Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Ed Keenan: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1532

Episode Date: August 8, 2024

In this 1532nd episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike checks in with The Toronto Star's Ed Keenan as they talk Olivia Chow, the Ontario Science Centre, Ontario Place, John Tory, statues outside the SkyDome and more. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, The Advantaged Investor podcast from Raymond James Canada, The Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball Team and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail]

Welcome to episode 1532 of Toronto Miked, proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma Pasta, enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta Enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. The Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team, the best baseball in the city outside the dome with 8 championships since 1967.

RecycleMyElectronics.ca, committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past. And Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921. Today, returning to Toronto mic'd for his quarterly is Ed Keenan from the Toronto Star. welcome back Ed. At long last. This has been rescheduled like three times. So normally you would be here like the first Thursday every three months. So you were supposed to be here a month ago,

early July. Yeah, I guess so. So you postponed and then we rescheduled and then you're like, Mike, I gotta postpone again. Better late than never to get Keenan on Toronto Mike. Yeah, our system had not failed us before today, which is that when we decided we'd do this every three months, you just put a recurring event in the calendar, and then often,

we don't even talk beforehand, I just show up, and it's all good. We never talk beforehand. But this summer has been a crowded one, and before we even get started, I should just say, Talk to me. I have been on vacation from work for most of the last three weeks and so I haven't so you don't know what's going on exactly we'll see I've spent a lot of time on baseball diamonds with with youth baseball teams helping to coach you're a coach right yeah, but how's the Toronto Maple Leaf

season going? A couple times we had talked about coming to me coming down there and talking to you down there. Yeah, I tried to get you. Sorry we haven't been able to schedule that. So I was recording there last Thursday and yeah I always reach out to you Ed and say hey drop by Christie Pitts for a little chat and you're always coaching somewhere else in the I don't't know, in Ontario, but the team is not going to win. What did I say in the intro? Eight championships since 1967. So there will not be a ninth.

It's not on track for nine. No, they have some work to do, but the new ownership, this is the first season. So like they kind of see the lay of the land. I think this ownership will do some exciting things to bring a championship back like on the field on the field like I mean they've already upgraded the sound system and they have some plans to do things like at Christy Pitts to enhance the experience but I think they're gonna like you know I'm thinking of like the Dalton Pompeys or like what they did with the Butler Brothers written Rob like that kind of thing and I'm I don't know We'll see but I think there's an opportunity to bring in some like guys

Maybe just fresh off their major league careers or some some interesting players that would be exciting to watch and can help deliver a Championship to this team. Well, I mean people people listen to this probably don't need us to tell them or don't need me to remind them But I haven't been down this season, but I love watching that team in that park. It's just kind of, you know, what a way to spend a Sunday or something. You know, just it's great. It's great. It really is. I'm telling you, I was there like I was there Sunday and it's just it's a high caliber baseball. You can sit wherever, like bring your own seat. If you can sit on the hill, a lot of people like to sit on on The hill because we say fill the hill but you can sit wherever you it's great vantage point for high quality baseball like you know, some bleachers down there near the Rose around level. Yeah, but it's you know, it's like the old Ontario Place Forum Where the good the good seats are on the lawn because you bring your own picnic blanket seriously you know something in a thermos or whatever. And and there's hot dogs at the at the stand.

They sell beer there now, too. So there's a Leafs Lager from it's from Leftfield. They make that lager. Shout out to Leftfield. I have for you Great Lakes beer. OK, but I know you're not a big beer guy. You can bring that. That's all right.

That's all right. But there is a yeah, that's cold, the fridge. There's a hot pop beer. It's a hot pop on the mic. I'm gonna actually, this is from Great Lakes Brewery. Yeah, Great Lakes makes that. So that's a non-alcoholic beverage from Great Lakes Brewery you can enjoy.

So shout out to Great Lakes, my craft beer of choice. But Left Field makes a great beer that they sell at the ballpark. I was enjoying it on Sunday. And it's to me, that's the most best value. You can bring the whole family. I know my buddy Elvis brought his son and his son's bud We had a they had an opportunity to run the bases

You know like like just think about that when you were like eight nine ten years old if you had the opportunity To run the bases at a you know a semi pro game like that the last time I was here You gave me the Toronto Maple Leafs history. Did you check it out? Book here. Yeah I did and and I found you know there was a time where I was going regularly where Paul Spaljeric was pitching for them so I looked through some of the history of those teams but also my grade 9 math teacher Larry Downs had I knew he played on the Canadian Olympic baseball team and that he also played for the Toronto Maple Leaf so I looked up some of his stats and then my okay he's my brother-in-law's brother so my sister-in-law by marriage my wife's sister is married to a guy and and his brother so I think we're like

technically no relation no no but John Lockwood played some professional baseball in the US. He came up out of High Park, played like low-A professional baseball in the Mariner system in the US. And then when he came back, he played a few seasons with the Toronto Maple Leaf. So I was looking up his statistics and then, you know, it was like the next day that I was at a family party that he was at. So we got to talk about it. Oh, amazing. He had some fond memories of it.

So interesting personal connections for me inside the book as well as the, you know, the baseball history of the team. Well, next year, next season, the championship season for the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team, I got to get you down there when I'm recording. Hopefully we do this again. And I know I gave you that book because you just talked about it.

But if you know anyone in your life who'd enjoy a book, I do have another one every time you appear you get a book So you've got yourself another Toronto May please. Well, maybe I should give one to Johnny Lockwood. Yeah, seriously He's in the he was gonna surprise to find out that That this exists there was a season or two I think where he was like the leader in wins for the team or something like that So so you're having a great summer it sounds like coaching baseball and your kids play for this team. What's the deal there?

Well, yeah, I mean, I have two daughters who are still playing baseball. My son is retired from most organized sports. But yeah, I have a 15 year old daughter who plays baseball and then a 12 year old daughter who plays baseball and we've we've had a bunch of tournaments they you know they have their league play here in Toronto and then we went to a tournament in Kentucky. Oh nice. Actually the biggest girls baseball tournament in North America there are teams from all over the place so so my younger daughter played with with the DC Force which was the team she played with when we lived in Washington DC

She kind of reunited with them for that tournament and my older daughter's Toronto team went down there At lost in the semi-finals to a team from San Francisco but But I sort of great experience a great effort and then as soon as we came back like the next weekend There was a big girls baseball tournament here in Toronto we lost in the finals that one but and and then and then my daughter also I was the coach of the Toronto team in the Ontario Summer Games which happened in London Ontario that's a that's a esteemed honor like that sounds impressive to me when you say that out loud

Yeah, I mean it was an honor They were there were players from around Toronto and they're they're very good and then players from all around the province at the tournament And it was a it was a real Kind of fun experience if people don't know what the Ontario summer games are they're like a mini Olympics or mini Pan Am games for 15 and 16 year olds in Ontario. So they have basketball and sailing and track and field events, baseball, lacrosse, like like 17 or 18 or 19 different sports and all the athletes who you know depending on sport, they set it up in different

ways, but typically like represent a city or a region and then come to compete against the other ones. But they all stay, you know, in the athletes' villages, which in this case were residences at Western University and at Fanshawe College, and then sort of live together through the tournament, eat meals together, get get bus to and from the games together And and so do their coaches. So actually myself and another of the assistant coaches were were in a Shared dorm room at sagin there. There was like a throwback

to to residence days So it was it was great great but it was also exhausting and then now that we come back our you know select loop playoffs are coming up and and then immediately after that the house league playoffs for my younger daughter resume so lots more on the horizon but it has been a ton of fun so I mean I don't know how interesting that all was for people but it has been people want a lot of your eyes on a baseball Diamond and it's really rewarding and really like fun But also sort of like baking in the Sun a lot

So so if I seem a little zoned out it's because I'm in recovery from spending, you know, like 16 or 17 hours standing out in the sun on a baseball field. The sun's green on the nose. That's first on me. I do. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, everything my skin burns very quickly and and goes very red. And so I put sunscreen on the everywhere, but but especially on the nose. So you don't go brown you go straight to red. No yeah I'm from a pasty and easily burned people. See I actually burn I mean burn I actually tan pretty well like I've been out of my kayak quite a

bit this summer and I still bike like crazy and I do put on my sunscreen but I seem to kind of... Yeah you have I can see the bronze on your arms there I actually have... You should see my farmer's tan. I started to turn brown a bit but yeah you can see I'm showing off my farmer's tan here which is is a pretty high contrast between the forearms and the... You should see me, if I take off my sandals, you should see the difference, like the sandal tan lines. It's unbelievable. Maybe for our photo by the Toronto tree, we'll take off our shirts. How about it?

No, Patty wants that. A couple of pasty white guys with farmer's tans. Okay, so we're gonna cover a lot of ground. I've set my timer because I actually have to pick up kids from camp. So right off the top, I'm gonna let you know, Ed, that you have a Palma pasta lasagna. Hey, there we go. My daughter said to me before I left the house, like,

is that why you're here? She said, where are you going? I said, I got a, I thought you were on vacation. I said, I'm doing a podcast with Toronto Mike. And she said, oh oh so we get lasagna Yeah, she knows the deal. Okay, so you got your lasagna I have told people before on your podcast about like living in the US and the pronunciation of pasta versus pasta Being like a whole thing there, but I was reminded at this DC forest tournament

Yeah, one of my younger daughter's closest friends in DC's name was Asta and her dad has Most of his family lives in Kingston, Ontario And so the way he told people they told the name they in the US They always just say Asta rhymes with pasta rhymes with pasta, which is why all her relatives in Kingston call her Asta because cuz pat and the rhyme just tells them every time. Well, I'm the lone Canadian who says pasta. I'm going to keep that claim. It rolls off the tongue when you're saying palma pasta.

Yeah, because it's, again, I'll remind people that this is Dennis Weaver in ads for Mother's Pizza, and he would go on those ads and say, pizza pasta made perfect. And that's why I say pasta, because Dennis Weaver did it in these ads for Mother's Pizza. There you go. You remember Mother's Pizza I do I find memories and I get that root beer float bring home the glass That was my favorite glass for years and years. Oh, it's my it's like a big fluted Absolute kind of like kind of like this thing maybe a bit like

Yeah, it didn't have a it was like it's less of a Stein. It didn't have a handle on it It was more like a big fancy fluted like I don't even know what kind of glass that's called. But it was like a tall water glass, except very shapely and with a mother's, not just a logo, but like a whole legend on it and pictures. You still have it? Yeah, new.

No, it's unfortunate. Glasses don't survive the decades in my home. You gotta take care of those glasses. Okay, so this is four months in the making so we got some of this stuff they'll be like in history oh my goodness but I took notes along the way right so we're gonna cover the spots that Toronto Mike wants to cover got it and just so you know you're only two months removed from your next appearance so we can't drain the swamp completely because that's we're gonna get back on schedule so yeah in a couple of months you'll be back here all right

so I want to let the listenership know if they have old electronics, old cables, old devices in a drawer, in a box somewhere in the basement or in the attic or whatnot, don't throw that in the garbage because the chemicals end up in our landfill. Go to recyclemyelectronics.ca. Put in your poster code and find out where you can drop that off to be properly recycled. So shout out to recyclemyelectronics.ca and of course shout out to RecycleMyElectronics.ca and of course shout out to Ridley Funeral Home, another measuring tape is going home. Your daughter should be like, are you going to Toronto Mikes? Oh good, I get another measuring

tape. So shout out to Ridley Funeral Home for the measuring tape. Okay, we're going to cook with gas and once I set you up, I'm going to turn off, I can hear in the background, I did not turn off the dehumidifier, which is going to bother me through the recording. So I'm going to shut that down, but let me set you up. Can we go back? We actually, since we last talked, which was four months ago, a Toronto City councillor passed away, Jay Robinson passed away. And I'm wondering if we could maybe you can just share a little bit about Jay

