Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Haroon Siddiqui: Toronto Mike'd #1409

Episode Date: January 17, 2024

In this 1409th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with journalist and columnist Haroon Siddiqui about immigrating from India to Canada, working for The Toronto Star, how 9/11 changed this country and how he was able to make it on his terms. 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 1409 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. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville.

RecycleMyElectronics.ca. Committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past. The Advantaged Investor Podcast from Raymond James Canada. Valuable perspective for Canadian investors who want to remain knowledgeable, informed, and focused on long-term success. And Ridley Funeral Home. Pillars of the community since 1921. Today, making his Toronto mic debut is Haroon Siddiqui. Welcome, Haroon.

Thank you for having me. A pleasure. Little rainy out there today. What would you prefer, a rainy January day or a snowy January day? Rainy is fine any day. I'm from the tropics. You should never forget. I'm from India. You're from India. Okay, we're going to cover this. What year? Actually, I happen to know the answer, Haroon, because I read

My Name is Not Hairy. This is your memoir. Yes. Enjoyed it thoroughly. We've got a lot of ground we're going to cover about your life and times, and I'm interested in the convo, but I feel, I said this to you before I pressed record, I feel sort of like I've been living your life the last few nights. Like I've been living your life.

Like I feel like I'm Haroon, and I came from India in 1967 during the Expo 67. I know it all. Yes, thank you. I made you do your homework, yes. Well, interesting life. But before we dive in, I have a note from Chris Zelkovich. And Chris writes in, welcome, Harun, to the Toronto Mic'd Club.

And Chris is basically welcoming you into the fraternity of FOTMs. You're now an FOTM, Harun. Hi, Chris. Thank you very much. Yes. You worked with Chris because I know you were working at the Toronto Star from 1978 to 2015. That's a long time. That's a long time. And Chris was one of the valuable colleagues at the Toronto Star. One was blessed to have worked at that time to be surrounded with great talent and a management that had seemed to have an endless supply of money and resources for you to do things, which is not the case anymore, unfortunately. Times have changed.

Okay, we're going to cover that. I wanted to ask you about a specific person you worked with, because sadly, shout out to Ridley Funeral Home, we just lost this gentleman, but you worked with George Gamester, right? I did, yes. Would you mind sharing some memories of George? George was a quintessential Canadian in that you never heard him speak ill of anyone. He was always pleasant. He was good company. He had jokes to share.

And he was just easy to be around him I had come from Brandon I did not know too many people and George was one of those people who just welcomed me openly frankly in a friendly kind of way and that's how it remained until he left and when you say quintessential Canadian, in 2024, is that still true, that a quintessential Canadian doesn't speak ill of anyone? We hope so, even though we have tides of Americana coming to our shore once in a while and eroding some of our common decency

that one associated with Canada and Canadians and so on. One hopes we still have those red lines and that we don't cross, which is all the more reason to give more life to historical Canadian fact that we define ourselves as not being American. Then some people, especially right-wingers, say, that's a negative assertion. No, of course not. It's a very positive assertion. We know who we are and who we don't want to be.

Right, right. Oh, man, this is going to be a great combo. I can tell already. Congratulations off the top. I know it's been a couple of decades, but congratulations on being named a member of the Order of Canada. That's a wonderful tribute to you. Thank you.

Long time ago. Long time ago. What time. What is it, like 2001, right? 2001. You lost the pin. Do you still have the pin? I still have the pin. I lost only one pin and I've been very careful with it and I maintain it. And I still have my Order of Ontario, which was given in the year 2000. And I did not lose a single one of them. Okay, good for you. That would be my worry. I lost the pin, darn it. Okay. Now, I mentioned off the top, you came to Canada during Expo 67. Do you mind sharing with us a little bit about life in

India and why you came to Canada in 1967? I never heard of Canada until one English professor had prescribed a book called something like Lessons in Education. It simply so happened it was published by the University of Toronto. It had nothing to do with Toronto.

It was a British author. In any case, then you knew of Canada as this cold, vast, immense landmass, and then nothing more than that, because nobody ever taught us Canada as such, until I was working in what was then Bombay and now is Mumbai and the Canadian High Commissioner Roland Michener, long before he became Governor General and one of our better Governor Generals of Canada.

