Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - George Smitherman: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1675

Episode Date: April 17, 2025

In this 1675th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with George Smitherman about his years as an MPP, running against Rob Ford to become Mayor of Toronto in 2010, his failed campaign to become a city councillor and so much more. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, Silverwax, Yes We Are Open, Nick Ainis and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail]

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Joining me today, making his Toronto mic debut, is furious George Smitherman. How you doing George? I'm good. Less furious. Less furious? You're mellowing with your age? What's happening? Where's furious George? Actually I got a 14 and a 16 year old and they probably tell you that there's good bits of furious George that can be elevated especially if they don't meet their curfews. So you've okay you just cracked open a hop pop from Great Lakes Beer and it's not a beer it's a hop pop but I was gonna have you open it on the mic but you couldn't wait you cracked it open before I started recording but yesterday I was telling Troy Burch from Great Lakes Brewery that you were my next guest and he he said, furious George.

Do people still call you furious George? Well, I was hot to hop pop. And it's really quite refreshing. I told you earlier, I'm not too good with the daytime consumption of alcohol just makes me sleepy. Sure. Well, we don't want that. We need you wide awake.

And I'm going to jog your memory a bit, but did you know, and I think you do, but you were in my recording calendar way back in 2020. Do you remember this? Yep. Yep. And then something came along to interfere with that. I can't remember quite what it was.

I can't either. But we were introduced in February 2020. Do you remember who introduced us? It might've been my friend or our mutual friend, Jerry Levitan. No, that's this time. That's this time? This time, I don't know. Was it Chris Drew? It's Chris Drew. Ah, the great connector. So George, can I read to you? So I actually had to jog my own memory. So in February 2020, Chris Drew basically tried to sell me

on George Smitherman. He had me at hello. I'm like, I want to talk to George. And you were scheduled for March 2020. And then something happened, which I can't remember, but something happened and it got deleted from the calendar. But George, can I read to you what Chris wrote me back in February, 2020?

Yeah, sure. Okay, so get comfy, Enjoy the great leagues here. Let me read an essay from Chris Drew. Here's a quick piece on why I think George is relevant for the Toronto Mike audience. George grew up in Etobicoke during a similar era as Mike. He's talking about me. I'm Mike. You don't okay. One way I gauge this is that George will remember when city TV came on the air, and Mike was a fan of it because of how unique it was. George is a sports fan and has many memories

of going to Leafs games with his dad. He's had a range of life experiences in addition to being a politician, including operating his own small business, just like Mike. He worked for Barbara Hall when she was mayor and was involved in the transformation of the railway lands that enabled the Sky Dome to come to fruition. George's experience and stories with Toronto politics would be interesting to listeners because of his proximity and involvement in key Toronto

moments over the years. Mike, I know you don't want to have on the show any elected, because at the time I didn't have elected representatives, but I will now if they ask to come on. But okay. But I've always found George to have constructive feedback for all parties, including his own. He recently wrote a book on his life and times, which includes many real talk moments. Because of George's experience in politics, he's been around another topic the Toronto Mic podcast touches on, which is the local media scene and its many personalities and stations. He's been able to get to know many of them. George has one of the best memories of anyone I've ever met and is also funny and quick witted. George has been an incredible friend, groomsman in

my wedding, mentor and career advisor for me over the years. And it's been great to spend time with his kids. As I often often tell people I've learned more about urban planning through looking after George's kids than any urban planning class at TMU although it was Ryerson at the time. Also for relevancy George is an active media commentator to this day on news talk 1010 and the National Post Series XM. Mike, I assist George with his social media, so I'd be happy to send out the link to your site to get more clicks. George has a decent amount of followers, blah, blah, blah, blah. Bottom line is I could keep going. But Chris drew such time and effort and passion to convince me on having you over when he just had to

write, would you talk to George Smitherman? Well Chris, Chris Drew is the living proof that politics have done properly actually can become your extended family. And this young man, he's not as young as he was, but I've known him for a long time and tomorrow, we're going for a walk at seven 30. He's a passionate Torontonian. He's a planner and a cyclist and just really one of the nicest spirited people that I've ever, that I've really ever met. And what has been so interesting to watch about him is that he's

a very skillful networker. And in a certain sense, I could say that the thing that one of the legacy points of being in politics that you look back on is the people that are married now because they met through one of your campaigns or what have you and Chris is Chris is an example of that that I can celebrate for an involvement in and around politics is just such an incredible network of really really lovely. And he's certainly top of the list. So in February, 2020, I get that email and right away I schedule you for March and it doesn't happen for reasons I cannot recall. But then fast forward, now we're in 2025. And you mentioned his

name already, Sir Jerry Levitan. How do you know Sir Jerry? Well, I met Jerry through another Jerry, Jerry with a G. So at one time I said I had Jerry with a G and Jerry with a J, my two Jewish dads. And they were they worked together on things back then, but this is going back. I met Jerry Soler. She's the other guy. I met him in the Barbara Hall campaign 1997 the campaign I was running for Barbara for mega city mayor where we fell a few points short to Mel Lastman and These two Jerry's were just like such a strong and positive presence in my life and especially as the time I was getting into elected politics myself

And I think you had Jerry Levitan on your show numerous times. Three times I think. If there's a more interesting person than him I don't know he's definitely what you would call kind of a Renaissance man he's a skillful brain and litigator and he's culturally connected and he's got this amazing history obviously with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. And not only did I get a chance to work with those two guys or to be supported if you will or nurtured by the two Jerry's is that each of their kids at some point or other had a chance to work alongside me as well.

So just a further extension of this notion of family, which I think is a central element to my long-term, long-time involvement in political life. Okay, so we're going to cover a lot of ground here. We're going to try to keep this under 75 minutes. I think that was my pledge. It took me about 70 minutes to read Chris Drew's email, so I've got five minutes left here.

But shout out to Sir Jerry, shout out to Chris Drew. It takes a village. You mentioned you don't drink during the day because it makes you sleepy. But will you consume cannabis during the day? Absolutely. Most days. Yeah. Are you high on cannabis right now?

I am not high on cannabis. Not right now. Because since March 2020, the same month you were going to make your Toronto Mike debut, you've been president and CEO of the Cannabis Council of Canada, is that correct? I stopped with that role at the end of 2023, but interestingly started two days before I took my kids out of school, which I think was March 11th. And on that day, March 9th that I started, I actually had a meeting with Patty Hyju, then the Minister of Health, and I hugged her Chief of Staff, then Sabina Sani, a longtime friend of mine, and then she said,

I think we weren't supposed to do that. So it's just so fascinating. Like I started a job practically literally on the day that we were in the grips of COVID. And then that got in the way of our session. Since then, Mike, I've really returned to my passion around healthcare and I've been working on building some new businesses in the healthcare space, which are starting to take flight. Okay, so we're gonna go way back. I wanna find out basically pre-politics,

who is George Smitherman? Are you in it? And this is a debate that happened in the FOTM chat today. I consider you an Etobicoke guy, but is it possible you're a Mississauga turned atobical guy like where are your roots? No sir my family's roots were at Jane and Lawrence and I was born at Humber Memorial Hospital but a month after I was born my family moved to a 42 Sedgbrook Crescent in West Dean Park and I lived there for 11 or 12 years till my parents got divorced and then I moved over to the West Mall. I

went to Burnham Thorpe Collegiate, I played hockey in West Mall when Centennial Arena was brand new and up until the time that I got my ass handed to me in Etobicoke by Rob Ford when I ran for mayor, I really did declare my roots in Etobicoke frequently and many many people would tell you that I'm an Etobicoke by Rob Ford when I ran for mayor, I really did declare my roots in Etobicoke frequently. And many, many people would tell you that I'm an Etobicoke boy. In fact, I walked here today and saw signs for Jamie Maloney who's running here in Etobicoke Lakeshore.