Robinson and then maybe we can talk about who will fill that role for that writing in Toronto City Council? Yeah, Jay Robinson was first elected with Rob Ford. So I guess that was, what was that? That was 2010. 2010. Yeah, and prior to that, she had worked for the city. She was like a department manager one of her big

proud things was this sort of like summerlicious and winterlicious festivals the Trying to help bring in newie Blanche. I believe the the underbell last man this sort of moose in the city Project so like a lot of those promotions and she was a bit of a wild card when she arrived because she wasn't identifiably like a member of sort of the right wing of council and yet wasn't a leftist either. She was that they called themselves the mushy middle or the mighty middle when it was first you know you know when they first the star articles came out about these people

who were not on Team Ford and not on the resistance either. It was like Josh Matlow, Josh Cole, Michelle Berardine, who became known as Michelle Holland later, you know, Jay Robinson, and a few others. And then, you know, they kind kinda splintered into different teams and over the time rob ford was mayor uh... jay robinson sort of became a fairly reliable vote for him but not

again the right uh... and then under john tori she was a real core part of the team uh... she had been although she was suffering through an illness since her re-election, and so wasn't at City Hall in person a lot, wasn't as active as she might have otherwise been. But she had sort of been shaping up to be one of the real opposition members under Olivia Chao. She had sort of drifted more firmly,

whether council drifted or whether she did, more firmly onto the right wing of city council. More so than say someone like Jennifer McKelvey, who served sort of an equally, you know, arguably more prominent towards the end, but equally reliable role for John Tory, who has now become sort of a member of Olivia Chow's team. Jay Robinson had been shaping up to sort of be with Brad Bradford and a few others, one of the more reliable votes against Olivia Chow, are the people most likely to sort of raise opposition. And then she died, of course, so there's going to be a by-election. We got lots of time before that by-election I I will be back here almost for sure

before that because I you know and and so a few different people are going to run I know Anthony fury who ran for mayor recently and is a broadcaster commentator former Sun media guy he was at that party we were at when that's right. That's right. For the breaking brews from Great Lakes Brewery. But he is not the only person running and so I think you know he's gonna run hard. He'll be a contender and then there are a few others and I need to sort of go get caught up and briefed right up to speed but but some of them have like roots at city council. They've worked for other city councilors,

they've worked in that ward, and so it's too early to tell anything for sure, but there are gonna be at least a few strong, legitimate candidates there. Well, you'll be back in early October. And I mean, one question for, Olivia Chow hasn't faced a lot of firm opposition yet, right? There are a few people who like to speak up against her. Stephen Holliday votes

against her really reliably. Like way, he's an outlier on this. Matt Elliott makes a chart of like who's voting percentage with or against the mayor on on core votes and You know even even people like Brad Bradford who might be thought of as the leader of the opposition he ran against Olivia Chow and he he's a spokesperson kind of for For putting up some resistance to her right but even still I I'd have to go and look at it for sure But it's like oh He still votes with the mayor

like 55% of the time. Like a lot of this stuff is not, not every issue is super controversial, right? It's like- Like should water remain wet? Yeah, yeah, no, exactly. And then holidays like no. And yes, even holidays like 4% or something or 14%.

It's like, he's like just a giant outlier on that. But you know, and John Birdside, who has voted with the mayor a lot and has said some good things about about how she's going but has been willing to you know vote against her or speak up against her on things that he thinks are important you know the question there are there are some people who are providing some opposition at City Hall but they're not close to a majority of council yet. Well, let me ask you.

And the question here is like whether Olivia Chow will solidify sort of her majority or whether, you know, another, Anthony Fury certainly would be, you know, probably in the holiday category of dissenting voices. So we'll see. We'll see what happens there. Well, how is Olivia Chow doing? I feel like she must be doing pretty well considering the last kind of negative thing I heard came from the Toronto Sun and elsewhere about how she dressed for the Caribbean Festival

like the full regalia, right? So I'm interested in a couple things. How is Olivia Chow doing? And do you have any thoughts on her festive spirit when it came to the Caribbean Festival? Okay, so first of all how she's doing, I mean I think it depends on how you're evaluating her, but I think by a lot of different measures of evaluating her, she's doing pretty good, right? I think she, and so now this is not going to be new news, but I think it's still the case that when she was

first elected, it was an open question, not just for the general public who kind of is like, oh, there's this NDP mayor now and blah, blah, blah. John Tory was a conservative. But people who follow City Hall trying to do the math early on were like, is she going to be able to do anything? Because she doesn't really have the votes. If you look at people like Paul Ainsley and Jennifer McKelvey, who were kind of on John Tory's team or even for a while on Rob Ford's team

tend to be right of center. You know, how is she going to... Mike Cole, how is she going to get a majority? And in fact, she has not lost a vote yet, but not only that, she hasn't had any that are even particularly close. She has counsel working with her and then I think some of the big things she's tried to accomplish and the biggest would be, you know, that by Toronto standards massive tax increase again passed relatively uncontroversially

and I don't think everyone in the general public loved them, but I think that she managed to stick handle them through without turning it into a fight to the death at City Council or a political suicide man or mission is is a testament to sort of like how she's kind of managed things. And then I think aside from those a few items like that Let's also say like getting along with Doug Ford Which is not something that everybody wants to praise her for right there are a lot of people who think she sold out Ontario Place and I think we talked about it before where it's like I don't know that she had a winning hand to play on Ontario place so she had to play the card is sort of like okay Yeah, you're gonna do what you're gonna do anyway, and I'll stop complaining about it loudly

Which is very in exchange for shrewd the very clever hundreds of billions and billions of dollars right and so You know but there are people who think she should have gone down there and chained herself to a tree and Sued the province and all of that You know in and so so i i so i think the the relationship with doug ford whether you think it's a good thing or bad thing is going to depend to some extent on on what you think but i think to the extent of the city

to to the extent of the city needs the provinces help on all kinds of things yet and the provinces permission on all kinds of things. And the province is permission on all kinds of things. She has gotten along with him very well. So, I mean, on some real world measures, like traffic, congestion, transit reliability, housing, actual building of housing, and availability of affordable housing

homelessness crisis real progress kinda remains to be seen she she has she can and will point to a bunch of things she's done they should show progress on those things i don't know that anybody seeing it yet and it may be too early to evaluate how effective things she's done are you know it's like you're not gonna billed

thousands and thousands and thousands of affordable housing units in six months or one year or even two years uh... and so and so we'll have to see as progress goes on but i think and then i think recently the last couple months it's been kind of quiet right around City Hall and I think maybe that's by design but I think generally she has good vibes and now her caribana outfit or carnival outfit so is it festival it's a Caribbean carnival that's right not used to be called caribana. Of course. But the Caribbean festival.

So what is that? Does somebody own the name and there's a licensing issue there and a trademark at play? Like why is it no longer Carabana? Yeah. It's like an organizational thing. You know, we can still call it Sky Dome. We can still call it Carabana, right? Exactly.

Okay. Yeah. I have no opinion on her outfit for Carabana. I saw the photos and to me, and apparently she's done this historically, just looked like she was like having a good time at this carnival and I was kind of like digging it. And then I started seeing from different spots like,

oh, this is embarrassing. And then there was a piece, Warmington wrote in the sun, I think, that she's getting the crown from, from Justin Trudeau in terms of costumes and, and dress up prizes or something to that effect. And then I'm like, oh, there's some people are poking at this and I'm wondering what Ed Keenan thinks because you're a wise man.

I think very little. I think she looks like she's in a festive carnival costume. I think she has done it before. I'm pretty sure I've seen pictures of her in the parade before. It's the thing for the parade. I have been on vacation, so I didn't read Warmington's thing. But if, like, does he mean like, like with Justin Trudeau dressing up in somebody else's cultural dress?

Is that what he's trying to accuse her of cultural appropriation? Oh, like in India where he was accused of that. Yeah, yeah. Possibly, and then I start wondering, oh, my wife is not from the Caribbean, but I believe she's been at one of these carnivals and dressed up as such.

Everybody I know who has participated in the parade has dressed up in the costume, right? And you don't need to be a Caribbean descent. The band you're with, or the float you're on, like the band, whoever you're jumping up with, they'll have often matching costumes, right? And they're made for it. And they're amazing.

That's what participation is. It's like if you showed up to play in the council baseball tournament and you wore a baseball uniform, it's not like, whoa, what does that mayor think she's doing? What is that, dressing up like, or if you're like, you know, serve at a charity event in the kitchen and you wore a chef jacket,

it doesn't mean you suddenly think you're a chef. It just means you're dressed for the job you're doing, right? Like, this is the environment. And so, I mean it's all good I don't I'm grasping to come up with an opinion for something I had had to have an opinion on but do you remember when Obama got criticized for wearing a tan suit? Do you remember and you remember feeling like oh? Thank now that they're going at his tan suit like things must be pretty damn good for Obama that they're going at the suit

I kind of feel that way about this with Olivia like if that's what you've got which is like her full regalia for the Caribbean carnival. By the way again Caribbean or Caribbean Caribbean. What do you say Ed Keenan at the Toronto Star. Oh Caribbean or Caribbean. And is there a correct way. I'm asking the tough question. I don't I don't know. How do you say brewery. No it's kidding. Okay. I just thought this is our mayor having fun with this big event in our city that she's the mayor of. And I thought it was all good. Okay.

Yeah. All right. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's how else are you gonna dress if you're jumping up in the parade? I thought she looked amazing too. Like this is our mayor looking amazing. Good for her, right?

Yeah, good for you, Olivia. Okay. Now, speaking of mayors, I want to ask you What is your current radio status at Keenan? This is gonna tie into a former mayor But are you on the air at 640? Do you have a show? I'm not I'm doing a lot of podcasts at the star and you're very busy there and we're working on You know the the whole podcast suite of podcasts at the stars sort of being Revamped they've launched a few new series and stuff and there are some changes in the work for what I'm doing there The whole podcast suite of podcasts at the Star is sort of being revamped.

They've launched a few new series and stuff, and there are some changes in the work for what I'm doing there. Do you wanna tell me the changes for you? With the multiple, you will find them out. Is there a scoop here? I'm gonna play the breaking news stinger. I don't have the changes to announce right now

because basically, as the end of the summer, like everywhere else, at the Star, a lot of the staff take vacation time over the summer, not for the entire summer, but it's sort of like staggered. You don't have the whole team in one place at a time. You get serious on the day after Labor Day, you get serious. So it's sort of like as we all return from summer vacation,

in earnest we'll be working on sort of rolling out some changes over the next month or two and maybe the next time we're here okay we'll have things to talk about. If my math is right that's early October. So I am not currently on the air at any other Toronto radio station and I'm not particularly in a rush to get back on the air there. Rush, is that purposely said you're gonna be the new host of the rush on 10 10. Is that what you're saying? I I certainly am happy to be a guest on various radio stations when the opportunity arises.

And I have been over the last little while on on 10 10 on 6 40 and on CBC radio. And and if any of them wanted a guest host for particular spots or whatever I I'd be happy to talk about that and see if it would fit my skin right now I'm really focused on like I got a lot on the go and I'm really focused on that and that's that's the truth I know you you would ask me about this like before and if sort of like I got ousted from 640 and all of that and and I told you at that point like Ben Dixon, Mike Ben Dixon and I you know had talked about having a coffee

and honestly we didn't have that coffee but not because he wouldn't schedule it and not because I thought there was anything against me. The honest truth is that I've been busy and I'm not actually particularly eager to fill up my schedule in a hurry otherwise too. Well you were blowing me off so if you were not blowing Mike Bendix and off I'd be like jealous and upset and hurt so thank you for that. Okay the reason I'm asking about your current radio status is not just because I'm always interested in when you'll be on our terrestrial airwaves which somebody told me is an oxymoron. Oxymoron? No somebody told me it's redundant sorry not

oxymoron but like from the department of redundancy department or whatever to say, uh, terrestrial air waves, but I still think that's how it should be set. So John Tory has been filling in for John Moore on the 10 10 morning show. Like he just did a two week stint and I'm naturally curious. Well, did you tune into any of the John Tory on 10 10? I, as far as I know, I wasn't really in town much for that stint. And so I did not tune into it. I wish I wish I had to find out it's streaming on the internet. Wait till you find out.

OK, so now I'm curious because this guy was mayor for like a decade. And then as we discussed in great detail and the more we talked about it and the more I considered the facts that we know, which is obviously not everything, the more I believe we have a woman who's like significantly younger than John Tory, let's say 40 years younger possibly. We have a man John Tory who is no longer with his wife, like they had split and we had a COVID pandemic

and we had a relationship which might be like more of like confidant than lover. From what it seems, yeah. Right, but you know, you talked to the average. There was some romantic or like from the integrity commissioner's report, which is what I have to go on, right? There was some physical component to that,

but it was not a main component of it. Oh, but there was, it's more than just a confidant crying on somebody's shoulder. Yeah, yeah, but this was like, they were much more likely to sit and watch movies together and talk and and all of that. But a little physical. So it's not quite a quickie in the bathroom or anything. Okay. I think they were physically intimate according to the integrity. Yeah, that's all we have. But only on a few occasions. Like that wasn't the centerpiece of the relationship or the main part of it.

