Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Edward Keenan: Toronto Mike'd #1404

Episode Date: January 4, 2024

In this 1404th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with The Toronto Star's Ed Keenan about what's happening in Toronto. 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 and Electronic Products Recycling Association.

Welcome to episode 1404 of Toronto Mic'd. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery. A fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times, and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. RecycleMyElectronics.ca.

Committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past. The Advantage Investor Podcast from Raymond James Canada. And Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921. Today, returning to Toronto Mic'd for his quarterly... Hey, hey, hey! Is the Toronto Stars, Edward Keenan. Oh yeah, baby, how you doing?

Good, welcome back, Ed. I'm glad to be back. It's nice to kick off the new year here. Happy New Year to you, Ed Keenan. Happy New Year to you. You have a good holiday? Yeah, I was going to ask you, how were your holidays? My holidays were fantastic. They were also fantastic, yeah. Oh, you hesitated, though. This is the first year in... This first year, I hesitated only because I was momentarily distracted

by remembering that right before I got out of the car outside your house, they were playing that sports gambling commercial where they say, like, you know, Americans don't know crap about hockey. Yeah, yeah. That's ridiculous. And the weird thing about it, gambling commercial where they say like you know americans don't know crap about hockey yeah yeah that's ridiculous and and the weird thing about it it's like my actually my 12 year old daughter and i were having a conversation about the premise yeah and it's like all of those like ask a person on the street something about canada questions are really unfair because if you ask

people in canada about like iceland politics or or anything like that like so of a much smaller country yeah there would be like blisteringly ignorant too. Also, like they're so cherry-picked. It drives me crazy. But here's the thing about that. Americans don't know shit about hockey, so why would you bet at one of their sports books? Is that as a gambler, superior information is what you want.

So if there's a sports book full of people who don't know anything about hockey, that's where you want to bet. This is why you are such a great writer at the Toronto star is because that's exactly what's wrong with that ad. That if I'm a gambler, I'm looking to gamble somewhere or bet somewhere. And I don't actually do this, but if I were somewhere where they're,

they're a little ignorant, like where my knowledge of the game is my advantaged, like, like, like the advantaged investor from raymond james canada you look for that advantage wherever you can find it i'm happy to offer the opportunity for a plug that that commercial drove me nuts for now i'm i'm not a sports better are you no no i have a sports viewer uh which means that i see all the ads but i I, I am not much of a gambler. Are there a bad combination in that?

I am like compulsively easily addicted to things. But also I have no tolerance for risk. So you reach a certain point, but that's why you have no tolerance with gambling where it's like to win real money, you have to bet real money and i'm not willing to put up real money but i know even if i got into it with like small money i could so easily see a path to where i'm like gambling away the kids college money yeah so you're this close to

being peter gross once every year or two i like to go to the racetrack, often with my family, and I have fun betting $2 on each race. Or even betting exactor boxes where I wind up putting down $4 or $8 or something on multiple horses to finish in order. Right. And that's fun. Occasionally, I impulsively buy a scratch and win ticket. Almost always lose lose which is the expected result with that kind of gambling but yeah yeah so i'm not uh oh but you originally asked me how my holidays were and before i got how was your christmas with the family it was good

because this is the first time like i i have a lot of family in Toronto, a big extended family. My dad is one of nine kids. He's the only boy with eight sisters. And they were all fruitful and multiplied. And so I have, and almost all of us live in the Toronto area. There's like two families of cousins who live in the US now, but almost everybody else is in the GTA. And my mom's family also mostly lives in the gta and the hamilton area and so you know we have a marathon of big family parties but it's actually

like great tradition i know some people have trouble at family parties for me they're they're you enjoy they feel like home and beautiful uh partly because of moving to the u.s partly for a couple years uh and then partly because of the pandemic for a couple of years. And then my family having COVID in our house last winter, right after we moved back. Right. I basically haven't been to any of these family

Christmas parties in like four or five years in some cases. And so it was great to sort of get back into that tradition. And for my kids too, you know, my youngest is 12. So when we're talking about a five-year absence from something, it's like, this is a memory from her wee childhood years. But so that was great.

And then I binge-watched almost all the available versions internationally, the English language versions of The Traitors, versions internationally the english language versions of the traitors um which is uh like reality tv show based on like the party game mafia where there's like anyway it it's it's a a compulsively watchable bit of reality tv which also as i'm writing traitors t-r-a-d traitors they are traitors or traitors behavior yeah-R-A-D-E-R-S. Traitors. They are traitors. Oh, traitors. Traitorous behavior, yeah. They, they. Like Benedict Arnold.

Yeah. So the premise of the show is essentially that like 20, or in some versions 24, like a bunch of people get put to live in a house together, almost like Big Brother for a week or two. Right. Three, or in one case, four of them are secretly selected to be traitors the rest are called the faithful okay uh but none of the faithful know who the traitors are it's like

the mole yeah every night the group gets to vote somebody off uh and also every night the traitors kill somebody wow uh so the those voted off but not literally yeah all but they leave the show right uh so whoever's left at the end when they get to the final group yeah and i won't give you all the details of how that um like final the end of the show is determined but basically when there's like three or four or five or two people left they end the show and they get to split this pot of prize money but if there's a single trader left in the game they steal all the money so the objective is very clear for the faithful is to vote out the traders identify who they are and vote them out the objective for the traders is to remain undetected and and make it to the end and the thing is is that as I watched through a bunch of these,

it's kind of like writing about politics is my day job. And I'm kind of on vacation binge-watching trash TV as an escape from that. And yet it's really a show about politics because every day they have to make these big speeches and point to their evidence of who the traitors are and how for the betterment of our group we're going to get rid of this person. they are so phenomenally bad at it like they

they just have no idea um like they're the show is structured the the game is structured so that the faithful have almost no um useful information about who the traitors might be but the people are completely blind to their own ignorance like there's always these sequences it might be but the people are completely blind to their own ignorance like there's always these sequences it might be an in-joke by the producers but there's always these sequences where they they have these parades of people saying to the confessional camera like you know i in my day job as a police detective i need to be able to tell when people are lying to me i'm an expert you know i i'm a psychic i can always tell by you, how people are lying to me. Everybody says this. And they can never tell when anybody's lying at them.

But they also can't tell what information would indicate somebody's a traitor. So, like, whatever random personality quirks or misheard side comments, like, become these big evidence. And they rally together like competing almost political parties to campaign to get somebody out and they're almost always we the viewers know like completely wrong and their evidence is like completely besides the point it's not just that it's flimsy it's like it has nothing to do with whether or not this person would be a traitor and they get so militant so anyhow i i wrote a column that's coming up in the Toronto Star about the depressing political lessons you can learn from this trashy reality TV show, but it was fun,

and that's how I spent my winter vacation. Okay, so I never even heard of Trators, as I want to call it, because at first I thought you were binge-watching Traders, and that was the late 90s global TV show. You remember Traders, of course. About stock market traders, yes. Yes, and as I had to cheat to find out who it was it was bruce gray and sonja smiths who were starring in this thing but patrick patrick

mckenna was in the cast i can't say i ever saw a minute of this show but i saw it like promote promote all the time on global like this was a big deal i i watched a few episodes of it um and i remember the buzz about it what what year did it come out okay it is uh from 1996 to 2000 yes but that went on i see now global global broadcast it from 96 to 2000 but cbc broadcast it from 97 to 98 and i have no idea how that works actually like maybe they traded it off like it's a global thing it went to cbc and it went back to global i don't know i just remember when it came out the kind of buzz about it um was that like finally a canadian tv drama that has the production values of american shows like there

was a kind of a hype about like how a canadian network had sunk all this money into developing a show right and i mean due south maybe had more of an international audience because it was an American co-production when it came out. But I think the, the buzz around it unrelated to the quality of the program itself, but about the, the budget and the production value and the, the glitz,

right. Slickness. Like I remember that. And I think I watched one or two and it was like, eh, eh, it was okay. You know,

I'm reading now. Okay. I'm very interested in how two and it was like, eh, eh, it was okay. You know, I'm reading now. Okay. I'm very interested in how two networks had it, but in the 97, 98 season global entered a joint production agreement with CBC and the series was shown on both networks. Like that's wild to me. Okay.

So CBC had it. What is it here? Okay. On Thursday nights, you'd watch it on global and on Fridays was on CBC. Like this was like the arrangement, you know, that kind of collaborative, uh Thursday nights, you'd watch it on Global, and on Fridays was on CBC. Like, this was, like, the arrangement. You know, that kind of collaborative agreement between the networks reminds me of how TSN, Sportsnet, and CBC all broadcast the debut game of the Professional Women's Hockey League.

Yes, sir. At which I was in attendance. Okay, you were one of the, of the 4,000 people at the arena formerly known as Maple Leaf Gardens. Okay, how was the game? There was a lot of hype. It was amazing. It was a terrible result for Toronto fans.

Hey, do we have a nickname or are we just the Toronto team? I was trying to chant for blue for a while because they wear blue as their color um there was a lot of sort of like let's go t o uh but they don't have a nickname yet if people uh are not up to speed on this essentially the league came together because like the billionaire owner of the los angeles dodgers to fund it and, and have a 10 year plan to like make it sustainable and came to an agreement with the players who had been boycotting some of the attempts at pro leagues because they didn't believe it would be sustainable and they wanted something.

So they basically made an agreement to start this league in July and the players did not want to lose this season. And so they had, you know, six months to put together an entire professional league with an original six teams. And so I think they had planned originally to have team nicknames and branding and logos and stuff. But when they registered some of them and it got leaked,

there was a backlash. And I think they just just what i've read is that they said the league executives and team owners and stuff or team managers and stuff said this is kind of too important to rush it so if even even though it seems weird to launch it without that stuff it's like let's take our time and by next season by the second season everybody will have their you know their nicknames. But for the first year, they just go by their city names. And so it's almost like Toronto FC.

I was going to say, we got the Toronto Hockey Club here. The Toronto HC. There you go. But it was a great game. It's a really fast-paced game. It's much more physical than even fans of women's hockey would be used to because this league, unlike the former professional leagues and unlike international hockey, does allow body checking.

They stopped short of the NHL. There's no open ice hits. The rule is written so that you have to be making an attempt on the puck while you hit. So the sort of like finish your check, I'm going to take both of us out of the play hits are still not allowed. But that said, the big surprise to me. So the Toronto team has on it Natalie Spooner,

which people who watch Canadian women's Olympic hockey will know she's a Scarborough girl. I knew I was going to be a fan of her from the beginning. Jocelyn LaRock, big Olympic defenseman. Renata Fast, another dynamo of a defender that people will know from Team Canada, and then Sarah Nurse, who's one of the faces of the game across North America. I knew I was going to like them, but there's this third-line center,

Emma Maltese, who's 5'3", but is like a pinball bowling ball who just, she's a dynamo with the puck, but also on like when she doesn't have the puck, she's crashing people into the boards and everything. So it was good. And there was a really good atmosphere there. I took my daughter, we got season tickets, my family did.