And he had come for a trade mission, I think, if memory serves right. And in one of those receptions, small talk, he said something like, young men like you should go to Canada. And me in my youthful impertinence said, why would anyone want to go to Canada? It's so cold there, isn't it? And that was the end of the conversation, you know. And then, but the idea stuck.

I think that was 1963. And in 1965, I had gone back to Hyderabad because my father was ill and I had to look after the family business. And some friend said a Canadian immigration officer was coming to do interviews. So I put in a letter saying, you know, I'm sorry, I did not apply before. Can I come and see him or see you? I forget which one. I said, sure, come on over.

And the interview was done. And I think he said on the spot that I'd made it, which simply showed that the standards were very low at that time for entry to Canada. So I got my papers, but it was 65. I could not leave. 66 came, I could not leave. And the deadline was coming.

So I wrote a letter letter saying can you extend this still not knowing whether i was going to go to canada uh and then 67 then it was running time was running out and then i did come and it was in the dying days of expo 67 it was a marvelous marvelous experience it was a kind of thing that we have not seen in Canada. People are upbeat and nice and great and so on. Anyway, I got to see it. And then within four or five days, I came to Toronto. And the rest is history, as they say. Okay. But again, your permanency, if you will, in the city of Toronto starts in 1978. So there's a decade missing here we have to discuss.

Now, when you arrive in Toronto in 67, I guess, what's the goal? You're going to be a journalist in this country. You're going to get a job at maybe the Toronto Star. Is that the goal? No, I applied. I applied, of course, started with the national newspaper, the Globe and Mail.

I arrived on a Saturday, I think. And Monday morning, I was in the office of Clark Davey, the legendary managing editor of the Globe and Mail a crusty old man and he said no job for you I said why is that you have no Canadian experience

I do have Canadian experience journalistic experience I've worked part time for the BBC I've done some work for the Associated Press this and that and he said those are portable qualities. I said, no, I hired two Indians and they were no good. So I said, Mr. Davey,

you're saying, because you did a bad hiring, you're going to penalize me. And he was totally, thoroughly unapologetic and said, yes. But I can recommend you that you go to a Canadian small place and get Canadian experience,

and I know just the place for you. What is that? Brandon's son in Brandon, Manitoba. Brandon, Manitoba. I said, why would anyone go to Brandon? It's even colder there than here. And he said, think about it. So that was the end of the conversation.

But when I came out of the office, I was irritated, but I just got this sense of this like a gruff uncle who was dishing out tough love. There was nothing mean about him, despite his demeanor and so on. Anyway, I was determined to prove him wrong. I applied everywhere, Telegram, Toronto Star, every newspaper I could think of, and I got rejection letters from every one of them, including the Perth Courier, which I still have. rejection letters from every one of them, including the Perth Courier, which I still have.

Then I got a job at Simpsons, which is now the bay in the basement on Queen Street, selling men's clothing, which was lovely because you are one of the best-dressed young men around. Wow. Did that for about a good eight to ten months, and then even Toronto Hydro PR Department would not give me a job. Thank the Lord for that in retrospect. And then I went back to Mr. Davey and said, I think it's time for you to make this call.

And sure enough, without any hesitation, he said, yeah, sure, I'll make the call. And he called the Brandon's son, and there I was in Brandon, and in the middle of fall, and I had a job. And guards too for the Gruff old news editor said, I hope you know what frontage foot is. So I said, I have no idea what that means. So he said, you better learn it, because you're covering city council as of monday night wow so that was that okay so you were sent sort of like if toronto is the uh the

big leagues you were sent to the minors to put in a little work before you okay i got you i know it's funny that you mentioned you worked in the the simpsons downtown uh the men's department because years later so i guess we're talking about uh late 60s i guess you're there and in the 80s they would film a kid show on tv ontario called today's special like today's special was filmed in that very simpsons that you're uh that you work i don't know that you just taught me something i tell you something see we're gonna teach each other we're gonna teach each other but uh i had muffie there's okay this show which I you know people my age

know today's special because we're kids and it's kids programming on TVO but the mouse always spoke at rhymes the actress has actually been on

Toronto Mike there's also an FOTM but the thing was there was a mannequin and when you I'm trying to remember when you put a hat on him

he came to life so at night he would you know this man so I have a feeling that you've walked on this sacred ground that uh that was sacred ground it was also sacred ground and not sacred ground

in another way um just outside in those days used to go the orange parade orange day parade you know what is this all about this is the belfast of is the Belfast of Canada, you know. And so then, oh, this reminded me of the old Shia-Sunni parades in India. And you needle each other. The idea is to irritate the other party constantly. So thanks a lot. That's all gone. All right. So before we get you back to Toronto in 1978, you spent a decade.