Okay, interesting. But do you think that the John Tory political comeback, probably not municipally, probably I don't know, federally maybe, but a John Tory political comeback is imminent? I think it's possible. I have not heard anything that would make me think it's imminent. Possible. Only because he's hanging around. He seems, you know, he's doing the he filled in for John Moore who just did two weeks on 1010 and we know he you know he enjoys doing that does it for minimum wage I believe and I just

wondered if it was Liam at our time before he was I don't know he ran as a Yeah, I mean this is the thing is I don't know that there's and I could be wrong I could I haven't discussed this with him either before or after but I I think Being mayor of Toronto was the last political job He wanted to have or the last sort of political leadership job that he wanted to have He had planned to run, you know, serve this one last term. And then, but I don't think he ever planned to retire to like obscurity. And the prospect of that happening, you know,

to avoid embarrassment or whatever, you know, was only raised by the nature of how he left the mayor's job but I do think he wants to be and enjoys being a Public figure and a voice in the civic conversation and even before like when he was previously Semi retired from politics. He was heading up civic action and he was hosting a radio show And I I think he actually loves being on the radio like I think he likes Talking to people and being the voice of Toronto. I think as mayor he actually quite enjoyed most enjoyed from what I can tell the role of going out to events and talking to people and being a spokesperson for the city and

You know being a broadcaster he gets to do that without for the city and you know being a broadcaster he gets to do that without without the job of mayor so I mean he may go and run for something again but I like it's hard to see what because he's not going to he's unlikely I think to go and be a conservative backbencher under Pierre Poliev or under Doug Ford right he he seems like a guy who's only gonna go somewhere where there's a leadership role for him. Right now, there aren't a lot of obvious ones open. I mean, if you think he's, you know,

if Justin Trudeau gets trounced and he's gonna run for the leadership of the federal liberals, I mean, it's possible, but I wouldn't bet a lot of money on it. Interesting. Well, stay tuned to see what John Tory does next. Have you got info? No. I was hoping you had a little info. I just have a hunch, like a feeling, that he's going to run for office again. Not municipally, but I think I could see him running to be an MP in the Conservative Party or something like that. We'll see. But there is a question on

the live stream. So we are live at live dot Toronto Mike dot com. And Andrew Ward is there. Andrew, by the way, are we going to do brunch at some point? But reach out to me, man. I love I love I'm a big brunch guy. I'm a brunch. Are you a brunch guy? I used to be more of a brunch guy. Less of a brunch.

Also, I cooked brunch in restaurants for a better part of a decade. And most chefs hate that, like most restaurant cooks hate it, but I actually quite enjoyed making brunch. It's frantic and chaotic, but it's also like, I like cooking eggs. We also used to go out for brunch a lot when our kids were young, because it's like the one meal you could do. But I'm not a guy who wants to wait in line for brunch. Like, it's just not important to me enough.

And my kids are old enough to behave themselves while we're eating dinner. And so I sort of more likely to make breakfast at home. Quick fun fact is that for a period of time as a teenager, I was opening a McDonald's, a McDonald's, which is no longer where I worked, it's gone. But I would be the guy who would be there at 6 a.m. Saturday and Sunday because I was at school. But 6

a.m. Saturday Sunday, I would open it up and I'd be the breakfast cook. The egg McMuffin guy? Yeah. So I did a lot of egg cracking back there and made a lot of big breakfasts. Hotcakes and sausage? Hotcakes and sausage, absolutely. So yeah, sausage, McMuffins and all that jazz. So, uh, yeah, I'm not sure that's exactly the secret hash brown recipe. Yeah, they're frozen in the fry, the fry, uh, fry oils. And that's my secret. But the question from Andrew ward is what's Ed's take on

Tori, John Tori plane on armchair quarterback to Olivia Chow when he's on News Talk 1010. Any thoughts on the fact the former mayor kind of armchair quarterbacking the current mayor on Toronto Talk Radio? I don't think it's a bad question. I should probably have a better answer than I have. I'll fix it in post.

I mean, the thing is, is that no, traditionally when you leave office and this happened like of all the different people you could think of like David Miller was succeeded by Rob Ford and for a long time just bit his tongue right? Right. Barack Obama when Donald Trump succeeded him into office was not openly critical for for quite a while right eventually he did speak up but for quite a like a couple years there he sort of like there's a sense that that when you leave you should let the next person try and do the best job they can do without constantly being out there second-gu second guessing them and all of that.

And maybe a lot of people would think that the impetus to act statesman like would be even higher when you kind of left in disgrace, right? When you were forced out in scandal. John Tory, the weird, he apparently doesn't seem to feel that way, right? But I mean, I think he loves being a radio broadcaster and all of that. But I haven't listened to a lot of his political analysis since he came back on the radio, partly because I just, I just haven't been around. You've been busy. You're enjoying your summer. I've been doing other stuff, right? And that's too much like work. So I don't know how hard he's

going. Right. Well, I don't know either. I just know. In criticism or summer. I've been doing other stuff, right? And that's too much like work. So I don't know how hard he's going. Right. Well, I don't know either. I just know. In criticisms or whatever. I don't expect him to have no opinions. Right. But I think that traditionally, like he can't recuse himself from local politics chatter. You'd be, it would, there's no rule, this says you have to do this or anything like that. But traditionally, a lot of politicians who have been the leader in a big job, executive kind of level job, have felt like the classy thing to do is not be openly attacking there the people who

succeeded them, right? You might offer your opinion on various issues and you might suggest what you should think should be done, but it's rare that you would be taking it hard to the hoop against the person who succeeded you into office. I guess Pierre Elliott Trudeau was quiet for a bit, but then around the time of Meach Lake, he came out to be this sort of anti-Meach Lake guy, the anti

like against Mulrooney there was a few years in between there, but he really Went hard on that, but it's not it. It's not the done thing Traditionally to be like really critical of your successor, but I also don't think like It I mean he's not dead He's not there he has no under no obligation to pretend he doesn't have opinions or to hide under a bushel or or whatever, right? He He resigned he's got a new job he can do it but so those are my thoughts much as they are So I realize it's been so long since you've been here last Last time you were over here, which was early April, the PWHL Toronto team was still active. And so I'm just going to just put a bow on this because you were such a fan and you had season's tickets and we talked so much about this team. How did that season end for our no nickname yet, right? Just the Toronto, just the Toronto PWHL team.

How did that season end for us? We had high hopes. The regular season ended amazingly. They won the PWHL equivalent of the President's Trophy, finished first overall. Natalie Spooner won the scoring title. She won the MVP. She was dominant, right? Like, you know, like lapping the field. She was Mario Lemieux-esque in your dominance there. Emma Malta was robbed for rookie of the year. Then in the playoffs, they got out to a lead.

I was at- This is Minnesota? Against Minnesota, yeah. Then they just couldn't finish the job. They were eliminated in the first round by Minnesota. Yeah. And then they just couldn't finish the job. They were eliminated in the first round by Minnesota. And so that was the end of the season. And so, you know, it's not like that's unfamiliar for Toronto hockey fans. Or baseball fans. But I mean, I think some of the other like super fans and season ticket holders that I've been in contact with or that I follow on social media

I mean, I think come out of the whole season with a generally positive Like feeling like it was a great season feeling like it. Herano was a dynamite team. She did she got injured in Playoff game right and that may have changed the course of Those playoffs because sure they are not the same offensive team without her. They have other players who can score. Sarah Nurse is very good. Emma Maltes is very good. Hannah Miller puts in some timely goals. Offense is not a one person offense, but it is one of those things where like in basketball, if they have to defend the big guy,

right, everybody else becomes more dangerous. Right. And I feel like Natalie Spooner was that dominant on Toronto that that without her, a lot of their other offensive weapons were much easier to cover because you didn't have to worry about her and that that dried up a lot of the scoring for Toronto in that playoff run. But I mean mean I think most of us are really still feeling great about the season and feeling good going into next year But it wasn't the storybook ending we were looking for which was you know bringing home that first title championship Okay, so we're going into the next season two quick questions. Will we have a nickname? That's the first question and the second question is will we still be playing at the madame arena as they call it that's part of the old maple leaf gardens or will we get like I would say almost like promoted to Coca-Cola Coliseum or something like

that. Yeah two good questions to the best of my knowledge neither yet definitively answered but but almost for sure they will have a nickname I think every team in the league is going to have a nickname they have not unveiled them yet and we don't know what they are yet but but they almost for sure will have a nickname. I think every team in the league is going to have a nickname. They have not unveiled them yet and we don't know what they are yet. But they almost for sure will have a nickname and then with those nicknames, they'll probably almost for sure at the same time unveil new logos and new uniforms. I would guess they keep the color schemes the same but that's not 100% guaranteed, but there's gonna be logos and nicknames unveiled before the season starts.

And so I guess, like everything else, like when we come out of the summer, they'll get into that in earnest, right? When do they start the season? October, or is it like the NHL season? This year, they started it, like this first season started in January, right? Because they had such a rush to get into it.

I think this one is going to start in October or November, but I haven't, like even as a season ticket holder I haven't been, it hasn't been communicated to us through the email lists and stuff yet and I I've been in summer mode so I haven't started you know hounding around for it yet but this team is more popular possibly more popular than anticipated so that they've probably outgrown the matami they they almost for sure have and some of us who were there all the time you know almost wish they will stay at mad at me because it's an intimate venue that there's like a real clubhouse sensibility to it. It's small enough that you can see all the other

fans and hear them and there's not a bad seat in the house but I do think like so many people towards by the end of the season wanted tickets and were unable to get them. They could easily, I don't know if they could easily sell out the entire season at Coca-Cola but it would not surprise me. Right. It would not surprise me if they sold it out very quickly. Right. That's your step up, right? Like there's that's what's between Scotiabank Arena and Matamor. And that's the only step up available in Toronto right now, right? Other than a years long building project of a new arena, it's like if you want to stay in the city of Toronto proper, if you don't want to wind up out in Mississauga or Brampton

or something, and from everything we know, the PWHL does want to stay downtown, you've got Matamie, then you've got Coca-Cola, then you've got Scotiabank. Those are your options. There are a few other arenas, St. Mike's, Farsity, but they're smaller than Madami. And so, you know, George Bell, Ted Reeve have ticketed arena style seating if possible in them, but again, they're much smaller than Madami, right? So, so, you know, some fans were dreaming about

adding an upper tier of seats at Matamie, which when you're standing in there, you could kind of see where they would go. But it would, that would be such a major renovation that I don't, I don't imagine it's going to happen. So I would not be surprised at all if they wind up in Coca-Cola. In fact, if you, if you asked me to guess, I would think that's the most likely situation, but they are going to have to work it out with the Leafs, whose Marlies play there, and with the exhibition board, because there are scheduling challenges to the Coca-Cola

Coliseum. Horses? And the Marlies already go through those scheduling challenges, which is that there is like a hundred year plus tradition of hosting the Royal Winter Fair there for like a month in the fall. And then there's a fishing show or something, or a boat show that happens there every spring. And right now the Marlies go on long road trips

when that happens. But so now we would have two teams who not only have to manage their schedules against each other to make sure that the Marlies and the Women were not playing on the same nights and stuff But then they'd also have to manage around these like big lawn, but they can't you know, there's only so many teams in this league So how long can your road trip be right? Like it's like, you know, that's exactly it Like can you take an entire month off in the fall like in the with the seasons just kicking up? I don't know. We'll see right you ever preferred Nick

I mean it could be that they go with a to a to Arena system where they have some games at madamee some games at coca-cola, which they kind of wound up doing last year They played the whole playoffs at coca-cola. They played the one game at Scotiabank They actually went on the road for a couple games in like Pittsburgh and stuff. So what sorry what was you have a thought about? I have thought about it. I don't have I like the thing is I don't know that I'm good at coming up with team names at all. And but also like I'm not good at liking any team name ever when I first hear it.

It's like when they were there to the Toronto Raptors and I was like, are you kidding? After Jurassic Park? Well we all hated it didn't we? Yeah, it was such a fact. When they named Sky Dome, everybody was like rolling their eyes, oh, I get it. Cause it opens up to the sky.