So I took my daughter, my older daughter for the first game and she had a blast. We're looking forward to seeing how it develops. And they play at the old maple leaf gardens mahatami uh madame athletic madame athletic center um which is is small but the the virtue of it being small is that they've sold out the entire season already and so you have a kind of an energy in the room that's like, this is a packed game. Smart.

Rather than having a half empty building, right? No, I think that was very smart. Keep them, you know, sell it out. That's exciting, right? And then fill it up with boisterous, enthusiastic fans like you and your daughter. And it, like, yeah, yeah, you're in a smaller venue, but it's better than being in the cavernous Scotiabank Arena and maybe half of it's empty.

It was something walking along Carlton Street there towards the gardens and seeing the lineup. An hour before game time, the lineup went down the block because they hadn't opened the gates yet. Amazing. And so we joined the line, but there's a guy walking back and forth saying, who wants tickets?

Who's got tickets? Who's got tickets to sell? Who wants to sell? This is my first memory of this. I was like, that's what tickets who's got tickets to sell this is my first memory i was like that's what carlton street's supposed to be like my first memory of smelling weed and i'm not even sure i knew what it was at the time was walking to maple leaf gardens uh as a young man and uh on carlton there and you smell and you're not sure what you're smelling it and then you realize at some point oh i know what i was smelling now on on Carlton here. Okay, a lot of ground to cover.

Ed, I want to just tell the listeners, I don't know if we've been clear about this, but we never talk about what we're going to talk about. No. You always come in cold, which is how I prefer my Ed Keenan. You come in cold every quarter.

You sit down there. You're a sweetheart. And I just get to drive the content. You never know if you're going to talk to traders. Not only do we not talk in advance about what we're going to talk about, but we don't even make small talk on the way into the building. Is that rude?

Even today, I was like, you good? And you were like, hold on, save it for the show. Is that rude? I actually do that to all guests. You're like, how was your holidays? And I'm like, don't talk to me, Ed Keenan. We haven't started recording yet. I love seeing you, but I want to start the recording and capture it all.

That's why there's no editing here. Oh, there was once editing. There was, yeah, yeah, with me. I i'm the only i was the cause of the editing because i violated a publication ban i had a segue i was gonna bring up something that happened and i was gonna use that as my anecdote so hold on to that but how are things at the toronto star uh they are as good as they can be right um it's a tough time in this newspaper business all together and the media business altogether um even broadcast media have been laying a lot of people off uh right the greater tor star which owns the toronto star has had like a rough period uh where they downsized the

metroland chain they stopped publishing the print versions of a lot of those newspapers. They laid off a tremendous amount of staff. That's been hard inside the company. My understanding, like the Toronto Star is a separate company from that chain of newspapers. And so we're somewhat insulated from that and we're in a somewhat different business position.

But I think like overall, it's still a tough time in the business. Being at the star is about close to as good as it gets in the business in terms of stability. And of course, you know, like I feel obliged to say it as a member of the team, but I genuinely believe that in addition to whatever business fundamentals that like,

it's great to work at the Star because there's a lot of really important, impactful work that gets done there, and it's inspiring to me legitimately to work beside a lot of those people every day. But things are okay at the Star, and probably as good as they can be at a newspaper in 2024. When I saw we were due for our quarterly, I remember

that you had come on to kick out the jams. I remember you kicked out this song and we had a good chat about how much we both love this song and I don't think we care if it's Christmas or not. I just love this song. Christy McCall joining

Shane McGowan of the Pogues. And since you were last here, we lost Shane McGowan. He passed away. And I'm just wondering what your thoughts were about losing Shane McGowan. Well, I mean, he's one of those characters who was kind of like indelible, right? Like one of a kind. Also, one of those, he was obviously not nearly as old as Keith Richards,

but he had the vibe of indestructibility given like that, you know, he had his teeth knocked out and was all wrinkly and, you know, half drunk all the time and still seemed to just party on through it. And so you wonder, you know, he's all the time and still seem to just party on through it. And so you wonder, you know, he's just one of those guys.

Yeah, he didn't think he'd turn 60. But it turns out he is mortal, right? Like, and I just think, I mean, this song in particular, and Christy McCall is gone as well. So, you know, is one of my favorites of all time. But there's never a bad time to put on a Pogues record, I don't think, right?

It's like, it holds up, but it's almost timeless on its own because of this sort of mixture of like Celtic folk punk. And so I think, you know, there's not another one like him out there in the world. And so it is sort of really sad to say goodbye. Did you see the footage of his service? I did.

And the performance of this song? Yeah, that was magnificent and really touching. I mean, I love that his service and the parade leading up to it and everything was so based around people playing his music, because what else would you want at a memorial service for him, right? Yeah, it was a beautiful rendition in that environment, and a great tribute to Shane McGowan. And every time, you know, you hear this song quite a bit in December,

but it did hit differently this year, without a doubt, knowing that both voices no longer with us. Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. I did think at a certain point, well before he died, when I just was considering this song, one of the many times I've considered it, that I could have been someone, well, so could anyone. Could be the title of a memoir or the plot outline

of so many everybody thinks maybe uh at certain points in their life that that's that's them but then uh but then i realized that's it's not anybody in particular's memoir because it's such a relatable sentiment but he was someone it turned out he was someone right sentiment, but he was someone. It turned out he was someone, right? Well, we're going to be thinking about him for the rest of our lives, right? He left art that will inspire us

until we're gone, so really that's the goal of any artist. Absolutely. And he did it, so rest in peace. Shane McGowan, kicked out by Ed Keenan on Toronto Mic, and this song will outlive us all. All right, Ed, here we go.

Let's start with one simple question. How is Olivia Chow doing so far in your estimation? I think so far so good. So far probably better than a lot of people predicted. But the mountain she has to scale is very high. I think she has been remarkably successful and likely more so than many people anticipated at getting Doug Ford on side and and that is is actually pretty huge um in terms of accomplishing the city's goals the the new funding deal for cities that she and Doug Ford announced um will make a

tremendous difference uh to the budget for say the next three years in particular, but even the next 10 years and beyond that, because part of that deal was the province uploading the Gardiner Expressway and the Don Valley Parkway. And in general, the sort of like fellow feeling bonhomie between them, the political odd fellows partnership between them was something that a lot of people didn't predict and in fact they predicted the exact opposite i remember in the toronto star editorial board where olivia chow came she faced multiple questions all in a row about like how are you going to deal with doug for? Obviously he's going to screw you at every turn. You're an NDP and he's Doug Ford

and he's out there saying you're going to be an unmitigated disaster. Why won't it be a disaster for the city that our liaison with Doug Ford is a sworn enemy of his? And she said, yeah, we're going to be fine. And it turns out they are kind of fine. She had a bit more of a tense relationship with the federal government,

but did get a big announcement of housing money, which in all fairness, there would have been a similar announcement, whether or not exactly the same size or details. There would have been some federal money for housing under a different mayor, likely too, because it comes from a federal housing fund that's being distributed at cities across the country. But sort of squaring away those two things, having her housing plan pass fairly quickly through city council, which, you know, is the kind of thing that's going to take a few years to be able to tell how successful it is or not. But getting it passed and underway offers it some hope of

actually turning into reality and then lining up provincial and federal funding for that and for other things that's a big win and also i think like there were questions about her ability to deal with doug ford there were questions about her ability to marshal uh a governing majority on city council um given that this was a council that was loyal to John Tory and had really supported him. I think those questions have disappeared. A lot of people that, you know, Jennifer McKelvey

was John Tory's right hand, his deputy mayor, and she is now, you know, a really active and visible deputy, ceremonial deputy mayor, but still deputy mayor and and sort of like a member of team chow paul ainsley was a sort of centrist conservative tory guy who who had also previously been on rob ford's executive committee and and is now sort of lining up on team chow mike cole another guy that people thought well he's a wild card he he won't be whippable and maybe he won't ultimately but right for that for right now

even john burnside who was like a protege of john tories a former police officer um he he's he's not joined up for team chow or anything but he is uh expressed that that he's been impressed by how she's been able to work with the city council and get things done and so that all of that said there's a couple things one is that the budget launches next week the actual budget committee process there were hearings in the fall there's now the actual budget where the city council and the mayor are going to have to say this is the tax increase this is what we're spending on police this is what we're spending on ttc and there's still going to be a couple hundred million dollars shortfall there it's still going to be a difficult process right so that's that's a speed bump that's right ahead right going into the new year right and

she ended off the the end of last year sort of ruffling a few feathers with what might have seemed to some people to be some heavy-handed kind of maneuvering on relatively smaller files like uh the young dundas square renaming where she kind of like short-circuited a long extended process and and forced through uh a new name for it and canceled the rest of the renaming of Dundas Street. Basically, I think because she wanted it to be done as a political issue. She didn't want people to keep saying, why are you going to spend all this money renaming Dundas Street? She just said, let's short-circuit this.

Rob Ford Stadium, purely symbolic, but again, her support of that disappointed a lot of people and the fact that the city went ahead with it with her support without going through the typical naming process that the city has and then like the banning and then unbanning of uber and lyft hiring new drivers was again something where she seemed to be in a real hurry to just like try this out, get it done. And then after getting legal advice, after a lawsuit was launched, filed, first of all, and then the city's lawyers weighed in,

city council had to kind of backtrack and say, well, maybe not so fast. So she does have a, and my colleague Matt Elliott at the Star has written about this. FOTM Matt Elliott? That's right. And friend of me as well, Matt Elliott.

But he's written specifically about this package of things, ruffling feathers, but also showing a tendency and impatience that she acknowledges she has, like a get it done, let's just do it. like a get it done let's let's just do it um that could be a problem if if she first of all because it pisses off your potential allies who want who want to work with you but don't like being short-circuited right like um but also because this sort of like shoot first aim later approach if it's applied to bigger things than this and uber sort of with the lawsuits kind of shows us that is that i mean a lot of what progressives or people who call themselves progressives have have criticized doug ford for and have criticized used to criticize rob ford for a lot uh is this kind of impulsiveness right right? And this doing things without considering the consequences. Quite aside from the ideological differences, there's the, like, that's not how we make big decisions

that are going to shape society by saying, like, screw talking about this, let's just do it. And so I don't think Olivia Chow has, like, verged into that territory, but I think there's some sense, if there is criticisms of her that I'm hearing, it's starting to come from that impatience and whether or not it's going to become a pattern. Well, even in that eloquent reply to how's Olivia doing so far,

we have so many threads now I need to pull out here. I don't know where to go next. Okay, let's start one by one. There's so many things you introduced there. But tell us the specifics here. So it's a done deal that, what's the name right now of Rob Ford Stadium? Is it just called Centennial Park Stadium? It's Centennial Park Stadium.