His mother, the late Senator Marion Maloney, was very involved in the 1980 liberal election campaign that really was the one that introduced me to politics. So you said like, what did I do before politics? I was like 15 when I got hooked on politics and really from that time forward, it was always a matter of not of if I would run, but when, et cetera.

So really politics is pretty deeply connected to me from the time I was a teenager. And at Burnham Thorpe Collegiate, I was the school president, and that was the start of my elected life. And theater arts programming by this famous Mrs. Eagles at Burnham Thorpe Collegiate was also a really, really big influence

in the performance art side of politics. You are a topical through and through as far as I can tell. I'm I'm I'm I'm a downtown person now. But, you know, I really I really do trace my roots well to be topical. And of course, the highway for twenty seven runs right up the middle of my life. So I really annoy people by pointing out. That's the building where my that's the that's my high school that's the building where my dad lived when my parent when my parents separated my grandmother used to live there this is

the building where we moved to this was the first Baskin Robbins I went to that's all within like the stretch from Burnham Thorpe to just north of Rathburn Road so that's in my mind that's the George Smitherman Memorial Highway is like I go up and down there and people get really nauseated of me saying yes yes we know you used to live here etc etc What's Chris Drew talking about when he refers to your efforts regarding the Skydome? I think he meant to say the Air Canada Centre or the Scotiabank place so one of the greatest privileges I had in my life was working with Barbara Hall she was only the mayor of Toronto for three years, but she did King Parliament, King Spadina,

the Bathurst neighborhood, old Woodbine racetrack. And we rezoned the entirety of the railway lands from Bay Street all the way over to where they met Bathurst. All of that neighborhood city place, which has emerged, all of the buildings which have emerged, the new, you know, the road Simcoe Street, the way it goes under now and all that,

that came to life really motivated by the Raptors Stadium project. So at the earliest days when she was elected, with, you know, elected mayor, the Raptors had a new franchise and they were choosing between a couple of sites. And I had the greatest privilege in my life actually was to lead that file for Barbara. So I've all the things that like the Delta hotel that's there now

I remember that as block H or whatever it was and it's come to life exactly as it was planned. So that's a that's a really, really exciting bit of my life in politics. Are you comfortable again, you can tap out on these personal questions here, but I feel like you're open to some real talk here. Oh yeah, if I don't like it, I always tell people, ask a hard question, get a hard answer. You know where you are, George. You've heard Toronto Mike before. We go for the jugular here and we see if you bleed out here.

Okay, so what about, if you wouldn't mind sharing maybe a little bit about addiction, did you grapple with addiction before your political career took off in 1999? I did. I think, you know, the 90s, I could say was a decade that I had a lot of overstimulation from a variety of products, et cetera. And in a sense, running for office in 1999 was one of the key catalysts that really put pressure on me to pass through to the other side

is the way that I describe it. So are you going to DJ trance raves? Or what kind of experiences? I think there were two sides to it. That was one side and the other side was a home drug use For some form of escape. So the good news about it all actually is that like no one No one was holding anything over me because I had been Discreet about my consumption when I decided to put that information in the public domain

but definitely that information in the public domain. But definitely the 90s I was living pretty aggressively. Okay, but you managed to kick these vices. How did you overcome these addictions? You know, I think that the thing that I look in the debate today, it's like the conservatives want to adopt the idea that they're abstinence-based, et cetera, and that they're anti-harm reduction. I don't know of anybody that got past an addiction that didn't use harm reduction

as an approach towards that success. So I find that whole thing, I find that whole thing very, very challenging. I think that there are a few answers to that. One thing for sure is that I had really, really excellent fortuitous support starting with my primary care physician who referred me to a guy, Dr. Jake Bobrowski. He just died recently, but he's a psychiatrist

that I think helped a lot of people over time and he really just tried to make me understand my brain on drugs in a certain sense and to kind of, and from there I went to see a doctor who was actually working out of the Harbor light down at Jarvis and Shooter and Dr. Casola. And he gave me a lot of support

and I was very caring and loving support. And over time I found a way past it. I think also, if I'm honest about it in the context of cannabis which came up, a lot of people like to refer to cannabis as a gateway drug or what have you and I really have to tell my story to say that for me I was a late bloomer to cannabis and it was actually my off-ramp drug and I think it is possible that there's a gateway situation especially if you're buying your drugs from an illicit source and they're carrying numerous products this is one of the reasons why legalization of cannabis can

be a really really important step forward but for me it really was an important part of the overall formula to the way I say it is just kind of like train my brain or or what have you so I have to give you know I have to give credit to that to a certain extent well I like how you worded that it was a an off-ramp for you so you could get off the the dangerous drugs and on a herb that will be less harmful to you the thing is that in the cannabis world where I worked for four years about 15% of the people I estimate that I, that I meet think that cannabis is entirely benign and

presented as if it's a miracle drug or what have you. And I'm eyes wide open about the fact that there are risks associated with cannabis consumption from a variety of standpoints. And we shouldn't be benign about it. But as I told you a few minutes ago, like harm reduction is a real thing. And if somebody, look at all the people that are addicted with struggling with opioids.

In a certain sense, I look at that as a public policy challenge. And I'm like, every one of those people that we could transition to cannabis, which is not all of them, I'm not pretending, but every one of them that we could, we should give them practically unlimited free cannabis. Like people are talking about free, you know,

clean drug supply and we're giving people that are addicted access to, you know, more powerful drugs. But you know, right now, Health Canada's supporting research is taking place, I think with the Mi'kmaq community in Nova Scotia, if I have that right, several million dollars to try and look at the opportunities for cannabis to play a role in helping people with opioid addiction. I think the full potential of cannabis, the whole plant, not just that THC part that we get quite,

you know, titillated about because it's intoxicating. That plant has a lot to offer over time and I think we've really just started to expose its potential and I really hope that it can be part of the solution for more people that are struggling with the challenges of opioids and the like. No, fascinating. Give free cannabis to opiate addicts to help get them off that addiction and we save lives of course, but you'd save money in healthcare. Absolutely. You sold standing in front of the Metro Convention Center,

smoking joints with a few people during this Lyft conference a few years ago. And a husband and wife couple were walking along and they were going to the Blue Jays game. And they stopped and they said, we just want you to know that cannabis drinks saved my husband's life. The man was an alcoholic. He'd been a hardcore alcoholic over time. He was experiencing all of the challenges that we know can come with that. And he found a equanimity, maybe not the right word, with a cannabis beverage which did not have the same harmful implications for him, etc. Equanimity. I gotta Google that one

George, that's like a five dollar word. Inflation. Okay well yeah now it's 750 I think. Okay let's go 1999 we're gonna cook with gas, the provincial election. How did you get the liberal party nomination in it's Toronto Centre Rosedale? It was then Toronto Centre Rosedale. The way that I got it was by deploying the full Tonya Harding. So, you know, the greatest award that I've won in my life, been recognized for anything, is the Gay Hockey League awarded me the Tonya Harding award. And it was just before I ran in 1999 and I was running against Mike Harris. And I was in a riding that the conservatives had won with Al Leach, the guy that actually created the mega city in 95 in a very close

election. So I knew that I was running against Mike Harris and I told them, I said, well, you know, I go on that ward over here from the gay hockey league. And if you send me to Queens park, I'm not going to be miss congeniality there either. And I pretty much lived up to it. I say that I played hardball first off as I had to eliminate somebody that also wanted the liberal nomination and we did that through hard work and some mischief. Who was that person?