And then within a year, everybody loves it, right? And then when they change the name years later So if you had told me like if I was not If if we were in some alternate timeline where I was there when they're like, okay So, you know the toronto blue shirts who became the toronto arenas who became the st. Pat's right? We got it the permanent name for them Maple leafs like I I don't know that I would have thought that was a good idea. And yet it becomes the thing, right? It becomes the tradition. And so, so I don't know that I'm going to recognize a good name when I see it, but also I haven't come up

with anything great myself. If you have a good nickname for this hockey team, tweet it at me at Toronto Mike and we'll see if you're right. Cause then we'll have like a date stamped archive great myself. If you have a good nickname for this hockey team, tweet it at me at Toronto Mike and we'll see if you're right because then we'll have like a date stamped archive of it. Okay so again I'm gonna hit some hot stuff now that you're comfortable. Ed, you're feeling good? You're 45 minutes deep here. Okay I need to talk to you about the Ontario Science Centre. Yeah. Because so much has transpired on that front because last time you were here, you know, kids were still busing in there for their, you know, to visit the Ontario Science Center.

It was still open. The camps were happening. And now that's not now the doors are locked. So give us an update on what happened and what's next. And is it going to be a kiosk at the Cloverdale Mall next year? Yeah, probably like something like that. So, the provincial government already said they plan to move the Science Center out of there and into the newly rebuilt Ontario Place. When the Thermay Spa waterpark opens, they would have a lot of those old buildings like

the Cinesphere, but also the sort of pods and like mechano set look in Structures that have defined the look of Ontario place forever The new Science Center will go in there And and they said that they would just cost too much like half a billion dollars or something to Brett You know restore and and upgrade the old building to to continue to be suitable Um, and and actually if you're looking at building a building of that size for that purpose um in current

like the current cost of building public infrastructure, it's like You could build something new for that money or you could Rebuild what you got and i'm actually like when you've got a heritage architecture that so well suits its purpose like that I'm like spend the money on on fixing it right but so they had already planned it and yet there was still some talk about whether the city would take over that building whether they'd be able to still host science content there if if there was a possibility because there's always a possibility when something's not happening for a few more years down the road that like there'd be a new branch plant science center downtown

like Science Center on the lake and the old Science Center would still be there that that was all up in the air until one day in you've got it in front of you was it May June I'm trying to to remember. It's been a bit. It's been a bit, I think it was May. Yeah. They just up and closed it one day. Like there was wedding, like no notice at all, right? Scheduled for the weekend

and they're like, sorry, nope, you can't do it. There was the summer camps were about to start the following week. All those guys got told, sorry, there's no summer camps being held here. Maybe it was June. There was like school groups in the building who were like left right so it must have been June right right in a real hurry and what they said was the roofs about to collapse like we got an engineering report it says is not safe

to keep it open and so we had to like immediately evacuate. It was like the day they announced it, right? Like closed as of right now, like, please get out. If you have tickets for something tomorrow, you cannot come. They started erecting fences. Like in the middle of the afternoon, they got all this construction fencing. Like this is a toxic waste zone, do not approach, right?

And so now when you look at the actual engineering report and I'm not an expert but lots of experts have looked at it it didn't say the roof is about to collapse on anybody who's inside right now today what they did say is that some sections of the roof a small portion of it are in such poor condition that if there was like a serious like overwhelming snowfall on right or some heavy weight. This reminds me of George Bell Arena. That it could collapse right pieces of it could collapse but we're not talking about the roof caving in we're talking about like a like a tile or something falling down like pieces of it starting to come across and those those parts

which are like less than 10% I don't have in front of me I think like 7% sticks in my mind but it was in that needed sort of to be fixed immediately but they can be fixed while the rest of the building remains open right this is a sort of time before the next snowfall. You can cordon off a portion of the room or a section under that and say please don't walk here while we're while it. And then much of the rest of the roof would need to be replaced over the next few years, right? To be safe. And it's, you know, partly the condition of it is the type of concrete that they used when they were building it, which was common at the time, but which turns out to have vulnerabilities. We had a lot

of schools in England were closed for similar reasons when they discovered the vulnerability of this type of roofing material. Okay, fair enough. So they just closed it down and basically said, we're going to have like a series of, we're looking for a temporary venue to host some of the programming that used to be at the Science Center and in the meantime while we're looking for a temporary venue, which it like this is frankly impossible to find a big enough building to host anything like what the Science Center was hosting, even

if you had like a year to set it up or two years to set it up. Like the Science Center, like one thing people might overlook is just how massive that building is. Like just the square footage of it. It is very large. In a piece I wrote, I had some comparisons to other buildings and I have it in front of me now and I don't remember what those comparisons were.

But like it's much larger than the ROM. it's much larger than the AGO like as a museum space goes it's it's just massive um so anyway they're not looking for anything like that and the new space at Ontario Place is not going to be big like that um and so but they are like looking to have rotating exhibits there so as you say at Cloverdale Mall or Gerrard Square or something you could wind up with like a little mini science center exhibit or something. The city of Toronto tried to save it.

They tried to like see if they could, there's some way they could legally force the province to continue operating the science center there or if they could take it over. Although the people who really wanted to take it over, wanted the city to take it over, wanted the province to continue paying the science center there or if they could take it over, although the people who really wanted to take it over, wanted the city to take it over, wanted the province to continue paying the bills, which is, that's never going to be an easy sell. Like dad, instead of selling the car or junking it, how about you give it to me? Well, possibly son, and continue to pay for all the maintenance

and gas? Yeah, not so much. But the city staff also says that it, you know, given the city's financial position, they're not in a position to take that on and adequately assume the financial liability of being responsible for maintaining and fixing up that building and operating it. And so they're not doing that. And so again, it winds up in a... I think there's a lot of people in the city who, even if the Science Center is not going to be housed there anymore, think that building itself is worth saving for some public or

civic purpose. That it's a significant enough building and actually like perfectly built for its environment. You cannot build housing there. It's like floodplain on a ravine and all of that. So you can build housing up on the parking lot, which the city had already planned to do. The city owns the parking lot, had already planned to put housing on parts of that parking lot and develop it. But the actual location of the Science Center itself, like there are not a lot of other things that you could easily put there. And you've got this big building that the architect said he designed to last 200 years, is only 50 years into its lifespan. And yeah, need some work as every 50 year old building does. But I'm not convinced that if you tear that down and build something else there,

it's going to come out to be cheaper than maintaining and fixing this building we have. Coté Well, Ed, you're being rather kind. I think it smells because here's what we know, and I know you're here to help me make sure I don't get my facts wrong here, but we have a government that wanted to move the Science Center to Ontario Place. This is a rather, well, it depends who you talk to, but it's a controversial decision

to build the private spa at Ontario Place and I know you I was at on two I was that Trillium Park today because I can't even bike into Ontario Place right now Because it's closed because they're working on it and doing stuff in there, but we have This decision that this unpopular in some places especially in Toronto the decision to move the Science Centre to the onto to Ontario Place And all of us it it seems awfully convenient, like that, oh, the roof needs repairs. So boom, let's do it like a bandaid. They throw up the fences, they kick everybody out,

and that Science Center is no more. Like, I think something smells rotten here. This is all this timing. It just seems like this is something's not me saying like are they are like why not just repair the roof? The challenge is trying to figure out what the rotten thing is right? Because I mean and you can find easily that you know developers who have whose names have shown up you know when it comes to the highways when it comes to the green belt when it comes to so many other files,

had recently bought property near the Ontario Science Centre and all of that. Okay, fine. And it seemed convenient when Doug Ford announced the Ontario Line subway is going to start at Ontario Place, or it's going to start, let's say, at the Ontario Science Centre and end at Ontario Place or it's going to start let's say at the Ontario Science Centre and end at Ontario Place and you might say why that corner of you know Don Mills and Eglinton or wherever it is why why that corner and he'd say because Ontario Place is there and other people would say look at the developers who recently bought land right at that corner near that corner they're the ones

who are going to profit that all of that you can see the motives for, right? How does that land become more valuable if you close the only cultural attraction that draws people there? I don't understand that, right? I don't understand what else he wants to do with that site. It's gotta do with Ontario Place. Like having it at Ontario Place instead of Science Centre,

that's where you do your sniffing. But he was already gonna move it down there, right? But this... I mean, that definitely makes sense, is that he wants to justify the third thing by... This sort of gets rid of the whole discourse of save our Science Centre and keep it where it is. It does do that.

And I think actually the timing, my own strong suspicion is that the timing of this and the doing it in a hurry was to short-circuit any right save Save the Ontario Science Center movement to like if we're gonna do it In three years do it now and do it in a way that makes it irreversible But I don't think and I could be wrong here But I don't think they're could be wrong here, but I don't think they're going to be able to like act to immediately tear down the old building or anything right like the city

has I'm writing this down. City is a back to you owner of that part owner of that property in the Toronto Region concert like there's but just so I swear so sorry just sorry for everything but but the Ontario Science Centre is owned by the province. So that Science Centre is owned by the province. So that building is owned by the province, right? I know you're not 100% sure. The entity, like the Ontario Science Centre organization, the brand, the operation of the thing, is owned by the province.

They have a lease on the land with the city and another organization. Now, I believe the province may own the building. The province almost certainly built the building. I haven't read the terms at least closely enough to know if the city could insist on having the building returned to them with their whatever. Yeah, I mean, if they send bulldozers in and start plowing over that building soon, we're going to know something bigger is up because other people have certainly

expressed an interest in figuring out a way to save it. Robert Leonard I guess what I'm wondering is again, and it sounds like this is impossible, but can the city repair the roof? I guess they don't, they're building to repair this. What I'm trying to say, like, can the city repair the roof and have the Toronto Science Centre there? They could, from what I understand, and Doug Ford has given every indication that he would morally support them or like, like allow that he thinks the city he has said the city's gonna figure out What's gonna happen there after the Science Center leaves they already had an agreement?

in Principle that the city would run cultural programming in the old building After the province left after the Ontario Science Center left right he keeps saying they say what's gonna happen this building now that you moved It out and he says well, that's up to the city, right? The city's going to decide what happens here next. And so, so far that's all the indications that the Toronto could run the Toronto Science Centre there. The question is whether the city of Toronto now wants to put its money where its nostalgia is, where its sentiments are, and actually pay to operate that building and renovate it themselves.

But it is certainly possible, like we've been given every indication that it's possible. And even the Premier, for everything else he's done, keeps saying, like, what happens there next is up to the city. We're going to let the city run some culturing program there. They're going to run some science center programming there. Maybe they'll make it a community center. That's gonna be up to the city. So when I see a church burning down in Paris, for example,

then I read about rich Parisian people and corporations coughing up, here's a lot of money to rebuild that church because it's important to us to have that church. And I would think that, you know, putting some, some repairs, not just the roof, but maybe bringing it up to 2024 standards, the Ontario Science Centre and opening a an amazing Toronto Science Centre there, I think there would be money beyond the the public coffers. Yeah. And if you have people who are in that philanthropy tax bracket listening, like a

bunch of people did step up. Of course they do, Ed. A bunch of people did step up immediately when it was being closed and say, I'll foot the bill for the immediate roof repairs required, right? Or I'll chip in a million dollars. I'll chip in a half a million dollars, right? There was quite a lot of offers like that and they were not taken up. But if some of those people actually really love this building and love its purpose and all of that, wanted to fundraise to rehabilitate that

building and do it with the City of Toronto, I think Toronto City Council, Toronto City Government, the mayor of Toronto would probably embrace that. You know, the Under the Gardener Park there, the bent way, which I love, was funded with private philanthropy, right? And it was somebody saying, we need to do something underneath the Gardener Expressway here and we have a shortage of parkland and recreational space down in this part of the city. So I will put up a bunch of dollars

and help set up a private, you know, ongoing source of revenue and everything for the benefit of the city. And that was embraced by John Tory and the city government. And I think a massive full philanthropic rescue project for the Science Center building and the Science Center the part that that building plays in the city like I I think there's potential there but it probably needs to be led by those civic leaders right the people with the cash

have to come forward and say we've got X we've got a half a billion dollars we're gonna give it to the city on this condition that it gets used for this right you know okay so now I'm thinking I mean we'll be we'll be we would be fine as a city if this were the the MasterCard Science Center you know what I mean And that they helped finances this and it was educating, especially on that, because I know I'm a West End guy. You're a West End guy too. Yeah.