Okay, so. And it's next to Centennial Arena in Etobicoke as well. Okay, I know it quite well, actually. I've even run track and field there back in the day. I know it quite well. So that's a done deal now? will be renamed rob ford stadium yeah i mean unless city council somehow reopens it and and votes to undo it it's a it's a done deal it sort of came up um at a city council meeting uh the the people who raised their voices against it at

city council, including Amber Morley, who is an Etobicoke city councilor and a close ally of the mayor's. But they were saying, look, we don't like Rob Ford, but we also understand that there are a lot of people in the city

who still love him, right? And it's their city too, but we have a process for how we name things, and it involves having hearings out in the community in Etobicoke, near where the stadium is, to say, what do you think of this proposed name? And we're not doing that process. And a lot of people thought that part of the reason is that whether there was a quid pro quo or not,

that it was to curry favor with Doug Ford. This was a kind of a thank you nod for the noob deal for Toronto. And, you know, there was some whispers that maybe, you know, Doug Ford had insisted on it and the mayor had said, yeah, okay. What may be even more likely is more just that like some people

in the upper echelons of the city government thought Doug Ford will like this. And since he's doing us a favor and playing ball with us, maybe we should do something for his family that would be nice. Whether or not, you know, but it's a you know like you just referred there to there it would be a politically astute move by olivia chow to not fight that when she's trying you know this is where it also too close for comfort all of it right like the premier is the brother of the former you know what i mean like it's it's all like like your traitors show something. The thing about, I mean, I covered Rob Ford, right? And,

um, you covered Rob Ford. One of the things about Toronto city politics that had been so frustrating is the extent to which for like, almost like the 15 years or more now, our city politics has really been about the Ford family and like their particular petty grievances and personal shortcomings and, and, um, prejudices and, and whatnot.

Um, and, and so there are like moments where they're getting their redemption arcs, where Rob Ford's going into, um, into recovery or where Doug Ford like admits he was wrong and turns around and now he's friends with the unions or whatever right right but they're all like in a biopic these are things about those people and maybe significant for their family and yet but this is our story as a as a city and a province that's like obsessing over these guys personal personal lives or personal preferences and peccadillos and whatnot, because they're both, as political figures, kind of cult of personality guys too.

Like it's not, they're not big party guys. They are their own political brand. And the allegiance to them, at least in parts of Toronto and Etobicoke, is like a personal allegiance, right? Yeah, it's wild. It's wild. And yet here we are still having debates at City Hall about what will make Doug Ford and his family happy.

You know, wild. Okay, so personally, by the way, no one will find the tweet I tweeted about over my dead body, Rob Ford Stadium. Like, I don't have this. I don't actually have. And if I had it, I would share it because i'm not shy about that but i don't have the burning uh do not name it rob ford i think it needed uh some public consultation and i feel

like we maybe like due process because there's a lot of you know we we as time goes on and we look back at the uh the, the Rob Ford era, like there's a lot of not so good stuff mixed up in there that maybe, you know, because he died very young of a terrible disease that maybe we're glossing over here. I feel we should have a process and some public consultation, but if the,

you know, the zeitgeist wants to remember Rob Ford by naming a, like a little local Etobicoke football stadium after him, you know, I'm not going to chain myself to the, yeah. What I wrote recently and what I wrote when this came up, this came up years ago and when John Tory was mayor and they decided that

point to not, not do it. Right. The Ford family had said when there was a bad public reaction, they kind of asked just withdraw it. Right. Don't, and, and and and and so you know but even then i kind of thought like i was not shy about saying that i thought rob ford was like a an idiot and be a disaster for

the city right yeah but i also understand the reservoir of personal attachment that a lot of people have i understand that he was the mayor of this attachment that a lot of people have. I understand that he was the mayor of this city and a significant political force in the city and also dedicated a lot of his life to youth football. And so if we're going to name something after him, as we do after almost every mayor, especially after they die, a football stadium where high school students play seems to me to be like well that was the most admirable part of his character in my eyes anyway and one of his defining elements and that seems kind of appropriate uh but i and and i have a personal prejudice against not wanting this

to be a debate that stretches out for a year and and gets people all fired up and we have a culture war over rob ford stadium but that said i also understand that like if if i lived near there and my kids were going to have to play there uh then maybe i would feel like at least have some public meetings so that if it if the public comes out and overwhelmingly says please give us rob ford stadium then you can stand back and say well see the people wanted it right right and who are we to stand in the way despite our reservations about him as a politician and a person um but but as it stands now it's like another thing that kind of got forced through right so that's that's less than ideal although i'm not willing to man the barricades against it. And in fact, I kind of like think,

okay, this is kind of appropriate. But it does seem like, okay, maybe we shouldn't have short-circuited the naming process. Maybe we should have... Why have a naming process if you're going to just overrule it all the time? Right. And again, these murky waters that the Ford family has created here,

you alluded to it earlier, but here we are talking about how Olivia Chow playing nicely with Doug Ford to help the city of Toronto. And then suddenly she's supportive of the Rob Ford Stadium name change. And it's just, you know, it's all too close for comfort. Yeah. And Councillor Diane Sachs was,

who I know you have a working relationship with. Right. Was really suggesting that that kind of stinks right and and she was really opposed to it she thinks given the police involvement in some disrespect to some domestic disputes in his household given his record of saying sexist and racist things over the years anti-trans homophobic things things, that he's an objectionable person and that we shouldn't be naming after him. But then beyond that, any suggestion of a, like,

deal with the premier where city funding is going to hinge on some tributes to his brother is, like, just stinks. Just stinks, right? And so I hear what you're saying. But we're going to talk about a lot of stuff here that kind of smells here so uh plug that nose ed as we cover a lot of stuff but one thing that hopefully doesn't smell uh but i don't know have you heard john tory's back on 10 10 i haven't uh i i knew he came back for uh sort of like some guest appearances i feel like he'll be like like

wait wait so have I missed it maybe because of the holiday break? No, it's not like a, no, no, no. Has he got a show again? No, I think he's like a, I believe, according to my,

my assistant, Mark Weisblatt, John Torrey is like an official panelist maybe. I can't remember, they had a funny name for him which was funny, like a municipal affairs expert

which was a funny name for a guy. No, no, but yeah, I mean, I think at 1010 and also at 640, But he did fill in as like the morning show. Go ahead. They have contributors who are kind of like on a retainer, and some of them have a title, like political analyst or whatever. CNN does this as well.

Oh, yeah, yeah. And so they're regular guests, right? They come on to talk about things regularly on a variety of shows. I just wondered if you had not heard that. Because I'm sure, and again, at some point, right they come on to talk about right things regularly on a variety of shows so i just wondered if you had uh i had not heard because i'm sure and again uh at some point i'm sure they'll find a spot for john tory and if do i remember correctly uh that he was like doing it for a dollar a year because he loved he loved to do radio or something i feel like there's a story

there i gotta dig in if that's true but i don't i did not i i never you don't know that okay if that's true. I don't, I did not, I never read that. You don't know that one, okay. You know, we alluded to it earlier, but the only time I think I've had to do a major edit to this program was because Ed Keenan came on and told like court tales about Rob Ford

and then afterwards looked at me and said, I think all of that was under a publication ban and then we had to excise it so that I didn't get in trouble. Yeah, it's no was under a publication ban and then we had to like excise it so that uh i didn't get yeah it's no longer under a publication ban so what was i had revealed that the crack video the rob ford crack video had been shown in court and there was a funny anecdote about the day i went to see that there was like a group of high school students who were just touring the court building and like ushered in to to watch a few minutes of a funny case and then here's the crack video.

But in real time, I think that was the Sandro Lisi's trial. I think at the time, that was covered by a publication ban pending the decision and all of that. That ban has since expired and so we can talk about it. But it was like- Can I restore that audio now? While I was telling the story, decision and all of that that band has since expired and so we can talk about it but i did

it was like can i restore that audio now it was while i was telling the story yeah and towards the end of it that i realized oh wait there hasn't been a decision yet right like it seemed like ancient history to me at the time it was like oh this was back a few months ago and it was like oh no wait the courts move so slow but that tells you how long you've been coming on toronto mike that we can like now we're talking about naming the stadium after Rob Ford. It feels like he's been gone a long time now, Rob Ford, sadly, for his family and loved ones.

But that's how long you've been coming on. Like, we go way back to that. And then here we are talking about Rob Ford Stadium and the Ford family and their influence. And again, kind of related to Rob Ford Stadium, getting that name, the former Centennial Park Stadium. Glenn wants to know, ask Ed if he was in charge, and why aren't you in charge, Ed?

If you were in charge, what would you name Dundas Square or would you leave Dundas Square alone? Oh, man. He's asking you a personal question. When you're supposed to cover these things, but you have opinions in the Toronto Star. I read them all the time. And by the way, this name, am I saying it right?

Sankofa? I think so. Sankofa. I don't know how to say it any other way. So Sankofa Square is the name. Give us the update on that naming thing. Is that done deal? I don't want to dodge the question from Glenn.

But the truth is that I don't have... Here's the thing. Yeah. I'm like a white guy who grew up in Toronto. Me too. And a middle-aged guy. Me too. And so it's easy for me to say

that I didn't know who this Dundas character was until this debate came up. And then, in fact, I didn't know who this Dundas character was until this debate came up. And then, in fact, I didn't care because it's just the name of a main street in Toronto. It's the name of subway stations and it's the name of a part of Hamilton, like a formerly independent city that's now part of Hamilton.

And so it's a place name and it overshadows any of the history. It's easy for me to say that, right? There are people in the city who claim that for them, the disputed, but in their eyes, damning legacy of this guy in actions that may have preserved the length of time that slavery was legal in the british empire stains it so that it's and i like i'm not trying to cop out but i i think like if there are

people for who really believe that and that that's what they think of when they see the name dundas then maybe we got to at least take those things into account. And then city council voted to rename the street. Then they were maybe having second thoughts because of the expense of renaming it and the disruption to like everybody who lives on Dundas Street, every business that has a business on Dundas Street, every, like all the street signs,

the expense to the city, but also to all these private people. And then saying maybe symbolically we rename something big. Right. And not just rename the whole street. I get that. That sounds to me like Rosie DiManno, my colleague at the Star,

had proposed that as a kind of a compromise. Rename Young Dundas Square, keep the street name itself and let it fade into obscurity or whatever or post up some historical signs that say, you know, Henry Dundas, a lot of people think not such a good guy. Died in 1811, by the way.