His name was James McPherson and in the 99 election, oddly as it sounds, the Ontario Medical Association was putting some money into grassroots advocacy and fronting candidates. This guy's father was a doctor, so he thought that he should run. Well, I'd staked out that turf a year earlier and I had a lot of support from Barbara Hall and I owned a business at Church and Wellesley and I'd put in my time and I had a great bunch of organizers and it was honestly one of the greatest moments of my life really, it was just so much fun. Okay, in this election, 99, a gentleman who I recently invited on Toronto Mic, then he

told me he was too busy, but I'll give him a pass, he's in his 80s and you know, not everybody has the time for Toronto Mic, but John Sewell was running as an independent candidate in this election. I learned a lot from John Sewell and one of the hardest things that I earned from him was his endorsement when I ran for mayor in 2010. And John Sewell was running as an independent because he wanted to chase Al Leach out of office and between me and John Sewell, Al Leach decided to take a pass and not run at all.

But you know, it was the thing that I learned from John Sewell more than anything else was don't let a desk, a table or a podium stand between you and your audience if you're not reading from notes. And that may sound like a small thing, but we were at our all candidates meeting down at Dundas and Sherbourne at the All Saints, not an easy environment. Many of the people in the audience, probably at that time, under some certain influencer or what have you, the conservative lady hadn't shown up.

Her name is Durhane Wong-Rieger. She's a wonderful advocate for, uh, for, uh, disease, for disease. And I know her well and worked with her, but on that day she was playing hide and go seek. So she wasn't there. So John Zericelli, who's running now for the liberals in Etobicoke North, who was then a very, very youthful guy, we rented a chicken costume and put him in it. And the chicken came out on stage pretending to be Durhane Wang-Rieger, two chicken, you know, two chicken.

John Sewell was outraged by this tactic. And Tom Allison, a very famous campaign manager in the Liberal Party circles, was my campaign manager, also very tall like John Sewell. And I really thought they were going to go at it. So John Sewell taught me many things. But the thing about it is he's not like, he's smart and he's principled, he's dedicated, he's done important things, but he's not overly friendly. He's kind of for me a little bit like in that Howard Hampton model, if anybody remembers the NDP leader, I would always go out of my way to really like give them a hearty hello. I would

yell across eight lanes of University Avenue just to try and get John Sewell's attention etc. But I learned a lot from running against from running against him and I captured the passion that he had for the renewal of Regent Park and I really have to hand it to him is that he taught me a lot like I said but he also inspired me to spend a lot of my time focused on the people in Toronto Centre, Rosedale, who needed the help the most. And that really led to me spending a lot of time focused on what created some of the capacity towards the redevelopment of Regent Park.

Well, it helped to have John in the race as an independent as well, because he could split votes with the NDP candidate. I'm not really sure. I just know at the end of the day that I won, so to all of them. You won, okay, spoiler alert, spoiler alert alert. So I mean, I guess the progressive conservative government was reelected, but you now have a seat. You're now an MPP for the Liberal Party 1999. So how long were you at Queen's Park? I know you quit your role as MPP to

run for mayor in 2010, right? So you there from 99 to 2010? Yeah. Well, earliest days of 2010, practically speaking, I think it was like January, something 2010, because I had to register to run for mayor to raise any money and to do that, the provincial people have to quit. Other levels of like, municipals can run, they don't have to quit,

but in that case, a provincial person had to. So there was no safety, you know, there was no, no parachute or safety belt associated, associated with that. You know, I think that what that taught me is that 10 years in one place is a really, really impressive amount of time to put everything you have into something. And I could have stayed there. I had an amazing relationship with Dalton McGinty. I love that man.

He's always been so good to me. But when I look back, even though I could point at some things where I might pick up regrets, but it's not really my style, and I think, well, if I stayed there two years longer or three years longer, like in the grand scheme of things, would that have been better for me or for, or for anybody else, et cetera. So I really look at that 10 year period, the legislature as like really extraordinary.

And I'll just say this as like, I hate those politicians. I don't give a crap what party they're from that want to run to be a minister, but really would find being an MP or an MPP beneath them. I see it exactly the other way around. The privilege of working and representing a riding and having the people that are your neighbors support you, that's the greatest power possible.

And I had that remarkable opportunity to both be a politician at the legislature in opposition and then also in government. And I made the most of each side of it, but I look back on the work that I did in my community in Regent Park as a thing that I'm proudest of in my time in office over there at the legislature. I was gonna ask you what you're most proud of from your time at Queens Park it sounds like you just answered it. In a policy sense yes I think the other thing I would say is that not that long before I arrived, as recently as 1995, Brent Hawks and other gay people that were

at the legislature fighting for equality were hauled out of the legislature by security guards wearing gloves. And it was offensive to that day and also as therefore having run as the first openly gay MPP, even though obviously there are lots of MPPs that were gay and they've been there before, but none that had actually, you know, been willing to say it in their literature. Right. I had this fortuitous timing when I arrived at the legislature, the Supreme Court of Canada had forced the force kind of a bill or the attorney generals across the province were

to bring statutes up to date with Supreme Court rulings with respect to equality adoption matters and stuff like that. So Jim Flaherty, a fairly, you know, somewhat more conservative person was had to bring forward a government bill. He called the devil made me do it act because he was wanting to say, I don't want to do these things, but the Supreme Court is forcing us because I had a really good relationship with Jamie Watt from another political party, but from the same sexual orientation as myself, I was able to make my inaugural speech in the Ontario legislature actually focused on a government bill that was creating equality for gay and lesbian people.