Science Center's far away. Like I'm biking to Ontario Place all the time, every day. It's an easy little bike ride, but going to Ontario Place is a whole thing. It's a whole trek. And I'm conscious of the fact that there are people who live east of Yonge Street in this city. Did you know that, Ed? And a lot of the ones who live closest to the Ontario Science Center?

I mean you've got Flemington Park there. You've got Thornecliffe Park. They did You know not affluent communities a lot of Newcomers to Canada live in that neighborhood a lot of people who are struggling live in that neighborhood and and a lot of young Families a lot of children right and this is the one thing that's close to them, and it's the one thing that also like, I have a friend, Rudy, who is a paramedic now, he's an EMT, like an ambulance driver and paramedic, but he came here as a child from Poland, you know, fleeing with his mother, fleeing the country. And they settled across the street, in an apartment building just across the street

from the Ontario Science Centre. And he said, I was at a party with him the day they closed it. And we were talking about taking our kids there and all of that and he said you know but it's like I am miss taking my kids there but you know his youngest daughter is 11 now so she's you know that you're getting past the age where you really need to find stuff to take your kids to but he said but when I was growing up like we had almost no money and we didn't get to do a lot of stuff but it was right across the street and it used to be at least at that time it was like free after five on

weekdays and from five to seven or something like until it closed so it's like after school just for a couple hours right? But he said I would go there multiple times a week and he said for a big portion of my life, that was without exaggeration my very favorite place in the entire world. Wow, I get chills hearing this. And so I don't know how many kids there are who live in that neighborhood today who it plays a similar role for but I have to think of some. If it's not their very favorite place in the world it's like an amenity of their community which which is not a community

these are like strong communities in some ways but they are communities that lack a lot of resources and a lot of the sort of the types of neighborhood amenities that make a neighborhood that you know rich people like to have in their neighborhood they don't have a lot of those things. And yet they have this place, right? And these kids have it and now they don't anymore. And so yeah, as you said, as West End guys, it's a trek for us to get out there,

but there are people for whom it's actually pretty convenient location. No, right, and I always think that those people in that neighborhood, it's a trek for them that everything's in the West End. The ROM is in the West, like everything. The ROM, my two kids were at the ROM yesterday, by the way. The ROM, the Art Gallery of Ontario, now Ontario Place, like that's all West End stuff. So just thought, okay, good chat there. Interesting to see what happens. Will it be a kiosk at the

Cloverdale Mall or as you said, Gerard Square? Stay tuned. But as that story, that great story you shared, that's not enough. That's insufficient. We not, it's not going to work. Okay. You can't leave your kid from five to seven. I'm going to leave them at the kiosk.

Okay. It doesn't work. That's true. Now here again, we're going to bounce around here. A lot of notes I want to get to one. This is from today and I know you've been on vacation. So you're off the hook on knowing the details, except to say I was reading today

about how most Ontario 7-Elevens are going to offer booze for takeout and in-store drinking, okay? I was thinking about my buddy Joe, we used to play box, we called it wall ball. Yeah, yeah, we used to call that game Burby. Yes, do we have this chat? Were you raised in the East End? East End, yeah.

East End Burby? Burby, yeah. Okay, so we called it Wall Ball here. Sometimes we called it Box. Same game. I have some, my in-laws call it French. That I've never heard. Which might be like Burban, Burby, French as a like maybe related to East End thing

because these are East York roots people who call it French. But yeah. The butlers are from East York. Robin Rich. You know, they both. We should ask them what they call it. I should. They were, I was just had Rich Butler on the program when I was at Christie Pitts two times

ago and you know, he almost batted. He was going to. So on the last day of the IBL season season Rich Butler was sitting at something close to a batting average of I thought I want to say close to like 500 Okay, something you know, it's former Toronto Blue J. He's playing in the IBL and He was that would be the IBL record and he's either player manager. No, that's Rob. Okay, that's Rob doesn't play though He's just the manager so rich, but the record was held's Rob. Okay, that's Rob. Rob doesn't play though. He's just the manager. So, Rich, but the record was held by Rob. This is the wild story. So, Rob Butler had the IBL record for average in a season with minimum number of at bats. And Rich is on the last day of the season, has the record. And the manager goes to Rich and says, do you want to sit out this

game? You've got the IBL. And Rich is like, no, man, I want to play. Like, and Rich tells the story. I think he went one for four. He got robbed by an amazing defensive play by the opposition that robbed him of a hit. And it all, at the end of the day, when the numbers were crunched, if that ball that he had hit for a single had not been snared by a great defensive play,

he would have had the record, but he ended up missing out on the record. Yeah, like a point short or something like that. And it reminds me, just on a quick tangent, it reminds me of Ted Williams. The last time a player in major league baseball batted 400, Ted Williams was sitting at like 401 or something on the last, it was a double header last game of the season. He did a long, our double headers back then. And they said, Ted,

you want to sit, you've got a 400 average and Ted's like, no, I'm playing like I want to play ball and that double header. He went something like, don't quote me, but something like four for six or something and ended up finishing at four or six or something. Yeah. Yeah. Like he improved his improved his average, but he could have easily, uh, you know, gone down to three 99 or something like that. And then didn't hit foreign, but just those stories.

And then I always think of Robbie Alomar for the Toronto blue Jays, one of the later seasons of the blue Jays, he played five years here, but he was sitting at 299.9 or something. So it was like gonna be rounded up to be an average of 300. And he sat that last day of the season to keep his 300 average. Yeah. Like boo.

It's okay to boo Robbie Alomar. No, no, yeah, it's actually a happy occasion to boo Robbie Alomar now, I guess, as it's happened. Well, then, a quick, because I'm all over the place, except I've been waiting for you. It's been four months since I saw you, but I had on, well, I had Joey Batts on the program since we last got, and Joe Jose Batiste was on Toronto Mike. Holy cow.

And I was talking to him about the Ted Rogers statue outside the dome. It really pisses me off that we have a statue of Ted Rogers. If I go to the Scotiabank Arena, I can say, hey, Mats, hey, Wendell, hey, Dougie. I can even go back to Teter Kennedy. You can go back to older players too. Of course, Johnny Bauer's there. All these Leaf greats are just there outside Scotiabank Arena and it's amazing.

But if I go to the dome, it's Ted Rogers, like seagulls on his head. I do not understand it. None of it makes sense, but I had Joe Carter. Put the Rogers statue out front, the Raj Mahal there on, where is it, Jarvis? Jarvis and Bloor, whatever that is. Like put this Ted Rogers statue there

if you wanna put a statue. But then I have Joey Bats on and I said, Joey, so I'm thinking in my mind, there's two statues we should do yesterday. The first statue is Joe Carter. Maybe he's jumping up after he's touching them all. Maybe I'm going to walk off. And then the second one, give me the Joey bats bad flip.

Bad flip. Right. Can you picture these and these are outside the dome? But then I was thinking, oh, because I love the Alomar after he hits the home runoff, actually. Yeah. 92 and I'm like, oh, that's not going to happen. And then I, this is where I go.

But I think, okay, I know that's not going to happen. And then I, this is where I go with it. I think, okay, I know that's not going to happen. He's literally banned from major league baseball. We will not see Robbie Alomar at any official events with the dome or the team ever again. And then I'm like, Oh yeah, because he did. And then I realized, Oh yeah, we actually never been told. We don't know what happened. We just know trust us. It's bad enough from baseball harassment issue.

Yeah. Isn't that, but is it, I can't think of another situation. Not that I'm not saying we need to know trust us. It's bad enough. He's banned from baseball harassment issue Yeah, isn't that but is it I can't think of another situation not that I'm not saying we need to know or whatever But it's I can't think of a comparable where a player We all think yeah, and he's let's face it you and I said hey, who's the best position player in blue? J history we know we don't hesitate right we say Alomar. Yeah, I think we all do and We know he's never gonna be seen at the dome again And I saw him in 2015, but I'll never see him again there And we know that it's because he's banned from Major League Baseball We actually don't have a any no clue nothing leaked We don't know what he did just that it's bad enough Major League Baseball investigated and banned him from baseball

But I can't think of a comparable I can't think of the base the Blue Jays like unretired his number. Took him off the Wall of Honor. They peeled him off. Erased him from the. Yeah, yeah. So he's not gonna get a statue. But I was thinking that'd be cool if things had turned out differently for Robbie Alomar.

But we do need the Joe Carter statue and we need the Joey Bats statue. Yeah, the Joey Bats statue, you know, in the list of things you make statues of in sports, it would be an oddity because they didn't win the World Series there that year it wasn't like I mean if you were gonna put a LDS the first Raptors statue outside Roger Center in in Jurassic Park there near Legends Row for the Leafs could be Kawhi

Leonard Kawhi's shot I mean you would think if you were just gonna put a statue of one guy although it could be Kyle Lowry. I was gonna say if you were just gonna put a statue of one guy you would probably put Kyle because he's the heart and soul of that franchise for so long through the DeMar DeRozan years. But if you're looking for a moment you've got Kawhi. But if you were looking for a moment in that one run, the shot right? That like maybe the crouching afterwards with hundred like or you know but that's that's the moment right but they won the thing about the bat flip is that it lives so large and and is such a moment it is such a moment we were we everybody remembers it and yet and yet it wasn't even a World Series

game it wasn't even an ALCS game not only did we even an LCS game. Not only did we not win the World Series, we didn't even make it to the World Series. It's back to all comes back to Dalton Pompeii, but I will say this. I will say that it is by far the biggest moment for Blue Jay fans since Joe Carter's walk off. Right. And then, but then as cause I'm on these kayaks now and I'm bike riding, so I'm thinking of all this stuff and then I raise oh shit Chapa Chapaero who's a current president of the team Mark Chapaero? Isn't going to celebrate the bat flip because it happened He's an Alex Anthropolis guy and that's like the last season Alex Anthropolis is the GM. Okay, so this is my thought on it Okay, so Joe Carter

Maybe they could do that because that's long enough that they can, you know, you know, but you don't want fans to look at 2015 and that hype train and the bat flip and say, Oh, remember that team? I fucking love that team. And that was an exciting team. Whatever happens to do that. Yeah. Like, and then you realize, Oh yeah, late in that season, Ted Rogers hires Mark Shapiro and then Alex Anthopoulos quits basically because he wanted to have someires Mark Shapiro and then Alex Anthopoulos quits basically because he wanted to have some autonomy and he left and then he went to one World Series somewhere else. And then he brought Shapiro brings in Atkins, who he worked with in Cleveland and the rest is history. And now we have a very mediocre, a bad actually, a bad baseball

team that's going to finish. Maybe they'll get 75 wins, who knows? And they're, you know, they're in some trouble next season. You told me that this team three years ago, if you told me this team was going to be bad, like I am shocked at what's happened. Like the future just seems so bright. Well we had, we had, we were, we said, okay, we got Vlad here, we got Beau Bichette, we have some other great parts. And then Bichette went south this season. So goodbye Bo. And now you got Vlad.

And as we know, he's great. But as we know, we had holiday and Delgado for, I don't know, a decade at least and did nothing. We never played meaningful games in September because you can't be a successful baseball team with one position player and one great pitcher. It takes more. This was quite the tangent, but I feel better having had this Jay's chat with you.

Okay, so I admit I missed the episode, but what did Joey Bats say about statues? He said he would love it. He would love it. And you know what? He said he would love it. He would love it. And you know what? He, yeah, yeah, nevermind. I'm just trying to think of some kind of ceremony where like as his is unveiled,

they rip down that Ted Rogers statue. Move it, move, move it. I think that's gonna be us fans. We're gonna have to put the Ted Rogers statue in the lake. Like I think we're gonna have to all get together one night and just take it down, sort of like when you topple dictator statues, right? When democracy returns or whatever.

We're gonna have to, and Ted Rogers did great things for the city. I'm not anti Ted Rogers, but if he's the only statue, we're doing it wrong. We're doing it wrong. We're doing it wrong. Yeah. Okay. We agree.