Never visited Toronto. Never even came here. He has no real connection to Toronto, except that he was a friend of John Graves Simcoe, the first Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, who made Ontario or Upper Canada the first place in the British Empire to ban slavery. But he basically was naming things after his friends.

And so that's how Dundas Street got its name. But so Sankova Square, here's the thing, is that I think if you're looking to symbolically rename it in a way that makes some nod or possible reparation or correction as a tribute to or a recognition of the black community and the legacy of slavery, community and the legacy of slavery um then you know in its favor this name uh has that it comes out of a african country out of ghana right um and a concept that it's built on is about sort of remembering and learning from reinterpreting history uh so that you can move forward right and that that all sounds like it makes sense and there's a deep connection to the african community the formerly enslaved people the idea of reflecting on history and moving forward from it so in all those ways it makes sense except that i don't know that it's like a particularly resonant toronto name like so that might be thing where if you looked for a

toronto person or a toronto institution or a toronto event that you could name it after um it would have more local residents but i think whatever you name these things it's going to be like in a few years that's just the name of it right and if it gives people an opportunity to learn about this so i'm not opposed to this name i don't think it was a bad idea again there's like a short circuiting of the process that was underway which has left a lot of the people who are like in the young dundas square community like business owners nearby and stuff like that even like political activists who are on the panel who are supposed to be considering names and bringing a short list forward the fact that olivia chow said and okay give me the name because we're doing this next week uh has left them angry and i get that but i do it seems okay okay and again again i'm just reading the like the official toronto.ca

account of all this but it says the name sankofa is the result of two years of careful work by the recognition review community advisory committee whose conversations were informed by consultations with the public. The name was suggested by representatives of the black community who served on the committee and of the many names considered, Sankofa emerged as the consensus choice. So this is like,

like, let me, oh, Olivia needs a name. How about Sankofa? So I think there's a halfway here with it. Like, and I'm not an expert on this file but i've you know talking to my colleague bensper and others who've reported on it and reading what they came up with and then hearing from some people in the community directly it seems like there's a halfway there was this like committee was meeting and considering names but they hadn't actually come up with their kind of short list yet.

This name does organically come up out of the black community making this suggestion. But there were others who thought maybe an indigenous name, a local name in Ojibwe language or something would be appropriate. Right. And there was still some discussion and debate and they kind of got rushed to the finish line. But I mean, i have heard from people

who work in anti-racism work here that this term is i don't know if common is the right word but it's a known term in like african-american studies and in uh black liberation circles in anti-racism anti-black racism circles because of what it means. Like it comes out of Ghana, but it's been used in North America in those circles for that. Just so people know who are listening, Sankofa refers to the act of reflecting on and reclaiming teachings from the past,

which enables people to move forward together. So like on the surface, although I do know people who, when they heard it was going to be called Sankofa, assumed that was an indigenous name. Like I've heard people, so you do need an education on what is Sankofa. And that's kind of what we're doing right now. I'm sure there's listeners who are going to be like,

oh, I never really knew what Sankofa meant. I do think that part of the value of naming things, other than like we need to call it something, but part of the value of naming things after people or events or things like that we want to remember is not that every time you say it like roy thompson hall who's roy thompson i don't know they named after hall after him right right um but it is that at some point people can look back and learn about this thing right the sankofa square people who grow up here

will just call it that and sancofa is going to be the name of the square but if they ever stop to read a plaque in the square or if they ever get curious about it they'll learn about this concept through that i mean that's part of why you name things like that right because otherwise the concept would be lost on people we can't just call everything like peace i mean mean, Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C. is like, is like, okay, a little on the nose. Right, or the Galleria Mall. Yeah.

Okay, I will say this though. Let's say you have everything. We have so many things named after Henry Dundas. Okay, I didn't even know it was Henry Dundas until this. Okay, I've learned more about Henry Dundas. Okay, he's a good, the Scotsman who had some controversy surrounding him in, as you can drill into. But okay, so Henry Dundas, all these things are named for Dundas, as you discussed earlier.

Is it bad to have named after somebody who we learned had problematic history? That is part of the story, isn't it? Someone joked to me, we should just rename it not Dundas. Yeah, now see, I used to live in what they call down there the DMV, right? Like, the Washington, D.C. region, which includes parts of Virginia, right? And in Virginia, they're not just tearing down Confederate statues now, but they had, like, the major highway. It's like, imagine if the 400, like like a major highway that runs through virginia yeah

was named jefferson davis highway right it's named after the president of the confederacy right a man who led an armed war against the united states government uh in in the name of preserving the institution of slavery right like right like a, a traitor, a insurrectionist, but also like leading a racist rebellion, right? So that was proudly named after him for all those years, and they are in the process. There's still lots of signs up that say that, but they are in the process of renaming that highway.

And it does seem to me like when you are actually commemorating someone who is remembered for something objectively bad, maybe you should decommemorate them, right? Now, there's other people who are being celebrated and remembered for something really positive but who also had objectionable parts of their character somebody like Nellie McClung who was in Canada

like instrumental in gaining women the right to vote or having their right to participate in the political process and be viewed as human beings recognized by the legal structure of Canada, but who also apparently was an advocate of eugenics, right? That's an objectionable thing, like a really bad thing,

but that's not what she is remembered for and celebrated for, right? So I think with those kind of characters, when what you're celebrating is a genuine achievement um and what you've learned about them is that they were not uh that they were complicated characters with dark sides to their character like many others i i'm still in favor of commemorating the achievement right and and making note of it right there are people who are more complicated figures like john a mcdonald who who is the pivotal founder of confederation built this country from sea to sea and all of that built the railroads also a flaming racist but like who's who's like anti-indigenous and

anti-chinese sentiments are inseparable from the actions he's remembered for, like they're part and parcel of it. Like, I think that's more complicated, but I do feel like if the person is primarily remembered for the bad thing, don't celebrate that. Don't commemorate that. If they're primarily remembered for the good thing, but they also had bad elements To their character maybe we Acknowledge that but also Continue to celebrate the good The ones in the middle are harder With Dundas I don't know How to shake this out

Well maybe this is the compromise The dispute about Dundas Is that he was Commemorated and remembered in Scotland And here as somebody Who was an abolitionist ahead of his time. And so maybe contributed to that. And then some historians looking at the historical record

are saying he might've claimed to be an abolitionist, but he actually put these motions forward that delayed abolition by decades. And so the thing he's being celebrated for is actually the flip side of that coin was bad. There is angry dispute among some of these people

about which version of him is the authentic one. And I'm not qualified to mediate that dispute. So inconclusive, let's leave it at that. And you can learn, like this is,

like you can teach this in schools, right? This is very interesting. I love having these discussions with my kids about, you know, your paper, the Toronto Star, recently renamed their Sportsperson of the Year Award because it was called the Lou Marsh Award Forever.

And then as Mark Hebbshire likes to remind me, he was here two days ago, by the way, everybody should listen to the return of Hebbsy on Toronto Mike. Lou Marsh would write in the paper and who's it? Tom Longboat, who is the runner. But he had some anti-indigenous and some racist rhetoric in his writing. And therefore, now it's not called the Lou Marsh Award. No longer called the Lou Marsh Award.

That happened. And of course, TMU, which I used to think is the Toronto Mike Universe. It turns out it's Toronto Metropolitan University. They decided with the residential schools and everything that they would no longer celebrate Edgerton Ryerson. Is that his name? I think so. Edgerton. That's where I went to school.

Right. But yeah, you're right. It's a very interesting discussion and I think it's a discussion everybody should be having with their kids. They should be talking about it in school. I'm not sure you need to delete the name Dundas from the history of this city. I'm not so sure. But maybe the

compromise is exactly what's happening. Maybe Sankofa Square instead of Young Dundas Square is the compromise where we talk about moving forward and learning. Yeah, the name itself implies that you are going to study this history and learn from it.

What's the answer to Glenn's question it was maybe Sankofa Square. You know, if you and I, two middle-aged white guys with blue eyes. Obviously, we are going to. We're okay with Sankofa Square. I can adapt. I can adapt. You know, I still like the code Skydome. I've accidentally called it Rogers Center a couple of of times skydome maybelline gardens you know we need you know

you talk about uh oh i was gonna give an example and i said scotia bank arena when actually like in my head i thought it was still acc but i guess it's flipped now well it's been scotia bank arena for years now and i gotta give you i know up to speed here it's been rogers center for years it's been rogers center a long time They bought it for $25 million. And then there's that exhibition stadium. Which is now BMO Field. At least that's a different building. It's a different building.

I watched them plough it down. Although, you know, in the parking lot, you can see where the bases were. The parking lot outside of BMO Field, you can see where the exhibition stadium bases were. There's a column idea for you. Go and visit the planks. The memor, uh, the plaques. The plaques are on the,

the ground in the, in the parking lot. Oh my God. A lot of ground to cover, but I've now, I'm now sold on Sankofa square. I think we need to consult the public on Rob Ford stadium. I'm not ready to like be stinky,

make, raise a stink, but it, there's an odor there. I don't like, I don't like bad odors. I don't know about you, Ed,

but what is the answer to Glenn's question? If you're in charge, this is a dictatorship. Would you rename Dundas Square? The answer is you would rename it Sankofa Square. I would in deference to the many people

who want it renamed and the majority of city council who want it renamed. This is not something where I would veto this decision. Like i said and i think i've said what i have to say about it um if it were left to me if i was the naming committee in a vacuum and i wasn't aware of all the um cultural baggage that already existed i would either leave it as it was or i'd probably wind up naming it after a tor sports figure like either Daryl Sittler Square or Kyle Lowry Square or something you know, Jose

Batista Square because I think we have too many things named after like politicians and rich guys. Joe Carter Square. And oh yes baby, Joe Carter Square. Touch them all Joe Square. I'll leave that there and afterwards I'll tell you a little Joe Carter thing that's kind of exciting here. But yeah, shout out, Joe Square. I'll leave that there, and afterwards I'll tell you a little Joe Carter thing

that's kind of exciting here. But yeah, shout out to Joe Carter. Okay, so let's move on from that. I just realized there's a lot of ground I want to cover with you. But your family enjoys the Palma Pasta lasagna you bring home every quarter. We do. Is that why you're here? My kids look forward to my appearances so that they can have that Palma Pasta.

