nine years. And everybody in my life, including my professional life and in media, has met Mel and loves her and knows about my relationship with her.

I just had never found, it seemed like such an outdated thing to have to do to stand up in front of your television audience or in your public life and say, excuse me, I have something I need to tell you. I mean, it doesn't feel like something that needed to be said one way or the other. But yes, you're right.

But of course, but because you were married to a man and had three kids, it is something you might, this is something I think people would be interested in. Like, actually, now I'm struggling. Can I ask you anything about this? You don't have to answer, but can I ask you? You can ask me anything. If I feel like I don't want to answer, I won't. Okay, so Mel is not Melvin, right? Mel is like a Melanie. Mel is Melinda. Melinda, not Melanie. See, I was wrong. Mel is one of those great names,

though. It's like unisex. You don't know. Hey, it's Mel. Yeah, I guess I could have carried that on a long time. I just never use a pronoun. Oh, I'm married to Mel. Because Avery only works one way. There's no guy named Avery. Are you kidding me? Is there a guy named Avery? My friend Avery is a boy's name. Is that right? Avery's a man's name.

Maybe I only know it as a last name. Steve Avery was a pitcher. Yeah. My husband's name is Steve, so that's what was hilarious when Steve Avery was all over the place. Yeah, we had him in 92. Avery was definitely a man's name. So, because we moved a lot when I was a kid, we have a new boy in the class. Could Avery stand up? See, I'm so ignorant. I have it exactly backwards. It seems a man's name. Because we moved a lot when I was a kid. We have a new boy in the class.

Could Avery stand up? See, I'm so ignorant. I have it exactly backwards. It seems like a pretty name. I was thinking my second daughter was born. Avery is my wife. I would have gone with that name. That's how much I like the name Avery.

It's a great name. I didn't know it was a guy's name. Yeah, it always was. And it was always my name. And now every kid, I think there's like Avery A, Avery L. You know, there's tons of kids who are named Avery. It's trendy now. It's very trendy.

Okay. So you are married to a woman. You are in a same-sex relationship. So my question is, I know it sounds weird. My question is, so you were married to a man. And was there a moment where you realized you were gay? I love being on this side of watching someone so struggle. Heterosexual guys have trouble talking about these things.

Why? Because we don't want to be offensive or whatever. I think it's fantastic. But I just wondered, like, did you have a moment where you said, uh-oh, like, I'm going to have to fix this? No. 100% not. And I have to be careful. I have to be careful about how... I only have to be careful about how I say this

because this is something that I feel strongly about, recognizing that everybody has their own experiences. And I think that there's a perception that... I think that there's a less mainstream understanding of sort of sexual fluidity. And I think that for women, it's far greater than many people might acknowledge. And so the sort of, I think,

outdated way of looking at it is that you're either always straight or you're always gay or you're straight but you're really secretly gay. I have never secretly been gay. No, that's a great point. So you can be in a same-sex relationship and not necessarily own the label lesbian. Well, I have never owned the label. I've never owned the label and I've never felt a part of the gay community until Orlando. of the gay community until Orlando.

And then I felt like if the only people who you identify as being gay are the people that you see in the parade, then I actually feel as though I have a responsibility to say, I met a woman and I fell in love with her. I love her now because she is a woman, but at the time I fell in love with her in spite of the fact that she was a woman.

I've never sort of held some dark, deep secret to be with a woman. You're right. There's people out there who think, oh, you're either straight or you're gay, and you might have always been gay, but then living the life maybe society pressured you into thinking you need to be of a man,

and you might have gone down that route. Yeah, 100% not. I love men. You use the word fluidity, which is perfect. And I, and I'm not being one of these guys. I think I'm more enlightened than that, but I could see people struggling with the concept of fluidity. It's almost like they see it as a, what's that term? Uh, uh, ones or zeros, uh, binary, right? Binary. You know, there is this whole, a sense of fluidity because you're happy with Mel. You didn't mean you're so happy you went to Cleveland with Mel. That's a sign of true love. You know what? I met this woman. She's a doctor. She's British. I met this woman and I defy anyone to meet anybody more spectacular and incredible than this human being.

I've never met anyone like her on earth. She has done all the things that I always wished I had done in my life. I mean, really unbelievably incredible things as a doctor. She lives in Mongolia, which is a whole other story. Wait, that's a story. What do you mean? So right now she's in Mongolia? No, she's actually in Toronto now.

Okay. So she commutes. She commutes from Mongolia. That's a, that's a, what do you mean? So right now she's in Mongolia? No, she's actually in Toronto now. Okay. So she commutes, she commutes from Mongolia. That's a long drive. It's a, it's a long flight. It's a long flight. So she's there for a month and she's here for a month.

Um, cause she can't work in Canada. She's British. So, you know, there'll be a time where we'll find some amazing country to live in together. Um, you know,

sort of full time. I mean, sort of full-time. I mean, it feels full-time. We Skype for an hour in the morning and an hour at night. Skype and FaceTime save our lives. Kids connect with her. They love her so, so, so much. Yeah, so that's going, because I'm with my second wife now,

but my two children from the first marriage adore Monica, who you met before we started recording. Just love her. Like, just adore her. And it makes it so much easier. Yeah, I don't know how people, I honestly don't think that people can get into relationships with other people who have children if the kids, I think that's, you're doomed.

I can't imagine. No. I'm just so glad that they love who I love. It just simplifies that whole situation. Yeah, no, my kids, in the piece I wrote about at our wedding, it was just the three kids and Mel and I. And that wedding was from, it was my oldest son's idea, because it was Mel's birthday and it was a surprise,

is that that was us marrying each other as a family. So it was pretty powerful. In fact, my daughter wanted to know why she didn't get a piece of jewelry since she was also getting married, my 15-year-old daughter. It's like, no! That's a good point.

That's a good point. Oh, great. No, great. So I don't have much more to say on that one. I just wanted to, I was wrong, and now I'm kind of enlightened to this fluidity concept, but I was thinking maybe, because I've heard from other people who were married to men and

at some point they realize they're actually attracted to the same sex. I don't know. I definitely haven't I don't think of a woman as necessarily a sexualized way like I would a man. I don't know.

I'm sure that there's a word for what it what it is I I met somebody who um I fell in love with and she happens to be a woman and yet I do I do feel I mean part of that writing that article was you know I felt as though I was excluding myself from a community that's worked really hard and and and suffered horrendously um for for decades to fight for the right for my, for Mel and I to have our love validated at city hall. And so I, I, I thank that community, that the gay community, the LGBTQ community. It was an absolute pleasure. And you taught me so much about this disorder. I have disease.

I'm glad I have this recorded because I still don't know that term. I keep, to me, it's like Vaughn. Say it again one more time. It is Vaughn Wardenburg. Yeah, I'm going to have to write that down, I think. Vaughn Wardenburg. Just Google it. It'll be a new conversation piece for me.

Did you know I have Vaughn Wardenburg syndrome? So thank you very much for coming here today. That was fantastic. A pleasure. Thanks so much. And that brings us to the end of our 184th show. You can follow me on Twitter at Toronto Mike. And Avery is at City Avery.

And our friends at Great Lake Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. See you all next week. And drink some goodness from a tin Cause my UI check has just come in Oh, where you been, big girl?