Okay. Just quickly on this note, 7-elevens are offering, that's where we were. Yeah, this is how we got it. Okay. So 7 doing it wrong. Yeah. Okay. We agree. Okay. Just quickly on this note, seven 11s are offering. That's where we were. Yeah. This is how we got it. Okay. So seven 11. So, so much has happened in the booze world since you were last here. And again, you were on vacation, but I did read also today that Doug Ford visited seven 11 HQ just before the pandemic. Like that's been documented in the newspaper today and it all smells. So it's time to have the wine seltzer slurpees are coming up, right? Right. Oh yeah, that's right. That's how I got into baseball. My buddy, Joe and I would play wall ball. See, this is how we got the tension. I mentioned wall ball, but post and shout out to Joe from Tio post box. We would go

to seven 11 and get the biggest fucking slurpees. Like that's what we did. I can't even imagine drinking a slurpee today to be honest. Like my stomach's rotting just thinking about it. But we drink the biggest freaking slurpees. And yeah, what's next is vodka slurpees are on the horizon because you'll be able to drink in the 7-Eleven and take out booze and it seems like the plan for Doug and his PC government is just to make where alcohol can be everywhere. So just I haven't read the story, but by the way, I had a slurpee this past weekend, probably

for the first time in, I don't know, a decade or more because after the opening ceremonies in the London games, we had to march through like an hour of summer, like, you know, 33 degree heat with humidity and all of that. And so the girls were like, can we stop at 7-Eleven on the way back to the residence? And I said, sure, I guess. And then they were all getting Slurpees and I was going to just get like a soda or I was going to get like a Gatorade. I did actually, I had, they had Gatorade was like two for it was like not even a good deal It was like two for seven dollars or something like like and I was like had two things a Gatorade and I was walking

Up with them and as I was passing the slurpee machine, I thought Why why why am I not getting this like the girls and it was it was very refreshing like sickly sweet Yeah, and I did I have? Mountain Dew Baja Blast or something like that. I had some kind of, oh man, like pop slurpee. But it was like, it was actually very refreshing for the heat I was in. I actually needed it. So while you're baseball related to, but I mean, I, I don't hate any of the stuff Doug Ford is doing around booze liberalization. I think the convenience stores should be allowed

to sell beer and wine. I've been arguing that for 20 years back when I used to drink beer and wine, and long since I stopped drinking beer and wine, I have thought, why not do that? I think you should be able to drink booze in parks. I've been saying that all along. I think you should be able to walk with an open container. I've been saying that all along. I think you should be able to walk with an open container.

I think a lot of other things could be liberalized and should be, and I understand why Doug Ford wants to champion those issues. I do not understand why we're spending the amounts of money he is doing to do it in a rush. I do not understand why he wants to make it his sole identity, right? Like I I think if he put half the

Effort he puts into booze and into a lot of other issues that they we would be far out ahead I mean this would have been more like You could gradually Allow these things to happen now I know he did go down and have this meeting with the 7-Eleven people. It's like, is there some, so I haven't read this story this morning, but is there some sweetheart element of this deal

for 7-Eleven that is not available to other convenience stores and grocery stores? Like... Right, like some preferential treatment for 7-Eleven. Yeah, yeah, I mean, cause I know he had the meeting and I don't know if he was just trying to say, hey, did you notice we're liberalizing the boo sales and convenience stores like the ones you operate are now going to be allowed.

But if this is a different deal for them, I don't know. But the money he's spending to fast track this. Yeah, yeah. Even the beer store deal. Absurd. So, I mean, again, something smells. Like, like, like, why? There must be a reason. Then you find out about these meetings, be it with la blah, or it's with 7-Eleven and stuff. And then you start, you know, I'm still thinking of the Staples MTO kiosks. Is that

what it was? If I remember that one correctly? And if people want to know how what they could be doing with the money that they're spending to fast track this. So the deal that basically is ultimately going to kill the beer store, like you know, Mark, in two or three years there will not be any beer stores left or there will be almost no beer stores left. It's like that chain, the writing is on the wall and so the payouts to the beer store companies and then other subsequent payouts to these other companies, they come with this. If it adds up to a billion dollars, as many members of the opposition and people at the Star have tried to calculate, it's going to be... Like just to give you a sense of perspective, like when they announced that they were going to speed up construction on the Gardiner Expressway,

and it would open a year earlier than it otherwise would be which is a significant reduction in the timetable. That was like about a billion dollars right? It's like like it's not a billion dollars to me seems like a crazy amount of money but even in provincial government terms it's like you can do a lot with it right? We built the Shepherd subway line for a billion dollars and so there's a lot of priority. Doug Ford keeps saying housing is his highest priority and he keeps justifying all kinds of other things on housing terms and yet we're lagging behind. Housing starts in Ontario are lagging behind Alberta, lagging behind BC, right? Like the Toronto

and province of Ontario are falling further behind the rest of this country in housing starts. If it is the kind of priority he said it could be, how about he goes and starts building with a billion dollars? You get a few thousand units out of that, you get probably 10,000 units out of that at least. You could give them to000 units out of that at least. You could give them to the city. You could give them to a nonprofit. You could just sell them to the people.

But like, there are a lot of things you could do with that money. And in one year, we would have beer and wine in corner stores anyway. Right. This is like, we just sped up by one year. Right. Right. This is like we just sped up by one year. Right. Like again, is this something, I don't know, something smells. That's all. In fact, sorry I got this wrong because the Gardner Expressway speed up is only like 200 million dollars. Okay. It's like five times. It's like,

no, no, but yeah exactly. Like that you could speed up the Gardner Expressway construction for one year For way less money Then you can speed up beer and wine going to corner stores in one year And I don't understand what we're even buying with that money Dude, if you don't know, oh, we're all in big trouble here. So just just stay on this is why I know what he Lids like the journalist like he thinks he's buying goodwill so he can have an early election And have you know just keep this We brought it in sooner, but it's just like I I don't know it. I know a lot of people I understand why

He the buck a beer and all of that why booze and I mean Doug Ford doesn't claims to not drink alcohol, right? That's I have never under I have never encountered any reason to doubt that that he's being completely honest about that. But I understand why he thinks for the people, he wants to like them and vote for him. This is going to be a popular issue. But I don't I don't know a single person for whom this is a top priority. I know lots of people who agree on the issue, but I don't know anybody who argues for whom this is a top priority I know lots of people who agree on the issue but I don't know anybody who argues that it's the the most important thing to

To put our foot on the gas pedal for so we'll keep our eye on this story You'll be back in a couple of months and we'll see what's new now. I as I told you I like to bike to Ontario place I now have a kayak. So at some point when I've, you know, built up my paddling stamina, I'm going to paddle to the island. But one thing I've always wanted and this has kind of been in the news lately is I've always wanted a way to bike to the Toronto Island. Like this has been my fantasy. I'm going to be able to bike to the island. And I think we talked at some point they had a there's a way to walk

to the airport, but you can't get to the Toronto Island. But what do you say about this fantasy of mine? We could do that for a billion dollars, right? Maybe. I don't know what the final bill would be. But why can't I bike to the island? We're going to find out what it would cost because the city is actually now, you know, city staff didn't want to look at it. They didn't want to and there was lots of city councilors who didn't really want to look closely at this.

They had too expensive. It's unfeasible. Um, okay. So here's the thing. There is a tunnel that goes to the island airport. That's a very short that that previously was and I think still is if you're taking your car over to go into the parking lot on the island side Which maybe you're still allowed to do my wife once

Went over to that on an airport to ride in a helicopter for some something It was like a business related thing that she had to she got hired to do something and and they she took her car over On that little ferry, but that was like the world's shortest ferry ride, right? Like the ferry barely moves because it's, you could almost throw a ball across. There's that tunnel, but it goes into the airport. And there's no way to get from the airport onto the islands. Like it's fenced off, the runways are in the way.

It's not- Like you can't even bring your kayak to the airport and the kayak to the island. Then there's the ferry docks, which you can take your bring your kayak to the airport and kayak to the island. Then there's the ferry docks, which you can take your bike on the ferries to Hanlands or Wards. Of course. But that's often a clown show, a chaotic shit show there.

Especially on a nice Saturday. Yeah, like, and we don't have as many ferries as we should and the replacement ferries are not coming anytime soon. And the ferries are are like if you've been to New York and taken the Staten Island ferry, which is like a part of the New York's public transit system is like massive, it's fast. It's free, right?

Is that free? I've heard from people, yes, it's free. I've heard from people in European cities that there are many ferry services that are much bigger boats, they're faster loading boats. They travel faster. We don't have anything like that on the horizon, right? Even the new boats we are going to get are kind of like the old-fashioned same loading. Okay, now out near Cherry Beach and Wards Island,

there's also a fairly narrow gap and you can, if you stand out there, imagine a bridge crossing it. I have heard from people, especially the people who live on the island, but to be fair, lots of other people, they say it's a bit of a fantasy scenario because, like, first of all, there's enough shipping traffic, enough boat traffic through there to access the harbor that you would either need a lift bridge Or you would need like a skyway bridge And for pedestrians and cyclists if this is gonna be a bridge that cars are not allowed on a skyway doesn't work You can't like have people on wheelchairs or on their bikes, right? You know going up at that angle so right there are there are people there who say a kind of a floating bridge, which is kind of like a different and alternative to a lift bridge.

Like it can move out of the way to let ships through like anyhow the city's going to study it. But I mean, I think it's long past time that there be some either a fixed link. And I don't think anybody really wants cars on the island No, nobody's arguing for like right we should be able to drive over there and let's pave all those houses and make a parking lot Or anything like that. It's more like you should be able to walk or ride your bike across, right? And if not that they need a better boat option. They need they need something so this They had to be dragged kicking and screaming into it but we're actually going to get some reports that talk about those options and actually talk about what it would cost or what the obstacles to constructing it are. I know that there's a lot of people who live on the island. There's actually not a lot of people who live on

the island. There are a few, there are people who live on the island who are not all that enthusiastic about their quaint little cottage neighborhood becoming the front door of the islands for tens of thousands of visitors, to which I got to say like, you know, tough luck. You chose to live in the biggest city in the country. Yeah. And you've got like waterfront property that you got for... I don't feel sorry for those people at all, Ed.

Two hundred thousand dollars or something they paid for their house. Right. And it's been a oasis. I understand how what a drag is gonna be to make it more crowded. I'm not all that sympathetic. People talk about also the parking issues at Cherry Beach. Maybe that's gonna be an issue.

They talk about transit options to get to a potential entrance at Cherry Beach. Again, I wanna see the reports. I wanna see the information about They talk about transit options to get to a potential entrance at Cherry Beach. Again, I want to see the reports. I want to see the information about what are the actual obstacles, what would this actually look like, what are the environmental implications, because I think it's kind of a crime that we have this magnificent park and we make it almost intentionally difficult to get to. A lot of people do talk about though, and again, I hope this is part of the reports

or the studies, is like, is there a way to use that island tunnel to also access, like, right now there's no way to walk from the airport into the parkland part of it and from from what I've been shown quickly on a map of like where you enter it's like okay I can see it's not there's a whole airport in the way it's not it's not just like there's a gate that they need to open it's actually you have to walk across the runway or whatever right but is there a way to to remodel the airport or somehow under the pedestrian pathway like to get you there like because it just does seem like crazy yeah yeah that the what what a lot of people would say is like Toronto's central park or something,

right? And it is a magnificent park. It is got a lot of beautiful things there, a lot to do there. An amusement park. A lot of beaches, the amusement park, the like, everything. The island cafe will be rebuilt. Um, like we just need to make it easier for people to get to it. Right.

By whatever means necessary. Right. Okay. So they're they're doing their they've got a report coming and at some point you'll be back here to tell us what the report says. Yeah. Okay. That's a commitment.

All right. This is a I read the Toronto Star. I love what Ed Keenan writes for the Toronto Star. How are things going at the Toronto Star? I think they're going fairly well. Well, you got that whole podcast thing being revamped. That's exciting. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And we just won, you know, the Missioner Award, which is the highest award in public service journalism for the Greenbelt investigation. Awesome. Like a team at the start won that. I was not a part of that team but I really applaud what they're doing. They won a bunch of other significant awards recently. I mean without sharing the like I don't know we have these town hall meetings where like financial results and stuff are shared with us on the

condition that they not be like we're not supposed to be live tweeting or sharing this specific numbers or the whatever information right so I I don't know what specifics I'm supposed to share or not but financially we are fixing this imposed in a much no no yeah that's fine financially we're in a much stronger position than we were say two, two years ago. Much more encouraging news on both the subscription fronts, the revenue fronts, on our balance sheet. Things are looking much more positive than they have in quite a while. And so, I don't think by any means that that means like we've solved

the problems, the financial problems of journalism or that the news could be bad again soon. But things both on an editorial front and a financial front as I understand it are more encouraging than they have been in quite a while. And I got to say, the new editor-in-chief, Nicole McIntyre, is like, I am exceedingly happy. Like, at the risk of sounding like I'm kissing up, I just think she's an excellent journalist, an excellent boss, but she's also somebody that like, motivates people.