Well, then I'm cutting you off, Ed. Just kidding. I have one in my freezer right now. Palma Pasta sent over another large meat lasagna for the Keenan family. I appreciate it. Good. You and your family enjoy that.

Thank you, Palma Pasta. I don't know how many years they've been on board supporting this real talk, but we love Palma Pasta. We'll get back there in the next winter for a TMLX event. Speaking of TMLX events, I think the next one's going to be

in late June, and it will be at Great Lakes Brewery in Southern... Even though I can't say brewery. Can you say brewery? Brewery. Is that how you say it? I don't know. Brewery? I just sort of... I've started just like mumbling the last part so

no one knows what I said. Like, maybe I got it right, maybe I didn't. I don't know. But know but glb which is easier to say is going to host us at uh tmlx 15 this is in june late june so people have no excuse uh for not putting it in their calendar now and saving the date and i got uh yeah so uh fresh craft beer for you ed Ed Keenan, as well. And I have a measuring tape courtesy of Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of this community since 1921. So shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. Okay, more later, but can you,

and I know that you don't have three, four hours to sit here, but just maybe we shout out very quickly. We shout out John Lawrence. I want to shout him out because he's now an FOTM. And take a moment. I did read your piece. In fact, I told him I had just read it. Spacing turned 20.

And you wrote a nice piece about spacing turning 20. And John Lawrence came over. And it was the day of like the West and Phoenix was having like a fundraiser day for Ontario Place. And John and I covered all the bases here. But I want to hear from you, Ed Keenan. Help me out here. Ontario Place, the Ontario Science Centre, the uploading of the Gardner Expressway and DVP.

There was an Auditor General report on Ontario Science Centre. There's one coming on Ontario Place. Like, give us the what's going on with that whole rigmarole i know you need another couple hours well yeah i mean possibly but i don't even know that i people would be wiser after a couple hours that's irrelevant it's just like um so the uploading on the gardener and the dvp is essentially uh takes a couple hundred million dollars like a couple billion dollars but also like hundreds of millions in ongoing operating costs off the city's books that's a a huge gain for the city financially uh what they lose is some control over the fate of those roads nobody was really talking much

about doing anything with the dvp but there's been lots of talk over the years about taking down parts of the gardner expressway the city has taken down some parts of it. There was a big debate during the election campaign about not rebuilding, at a cost of a couple billion dollars, the link between the DVP and the Gardner. Doug Ford, of course, big fan of the Gardner Expressway. So now that it's Doug Ford's highway, he bought it, he owns it. The city no longer has really the authority to have those conversations about taking down the elevated portion of the Gardner Expressway or anything like that, right? So that's to the extent that there's a downside to the city of that big economic boon,

it's that they no longer control the destiny of the gardener and the land immediately around it. That's now a provincial responsibility. The city can ask them, but just like the city is asking them to not change Ontario Place into a giant spa, we can see how effective those kinds of requests are. Okay, so now basically... Doug Ford has basically planned to...

So these are almost separate items, but they kind of come bundled in together, right? So where, as part of the New Deal for Toronto, Olivia Chow did not endorse the Ontario place plan and in fact when asked about it at the press conference she still said my opinion is that they should not do that and maybe if they want to put that spa we could give them land on an exhibition place the Better Living Centre building could be replaced by this spot right like but she sort of formally openly acknowledged that the city doesn't have any authority here that it's called ontario place because the ontario provincial

government owns it and that they are going to do what they want to do and so she sort of agreed not to chain herself to a tree or anything or try to fight legal battles um and and you know a lot of people are down on that, but the result of that is that Doug Ford is like, full steam ahead. We are going to go forward with our plan to raise all these trees on the West Island of Ontario place, replace them with a big spa slash water park,

and move the Ontario Science Centre programming and stuff into a newly revamped facility that uses the heritage buildings at Ontario Place, those old pods and Cinesphere and all of that, and we'll build out those some more. An asterisk or additional part of that is that Doug Ford then acknowledged, in the same way Olivia Chow made her acknowledgement that the city owns the Ontario

Science Center building right now, even though it's a provincial government facility, it's on a lease from the city. And so the city will take back that facility and will preserve the building, renovate it, put something else in there, community programming or whatever. of the building, renovate it, put something else in there, community programming or whatever. So, I mean, that's the status of all of this. And so I think the fight, as Olivia Chow said to me at one point, the fight to save Ontario Place can go on and, you know, maybe should go on, but it's a fight that takes place at Queen's Park, not City Hall. It was never going to be a fight you would win at City Hall. It's a fight at Queens Park.

And, you know, it seems increasingly likely. As much as Doug Ford has flip-flopped on a sequence of things that prove unpopular, he would have to come to the conclusion that this Thermé Spa, Waterpark Spa, is unpopular enough across Ontario among his supporters that he gains more by abandoning it than he loses by sticking with it. Well, you just nailed it there. Like the big difference between the Greenbelt scandal, which he flip-flopped on, thankfully, and this is that, as far as I can tell, with my antennas up to pull down data from the zeitgeist, this does not seem to be radically unpopular

outside of the 416. It does seem to be contained in Toronto. This is Mike speaking his opinion. But in Toronto, it seems like the Ontario place is a big deal, but it doesn't seem like it's a big deal for other Ontarians. I don't know if you've noticed that as well. Yeah, especially not other Ontarians who don't already hate Doug Ford,

right? Well, that's just it. So, like, as you know, how many, I don't know the number, but how many MPPs in the 416 are actually from the Progressive Conservative Party? I mean, you're in a rioting right now where we have a Progressive Conservative, so I know there are a handful, but it's not that many MPPs in Toronto

that are actually progressive conservative. Yeah, and the thing is, is that, you know, that reminder, it seems like a trite thing to say, like it's called Ontario Place, right? But it is a provincial park, right? And it was built by Bill Davis to be a provincial attraction with a theme park, with water slides, with a great epic children's play place,

with this science-y or future-y type of programming inside the pods and everything, right? With a great concert venue that was at first free with admission to see concerts there. It was meant to be an attraction that people from all over Ontario, or at least all over Southern Ontario, would go to. And they they would like school groups would bus in uh and go there people would come on the weekend and as much as like i think we actually just need some parkland on the lake uh

and the parkland is basically a resource for people who live nearby who can bike over to that park or walk over or take a short like like the toronto islands it's a destination for locals um i understand the desire to put a bigger magnetic attraction there like that will draw people from all over the gta at the very least right um i just don't think that this kind of attraction that like levels what's already there and puts one giant sort of like niche interest thing there uh is the right thing and i and especially not on the lake like i don't want i don't understand this specific facility there but i do understand not just wanting to let it be natural parkland if it's going to be a provincial attraction that the province owns and runs,

they want it to be a resource for the people of the province. I get that. And I think a lot of people outside of Toronto who, who maybe are not fired up about this do have a bit of a, like, what, what are you going to put there that, that is an asset to all of us and not just you who live in Liberty Village and can walk over. Right. Like, you know, I see it. But I mean, and that's certainly Doug Ford's political calculation. Right.

Like, it's got to be. OK, but again, I had this conversation with John Lawrence. on Lawrence, but to clarify here, there was something about a deal made with parking lots, like, and that there wouldn't be parking lots on Ontario Place land, it would be... The deal, and John

might have explained this better than I am going to, because he likely knows, I know he knows this file much more better than I do. I have written about it, I've paid attention to it, but John has really done a lot of hard legwork on this. But my understanding of that agreement

is basically the province agreed to consider not building this half billion dollar underground parking lot and instead consider sites at Exhibition Place as spots for parking, right? Given that there's already basically acres and acres of parking lots, hectares and hectares of parking lots over there on Exhibition Place right across the street, Lakeshore.

And I think one thing that john raised that was interesting right away is if if the the province follows through on that and makes the parking be on the um exhibition place side how is that going to affect their contract or therm's own um therma's own uh evaluation of how worthwhile this project is because what he says is like right now as you and i talk it's like minus what is it out there it's cold it's cold um and if you picture a year-round water park slash spa where you're gonna go and maybe your kids are gonna ride water slides and you're gonna dip in the wellness pool in the hot hot baths and and all of that and get a facial scrub and then you walk around in your bathrobe and then you're going to dip in the wellness pool and the hot, hot baths and, and all of that and get a facial scrub. And then you walk around in your bathrobe and then you're going to come

out of there with soaking wet hair and wrinkly, moist skin into this cold to walk 500 meters or something to your car, right? How, how pleasant is that? That's obviously why they want an underground parking lot right at their front door is so that people don't even have to go outside. Right. I don't know. John knows better than I do. How,

what the possibility of that coming through and what the likelihood of that. But I did think it was an interesting consideration. Absolutely. And here's what I want to do. I want you to go do a bio break. Like what you're going to do some promos. I'm going to do some promos. Cause we're going to, yeah. Only because i want you to go do a bio break like why you're gonna do some promos i'm gonna do some oh yeah because we're gonna yeah only because i want you at your best and i don't want you thinking about your bladder okay so take off those headphones i'm sending i feel like it's

my kid okay i am the father of four i know how this works soon yeah take those i don't even really have to go by the way but i i i will soon enough so i'll go and take a break. You can do your... As I say to my kids, just go anyways. Go get that bag, yeah. Go anyways. So I've sent Ed off to the washroom here, but I do want to welcome back. I mean, they were only gone for one episode, okay?

So I only recorded... This is the second episode of 2024, and that means... They were only absent for one episode, but they're back, and this is exciting news. Raymond James Canada is back as a primary sponsor of Toronto Mike. So welcome back, Raymond.

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we continue to tell people about RecycleMyElectronics.ca. You know, I don't have a speaker for you this time, Ed, but I know you've got a speaker. If they ever break, I don't think they'll ever break. Right.

You're not going to throw those in the garbage, right? Because there's some chemicals in there. Yeah, but if they ever, I don't know, you drop it in the bathtub or something. If I ever, yeah,

I will go to recyclemMyElectronics.ca and then find out a place near you where you can drop them off to be properly recycled. Okay, you're doing great, Ed. I love these appearances so much. A fun fact for you is that Bonnie Crombie went to my high school. I'm just throwing that out there.

Oh, I did not know that. I didn't really know it until Cynthia Dale came over and Cynthia Dale I knew went to my high school because in the gym there was literally a picture of Cynthia Dale, I knew went to my high school. Cause in the, the gym, there was literally a picture of Cynthia Dale, like part of the drama team or something. I should point out,

go ahead. Was she like besties with Bonnie Crombie while they were there? I didn't. So I just found this fun fact that Bonnie Crombie went to Michael Power as I did. And Cynthia Dale did. And Cynthia was friends with Bonnie and knew her quite well from Etobicoke and Michael Power high school. Now I just want Bonnie and Cynthia a little older from Etobicoke and Michael Power High School.