And a lot of those people that had been hauled out of the legislature five years prior, we're back in the galleries. And I think like that was just so lucky. Everybody else gets their inaugural speech. They spend five or 10 minutes extolling the virtues of their area. Of course I had Toronto center,

Rosedale had a lot of virtues to talk about from an, from an island airport to a zoo and to the, you know, richest and the widest range of housing and all of that. But I got my inaugural speech was actually focused on in a certain sense, I think like resetting or rebalancing the led the relationship of the Ontario legislature with the LGBT community. So I was really, really lucky in that sense. Amazing. Can you tell me about the Green Energy Act? Absolutely. I mean, the thing about it is that the Green

Energy Act has become much maligned in part, I think that after I left, the liberals that remained, particularly I think by the time Kathleen Wynne got there, they didn't do anything to reverse the policy, but they didn't actually do anything to celebrate it either. And the thing about it is if you look at the exact kind of economic times that we're facing now with insecurity about the future of the automotive industry, that's what was going on in 2008 when I was conceiving of the Green Energy Act as one of the important elements of to derive foreign investment into Ontario alongside

a significant amount of infrastructure amongst the three projects amongst the three levels of government, 2,800 of those. So the Green Energy Act at one time had created tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs. Windsor, Ontario at one time had 18 manufacturing facilities. This was at a time when their automotive output was quite low, et cetera. So I'm really proud of it actually as a matter of public policy,

even though it got so much, so it got a lot of criticism for the, some of the subsidies involved, the encouragement of indigenous people or of manufacturing and all that. And when you compare it to the subsidies that they're throwing for these battery plants, which has gotten like so many more times a multiplier,

I look back on it as great. 6,500 megawatts of green energy was implemented. I really, really tried hard to make sure that the policy wasn't just about showing that with all the vast tracks of land we have in Ontario, we could put up some wind farms or some big solar farms. I really hoped, I did it to some extent, but I'd really hoped more so that urban areas would have been more alerted to

the role and reality that they have as producers of electricity. In Ontario we still have a build it big and ship it far model for electricity, which is actually not that smart. Smart grids are about more opportunities to develop the energy closer to source. Rooftops are a powerful opportunity and only scarcely used so far, et cetera. So I think that, you know, the policy gets maligned to some extent, but I'm super, I'm super proud of it and happy to defend it against those. But the thing about it is that it's so interesting

is that people, governments themselves, bureaucrats and citizens also don't really have that much of a memory for history. So I have to remind people that the context for that was the 2008 financial crisis and that we use that green energy policy to bring in tens of billions of dollars of foreign investment which is frequently figure or a key point is to you know reflect how well your economy is doing etc. So

those kind of policies stand as an option as Canada tries to re-profile its manufacturing base. Obviously automotive is under tremendous pressure, but whether it's from taking better advantage of our military spending to actually produce products in Canada and in concert with Europeans rather than actually giving all of this business to the Americans, that's I think an opportunity going forward. And I think that green energy and related technologies still stands as an example for Canada to make many, many advances.

Okay. I can't move us on to the 2010 mayoral election. Oh, I got to go now, Mike. Talk about your tenure as Minister of Health and Long-Term Care. So I guess specifically, I'm hoping'll address the the e-health scandal. You knew that would probably come up here as we're talking about all these good things here but... Well let's talk about orange too like let's get them out there. Okay hit me with all the... I did write a book with

my explanation of these matters in a chapter. That's called unconventional candor. And I don't know if you can find it on Amazon or not. Um, the thing about it is I would say firstly is the word scan. Everybody likes to use the word scandal, right? Like, or gate, like even the other

day, the story about the liberals, you know, dropping a couple of like buttons at a convention, which I thought was amateurish, but slightly funny. That's been done frequently over time. That was becoming a button gate or something. Everything's a gate. I was like that.

Well, I will say this is that when it came to trying to make progress on the digitization of health, we didn't make the progress that was expected and we spent quite a bit of money. The thing is, if I look back on it since I left there in that ministry in 2008, tens of billions more has been spent and the progress has also been a bit fleeting. So I think it does actually reflect on the fact that this is a really, really challenging area, but I didn't have the outcomes there that I did

or that were expected versus other areas of healthcare. And I look back on it and one of the things that I explained to people, but only the real techies understand that is, I inherited a model called Smart Systems for Health, which was built on a premise that for the reliability and security of health information, Ontario had to lay its own fiber optic lines and it evolved rather rapidly subsequently.

So we kind of had our foot over in that camp and then it was kind of like no no no no no you can still you can share those fiber optic capacities and keep your information totally secure etc. So I kind of inherited a shift on that which caused quite a bit of prior expense to have become somewhat less relevant etc. Anyway this all sounds like gobbledygook in a sense, so I just accept that people tarnished my reputation with e-health. They didn't have that many things to focus on. If you think about it, I was in the ministry

of health for five years. That's the largest government department in Canada. I allocated something like in that these are $2,000, $200 billion. And mostly what people focus on are shortcomings on that policy and on orange and orange I reject entirely that it should be crapped upon because I took what was eight different one-off helicopters and created a program.

Now there was a person in the leadership there that wasn't properly held to account and got a little out of control No doubt and I might have some and I have some responsibility to play in that But when I see one of those orange helicopters flying overhead and I live at Parliament and Bloor on the 26th floor So I see them all the time. I know that those are those are involved in critical Care and life-saving and I'm super proud of what I did there There were some deficiencies in the model those were corrected were they avoidable possibly? But at the end of the day I look back on that and think that that was a significant

Actual policy advancement that I achieved, you know when I was Minister of Health we reduced wait times We got health care for a million more Ontarians for primary care We hired more nurses expanded scope practice, built a lot of hospitals. I can't find anyone today that would rather have the healthcare system of today than the one that we had there in terms of accessibility and performance. But you know, when you when you're involved in that many things, you have to acknowledge where where the outcomes weren't as good and e-health is definitely one of those where people could criticize it and I think where they could continue to

criticize it. Canada is not really that good on this point. What about nursing home residents while you were Minister of Health and Long-Term Care? The thing about it is that I made one of the biggest mistakes that I made as Minister of Health happened two or three weeks after I was in the role because I had a meeting on a Sunday in my office with the Toronto star and I should have known I was up for something when they brought a photographer along. And then they, uh, the reporter sought to show me pictures of an Ontario patient

with a body sore wound so big, I could have put my two open hands in it at least one okay like honestly like and I shed a tear or two and those ended up on the front page of the newspaper the mistake that I made and I dedicated a tremendous amount of work to trying to improve the situation in long-term care and I spent billions of Ontarian's dollars to grow by thousands the number of workers in those environments. But the thing about long-term care is that I use the word revolution. What I realized because I was saying this is not Ontario's standard, we will fix this. What I realized the hard lesson was when you're in the Ministry of Health

and you're bringing all your energy to try and reform things, on a daily basis, you're up against a lot of stakeholders that are seeing things relatively on a longer term basis. And it's not really in their interest to ever concede that government did anything other than make a good first step. So now when I write releases back to governments,

I always like to put that language in as well. That $300 million was a good first step, you know? So I think that on long-term care, the reality that we face there to a certain extent is that the individuals that are in those 80,000 beds that we have across Ontario are very vulnerable individuals. And even if they're getting the most extraordinary care possible, it's not always a beautiful visualization.

And, you know, so I look back on the work that we did. Manick Smith was my parliamentary assistant and we rebuilt the Long-Term Care Home Act. But I would just say this, like people looked back on the early days of COVID and tried to lay off long-term care homes on me. And I'll say, I said then, you know, they didn't invite me when they had their little inquiry there later though. So I found that noteworthy that they didn't really want to have the discussion about it. But when we were facing the onslaught of COVID and Ontario public health, people were watching what was happening in Italy and all the people in the hospital sector freaked out because in Italy, people were being treated in the parking lots.

And so they took every bed that was available, every nook and cranny in a long-term care home, They took every bed that was available, every nook and cranny in a long-term care home, some of which were four bed wards where in one room you had four people, the highest degree of vulnerability that we had, and they shoved everybody out of a hospital and back into the long-term care. And those people are the least well-resourced to actually deal with outbreaks and stuff. And then just to make this point about what I said of several minutes ago that sometimes it's hard to actually keep the memory of government on things.