I think the staff really likes her and is ready to get out and kick ass for her. And so you know all of that stuff is going very well. Good to hear. Now I recently joined your 50 Club. I'm in the 50 Club. Hey welcome. So we had a big party at Great Lakes Brewery late late June and it was just awesome to see David Ryder there. And I'm wondering, because I'm curious, do you ever interact with David Ryder? Like do you guys?

All the time. Yeah. So I have an office at, I have a desk in the City Hall Bureau at City Hall, in the Stars Bureau at City Hall. And I work there, you know, one or two days a week or something. I work from home sometimes. I go to the Star's main office sometimes. So David Ryder continues to have a desk at the Star City Hall Bureau, even though he is no longer the City Hall Bureau Chief. He is now our senior political reporter, I think. I'm trying to remember the title,

but senior politics reporter or something like that. He's sort of still writing about city stuff, but also provincial stuff and federal stuff. And maybe where they overlap in ways that make it hazy, which beat they're on. He's doing a lot of enterprise work there and stuff. But we still see each other, you know, summer vacations have interfered with it, but typically we see each other a few times a week. And we're in communication almost every day Okay, I'm just just curious. But yeah, I know he's a dynamite guy and a dynamite journalist You know who was at Christie Pitts on Sunday and popped on the mic for a catch-up Ben Rayner. Oh, yeah, that's great

How's Ben doing? Well, Ben is he's now a divorced dad. So he's a little sad about that he was telling me about that on on the record and a divorced dad so he's a little sad about that. He was telling me about that on the record. And but he's so madly in love with his daughter and his daughter got to run the basses that day and she had a great time at the Diamond. So Ben, like I mean, I have a lot of time for Ben Rayner. Among the other things and like Ben and I are two of these people who are like, like I don't know him very well. And we always like had all these people in common because like I worked at iWeekly and he was a music critic

and so like, and just in general, like our social circles, there was a ton of overlap in the Venn diagram, but like for the longest time I never even met him. And then we worked our time at the Star Overlap for a while too. But he was legendary at the Star Overlap for a while too, but um, but he was legendary at the Star for Among the other things he may be legendary for in the world before the messiness of his desk Just like there was a photograph of of it and you cannot see the desk

You cannot barely see the chair in the middle of it, right? And then and then one day some it was cleaned up for him. Oh,. It was like everything wound up in just like bins or something like that. Well, Ben's a good effort. We keep tabs on Ben and make sure he's good. So he's getting over the separation. And then so he's kind of adapting to that. But he's a great dad who's in love with his daughter.

And he's working at a record shop and living his best life. And the one thing I'll say about Ben is he's all about finding the secret beaches in this city like he loves to swim in the lake and where I know where I know where they I look for the flags that they tested this right right yeah yeah those are not the secrets yeah Marie Curtis Sunnyside if I go out East there's Ashbridge Bay so there are these pockets and of course and on the Toronto Island if I could get there easier.

Yeah, but you know, Ben knows the secret. I don't know if he has his own testing kit. Like I'm most paranoid about it now, but uh, but but he knows the secret beaches and not just the one that was at Ontario Place. He knows when you're Humber Bay Shores. He's got all these secret beaches. We have reached the portion of the program where I need to create take a quick break. So if you have If you just want me to put yeah, go ahead. I can I can vamp here for uh, a little bit here. Absolutely here So we have our quarterly with ed keenan. He was scheduled to be here in early july It is now early. Is it still early or is it mid but it's still early august So we rescheduled this a few times. Uh,. We moved the time a few times. It was quite the practice there to get this thing in the books. But here we are, Ed Keenan. He comes over here once a quarter.

I'm a big fan of how Ed thinks, how Ed writes, and I love to have somebody here I can talk about all the things going on, and not just municipal politics, but in the city and be it, it you know provincially or federally or whatever I know how I want to close this program so I want to talk to Ed because I notice he still writes quite a bit about American politics so as we know Ed Keenan he was a coming on regularly and then he went to Washington DC to cover you know the Trump presidency. I suppose covering Rob Ford trained him for that. I don't know. But he was in D.C. for quite a while.

And then he came back home and that's why he's able to come here every quarter. But there's been a lot going on there. So I want to close with that. So it's now did you hit your head? No, he didn't. So it's not back. So I have managed not to hit my head. But yeah, did you want to talk about why do you want to lose on America? I'm going to close with that. But one last thing I want to talk about? I do. There is news on American politics. I'm gonna close with that. But one last thing I want to talk about

before we get to that. The last thing I want to talk about is, because as you know, I'm an avid, passionate cyclist and I love cycling the city all over the place. And I'm always interested where there's new infrastructure, new bike lanes, where there's missing links. A cyclist was in the bike lane and then had to leave the bike lane

because there was a dumpster parked in the bike lane and then had to leave the bike lane because there was a dumpster parked in the bike lane and sadly and tragically, this cyclist was hit by a truck and died. And the question that has been asked, I'm sure you've asked it because I read it, should the city be sued? Like if a cyclist dies as a result of a dumpster in a bike lane, should the city be sued? Yeah, or should the person who put the dumpster there without a permit be sued, right? Right. And it turns out the person who put the dumpster there or the company that put the dumpster there without any permit to do so, without any permission

to do so, block the bike lane is now being charged with like bylaw offenses. Which is like a $500 fine. Yeah, and that, like that's the only tool we have to enforce it. And that can't be true. Like there must be a criminal charge if your actions lead to the death of somebody. Where I live, near where I live, there's a couple of popular restaurants on Annette Street and they have constant door dash traffic like or Uber Eats or whoever these delivery drivers they pull up and they park in the bike lane consistently like every day right and and it's just not enforced at all now this is not a separated bike lane with posts and stuff.

This is like a paint on the road. And you know, and also like I've had friends who like, will pull over to let me off because I know somebody who lives on Annette Street there and they'll pull over to let me off and they try to pull into the, they start to pull into the bike lane. I said, just pull into somebody's driveway here, right?

Like, we're only gonna be here two seconds. And they say, oh, you know, whatever, whatever. And it's like, I just don't wanna kill somebody, right? For the sake of not driving around the corner or whatever, right? Like, and I just think we should have police out there, just like, you get an automatic ticket every time. Like, we should have a photo radar for like,

if you stop your car blocking the bike lane you you get mailed a ticket for for a hundred bucks 200 bucks and if you kill somebody or participate in the circumstances that led to their death by by making the life the bike lane unnavigable there should be consequences for that, real consequences. And now we will find out if they will be charged with provincial offenses because okay, the city can only enforce its own bylaws. And so the city can't put somebody in jail. They don't have criminal powers, right?

But so this is where the police are investigating all of this and all of that. And they could be charged with some various things under provincial laws which carry bigger fines or bigger consequences. I don't know if there's any chance that somebody would be charged criminally under federal law, but it does seem like the consequences should be real when you Negligently or otherwise like purpose certainly I have to think nobody Contemplated that they would be contributing to somebody's death when they put this dumpster there right right um Like I don't there's no malice here

But what what it does seem to me that there's a strong possibility that there's like negligence, right? That there is a... and apart from the culpability of any individual people involved here or any corporate entities involved here, like quite aside from whatever that may turn out to be. I think the fact that you could do that, like, and not think about it, is reflective of a broader kind of negligence, society-wide, where we, when we talk about bike lanes, and especially separated bike lanes, and I still have conversations with people about them who Are really mad that they're going in all over the place, right? And some people who are kind of indifferent to them going on over the place and I talked about the ones on Bloor Street near High Park there that I ride on all the time now, which I didn't I was not a regular cyclist before

Moving to that neighborhood and realizing that I could get downtown faster and easier in those separated bike lanes and I don't have to drive in traffic than I could. And so in middle age, I have become a regular cyclist when I never was before. Which was the whole idea. And I'll just shout out the blue bike lanes because I take them from like Aberfoyle to Hyde Park all the time. They're amazing. But when I talk to people about them and they say, yeah, but look at those lanes like they take an entire car lane. Like how wide is your bike? Why do you need to have that much space? And I say, well, first of all, they get crowded because there's lots of bikes using them now. But second of all, it's like I need distance from you, right? And it doesn't actually ever sink

into them that what we're talking about is like actually a safety issue, right? Like actually people die here. Actually people get injured all the time, right? The separation from the car doors, the separation from the cars themselves, like, it's not just that we all need to get where we're going, it's that we all need to get there alive.

And so when people pull over into the park lane and put on their hazard lights and run into the restaurant I'm only gonna be here two minutes It's like well a bike is not gonna sit there behind you waiting for two minutes until you move your car They're gonna pull out into traffic the cars be set because item are not expecting them to be doing that especially given the Infrastructure that's in place there right it's like is just making it more dangerous and i think i don't want to take anything away from the discussion of the specifics of this person who died down near blue street and uh... specifics of how that

built but i think this is a symptom of like more broadly even as the city has really sped up construction of bike lanes in a lot of places in a ways that I, I don't know that the complainers certainly appreciate how much it's been, like they certainly understand, but I think a lot of cyclists are impatient for more to be done more quickly, but I'm impressed

over what's happened over the last few years, but I don't think we still haven't caught up. And there's nowhere near the kind of enforcement you would expect. Zero enforcement. Yeah. I know. But when, so I want to leave the bike lanes. Obviously, this is an evergreen topic. It'll come up again. And I know how I want to close in our last 15 minutes. But the one thing I'll say, because you reminded me, because I'm on those Annette bike lanes quite a bit myself.

And they remind me of the Royal York bike lane, and that is, it's just paint. And I don't understand why paint is sufficient for a bike lane anymore in 2024. Like the separated ones, we did this between Norris, Crescent and First in this neck of the woods, and all the paint bike lanes should be separated bike lanes. Yeah, I mean, and not every street without massive reconstruction, not every street has the space to have the full cycle path, cycle track style separated lanes like there are on Bloor Street, say,

where there's like a one foot of paint and posts and then a wide bike lane that could accommodate almost a parked car and all of that. They're not a full lane of traffic, but you can still have a line of posts, right? With the paint. They only take up like an inch and a half and they they provide a barrier that it's like I mean at the very least if you're if your car is drifting over you get a swack swack swack like uh and you understand that you're you're in the wrong I think just psychologically having supposed I don't care they're made of jello like they're they're a visual sign and they like that rises up to the level of like your hood or whatever if you're a car driver

rises up to the level of your hood or whatever if you're a car driver. And it's far different. We have curbs in parking lots for a reason because you could paint a line on the ground but at a certain point it's not entirely visible, it's not as clear as something that sticks up, a physical barrier that both sticks up and if your tires hit it you know, if your hood hits it you know know if you're if you Get too close to it. Yeah, I know people are like enough bike lane talk But last sentence and then we're moving on here, but the last sentence is I'm just gonna say on rural York There's a part where you know cars signal to turn left and it's one lane on rural York and cars go around these these cars

That are signaling left to go the left-hand turn cars go around them by just going into the bike lane and I see it all the time and they often don't even check if there's a cyclist approaching I've had a few close calls and there will be a death on rural York with that paint job at this part I'm thinking of right now and there was one on the other side of the street actually Judson I think is the the street I'm thinking of anyway paint is not enough these things before weson I think is the street I'm thinking of. Anyway, paint is not enough. These things that two notes. Before we move on, this is the-

Two years are not enough. Pain is not enough is that- Pain is not enough. This is a few years ago, but I read a study of studies on the safety effects of implementing bike lanes and separated cycle tracks were safer for all road users. Not only fewer cyclists hurt, but fewer collisions with pedestrians,

fewer collisions, car on car collisions. So, but paint on the road was barely safer than just mixed traffic, than no one at all. You know what, it might be less safe. Very safer. Because of false sense of security. Chevrons were less safe. Okay, I believe that to be true. It's like a false sense of security. Chevrons, yeah safe. Okay, I believe that to be true.

It's like a false sense of security. Chevrons, yeah, that's in Royal York too. It's like, yeah. They're supposed to be just a reminder. Hey, there's cyclists here, but then people don't know what they're supposed to do with them and like some people treat them like there should be a bike lane there.

Yeah. So cyclists get like the false sense of security and then they get run over. Okay, now, Ed, you used to work in, I don't know, near Washington, DC. Yeah, I lived and worked in, in the Washington. Yeah. The greater Washington area is that what you call it? No, no, no. GWA. Well, no, like I lived, uh, in the, in the suburbs, like, uh, a three minute walk from the Washington DC line.