Now, I just want Bonnie and Cynthia a little older than me. I'm just throwing that out there. So we didn't like go to the building at the same time. A building which no longer exists, by the way. Can you visit your high school? I can. And I recently did because it was celebrating its 50th anniversary. Cardinal Newman High School in the Scarborough Lofts.

I went to two different high schools. I went to Della Selle College went to dellisell college oaklands uh for grade nine uh and then i transferred to cardinal lumen high school so both of those schools are still there i have very little connection to dellisell i pass it sometimes uh it's now they don't let you in there at the time it was a all boys school it's now co-ed and it's really sports focused. But Cardinal Newman High School on the Scarborough Bluffs is still there. They are actually going to

redevelop the building on the same site in the next few years. But right now, it's still the same building. So I went for the big reunion party they were having

to celebrate the school's 50th anniversary and saw a bunch of my old classmates and the old auditorium and cafeteria there. What's it like to see it? I feel like I can see it in my mind's eye. I can kind of visualize.

I remember where the cafe, Michael Power was like a complex. It was good training for when I went to U of T because there was the St. Joe's building, there was a Michael Power building, there was extensive center portables, there was a North portable, there was a gym that was a portable,

there were three gyms in total. There was a chaplain's building where the Brazilian priests were hanging out, and there was a whole thing going on. But I can kind of see it, and I can kind of see the lay of the land, and I remember what the cafeteria looked like. I remember what it smelled like when the fries were on sale.

I just remember these things. But I always wondered, I would like to go back and just walk the halls and just see what memories get triggered when I'm walking through. It was pretty cool to go back and just walk the halls and just see what memories get triggered when I'm walking through. It was pretty cool to go back and walk around. Okay, so I had gone back. My elementary school has been torn down,

and it's replaced by townhouses. But before it was torn down, while I was still in university or shortly after that, I had gone back there for an anniversary party or something. And the thing when you do that is that the building's so much smaller than you remember it being. And there are differences. There are still somehow the same smells of, I don't know,

Xerox-y stuff and cleaning products or whatever. But it's smaller smaller and and different than in your childhood imagination whereas the high school it actually looked way more like i remembered it looking than i thought it would like it didn't seem run down but it also wasn't like that when you go into the auditorium it's like this is pretty much what i remember it isn't miniaturized or something right like i guess, I guess because I haven't grown since grade 11. You and me both, buddy. But it did trigger some memories.

Like, you walk by and like, oh, hey, that's the old city council office or student council office. And like, oh, hey, the vice principal's office on the bottom floor where you had to go to sign in when you were late, which I did almost every day of my high school career um like brings back these uh emotional memories almost like there's the specific things you remember but there's more like a feeling like oh this was not a happy part of the building for me this was a i still have that anxiety triggered by coming back i totally get that but i'm kind of envious of the fact that you were able to walk and rediscover this, like these internal memories, be them good or bad, like that I can't, I guess I'm just frustrated as I

I'm the last graduating class from the original location, which is now condos it got plowed down and it became condos they relocated the high school, which I've never been inside it, but the near Centennial Park, home of Rob Ford Stadium Yeah, I do, I coach some baseball players who attend that school

now, and so I have never gone to see it with them, but they seem to like it. I would like to walk the halls of a building that no longer exists. So maybe in the future of the virtual reality and the, I don't know, the AI, maybe that'll be possible. Was Michael Powers

St. Joseph at, like, Royal York? No. No. Close. But it was where Islington so you got Dundas to the north and you have Islington it was between the two

so it kind of bordered both and then just a little bit like west of the station basically Islington subway station. So yeah. So you get across the street

you had the police station on what are we talking there? Is that, yeah, Bloor Street. So Bloor, Islington, Dundas, there's like a triangle there where the complex was located.

But now it's Michael Park, no, sorry, Michael Power Park Place or some, whatever they call their condos. Oh, okay. Yeah, I've lost track. Anyway, all this was to say that Bonnie Crombie went to my high school. Okay, so things that have changed since you were last here is now Yeah. I've lost track. Anyway, all this was to say that Bonnie Crombie went to my high school. Okay.

So things that have changed since you were last here is now Bonnie Crombie is a leader of the Liberal Party. Leader of the Ontario Liberal Party. Yeah. Okay. Diamond Dog asks, this question comes up every time you visit. Oh, good. Because I thought you were expecting me to recognize the name.

No, I don't know. Well, I know Diamond Dave. Dave is David Lee Roth, right? Let me reach into the Van Halen. Sammy Hagar or David Lee Roth, that's the question for you. I'm with you. I'm with you.

Any updates on the Eglinton Crosstown? When does the provincial takeover of the DVP and Gardiner take effect and what will that mean for many users of the road? So there's two questions here. One ties into what we were just talking about. So when does this DVP Gardner thing take effect? Okay, there's a due diligence period.

So it's going to be a year or two. In the meantime, the province is giving some like bridge financing, like giving the city money to make up what... So financially, it's like in effect immediately. But like legally, there's a period of a year or two or three where the province is going to be like taking possession of it and they sort out i don't know like the wrinkles of like who does cross streets or what the leeways on off ramps are like how much is going to be city property and how much is going to be provincial property and who's going to plow it or how they're going to share up the contracts for

cutting the grass at the side or whatever right like there's a due diligence period where they allow to phase that in over the next couple years but in the meantime the city's getting bridge financing uh on the eglinton crosstown the good news is as the star reported this week that some of the construction hoardings and road closures up at eglinton and young and around there along the eglinton crosstown route have have been lifted and uh the heavy construction disruption is sort of starting to iron itself out. The bad news is we still don't know when this thing's going to open, right? Phil Verster is the CEO of Metrolinks,

which is the provincial agency that is building the Eglinton Crosstown. He has said now for more than a year that he will not give any update on when it's expected to open until he's confident that they will meet that date he names. And he, I think, at some point,

gave an update saying that he would tell us like three months before it opens. Like when they've got a date and it's going to open three months from now and they're very sure that that date is going to be met met that's when he'll tell us and we'll have three months notice that date has not come up yet uh and the most recent update like late last year was encouraging progress but no no date yet i mean the is, is like last summer, one of my kids had a baseball game at Keelsdale Park,

which is at Black Creek and Eglinton. Yes. And from there, you can see there's like an overpass. Like it's in the outfield, essentially, or beyond the outfield wall. You can see. And every,

seemed to me like every three minutes or every five minutes, those LRT trains were running across the bridge. They were going, and we were shouting out like, you know, hit the train, win a steak.

Like a Bull Durham reference with the bull. Like hit a home run onto the train and buy a steak dinner. Because of that, and it was like, they're running running frequent service, like full service trains there as part of this testing. How far could we possibly be from the open air? I feel like last time you were here, that might have been happening.

Yeah, no. And so it's like, it's like difficult for me to know exactly what the holdups are. But it does seem like all the legal disputes that Metrolink's and the TTC and the private contractors who are actually doing the construction work, they've settled those, I think. And so all the parties are like full steam ahead. We're rowing in the same direction. But it's really frustrating that a few years after, like four years after the original projected opening date, we still don't have a new projected opening date. You would be, I almost said,

I was going to say that you would have to imagine it's going to be this year, right? You'd have to imagine it's going to be in 2024, except that after all this time, you'd be foolish to say that. And so that's like charlie brown maybe we should none of us should allow ourselves to imagine it will open this year and if it does it'll be a pleasant surprise but my goodness this is like the david miller legacy process

project remember david miller everybody like most many i'm sure there are at least some of your listeners who were not born when david miller mayor of Toronto. Wow, could that be true? Yeah, he was a big TFC supporter, as I recall. Now, Neil Jays is on the live stream, and he just points out, we were talking about the DVP and Gardiner Expressway becoming provincial responsibilities, and he points out, and also no more city influence to tax the DVP Gardiner with tolls, one less revenue tool. That is, yes, true, in theory. The reason I say in theory, and in the longer term, it is true, but John Tory proposed tolling those roads

when he was the mayor. He got city council lined up behind him. The provision of the city of toronto act that allows the city to toll its own roads uh requires the province approve it specifically so it's not actually city power it's like uh you can ask permission and kathleen win who was premier at the time not doug for, Kathleen Wynne, vetoed the idea. Basically because people in the 905 were freaking out, right? And a lot of her MPPs who are in the 905,

which is like bread and butter for both the conservatives and the liberals, that's the territory they're fighting over, were saying, we are going to lose our seats over this. And so she said, nope, nope, nope. And Doug Ford was always a hard no on tolling them. And it's inconceivable that he was going to grant the city that's wished to do that. Now, potentially, if Merritt Stiles had been elected the next premier,

there would be an environment where you could implement those tolls, but it would be a big political fight for anybody anyway. But your listener is correct there that theoretically the city had that power and that theoretical power could have become real at some point. That's now off the table. It would have to be the province who does it now. Okay, and remind me, Ed, do you do a good uh macho man randy savage impression you must do i uh it's been you must have because there's a i have done it here at one point okay oh yeah baby i don't think my impression of macho man

randy savage is all right but i do do an impression i don't remember this because i took down you know people sent in questions and comments and Andrew said, when Ed returns, could you do a slap into a Slim Jim? By the way, this is funny. So I'm a big Randy Savage guy from his WWF era,

but I actually don't have a lot of like personal like, you know, admiration for the Slim Jim campaign. Like, so when you get into

the Slim Jim campaign, I don't know if I just missed it or if I ignored it or whatever because he was out of the WWF. No, I think I'm one of those people too who like my big years with Randy Savage were like when he was like,

Tito Santana, I am coming for you. Miss Elizabeth, those promos of Benji and Oakland where it was like, cream of the crop. And you'd have the creamer

or whatever. Get a cup of coffee. Anyways, yeah. Cream of the crop. But if you have a Randy Savage quote, I love that cream of the crop. And you have the creamer or whatever. Get a cup of coffee. Anyways, yeah. Cream of the crop. But if you have a Randy Savage quote, I love that cream of the crop quote, by the way, you could drop it now for Andy. One of the things,

I don't know if I mentioned this on here before, and this is why it came up, but like Ryan Doyle, the Newstalk 1010 host, at one point I was co-hosting Friend friendly fire with him and we were talking about something i think i said oh yeah about something and then he said during the commercial break he was like once when he was like on like middle of the night radio like trying to get his start yeah wherever he was when i used to exist he did a whole like hour-long segment of like macho man who wore it better macho man savage uh or the kool-aid man like the battle

of the oh yes and he had callers calling in to vote and do their own impressions and it's like oh that's funny yeah because the other one would be uh oliver's jewelry right like um he does he do an oh yeah i've heard him do an oh yeah yeah, Oliver. What's his name again? Oliver. Who's the Oliver jewelry guy's name? Oliver. Cash for. Yeah, yeah. He could be the other guy. Oh yeah.