I read, you know, as again, again, everybody should know that My Name is Not Harry. And I want that story too, because I know that story comes out of Brandon, the name of this book. Because, don't worry, I will never call you Harry, it's Haroon. But people should check out this memoir. It's quite fantastic. But one of the chapters is called

An Indian on the Prairies. What was life like in Brandon, Manitoba? I had gone to Brandon with this specific idea that I would get Canadian experience in one year and scoot out. But I ended up staying for 10. Because first of all, it was a small independent newspaper and one of the better independent newspapers in the country. The publisher was independent, Mr. Lou Whitehead.

He owned it. And he invested a lot of money in editorial. For a paper of its size, it had more editorial people than anywhere else. It spent money on training us. He used to send us to the United States, to Toronto for sessions and so on. A whole way of doing things that no longer exists, you know. And we learned on the job, and they trained us to do so. So courtesy of him, I stayed 10 years.

After two years, he made me city editor. Then when he was making me managing editor, he called me to the office and said, I think this job is going to be yours, but tell me about yourself. So I said, you already know, Lou. No, no, tell me about life in India. This, that, and he kept asking me, what else did you do? And I said, I used to manage my father's construction business because he was sick.

How long did you do that? I said, about good two three years said that's it those are portable qualities he said you know and here we are told constantly of having no canadian experience and here is this man enlightened man sitting in brandon maritoba saying those are portable skills you know everything has to be done when it has to be done it has to be done you can't postpone things that's like journalism he said right so and then he made me managing editor in 1978 um uh 74 i became managing editor and the first managing editors conference i went to happened to be in st john's newfoundland and there is the day before as usual there's a pre-conference reception. I go there and who do I see?

It's Clark Davey. And he spots me. And you know, his first sentence, as soon as he sees me, he says, you made it. Now you can come to the Globe any day you want. I said, can you believe this man, after so many years, is true to his word. And he says, you can come. I said, Mr. Davey, I've just been named managing editor. He said, no, his word. And he says, you can come. I said, Mr. David, I've just been named managing editor.

He said, no, no, whenever you're ready, you can come. So to me, that is sort of quintessential Canadian too. He kept his word. Right. And he was nice. And then I did come in 1978. But not to the Globe and Mail. No, what happened, that's a story, another story.

Because he offered me a job. And I was coming to the Globe and Mail? No, what happened, that's a story, another story, because he offered me a job, and I was coming to the Globe, then he phoned. He said, I want you to know something before you read it in the paper. What is that, Mr. Davies? I am going to the Vancouver Sun as publisher. I won't be here, but I have arranged for you

to keep this job, and you will be the factor for the editor-in-chief, Mr. Doyle. I said, but I don't know him. He said, no, no, it doesn't matter. In the meantime, I used to attend the managing editor's conference every year and Ray Timpson, the other legendary managing editor of the Toronto Star, used to come. And he phoned out of the blue and said, I hear you are coming to Toronto.

I said, yes. No, no, what are they offering you? I said, so much. I'll give you 5,000 more. I said, they're giving me three weeks of annual holiday. I'll give you four. That's how it went. And I said, okay, Mr. Davey is not going to be there,

so I'll come to the Toronto Star, and I did come. And the second story about the Toronto Star is, the thing was they used to just throw you into the newsroom, into the sea and forget about you. So I was being circulated from night shift to night shift, sports to family to this and that and I ran into him

in the elevator and I said, Mr. Timpson, what did you call me here for? And he got irritated and he jabbed his fat finger into my chest. And he said, boy, that's how they used to talk in those days. Boy, you must know something about this place. And what is that? We pay you for what you know, not what you do.

I mean, can you believe, can you imagine any manager in any profession in this day and age of obsession with productivity would say that we are paying you for what you know not what you do so we'll we are meaning we are collecting talent and there'll be time when we will use you and we will use you and they did use me that's how it went all right i gotta bring you back to brandon just for a moment. I have a couple of questions here. Home of the Wheat Kings, by the way.