I was the minister of health directly after SARS. I've brought forward operation public health. I brought in Dr. Sheila Basver to be the chief medical officer of health. She passed away prematurely that's heartbreaking She was an amazing person and I loved working with her. We had dr. Don Lowe from Mount Sinai Also passed away from cancer prematurely, etc Incredible public servants the smartest people that I knew I had their cell phone numbers

Etc and after SARS we went through this situation where we wanted to stockpile masks more effectively. And people were telling me, oh, it's like we have to have surgical masks for certain people in the hospital environments and only the N95 for others. And I said, no, nurses lost their lives. We're getting the best masks. And we spent that money. The N95 comes in different sizes, so you have to measure up everybody. You got the 13% of size A, whatever the thing is. And then COVID came along and they're like, oh, I think we got 16 or 20 million of these somewhere in a warehouse in Rexdale. You think of government as sophisticated, right?

That the bureaucrats are always going to remain firm to the necessity of pandemic planning and all of this? No. After a couple years, everybody starts to forget about it. The annual pandemic plan becomes semi-annual to save a million point one or something like this and they let those masks rot. Wow. And it was one of them and so disillusioning to me that that occurred because I tell people now the biggest mistake that I made in

government was imagining that the people that followed me would be as interested in the same things as I was. Do you know what I mean? Like I'm writing this piece of legislation and surely my successor minister will be as motivated and interested in this matter. Right. And frequently really that, you know, that reality that has not been the reality that I've experienced.

Today I learned these masks can rot. Yeah. Well, they time out. Like you have them in a warehouse for 10 or 15 years. Things diminish etc. All of a sudden, you know, the elasticity is gone or what have you. And they ditched them. They land filled them. And at the same time that people in the healthcare system were re-were washing masks that were not intended to be reused etc. So like that honestly was was one of the most heartbreaking moments and people would say to me oh I guess you're glad you're not there right now and I said no exactly to the

contrary I feel so powerless and I sure as hell would have had my eyes wide open when they were shoving all the people into the long-term care and this is the government of Ontario had frequently the the people into the long-term care. And this is the government of Ontario had frequently, the conservatives like to peel long-term care off from health. And that allowed the health table to overwhelm the long-term care table and to jam those places full. And I think it was an unconscionable act. Well, the premier of that government who's still the premier, his brother Rob was running for mayor in 2010.

What made you decide to run for mayor in 2010? David Miller turning my park into a garbage dump and then not actually getting anything out of that hardship when he negotiated with the unions. Really, that was like the tipping point for me. I was so frustrated By the by the garbage situation that that really got me thinking about it I think at the heart of it to my late spouse Christopher

I'm Christopher. I married Christopher after I was several years into my role as a government minister Where actually people knew that if you asked me, I would give up my time on a Sunday to have a meeting if that's what it took, et cetera. And it was really quite hard for everybody, including me, I suppose, to properly recalibrate for the realities of being married, even to the point where it's, oh, you're going to a gala

on Saturday night, and I was like, well, have you actually tipped my husband off that we're doing that, etc. So he so it was my role provincially, which had me on the move a lot was, you know, not that good at not that good at home, etc. And I was also looking at the opportunity as a mayor to, you know, spend more nights in my own, you know, in my own city, et cetera. And from the time that I had worked for Barbara Hall, I really, really had such a powerfully strong connection to the city of Toronto. But hey, it sure, it was a courageous enough act,

or some people might use a less positive word to describe it, like politically suicidal or something like that, to actually decide that I was gonna go and run and try and face down an incumbent mayor. But then to see him drop away and for Rob Ford to come up outta nowhere. And the thing that people don't really think back on is the influence of the United States in our politics.

Raw, that 2010, that was the summer of the United States in our politics. That 2010, that was the summer of the Tea Party. So there was a lot of kind of conservative crossover that motivated- Like populist movement. And frankly, I was really, he was perfectly positioned for that populism because he'd voted no on every spending thing. Like he had a pretty simple setup, right? He's like, well, I didn't vote for it.

He'd come on John Oakley's 640 talk show and just talk about how some counselor wanted a I don't know a coffee machine or something for $238 can you imagine yeah yeah and he bought his own support you know he bought his own paper so he didn't have a budget but on the other hand he owned a printing company, didn't you? On the other hand, I had just spent six or seven years wearing the patina of government and having been involved in things and having the e-health thing was used not just by Rob Ford. I mean, the worst bit about that election campaign, and to me, the key point of information that I provide to all of the people that think that they're gonna run against Olivia Chow is that if

In the model that we have here where there's nothing to consolidate the opponents It's really really hard to beat a front-runner I was fairly close like within within reach of Rob Ford like 45 37 like six or seven points But all these people that were going to get like point three of the vote Had money and they were spending it to run me down to try and get to rob her especially rock O'rossie like he raised a million dollars from practically all the same people that I got donations from and he spent almost Almost all of it on radio ads about e-health etc. And at the end of the day he got like 3,000 votes and I got 286,000.

He got 4973 but 0.6% of the popular vote. I know but you know but him and Mammalede and Pantalone and I can't remember all the others. Like at the front end of it City TV or CP 24 decided that the same fire and and Thompson's Sarah Thompson it was like they decided these are the front six and they'd set Three or four debates and they had the same front six in them etc. I knew from the very earliest CP24 debate that that was framing up to be crappy for me even to the point because I was supposed to visit my mother and they came up with that they said no I'm not available

to it everyone's like John Tory was telling me no you have to go you can't skip debates and I said like you don't understand that the setup here is not going to work out well because it's people like if you've got Rob Ford he had three or four messages which he was very very capable of repeating he didn't go into so if you've got six people dirt for an hour debate that that that that microphone only comes back around to you every once in a while whereas if you could ever get into the head-to-head or what have you that was what I was striving for you know it could be a slightly different matter the most recent mayoral election Mark Saunders was trying to get this

anyone but Chow vote, this ABC vote. Right. And I think there was an, you know, anyone but Ford consensus out there. The majority of people didn't want Rob Ford did get 47% of the vote. So he did have a pretty good number of votes there. But, you know, Smitherman, that's you,

Pantalone and Rossi all combined to have more votes than Rob Ford. But you know, you were trying to get that anyone but Rob Ford vote, but you were split in that with Joey pants there and the Pantalone part was more difficult because you know, I had chased their man away Miller. So it was very hard, even though I had relationships with some of them and my dear friend Pam McConnell as an example was a bridge over to that side, I didn't have too much success there and you know, Pantalone was obviously a, you know, I think practically a spoiler. Does that mean they're like, well not every

Pantalone vote was gonna come to you, etc. It's like that may have been the case, but the real point there is if you really want to beat an incumbent or beat a front runner, you have to have a head-to-head matchup. And where you have nothing to restrict people from running, it's really, really hard to get that head-to-head matchup. So that's my key warrant. Not that we were talking about it exactly, but when people tell me, oh, Olivia Chow is much less popular than when she ran or whatever, you said. Yeah, but she may be less popular, but she started out very popular. Her base is quite interestingly spread out.