I worked every day in Washington DC. But they still let you write about US politics. Occasionally, yeah. I mean, I'm a columnist. I mean, I can often write about whatever's on my mind. I thought maybe they said, keep it in Toronto specifically. No, no, and sometimes they ask me to write about US politics too.

We don't have a Washington bureau chief. We have been sending Richard Warnica down to cover some parts of this election and Trumpiness and stuff We have Alan Woods who's a foreign correspondent living in Paris right now, but who writes on international issues So he'll often do some reporting on American stuff, but we don't have like a full-time American writer and so sometimes they say you know if you have thoughts on this let us know Okay, because I was just as a casual observer, it's fucking bananas down there.

Like you could have an assassination attempt and then you can have a president not running for a second term. Just talk to me for the last 10 minutes here about this. Like, like the new normal seems to be madness. Yeah. A ton has happened. Uh happened just in the last month, the last couple months. And I mean, the US politics has been like a crazy

for a while, right? Certainly all through, ever since Donald Trump was elected, things have been happening that are not normal and not expected and all of that. But even more so it seems to have accelerated recently. So certainly there was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump which came shortly after. Okay, so Joe Biden, nobody runs against him in the primaries that concluded in the spring. Right. This is just backing up, right?

Right. Donald Trump, nobody runs against him, serious. Well, Nikki Haley ran against him. There were a few people ran against him. None of them stood a chance. And he cruised to secure the nomination to try and win the election back. Joe Biden, no Democrats who you've ever heard of

run against him in the primaries at all. He is cruising in. But there's kind of whispers that he's not the guy he used to be, that he's slowing down, age is really catching up with him, right? There's a debate in June. That was my birthday. In which-

Because I missed it at TMLX 15. He is so lost, like so incapable of finishing a sentence or completing a thought or just staring off into space and looking confused. And his performance was so poor. And now a lot of the clips that had gone viral prior to that that I saw where people were saying he's having a senior moment and stuff, a lot of what would happen is that it's a, you know, probably getting worse with age, but it's a phenomenon that you used to see with Joe Biden, where he gets a bit tongue-tied or something, but you can kind of follow the train of

thought. You can see what he's trying to say, and it's actually like a coherent and often a good point that he doesn't quite stick the wording on right this was not that this is like he just couldn't keep his train of thought and and then in his defense he and supporters were saying like you know he's sharper before 8 8 p.m. he's got to get a lot of sleep he's like his better days than others right and like That's the kind of thing you say about your parent who's in hospice care or something like some days are better than others You know, there's still they're still really on the ball sometimes right but like this is not the kind of job

where you can go to bed at 8 p.m. And Everything's on cruise control until you're back the next day It's like the kind of job where you're on call 24 hours a day and the decisions you make in any given moment could impact the entire world. So I think like... so that wounds his candidacy so severely that Trump had already with his sort of cult following and his stranglehold on the Republican Party, and saw a lot of dissatisfaction with Joe Biden as president recently. And I think Joe Biden will be remembered as a better president than the American people think he is right now. I think the economy and a lot of things he's done are actually quite remarkable given the circumstances. But

that aside, he's not a popular president. Donald Trump who is also not a popular guy but has a massive cult following and the stranglehold on the Republican party suddenly appears like he's cruising a re-election when then somebody takes a shot at him at a rally. And now the Secret Service director has resigned as a result that when you look at how close the rooftop was to where he where he was shot and like it's just inconceivable that they had not already secured that space that they were like But but that aside he he gets hit

Apparently by a bullet like the further reporting not just what is already like what is our? Like it I know Donald Trump says he was hit by a bullet but I had heard some people suggest it might have been a piece of glass or something from the teleprompter that was the initial speculation but quickly and it seemed to be official follow-up reporting that I've read is a bullet is that it seems like it was a bullet possibly redirected from something else glancing just raising his well and now it's gushing blood so he goes down initially the secret service go on top of them but then of course he stands up and it's like something from uh... painting right like and especially the where the photographs were shot where the camera

angles are the way trump stages is rallies already he's got cranes with these giant american flags hanging over the over the stage so you know the angle that all the photographs and stuff of him are is like this flag is just fluttering over his head and all the Secret Service people are beside him but beneath him because he's emerging from the pile because they they all try to cover him to make sure he's safe right and then he emerges up and raises his fist in the air and starts chanting fight fight fight as he's removed from the stage and

This is like in Donald Trump supporters wildest dreams This is the man they think he is just been shot and still rallying the troops to fight These these hardened police officers and so he has never in his life shown the capacity, like any ounce of courage or anything like that before. Bone spurs. Bravery before and yet he in this moment manages a kind of iconic symbolic moment of like refusing and so of course he and his supporters start saying you know oh they tried to impeach me and that didn't work and they tried to put me in jail and now they've tried to kill me and and yet you know not even a bullet could do the job right

and so that leads to a kind of a but they also say okay now he's going to be uh he's changed by the experience it's going to be a uniter, not a divider. And that lasted about five seconds into his speech, or let's say five minutes into his speech before he started improvising and is the same old angry Donald. So anyhow, immediately after that, President Biden is basically forced by his party to step down and not run again. There's more and more prominent leaders of the party in the Senate and in the House of Congress and in former sort of like high-profile people had just

coming forward and saying you know I love Joe Biden I love everything he's done for the country and for the party he served us well but we will be better served with somebody else as our standard bearer going into the next election. So, you know, less than three months or just over three months before the election day itself, he announces he's not running anymore. Wow. Everybody's like, what's going to happen? Is it going to be an open mini primary snap primary?

Because there's like convention coming up, like one month after he's making this announcement in Chicago But sort of he quickly endorsed Kamala Harris Other leaders the party started to do that within within I think it was 24 or 48 hours Enough of the people who are actual delegates at the convention had Endorsed her that that it was clear she would win any vote there. But also many of the people who were expected to sort of be the other candidates very quickly endorsed her, right? Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania and others. And so now, you

know, a couple weeks later, so she's sort of surging in the polls. All of a sudden all these memes. Kamala Harris was not a particularly popular person in the before becoming the candidate here she didn't necessarily pull better than Joe Biden in a head-to-head matchup with Trump but um her the switch itself seemed to energize her and the party and the campaign and they had seemed to be like white-knuckle sleepwalking towards like the inevitable and they kept saying like do you understand democracy is on the ballot and we are going to lose right and now all of a sudden she's out there and and

laughing and joyfully sort of like saying let's go and do this and all she becomes unlikely kind of viral internet sensation and it it did sort of seem to energize the Democrats and now she's named Tim Waltz the governor of Minnesota as her running mate and he seems to me this is what I came here maybe wanting to mention is that I don't know if it's going to work I don't't know if they're going to win. I don't know if Tim Wallace is going to wind up being a great running mate or a good vice president or not. But I think he he's 60 years old so only one year older than her but he looks much older. He's got a kind of like bald on top, white on the sides

sort of look. But he's got a bit of a gut on him. Total Midwestern dad mode right right, right, but 24 year National Guard veteran the Army National Guard He reached a fairly high rank there then a teacher and a Football coach and not just a football coach, but the state championship winning football coach. He's a hunter He he and then he's been a governor, right?

He talks in the language of like, like the Midwestern working class, right? He grew up actually in, I wanna say Nebraska. He grew up in rural area, moved to the Midwest, but he is like hunting, football, have a beer, in the barbecue guy, and he's legitimately that, right? And has lived his life that way and then became a congressman and became the governor of Minnesota.

And what I like about, it may maybe not a surprise that Kamala Harris wants to like reach out to these you know Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, these Midwestern swing states, but also you know we talk about rural voters across the United States, so being really disconnected from the Democratic Party and being this hotbed of republicanismism and I don't know that it's going to work but I think he is a model of a guy who, I've been waiting for this from not just in the United States but in Canada for a long time, is that it's a different kind of masculinity, right?

Like as governor he put a protection in place that would guarantee abortion rights in minnesota he uh... passed a bill for free school lunches for everybody right he uh... when when he was a high school teacher not when he was the governor when he was a high school teacher and he was a football coach he led the first he was the the faculty advisor on the first gay straight alliance at his high school and he said he thought it was important that it be he was still in active military service at the time in the National Guard so that's like on

call but he he said I'm a soldier I'm the football coach I'm a married white straight guy I think is important that I be the the voice who says you are accepted here you like and this is to be the culture at our school. And there's a model of plain spoken rural masculinity. He likes to hunt, he likes to fish. He doesn't, he's not like a slickster, but he's not about being mean to other people. He's not about being violently vengeful to other people. He's not about being violently vengeful to other people.

He's not about like owning his opponents, right? He just calls them weird, right? And I feel like there's this like father as both a supporter and a protector, but who can be on your side rather than like against you. I feel like there's a left, working class leftist style there that I wish I saw a lot more of and so I don't know if he's gonna be able to Attract votes from rural areas or anything like that, but I think he stands a far better chance Not not of the mega faithful right like there are people who are part of a cult. That's like religion Yeah, but there are other people I talked to in you to in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, like mining and resource

town there. Other parts of the real United States who were not like, they were going to vote for Donald Trump last time around, but they were like fanatical about him. But they basically just don't believe the Democrats understand the first thing about their life, right? just don't believe the Democrats understand the first thing about their life right like they just like we might as well live on different planets because these guys like a talking about green energy what about us like we you know and and if if this is a kind of guy who can talk about things in a way that at

least makes you understand why why is important, why someone like you would care about it. Maybe that's good. Maybe we need more of that in Canada too on the left. I think college educated urbanites are well represented. But also we kind of clearly understand why we think this is in the best interest of everybody and also why we think this is in the best interest even of the people who won't vote for us. But if there's somebody who could talk in the language of the people who wouldn't vote for us, who could

explain it to them better, like I think more people like that. And so I think there's a, I think a justified energy and enthusiasm and optimism here that wasn't here just a month ago. Who knows what's gonna happen next, right? Are we, we're just about out of time, right? And yeah, I'll just say like, if you told me two months ago

that this stuff was gonna happen, I would have been shocked. And so there's still three months to go. So buckle up but But it does seem like things have changed around to a to where there's an actual race going on and it will be interesting to see why winds up and I'm glad you'll be here one more time before the November election in the US of a just to see what you know, right things are changing so rapidly who knows I can't believe how quickly the assassination attempt seemed to leave

the news cycle right like isn't that a generational thing like well yeah shot yeah well that was yes that was last week's news so we're on to something new here and you know you talking about this Kamala and Tim tandem here running for the Democrats I actually can palpably even just from being on Twitter and being in on reddit and chatting with people I can feel the energy shift. Like I can feel it's like it's palpable. So it's kind of exciting times down there. Let's see what happens but Ed always a pleasure to have you on. I know it took us an extra month but you'll be back in two months. That's

the right side. Only two months to your next appearance. I'm looking forward to it. Tell your daughter you'll have more lasagna. I will, I will. Wait till she finds out there's stores that sell that pasta. Now don't you tell her. It's not a Toronto Mike Basement special here. Anybody can get these delicious palma pasta lasagnas. And that brings us to the end of our 1,532nd show. You can follow me on Twitter, I'm on Blue Sky, I'm all over the place at Toronto Mike, but go to torontomike.com. Ed, I know you don't tweet, but is there a social media platform? I know you're at the Keenan Wire, but you don't do anything there.

Where are you that you do something? Right now I'm not doing much social media. You can find me at thestar.com. Subscribe to the Star. Yeah, subscribe to the Toronto Star read what Ed's writing read what great FOTM David Ryder is writing You know it's important somebody's gotta be looking into all these smells. I'm smelling coming out of this provincial government, so support your local journalists Much love to all who made this possible. That's Great Lakes Brewery, beer for the wife and friends. Palma Pasta, that's for your daughter. Recyclemyelectronics.ca,

the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team. I'm serious, if you want another book, if somebody wants that book, take it with you. And Ridley Funeral Home. See you all tomorrow. Who is my guest tomorrow? I should know this right Ed. Okay. I'm not a star podcaster. Okay. All right. Her name is Ebony. She's responsible for the Honey Jam concert series. And this will be very interesting. Looking forward to it. See you all then. There's a thousand shades of grey Cause I know that's true, yes I do I know it's true, yeah I know it's true, how about you? All them pickin' up trash and them puttin' down rogues