Of course, Home of the Wheat Kings, good hockey team. Right. But they got beaten by the, by the hard-hitting folks from Bobby Clark's team

from, from the Paw. Were they from the Paw or were they from Churchill? I don't know. Bobby Clark's like life before the Flyers. Bobby Clark was from the north.

From the bar, I'm sure. And they used to play rough hockey. For sure, for sure, for sure. Well, they played rough hockey in the Flyers too, the Broad Street Bowls. Exactly, he took it with him. He hacked the, who is it? The Russians, Karlamov?

Yeah, he hacked the bone. Yeah, the bone of it. Oh my goodness. Okay. Now, that doesn't sound quintessential Canadian to me. No, he was not. Maybe he was quintessential Northern Manitoba, you see. Let's just blame it on Northern Manitoba.

We're myth-busting here. Okay, but the title of the memoir, My Name is Not Hairy, the origin for that title, that's from an incident in brandon right can you share that story not in brandon so much as in winnipeg manitoba right what happened was that occasionally i used to go to the legislature to cover the legislature and um during my time ed schreier was premier and then howard polly and then Sterling Lyon became the conservative leader. He became premier. Brilliant man, brilliant.

Very conservative, but very conservative and very old-fashioned. And he used to call me Harry. And I told him, I think that my name is not Harry. And one day, again, he said, hi, Harry, how are you? I said, premier, I've told you many times, my name is not Harry. I'm Haroon. that's my name and there was sort of pin drop silence and he walked away and I had mentioned this story to Adrian Clarkson who happens to be a friend some years ago and she said that's the title of your book

right I said what no no that's the title of your book. She's right. So she gets full credit. Okay. So Sterling Lyon gets full credit, and then Adrian Clarkson gets full credit. Two disparate individuals. Amazing. In your book, I did put a bookmark in here because I like fun facts and little trivia and stuff.

And you have a section here called, and we are jumping around in time. We'll get you back to 1978 in our time machine. But there's an interesting list of Canadian firsts. And then you mentioned Adrian Clarkson, and you have it down here. The first refugee and Chinese-Canadian governor general. That's back in 1999. And I did quite enjoy your list of Canadian firsts.

I'm sure the other readers will have their own list of firsts and I'm sure I've missed some and I've since discovered that I have. Just an indication that Canada is more open to minorities and so on. Minorities of different kind. Jean Chrétien from Quebec, first French-speaking finance minister in Canada.

Sergio Marquis, the first immigration minister in Canada, Sergio Marquis, the first immigration minister in Canada, many firsts like that. Susan Eng, first Chinese-Canadian head of the police services board in Toronto. What that shows you is a certain openness to new individuals and so on, not unlike France. You live for two generations and they still think of you as an immigrant from Algeria, you know, as a Maghrebian.

Well, I was struck also in this list you have, provincially too, you mentioned Kathleen Wynne, first woman premier of Ontario and the first openly gay premier in Canada. And this is just my way of telling everybody that I've had a nice conversation

with Kathleen Wynne. Oh, you did? Earlier this week, and she booked her visit. She will be here in early February to sit in the Haroon seat there. You'll enjoy her company. She's lovely. Are you guys still friends? We are friends, yes. I'm old-fashioned,

you see. So what happens is while you're doing the job and you're reporting on them, you keep your distance. And then over time, after that relationship has evolved, you become friends. That used to be the case in Manitoba as well. And that used to be the case between leaders too. They were adversaries.

They were not enemies. Not unlike today. The current Conservative leader of Canada is forever taking pot shots, which is his job, but also getting personal all the time. Trudeau's inflation, Trudeau's housing prices, Trudeau's this. Okay, so it's snowing.

It's Trudeau's snow, you know. Trudeau brought us this rain today. Trudeau brought us this rain. I mean, he's made many mistakes and he continues to make them but this is not one of them right right

okay we'll touch more on that more on that later but okay so 1978 to 2015 you're working at the Toronto Star we talked about how you ended up at the Star by the way fun facts since we're dropping fun facts in the show during your time reporting,

you saw 10 Canadian prime ministers in office and you reported from 50 nations. This is quite the life you've led, which is why you had a memoir to write here and Adrian Clarkson can present the title for this. See what I did there? Adrian Clarkson presents. Okay.