And I don't see anything in the offing that's gonna keep the center right or whatever they wanna call themselves from having two, three, four, or five candidates. Can I throw one name at you? What about John Tory coming back? It's the only name. Yeah.

It's the only name. I never voted for John Tory. I voted for Olivia Chow when she ran against him. I was a little bitter. 2014. And I voted for her again recently. I didn't start out there. I didn't think that I would but none of the other people running to me were honest enough to talk about Toronto's problems and whether you like it or not I think in her first budget she confronted some of what was necessary. I'm a little less enthusiastic with the second go-around on the tax increases I think that's a lot. I had breakfast with John Tory recently and I told him straight, he didn't ask me for my advice but I'm like

I'd speak truth,'d speak truth to power. Like, if you don't like it, you know, okay, ignore it or what have you. And I said, that formula that I just mentioned to you where there's nothing that can actually control the center right from having four or five or six people, I think John Tory is the only person that can actually prevent that,

but only if he does something that he doesn't normally do which is be forthright and proactive and early because a lot of like I don't know how great a mayor he was I could have my criticisms of him okay I like him very much as a person he sounds like a mayor on many many issues and he's very popular. Notwithstanding what criticisms I might have, like say, well, what, SmartTrack? Or like, I'm not that enthusiastic about him on some of the policy fronts,

but irrespective of that, people really, really like him. So I think actually, if there is a person that could mount a serious run against Olivia Chow, it is John Tory, but he has to do it before Brad Bradford and Anthony Fury and fill in your blank here with all of the other names that I've heard are thinking about running. And actually in a certain sense to solidify the organizer class and the money class to say no, we're behind Tory this time that if Olivia Chow is a Strong enough foil to get the center right all revved up to take her on

I think John Tory is the only person that can actually have a shot at a successful Formula you and I agree on this because I've given this a lot of thoughts so we agree I want to ask you about by the way just to put a wrap on that 2010 election So yes, Rob Ford had 47% of the vote, but you did have thirty five point six percent of the vote So you were a strong second. I liked it. Yeah, that's right first loser up but I have actually like bragged fairly frequently about the number of votes that I got because if you're dealing with people that have only Run provincially or federally,

in their whole lives they won't amass as many votes as I did get there. And it was- 287,393 votes for George Smitherman. Yeah, that's not nothing. So I appreciate all those people. They tell me all the time, hey, I voted for you. And I said, oh, I needed you to vote twice.

But you know, that's water under the bridge. Thing about it is that at the very beginning of that election campaign, my whole life was positively influenced by the unexpected arrival of our son, Michael. Is it just as we were getting going on that campaign, the Children's Aid Society called and said, you know, we think we have a match for you. And the minute that that occurred, as any parent could imagine, despite the fact that I was very dedicated to running and I, I think I worked quite

hard, it was really the secondary issue. And then because the adoption process has stages to it, I couldn't actually show Michael. And most people just saw him on election night and they're like, why were you hiding your kid? I was like, no, I wasn't I wasn't allowed to campaign with him till the very end etc Because he's uh, you know because he was such an adorable presence So there's a there's a happy silver lining there during the the the election cycle there

But I got to ask you about a gentleman who recently made his Toronto mic debut He came over to talk about a shelter that is proposed for third street in Lakeshore here in New Toronto. Bruce Davis. Did you work with Bruce Davis during that election? Absolutely. Absolutely. Mostly, you know, I've known Bruce Davis for a long time.

He was a Mel Lastman guy. Okay. And I wasn't so much. So he was one of these liberals like Bob Richardson is another that kind of like gravitate over gravitated over to Mel. But I always I always into this day have an admiration for for Bruce because he's got a lively intellect. He's got a bounce in his step and he's got a curiosity and stuff that I've always found enduring. Finding a person to run your mayoral campaign is a tricky bit because it's a very

unique it's very unique as campaigns go and Bruce came in and lent a tremendous amount of that energy that I spoke to my campaign so he's a great felon. I love watching the He's a great fellow and I love watching the emergence of his kids and stuff like that who have benefited so much from great parents. He's a long branch man. So the South Etobicoke. You know I had a paper route on Lake Promenade. No, I bike it every day. 42nd Street.

When I was going to... You're Marie Curtis-Park. When I was going to... which is part of why I was inspired when I was Minister of Energy to actually make sure that there was no further electricity generation on the Lakeview site because as a kid I'd spent a lot of time down at Marie Curtis Park but my stepfather was the Toronto Star distributor. This isn't the time when the star was just going to the seven day a week with the Sunday paper. I was like 12 or 13 so so this is like 1976, and he had a really, really hard time down on the West End there at 42nd Street and stuff like that to put together this mega route. My mother would pick me up after her work and after my school and we'd come down here and deliver papers and do the collecting, and there used to be that great place just by, before you cross the bridge that had those great french fries. So I have a lot of I have a lot of affinity to this to the very south end of Etobicoke.

Amazing. And you mentioned your your husband, your late husband's name, Christopher, and I just wanted to offer my condolences on his passing and back in 2013. Yeah, it's thank you for that. Uh, you know the thing about it is that uh, it's been more than 10 years, but not a day goes by that Christopher's not an influence in our, in our house with our kids. And uh, it's, it, his spirit is really quite enduring. He was, you know, it's, it's so frequently the case that people that take, you know, it's it's so frequently the case that people that take you know that take their own lives or experience You know death by suicide or what have you that a lot of external forces couldn't see that

It's like oh my goodness gracious like he was always so kind to me or what have you and he Christopher was it the retail chocolate man Okay like he worked for Laura C cord and then he worked for lint and that's all he knew and he knew chocolate and he was very petite and people were like, oh, I guess you don't eat chocolate. He's like, I eat chocolate every day and they were like, oh, what's your damn secret? But you know, he's deeply missed. But it's just like the legacy that you have in life. Like I, I sometimes bristle at the word legacy cause Paul, they like politics.

It was your legacy, but the legacy of a life in politics is the people that you meet and that you had a chance to influence or be influenced by. And the same thing for Christopher, his legacy was his life in retail chocolate and the number of people that came up through the ranks and that had an opportunity to work under him as a manager, a district manager and all of this, they just love him. So when I run into those people or what have you, it's always like such a positive memory and recollection. So your last effort in public life running for politics was 2018 right when you ran for City Toronto City Council yeah that framed the final chapter in my book called

run over by a Ford again you know I I might be wrong that Doug Ford took the light early in his days as premier of reducing all of the wards in Toronto by half, that I was a casualty of that. The thing is that, you know, I look back on it, honestly, I wrote a book in that time period, 2018, I ran for office. I was really still in recovery from the trauma of the loss of life of my husband.

I ended up as a male solo parent for four and a half years where I was the breadwinner and the social provider and is it quite a lonely experience if I had to say it, but Pam McConnell, whom I had such a strong connection to and she and Barbara Hall and I, et cetera, et cetera, she came to me and she said, I'm not going to run again. My ward's going to be open. You're a man.

And we had done a lot of good things together. So we were in. So I was like, okay, well, with that endorsement, I really should do it. I'm a man of politics. I can do many things. I can do what I have to to make a living. But that's really my passion. Once a politician, always a politician.