Russell Oliver. Russell, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for bailing me out there. Okay. I was like, how do I not remember his name right now? But that's what happens on live radio, even when it's not on the radio. Snap into a Slim Jim.

So two things. Cash for. Yeah. Absolutely. Russell Oliver would do like a, oh, yeah. Like this was big ad-handing. And one more thing, it's interesting,

you met Ryan Doyle, who used to be the co-host of Rush on 1010 when Jay Mad Dog Michaels was here, and then Jay went to Montreal, and then Ryan left the show. But then Ryan was eventually replaced by Scott MacArthur, who Blue Jay fans know, and he was on Fan 590 and he's another also an fotm but scott mcarthur does an excellent randy macho man savage impression so maybe there's something about the afternoon audition for the drive time

show there involves doing that and i wonder i want to hear John Torrey's audition tape because he hosted that for years. So I want to hear John Torrey's Oh yeah! And let me put it on the record here. Pure speculation.

I have no insight into future Afternoon Drive host on 1010, John Torrey. Okay? That's recorded. You're saying that that's your prediction?

That's an unsubstantiated rumor i'm starting on this program right now lanric bennett speaking of fotms lanric bennett jr says ed spent many years living in dc that's well you live in the suburbs of dc where you live in dc uh i was living uh about a quarter mile from the district line so in bethesda maryland okay i got you in maryland i was working every day in dc we we it's like if you lived in mississauga mississauga yeah right wondering if he had any insights on urban environment on the on sorry on urban environment that he lived in there might be a word missing there, getting around by foot, bike, or public transit. What can Toronto copy and paste?

I butchered that. Yeah, the problem is with the copy and paste part because I could talk about what DC does, some things it does really well, right? And, you know, we say it's like living in Mississauga, but it really isn't like living in Mississauga. Where we lived was geographically, like I was the same distance from the white house in bethesda maryland as my house in blue or west village is from city hall oh wow like it's so dc is a small city tiny right and

the suburbs of it silver spring maryland arlington virginia alexandria virginia bethesda maryland Virginia, Alexandria, Virginia, Bethesda, Maryland, like Tacoma Park, like there's a Chevy Chase. The suburbs are much bigger than the city itself. But so here's some things that they do really well. And it would be no surprise to people to find that it's a beautiful city, both in sort of how they've laid out the monuments and the parkland uh and at the buildings surrounding them but also the the trees and ravine system there it's just a gorgeous place to walk around the architecture is beautiful um you can tell when you see it that it was a city

that was planned like before it was ever built before any of it was ever built it was a city that was planned, like before it was ever built, before any of it was ever built, it was like sketched out on a map with a grand plan for what a capital city would be like and it could be awe-striking. And then they built that and they built it out over the course of 200 years, right? And I think Toronto is a different kind of city. It's like an accidental city where it's sort of sprawled out and sprawled out

and its most charming and lovable places. You think of something like Kensington Market are not pretty to look at. They're not awe-inspiring in their grandeur or their aspirations. It's like what's made them great is the way people have used them, right? And so I don't know that that's a thing you could translate.

But I do think when I go to some of the public spaces in Washington, D.C., and that includes, you know, the National Mall that everybody knows from TV, but it also includes places like the new Anacostia Park on the southeast side of the river, which is like the 97% black black uh portion of washington dc which used to be called uh chocolate city because it was a majority black population city um you know by by the african-american community there we'll call it that uh it wasn't a derogatory term it was a term of pride um the the the still the poorest part of washingtonC. is Anacostia,

and the new Anacostia Park along the riverfront is just gorgeous. It's just beautiful. They do not skimp on public spaces there in Washington, D.C. They make them places that both visitors and local residents will not just admire, but they will often take your breath away with how beautiful they are, with how the amenities that they provide and the quality of them.

And I think in Toronto, we have some quirky and nice public spaces, especially some of the parks we've opened in the last few years, Corktown Common, that love park or that weird dog fountain, Bersey Park. Right.

There are some spaces that you can see we've put some thought into how this is going to look on Instagram, but how it's also going to look for the people approaching it, whether it's going to make them smile or laugh or have a moment of delight. I think we could have a lot more than that. And when I visited Corktown Common recently, I also thought we could do a much better job of maintaining it right like we could we could not just you know hire somebody to design a beautiful park but then we could keep it up right right um so that's that's one is the public spaces there i also like from my home in bethesda maryland could ride a a gorgeous bike trail,

off-road bike trail. It came, my house backed onto a ravine there. And that ravine had beside it an abandoned rail trail that has been turned into a pedestrian slash cycling highway that could get me to the Canadian Embassy or the Capitol Building from my house

in about 35, 40 minutes on a bike. And all of it was breathtaking. Again, you're going along Ravine Valley, and then you're going along the Potomac River, and then you're driving up through the National Mall. But that wasn't the only one. There are several other, like a whole network of off-road bike trails there that connect up with the major places you would want to go and that are really well used and so it's a much better city in that respect for cycling than toronto and then in downtown uh they have built out a network of protected bike lanes toronto is starting to really do that too. But where there's like permanent infrastructure,

including sort of like really obvious left and right turn lanes just for the bikes cut away from the sidewalk, cut out from traffic, that I think would be worth looking at. And then the third thing I'll say, I have four, but the fourth one is a quick one, right? And I may have said something similar before, but the third one is,

I think Toronto could learn from how DC is building up some of its new neighborhoods. When I look at, there's a place called the Wharf, which is a former sort of industrial waterfront area of Washington D.C. which is now like a big condo slash hotel slash restaurant and bar

hot spot on the waterfront and you could say that something like City Place or something like Liberty place or something like Liberty village or, uh, the distillery district have a similar kind of origin story.

But when you go down there, the way they've built the network, the streetscape, the way that those buildings meet the street and they've got cobblestone streets there. I understand that, you know, some people say that's a accessibility challenge like that this you know there are a

bunch of those kinds of things but what they you can't deny is that they've built a thriving neighborhood that is a magnificent place to walk around and even more magnificent place to like sit on a patio and drink a beer in the summertime they have skating out there into the river on the winter time with light displays again with all these bars and restaurants and people's balconies. And so there's a few different neighborhoods like that in Washington, D.C., where they've built up from scratch or in formerly industrial and semi-derelict neighborhoods, the whole Navy Wharf area around their stadiums, where they've built up new neighborhoods. And we've built a lot of new neighborhoods in Toronto

and some of them are really great places to live and some of them may well become great places to live. But I don't feel like we have, for as many condo buildings as we've built in Toronto, I don't figure, I don't think we've still learned how to make them be good streetscapes. Like so that you

can actually have a bunch of businesses in the street that make you feel like this is a great street to walk along and go into every shop it's like and the height of the buildings is not the obstacle here everybody says oh we build this giant condo tower and so now we're stuck with a bed bath and beyond taking up the whole block We can't have the little cute bars and convenience stores and head shops or whatever we used to have here. Record stores, independent places. There's no reason you have to build a 20-foot tall glass wall on the main floor that has a department store inside or an LCBO or a shopper's drug mart. You could build good businesses at the street level. We just haven't.

And so I think they have been, in my estimation, a lot more successful at that than we have. And here's the last thing. People will know if they've been reading my column because I write one every year, that one of the things I love about the city of Toronto is that we have all these outdoor ice rinks that are completely free.

And basically everybody, except if they live in scarborough where there are fewer uh but they need to build that up but like in much of the old city of toronto almost everybody can walk to a local park where they can skate in all of toronto you're a short drive away from where you could skate for free in washington dc you can still go public ice skating but it usually costs you like 20 bucks an hour per person to get on the ice. But all of their museums are free. And this is like, this is the Smithsonian institutions are owned by the government of the United States through an arm's length agency.

They are open to the public. Some of them 365 days a year. Absolutely free admission all the time. And so as a result, people go to them. And of course, tourists go to them, but also the locals. It's like you can just go once a week to a different museum. You can pop in for half an hour when you're walking by and then come back next week and then come back on your lunch hour a week later.

It suddenly becomes like people will go to the mall or go to the Eaton Center, and sometimes they have a specific shopping trip in mind, sometimes they don't, sometimes they're just hanging out. Your museums can be that too, but if I want to go to the Royal Ontario Museum with my family of five, we're looking at like $100 to get in the door.

So then, of course, it's got to be a big special trip. We're not hopping in for 20 minutes at a hundred bucks right a pop right so so it just seems like that's the last thing that i think i wish we would learn from them is that like things like museums and art galleries are so much more valuable to the general public if if you set an admissions policy that encourages the general public to come in. And maybe that involves more private philanthropy. Maybe it involves more government funding. Maybe it involves donor campaigns. But if you make it cheap or free for people to go to those things, they become like a part of your culture in a way that they aren't right now

when they're basically school trip places, right? Great points, Ed Keenan. And people should subscribe to the Toronto Star where they can read your column because your column is excellent. It's always excellent. Thank you. I mean, there's a reason I invite you over every quarter, and it's not because I love looking at your beautiful blue eyes.

And if people enjoy my column and also enjoy my appearances here, I have been more frequently hosting the Toronto Stars podcast, This Matters. I am one of two sort of regular hosts. So sometimes it's about city politics. Sometimes it's about other things. But you can, if you love my, the sound of my voice,

there are opportunities to hear it at the Toronto Stars. What's the name of this podcast again? This opportunities to hear it at the Toronto Star as well. What's the name of this podcast again? This Matters. So people can pause this right now. Go subscribe. Wherever you subscribe to this podcast, you'll find This Matters, the Toronto Star podcast.

It's basically Ed Keenan without my voice. So it's perfect. More Ed, less Mike. Everybody is very, very happy. There's some kind of podcast awards where we are nominated as bitter rivals here. But I think we... But we didn't submit our nominations for that.

It just got announced, right? No, I didn't. I feel like... It's like Toronto Mike and This Matters are both in the current affairs category or something like that. So this topic does come up periodically, especially when FOTM Al Grego visits. And he came over

because there was an episode late last year. I think it was late last year. Like very late last year. It's about Letter Kenny and Shorzy and this whole universe that's popped up from Jared Kiso. And we did an episode of the ProtoStamp people and that included Al Grego.

And we were talking about this. I was nominated for two awards. These are called Canadian Podcast Awards. I tried to get the guy behind the Canadian Podcast Awards to come on Toronto Mic'd and tell me what the hell are these? Should I care? How do you determine?