What can you share with us? I'm very interested in what the Toronto Star Newsroom was like in 1978. Can you share with us who was there? I mean, what was the vibe at One Young Street? It has radically changed, as you know. The newsroom, you see, back to Ray Timpson, the legendary managing editor, he had a glass door in front of his office. He did not want it closed so he could look out onto the newsroom.

And he used to say, you know, when I look out of this room, this glass door, I can see a dozen foreign correspondents. This idea of accumulating talent and so on. So if something happened somewhere, they could pick up someone on the shift at that time and send them off. That's exactly how it went on with me. Mike Peary, the foreign editor, said during the hostage crisis in Iran post-revolution, he said, we want you to go to Iran.

I said, when do you want me to go? Tonight, now. I said, when do you want me to go? Tonight, now. So within minutes, they had arranged for American Express travel cards, this, that, here is your ticket, everything arranged. You just sit in a taxi and go. And I said, can I go home? Why do you have a family?

I did not have a family. So what do you want to go home for? Just go to the airport. Be done. So that's how it was done, you see. And the resources were absolutely no bar at that time. Bilan Hornrick, the owner of the paper and publisher at that time, he has a penchant for firing managing editors

because he never quite knew what he really wanted. He knew what he did not want, but he did not know what he wanted. So he kept firing managing editors. We used to say, oh, this is B's Stalin-esque way of management. But Biren famously once said, I have never fired anyone for spending too much money

you know and that was the mentality so I went to Iran I was there for months and months not months and weeks and weeks and then the call came on the telex from Mike said the Soviets have invaded Afghanistan can you go there translation into english go now right okay so i then i went to delhi i got the visa i went to

afghanistan and i landed there that was quite an episode but nonetheless uh but all the telex lines were cut off there was no telephone so how do you send copy i mean we think of the internet and we take all these things for granted in those days sending copy back was a big task especially when the lines have been cut off what do you do so i ran into mark tully the famous bbc uh correspondent in delhi he said what are you doing oh that's easy. He said, you go to the airport the days that the Indian Airlines flight comes

and you take your envelope, you give it to the pilot, you beg them, you plead with them or you bribe them and they take your copy back to Delhi and they then transmit it from there. Wow. Well, you know, maybe it will work. And then I started doing that and then I started making carbon copies.

And I used to go to the PIA, Pakistan International Airlines flight as well, beg and do whatever I need to do, beseech the pilot and the crew, can you take this to Peshawar and hand it over to the Reuters news agency office? And here is the money for the taxi and so on. And this went on for four weeks or five weeks i have no idea if a single word had made it back because you don't get a copy of the you don't get a copy you don't nobody's phoning you the telex are cut off it's just endless anyway after five weeks i come out to pishawa and the first thing i do is I phone Mike Peary and said, did you get my copy?

He said, did I ever get your copy? I got two copies of most of you. Thank the Lord for that, you know. So that's how it was done in those days. What a difference. Like, it's just to hear you tell that story, it's like all the president's men or something. Like, that's the journalism style.

Now, okay, the Toronto Star Newsroom, when you arrived in 1978, can you remember some of the people that were working there? I know some who bled into my era of reading the Toronto Star

which starts in about the mid-80s. That was the paper delivered to my house was the Toronto Star. So I was like, oh, Milt Donnell was there. But who do you remember

from the newsroom back in 1978? No, no. There was Gerald Letting, the legendary foreign correspondent. He followed me to Afghanistan, for example, you know. And Jerry was the guy who had gone to Uganda

and Idi Amin had put him in jail. And when Atting went to Afghanistan, Atting was nosing around too much around the army and bases and so on. So Mike Peary tells a story of how the soldiers there shot around around his legs you know as a warning and said get out and that's how scary it could be and but uh i think i was fearless in terms of how he reported and so on there There were other great columnists like Rosemary Spears, who used to cover Queen's Park, for example.

One of the early feminists, one of the earliest journalists in Canada to warn us about the environmental peril that we were facing. I was her editor at one time, and she used to berate me, and said, you're not taking this seriously. And Rosemary, just simply like a sister to me you know you elder sister whatever rosemary said yes rosemary you know always say yes but she was um she was quite quite the person at that time you know um there were other editors and writers and markain for example used to write a foreign affairs column on a permanent basis

Toronto Star had a foreign affairs columnist who used to write there was Ian Urquhart who was a first columnist a correspondent for Maclean's in Washington DC and then he was our columnist, correspondent for McLean's in Washington, D.C. And then he was our columnist in Ottawa. Carol Gore, Bob Hepburn, Martin Kahn. These are all sort of people of great stature.