Man, oh man, oh man, did I get my ass handed to me. I mean, in retrospect to an extent, the smarter thing would have been to concede that I was going to get my ass handed to me by Kristen Wong Tam, who was then a very well entrenched local politician. But I really, at that time I was like, I can't show my kids that I'm a quitter or something. And I had a new husband, Rolando was here from Cuba. And it was kind of like, Hey, I want to show these people what I used to do, etc. And it really didn't come out too well. It was a really, it was a really harsh, it was a really harsh come down to a certain,

to a certain extent. And I harbor a significant grudge with the premier. Well, these Fords, man, are you finished with running for politics? Like, is that it for you? Or would you consider running again? Oh, listen, it's kind of like, sadly, in a sense, is no longer up to me. If I could have run for Mark Carney in my downtown Toronto riding, I would have. My downtown Toronto riding has become a place

where it's the illustrious set from, you know, it's set for the illustrious folks. So it's gone from Bob Ray to Kristy of Freeland to Bill Morinow to Marcy Ian and now to Evan Solomon. So I'm putting all of my energy at the moment into the riding of Canora Quay Wetland. This is 265,000 square kilometers from the US border to the polar bear territories of Hudson Bay and the liberal candidate there is my dear friend

Charles Fox. He was the regional he was a he's been a tribal, he was a chief, tribal council head, grand chief, and regional grand chief, meaning the chief of all of the chiefs. I met him when I was minister of health. We did some important work together, but most importantly when Christopher and I were getting married, we wanted to have a wedding ceremony that reflected the two spirited nations traditions in the First Nations where maybe before the Christians got involved with the indigenous folks, those gay people were kind of seen as mystics and given like a little bit of a, you know, a high, like a high profile or have you. And Charles worked very hard to find somebody that was willing to actually do that kind

of a ceremony against a lot of pushback, let's say, etc. So I love him dearly and I'm putting as many hours a day as I possibly can into trying to support his candidacy. That's a writing that is 50% ab indigenous. And I strenuously believe that a riding that has a demographic profile like that should have representation that looks like that. We're coming from a long way back. We're against the conservative incumbent. We need the NDP to collapse our way.

But the riding has gone liberal as recently as 2015 when Trudeau first came in. So I'm putting my energy there. Carney, you know, like I'm a centrist person, like some people, like I'm a centrist person. I was in the Dalton McGinty government. We balanced our budget five out of six years, et cetera.

And I was one of those a little bit restless with the Kathleen Wynne, Justin Trudeau, ever more left model where liberals and NDP in Toronto center were hardly distinguishable. To me, I like many new Democrats and I've enjoyed seeking their support, but I've never pretended with them that our parties were the same, but there was more of that going on in my opinion and our politics shifted a little

more left than I would have preferred ideologically. And I really think Mark Carney is a man for the times, etc. I was very inspired to get involved and to support his campaign. Right from his first day in Toronto, I was at an event, etc. and threw in a bunch of volunteer effort in his support and made many phone calls. I've done a lot of campaigning in my life, but I have never had a campaign situation where there was such a consensus formed by the people that you were phoning.

Like I would tell rookie phone owners now, I said like, you have to understand, like politics, there's quite a bit of it where there's a fair bit of rejection involved. You know, like stand by a subway and try and hand out your flyer. It's like, that's not as easy as it used to be. But I said when you're training to do calling for the rest of your political life, understand

this is like the hot knife through butter model, etc. So I think Carney's been, you know, obviously been very, very good for liberal party fortunes and hopefully that'll help to create some helpful benefits in Kenora Key with Node. Can you in your following politics, your entire life essentially, can you remember a comeback quite this extraordinary should it come to fruition on the 28th? I mean I got drawn into politics by the Trudeau comeback 7980. So in the final days of 1979 at Silverthorn Collegiate, the liberals nominated a man named Joe Cruden to run an Etobicoke Center against Michael Wilson, who was then and later a prominent cabinet minister. And I was drawn to politics then and they wandered

into the campaign office and I became a heckler. Okay, like I used to be at the back of the auditorium as a 15 or a 16 year old heckling Michael Wilson and then in my earliest days as Minister of Health he had produced a report on mental health but Tony Clement had refused to receive it because when you receive a report it's got a price tag associated with it so Michael Wilson came into my office because he'd lost his son to suicide like he had a very relevant perspective on this they said now minister you're not going to be yelling at me today are you or what have you? I mean that Trudeau comeback 79 after the man had quit etc that was a pretty extraordinary thing. Right. But to

compare what Mark Carney has done to step in I think whatever was January 9th or January 16th to cross the threshold or whatever to say, now I'm a politician to run for the leadership of the party and step right into a national election campaign at the same time that Donald Trump is in the air. You could criticize the odd thing that he's done, but it's been a remarkable, like it's been a remarkable transition of support, but it's rather a remarkable, like it's been a remarkable transition of support, but it's rather remarkable what Mark Carney's been able to pull off.

Like that is not an easy feat. It was all of a sudden like you were a diver for your whole life and now you're a figure skater and it's like, you know, there's no time for on the job training. I'm the same age as him. Look at the way he's improving his French even while he's in the midst of all of the rest of it.

So I think we're, you know, I'm not every conservative is gonna be enamored of the liberals and give way. There's lots of reasons why people have decided in the other direction, but it's quite unbelievable what he's shaken up there. Okay, I promised you 75 minutes. I'm a man of my words,

so I'm going to invite you, George, to TMLX 18. That's the 18th Toronto Mic listener experience. It's June 26, 2025, from six to nine p.m. at Great Lakes Brewery, here in your home borough of Etobicoke, that's 30 Queen Elizabeth Boulevard, down the street from the Costco. So George, you're invited. Your first Great Lakes beer is on the house and Palma pasta will feed everybody delicious Italian food.

I'm sure you love your Italian food. And I really love that building where Great Lakes is and I saw that exposition, proper word about the the features of it, etc. So I've never been in that building that is rather conflicting with gay pride time so we'll have to see it's Thursday okay so my events the Thursday well that's you know gay pride is a month if you're doing it right but we'll definitely combine these uh combine these wonderful events okay and I want to give you a wireless speaker courtesy courtesy of Minaris, so you George can listen

to season eight of Yes We Are Open, because Al Grego went to Regina, Saskatchewan, and he chatted with Ashley Donald, the owner of Basket Cases, that's a prominent gift basket store in Regina, and Ashley shares her inspiring journey of buying and running the business, discussing her origins, struggles and future outlook.

So these stories and more are in this great podcast. Yes, we are open. You can hear it with that great speaker. Thank you very much. And while you're listening to podcasts, Life's Undertaking, here's a great Etobicoke institution, Ridley Funeral Home. They're at 14th and Lakeshore. Brad Jones has a great podcast called Life's Undertaking.

By the way, I will also point out, we heard off the top, FOTM Cynthia Dale saying, buy Canadian. Ridley Funeral Home, they only sell Canadian caskets. There's a company called Northern Casket and they offer those caskets to their families. So only Canadian products at Ridley Funeral Home and they sent over a measuring tape for you, George. You got a measuring tape. I don't know what to apply when the funeral home is sending you a measuring tape for you, George. You got a measuring tape. I don't know what to do apply when the funeral home is sending you a measuring tape, but I thought they went work by weight.