And this person chose not to do that. He might think it would appear to compromise the integrity of the awards if he came on your podcast. Like as if he was... Like when I win next year, it's because uh it'll be because you guys are friends yeah you're good at it you're good at but i was nominated for two awards and uh yeah i think in one of the categories i was with with your your show or a toronto star

show and then i don't know but i believe i know this actually because al grego told me i lost them both like so i am oh so the winners have been it. They happened, yeah. I don't think I won then, because I think the podcast team would have sent me an email, yeah. Trust me, if you guys won that award, I know what you would have done. The Toronto Star would have big press release. I'd be getting PR emails.

Like, would you consider, I get this as it happens. Okay, regular people like you all get a PR email, and it'll say, did you know the Toronto Star's This Matters podcast just won a canadian podcast award host or part-time host ed keenan is available for interviews to discuss like i'll get these emails every day and i'll reply back like ed's here once a quarter yeah as long as i want them

uh the poor marketing or publicity just do a little yeah yeah they i get this a lot a lot of time, I'm often served up guests that have been over like 10 times and I'm like, okay, thank you so much, very much. Yeah, but then again, sometimes I'm like, oh, would you talk to Randy Backman?

He's getting BTO back together and I can reply with, yes, I will talk to Randy Backman. I will talk to Randy Backman. Sign me up, baby. Sign me up. So sometimes I get good ones like that. Okay, we're winding down now.

You've been amazing. We're almost done, but I have a question. This is for my personal research, and this will all make sense at one point. Have you, Ed Keenan, ever caught a Toronto Maple Leafs baseball game at Christy Pitts?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I have. Tell me, just briefly, tell me a little bit about, like, when was this in your life, and what did you think? Well, I've been to a bunch of them, but none of them when I was a kid or anything.

I, like a lot of people, lived in and spent a lot of time around the Annex from the time I was in university through to my late 20s. And my wife and I lived there at Bathurst and Harvard, and then we moved out of the Annex still to bluer and ozington um early in our marriage the first few years we were married uh and at that point so we're talking about the late 90s but especially the very the early 2000s in fact okay we're talking about the early 2000s uh we would go semi regularly like i wouldn't say like a few times this summer right just walk over uh to christy pitts watch the toronto maple leafs baseball players play

spall paul spall jerick was a former major leaguer was one of the butlers there at the time yeah rob butler was playing for them um who i think is has recently been managing that team. But, you know, there was a lot of great... In grade nine, when I was at Della Selle, my math teacher was a player on the Toronto Maple Leafs, but I didn't actually ever go out and see them when that was happening. He was also in the Canadian Olympic baseball team. And now my brother-in-law was at one point a Toronto... No, my brother-in-law was at one point a toronto no my brother-in-law's

brother yeah um was a toronto maple leafs baseball player who also he played professional baseball in the united states for a while um but the and i i just loved going there and of course they sell programs and hot dogs to like try and make up their budget because tickets are free you sit on the slopes at christy pitch and watch pits and watch high level baseball i took my my brother-in-law who was at the time 13 years old, with me one time. And his overriding memory of that is that he enjoyed the baseball game, but that I was like the first adult in his life who was willing to go with him. And we went to the hot dog stand like five different times,

and each of us had like five hot dogs. And he was just like in awe that there was like an irresponsible enough spendthrift of an adult that like let him gorge himself. But then one last thing about the Toronto Maple Leafs. So we were in living in Washington, D.C. or in the Washington, D.C. area when I was a kid or when I was an adult. When I my daughter is a baseball player, we had signed her up for a pitching clinic over the winter. We were going deeper into Maryland to go to a facility, an indoor facility. And there were some retired professional, low-level professional, like they played low-A or double-A professional baseball in the United States. or double a professional baseball in the United States guys still in their late 20s or early 30s but who had basically you know making a career in baseball as teachers now that they were no longer

players and that not guys who had made the major leagues but you know who had had that on the horizon as a possibility at some point good good players good teachers uh But so my daughter's in the class at one point and she's wearing a Toronto girls baseball warmup, like a training shirt, right? Like jersey? Like, yeah, yeah. But like a training jersey, right? Like the kind of like long sleeve,

but it's like made of that moisture wicking material. So she's wearing it, and he says, Toronto, did you ever play at Christie-Pitts? And she said, yeah, I played against a team at Christie-Pitts at one point, like the Toronto Play Game. And he was like, oh, that's interesting. So I didn't hear the rest of that, but afterwards I went up to him and said, did you play for the Toronto Maple Leafs?

And he's in an inter-county major league. And he said, I played against them. But he had a buddy who was playing for, I think like the London or the Guelph team. And so he said, it was like when he got released by the single A team he was playing for in the United States, he was all, this is, he's telling the story. He was like, kind of like depressed and like,

well, what the hell do I do now, right? Like I'm not a baseball player anymore. His buddy called him and said, come to Guelph. Like we need good players. Just come up here. So he just like was roommates with his brother, played a year in the Intercounty Major League and had like good memories of it.

But he always remembered Christy Pitts because it's like they don't have even any kind of stadium where they charge admission. They just like, people sit up on the hill and it's like a public park. Amazing. And just like, so there you go. No, very good. I'm collecting They have new owners there. This all may get

new owners there, absolutely. And lots more to come, maybe even on this program. So this is all my collecting stories. I had Hebsey telling me about his memories. I've got you telling me about your memories. Quick fun fact is that Dalton Pompey played, I think, about a year with the Guelph Royals before he became a Hamilton police officer. Wow.

So there you go. And that's very recent. Yeah, yeah. It must have been because it's not that distant a memory that he was playing for the Toronto Blue Jays. He was left on third base in 2015, I believe, with nobody out. Okay, quick shout out to Jay Ho on the live stream who points out, and I guess you would be able to verify, I believe he'd know his stuff.

Jay Ho knows a lot about Toronto's history. Says all of the City of Toronto owned museums are free. So maybe the difference is whether it's owned by... So he's talking about like Spadina House and stuff, right? Yeah, I guess so. Like if it's owned by the city, it's free. Yeah, that makes sense. Although, no, I think we can leave that there.

I was going to say the big museums. The city of Toronto doesn't own the museums that anybody actually wants to go to. But that's unfair. There are, yeah, and I think he means the museums too that are like historical places like McKenzie House and Spadina House and all of that. I actually have enjoyed visiting those places

but they're not major tourist attractions, most of them. Yet. Here's how we're closing, Ed. That's not the lowest of the low. This is how we're almost closing. So, restate that. Tommy Ambrose, this is Toronto People City.

Are you familiar with this song? I am not. Okay, let's listen for a moment. Now that you tell me the name, I'm shocked that I haven't at least... Yeah, let's give it a moment. Showing you places in Toronto. That's people's city. Where love takes hold. Makes old dreams happen.

She makes you feel things So buried feelings Take on old meaning In Toronto So this song was commissioned by Moses Zneimer back in 1972 when he was launching City TV. So he commissioned a song by Tommy Ambrose. He wanted like an anthem for the city of Toronto.

And this was played quite a bit on City TV back before our time, obviously, Ed. But in this, it's a little bit more time. It is. It's something, all right. Yeah. And the reason I'm playing it is because every month I do an episode of Toast.

That's when Bob Ouellette and Rob Pruce, former keyboardist with The Spoons, drops by and we kick out thematic jams. And our theme for January is definitive Toronto jams. So we're going to each bring three. That's great. And I'm going to shout

out Retro Ontario's own Ed Conroy because he's done a lot to kind of educate me on this song and, you know, where it came from and what it meant to this city. So this is a possible candidate for Definitive Toronto Jams. People City. Hey, I'm glad to be introduced to it. Definitive Toronto Jams is such a great concept for an episode. That's great.

It's a long time in the making. It's going to happen here. And as Tommy takes us home here, we'll bring in another Toronto Jam, really. You know, I'll take a streetcar downtown, read Henry Miller, wander around. That's a Toronto song. I think of that whole album as a definitive Toronto album and certainly this song as a,

I mean, yeah. Under the Carlaw Bridge, there's The Only Cafe. Out at the Only. Yeah. Yeah. And then Bleed

a Little Wild Tonight references The Time You Kissed Me on Bathurst Street. There's a whole heck of Toronto stuff going on here. But Ed,

thanks again for dropping by every quarter until you tell me, until you tap out you're going to be here Yeah, well, it just comes up on my calendar. Yeah, I didn't even, lack of Toronto stuff going on here but Ed thanks again for dropping by every quarter until you tell me until you tap out. Yeah well it just comes up on my calendar reminders.

Like a test. I said I'm not even going to I did tweet at you and you liked it and I'm like oh he's aware. That's the first I actually checked Twitter to see if I had a

message from you about it when I got my calendar reminder and it's the first time I had logged into Twitter in weeks and weeks. Are you on any other social media?

Not not consistently yet. We'll see. Okay, I have an invite for Blue Sky if you want it. Let me know. That's where Wilner is hanging out. Maybe I'll give it a try. Wilner's big on Blue Sky. You Toronto Star guys.

And that brings us to the end of our 1,404th show. Hey, so it's still going to be called Gardner Expressway. They won't just say this is now part of the QEW. As far as I know, but you never know. Because it's kind of like that's how you knew it was Toronto. They changed the name. You enter Toronto when you get onto the Gardner. And I only thought of that because, of course,

the DVP is in this deal, which, of course, is the 404. Yeah. And this is 1,404. Oh, my goodness. There you go. There we go. Whatever that means. You can follow me on Twitter and BlueSky. I'm at TorontoMike.

Ed is at TheKeenandWire, but again, he doesn't log in very much, but he's still got an active account on the app formerly known as Twitter. Much love to all who made this possible. That's Great Lakes Brewery. That's Palma Pasta. Don't leave without your lasagna. That's Recycle My Electronics. That's Palma Pasta. Don't leave without your lasagna. That's Recycle My Electronics.

That's Raymond James Canada. Welcome back. You were missed for an entire episode. And Ridley Funeral Home. I literally have Brad Jones from Ridley Funeral Home here at 5 o'clock. We're going to record a new episode of Life's Undertaking. We're going to discuss

great musicians we lost in 2023. Play a little music. You can subscribe to Life's Undertaking. We're going to discuss great musicians we lost in 2023. Play a little music. You can subscribe to Life's Undertaking. And I will see you all tomorrow when my special guest on Toronto Mic'd is Alan Zweig and his brother, Michael Zweig. Can't wait to see Alan again and to meet Michael.

See you all then Thank you. I'm Jeff Broker in stocks. The class struggle explodes. And I'll play this guitar just the best that I can.