And then there was Richard Gwynne, the columnist who used to write. Before that, Anthony Vestal. Before that, Pierre Burton. These are people of great stature. columnist who used to write right before that anthony westell before that pierre burton these are people of great stature and some of them were brilliant writers i mean many of us are writers but we are hacks you see we're really hacks we know how to put together an argument we know how to put together a story but writers slinger was a writer you know tony westell was a writer you know Tony Westall was a writer and now Tom Walkham is a writer there's a grace

to the writing you see that flows to people like me writing is hard work you have to sweat over it and make 19 drafts before a column comes you know right right what about okay you touch on this in the book,

but you are an Indian man, a Muslim Indian man. What was the diversity in Canada? What was diversity like in the media at this time, 1978? You see what it is that people don't realize it. And when you think about it, you can turn cliches on their heads. I'm from India. India is a 3,000, 4,000 year old multicultural civilization. Every conceivable kind of person lived on your street, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian, Zoroastrian and so on. The clothes people wore were entirely different

from each other. This is an inbred tolerance and celebration of each other. My parents, my father was a product of a madrasa. When you think of a madrasa, you say, oh my God, terrorism. No, no.

Madrasa was a venerable institution where Hindus also used to go and study at that time. But my teachers were mostly Hindu Brahmins. So I was a great failure in college. I had failed at pre-medicine. I had failed at pre-engineering. I had dabbled in science. And then I went to English literature in Masters

and then I switched to journalism and I went back to my father and said, Abba, I think I'm going to try journalism. Instead of getting angry, I said, what the hell are you doing, you idiot and so on. His first sentence was, have you asked tgv tgv being the short form for tg by the another he was my english professor he was a brahmin here is this bearded product of a madrasa who had become a businessman he's asking me what my brahmin teacher thinks of this crazy idea. And I said, I've spoken to TGV, and TGV said it will be all right. And my father said, if it's all right with TGV, it's all right with me.

Can you imagine this? I mean, in the Indian pantheon of greats, parent and teacher occupy very high places so here is a orthodox muslim differing to a brahmin teacher with a sacred brahminic thread across his chest and he says if tgv thinks it's okay it's all right for you going into a profession that nobody had ever gone in my family right that's the kind of respect that people had for each other so i come to canada back to your question sure uh and there's the orange day parade and uh there's no diversity most important and least political is no diversity of food so i come i could not find yogurt i can find only something called sour cream that I had never heard of.

So I get it. It's like a blob that bloated your tummy. No lamb, no goat, only beef that I did not grow up consuming at any time. Very few fruit, vegetables, spices, nothing. No guava, no mango, no papaya, no brinjal, no okra, no gourd, nothing. No coriander, no cloves, no cumin, no cardamom, no saffron. Saffron? Oh, saffron, you can get it during Easter time near an Ukrainian bakery, somebody said.

You know? Can you believe us? And now here we are 50 odd years out and Canada is the cuisine capital of the world. Wow. You know, this is the change that demography has brought to Canada. This is extraordinary. That is extraordinary. And again, I was alive in 1978.

I'm surprised, no yogurt. That's the one that most shocking to me, no yogurt. There was no yogurt in 67. I can vouch for it. 67, right, right. Oh, the yogurt. There was no yogurt in 67. I can vouch for it. 67, right. Oh, the yogurt story. When I went to Brandon, there were five or six or seven Indian families.

They used to be moan all the time. For God's sake, we cannot get any yogurt. I phoned my mother and talked to her and said, this is just a state of affairs. There's nothing here. So she said, in that case, son, you better come back home. So I'm glad I stayed here. That's one. And then one of the Indian families,

Dr. Gopal, his wife, Kala, was going to Mangalore in India. And then she smuggled back a little bit of culture of yogurt on the plane with her. And then she smuggled back a little bit of culture of yogurt on the plane with her. And then she put it in the oven overnight. And lo and behold, she had the first yogurt set. And then she distributed samples to all of us. We were all set after that.