But you know, nevertheless, definitely we don't wanna be buying any more of those North Carolina made caskets. No way, Ridley Funeral Home won't sell them. Another great Canadian company is Silver Wax. Silver Wax makes it easy to keep your car very, very clean interior and exterior. They make pro grade auto care and cleaning technology easy for everyone to use. There's kits for beginners, experts or professionals all

available right now at silver wax dot C a use the promo code Toronto Mike 10. You save 10% George, I have a robust cleaning kit for you to take home with you from Silverwax I am a former truck washer my father owned a trucking fleet and if there's anyone that's scrubbed as frequently or done as much of car waxing as me I don't know them but I'll happily apply this to my Ford Escape amazing and I just recorded an episode with Jack Mesley and it's going to drop next week. But Jack Mesley, 50 years ago, he was an iron worker who was at the top of the CN Tower, finishing off the CN Tower. And it was amazing to talk to Jack Mesley about that. But I only

met Jack through Nick Ienis because Jack was Nick's guest on Building Toronto Skyline. So I want to give some love to Nick Ienis and building Toronto Skyline. And last but not least on this front, I want to tell you George about a great, great website you can go to. And if you have any old electronics, old cables, old devices, you don't throw that in the garbage you go to recycle my electronics dot ca Put in your poster code and find out where you can drop it off to be properly Recycled you got it George. Yeah, we can't abuse landfill. We got to put the waste in the right place What were you doing with news talk 1010? I read about this in Chris Drew's wonderful email to me.

That just seems to get kind of stuck in my Wikipedia or something like that. I was kind of the drive home substitute for John Tory back in the day on a whole bunch of on a whole bunch of those things but I really haven't freshened that up quite as much. You're no Tom Rivers is that what you're telling me? You're just a you're a you're a fill-in host back in the day. The producers used to tell me that I was better than he was at the intros and the extras though, so even though I wasn't that experienced, they liked that I hit my marks with the time. Well you know there's still room for you on Toronto's airwaves. Would you be

interested in fill-in work at 640 or 1010? I've got a face for radio, is that what you're saying? Yeah sure. You got a face for radio is that what you're saying? Yeah sure. You got a face for podcasts here. George you did amazing. Okay again I'm gonna hit my target but I did when I was telling Troy about your visit we were chatting about Furious George and he was sharing with me the story of former MPP Lorenzo Berardinetti. Yeah. There's a good Italian name for you. For sure. Would you share with us how did you help Lorenzo? Lorenzo Bernetti was my colleague.

He'd been a city counselor, a metro counselor from Scarborough and was elected in the McGinty government. And I really came to know Lorenzo, but especially to know his parents who just his parents remind me so much of the support that I got from my mom and stepdad when I was

running for office. I came to find out as other people did like not that long ago that Lorenzo had you know befallen a lot of challenges or what have you and had ended up in a home you know homeless shelter in Ajax where he actually lived for a year. This wonderful conservative guy named Justin Van Det, but he's got some good kind of like a red Tory kind of values, inspired others of us to kind of take up the cause of a GoFundMe that was enormously popular and I've been working with those resources to get Lorenzo housed which he's very successfully done and we're supporting him on a monthly basis

and trying to encourage him back to some of the professional roles that he's had in the past. He was a very, very well-regarded lawyer coming out of the University of Toronto, et cetera. He had a long service in politics, but his situation just underscores the extent to which all of us can be vulnerable to a series of events that can take us down or at risk of it and stuff.

And he's on his way back up through the good support and love of so many people that donated. And I was talking to him by text at least in touch with him earlier this morning. And he's got really, really good accommodation in Ajaxax which is a community that he's become connected to and so you know thank you for asking and for all the support that people have offered about Lorenzo. The thing about it is Ontario politicians do not really come away from their life at the legislature with the kind of pension that everybody thinks politicians get. Right. You can get one in Ottawa, you can even get one at City Hall, but you can't get one in Ontario and when it comes down to it some people you know end up in rather more destitute situation and it kind of

exposed the vulnerability. So I think Ford is going to increase compensation for MPPs at Queens Park. That pay has not changed since I was there in 2008. And if anyone deserved a pay increase, it was them. So I really, really think that 24% pay increase that city councillors recently pulled for themselves was outrageous to consider that my local city councillor makes more money than the Ontario Minister of Health, who's managing an $85 billion budget. That seems unjust to me. Minister of Health who's managing an 85 billion dollar budget that seems unjust to me so I really support increases in the compensation for

members at Queen's Park even if there's too many Conservatives in the mix there at the moment. Well I'm glad to hear that Lorenzo is housed again and that you were there to help them out and it does to bring it back to the Bruce Davis conversation I do urge listeners to check out Bruce Davis on Toronto Mike where we talk about why this city needs more shelters for the unhoused. When I represented Toronto Centre and Pam McConnell had that ward our ward was home to 53% of all of the shelter beds in Toronto and it is a challenge for neighborhoods they have to play their role. But the thing about it is the people that end up in shelters, they are us. And, but it's not an easy thing to,

it's not an easy thing to manage, but it really speaks volumes, I think, about the nature of communities when they can, you know, help and support individuals that need that kind of housing. I'm giving the last question to Chris Drew since he connected us back in February 2020. And he would like to know, George, what's your favorite cycling route in this city? Anytime I'm on my bike, it's my favorite cycling route. Honestly, that is cycling is liberation.

I almost thought today, hey, if it was a little later in the season, I'd ride my bike out here. So you don't winter ride? No, sir. I'm shaming you, George. No, sir. I do not. And I live right on a bike lane. If it's going to remain or not, I don't know. I'm Bloor Street.

And yeah, I can't wait to get back on my can't wait to get back on my bike. I do like to ride down through Tommy Thompson Park, Cherry Street, et cetera. Those are always favorite haunts of mine. Well, this was amazing, George. How was it for you? Is there anything you left on the cutting room floor there that you wanted to share?

No, I was really so delighted to have a chance to be here on episode 1675. Okay, don't forget that number. That's your number, 1675. Okay, don't forget that number. That's your number, 1675. And that brings us to the end of our 1675th show. How can people follow you, George? Are you on Instagram? Where can we follow George Miniman?

The best places to find me are really actually on Facebook and LinkedIn. I'm on Twitter, but really I post things, but don't look at the responses to them because it's just gotten so nasty. So those are the best places to reach out. I've stopped posting there. No more posts from me there, but I will tag you on LinkedIn and Facebook when I throw this up later today. Go to torontomike.com for all your Toronto Mike needs.

And much love to all who made this possible. Again, that's Great Lakes Brewery. Easy for you to say. That's Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta. If I gave you a large lasagna, would you take that home with you? I got teenagers, brother. Yes, sir. Okay. I have a large Palma pasta lasagna in my freezer

for George Smitherman. He earned it today. Mineris, you got your speaker. Silver wax. I have a amazing kit. Your car is going to be spotless inside and out. Recyclemyelectronics.ca, Building Toronto Skyline,

and of course Ridley Fun funeral home. See you all. Actually, it's kind of a secret special episode that's dropping tomorrow. I don't want to give away who the guest is. You probably, you may not know this name except this name has been with me for 17 years and I finally got answers to these questions I've been wondering as I ride my bike in this city for 17 years. Special episode of Toronto Mic Drop in tomorrow. See you all then. So So You