So yogurt was born in Manitoba, imported from Mangalore by an Indian lady. In Toronto in 1978 though was... No, 78, but we were getting very good. Now we're getting yogurt, okay. I got you. 67, not much yogurt, no yogurt. 78, yogurt has arrived. Now,

what about in the media? What was the diversity like in Canada in the media when you were starting at the Star in 1978? Yeah, diversity was almost zero. It was, not to mince words, the newsrooms were white. The journalism was white, more important than that.

And that's a very layered kind of observation because it was white man's view of the brown man, white man's view of the aboriginal peoples, white man's view of the black people. And then the worst thing was that they could not distinguish. They had the world divided into us and them. Us here, them there in Africa, India,

and so on and so forth. But the problem was when the them started coming to Canada, like me, they were becoming part of us. But the media could not distinguish. They were still treating these brown people and so on as though they were foreign entities in Canada.

You know, that was quite a shock. And in fact, that led to a long, long campaign on the part of, if I may toot my own horn on that, by myself and a few others

saying this is ridiculous. Grow up. And again, full credit to the Toronto Star. They gave me full reign. Besides doing your own job, help diversify, do this, do that. So when we think of diversity in this country, we think of

fixing the payroll. Can we have enough of this, enough of that, enough women, enough of brown people, enough this, enough that. But if you wait that long, it will take a long time for the content to change, right? And there's another problem with it. So what are we saying here? Only we need chinese canadians because only chinese canadians can report on chinese canadians is that the point we need women in the newsroom which we do because only women can report on women on and on so i don't i'm not a

believer in this appropriations debate you know uh saying only certain people are qualified to write. No, as a journalist, you are qualified to write about anybody. You bring the same standards for every issue that you do, but you need to be aware of it. What would be helpful in covering Chinese Canadians if you knew some Mandarin and if you knew some Cantonese and if you knew something about their culture, what they do, how they live, what is important to them, why is it that they emphasize their children's education so much more so than some other people, if that cliche is true.

That meant that we had to concentrate on changing the nature and character of our content in the newsrooms of the copy that we produced so this day versus us mentality that permeated the coverage had to change this was the tougher thing to do and it's still a problem it's changing obviously that's how we view the world that's how we used to view canadians, we tend to be more inclusive. But the perceptions that we have still keep getting in the way. I mean, you write about the Muslim world. You think of them as backward people, terrorists, this and that.

Is that universally true? So we have to be aware of our own biases in how we report how we write about people it's a it's not an easy thing because not to put too fine a point on it it's a it was a majority white country that was the country it was it is changing canadians have changed remarkably remarkably quickly but we are in the learning process a positive way of looking at it is that this is a culture that is alive that is evolving

every day, that's changing it's only a fascist culture can be a static culture where nothing changes you know, this is the greatness of Canada that it's evolving every day. It changes. Every generation feels they can change it for the better and go ahead and do it.

And evidence, you know, reading your memoir, evidence of the change is that the Toronto Star, Canada's largest news, it's still, you know, it's a shrinking pie, but it's still Canada's largest newspaper, the Toronto Star. Toronto Star hired from Brandon Manitoba, Haritoba haroon sadiki in 1978

and you uh had a number of roles there you were a journalist and i'm gonna ask you in a moment about uh becoming a columnist but you you've said a couple of times you were given free reign like like essentially you're you're you're not a yet another white guy at the helm. You bring different perspective. No, but you see, they treated me professionally. So whereas I've been critical of the practices of the day, in terms of day-to-day contact, I personally never face racism, either in the newsroom or in Canada,

which is a surprising thing for some people. No, I didn't. Which does not mean that there is no racism. There is plenty, obviously, you know. But in terms of a day-to-day, my own, I never faced any racism. May I ask then on that topic, so racism, you as a gentleman from India, but did you experience Islamophobia being a Muslim man? I never faced Islamophobia either.

I mean, there were historic prejudices towards Muslims going back to the Crusades and so on. Remember, there was the specter of the Islamic bomb, Pakistan is going to have an Islamic bomb. Okay, did we have a Christian bomb before that? A Hindu bomb and a Buddhist bomb or a Jewish bomb? So those prejudices were there. But I really felt it after 9-11.

Okay, you know what? Let's do this. I definitely think we need to dive into Canada post 9-11 and 9-11 and you as a columnist. So by that point, you're already a columnist, right? So tell me about the change from journalist to columnist. It sort of evolved, you see. First I was a reporter, then I was a city editor, managing editor in brand, and then copy editor here,

then foreign correspondent of sorts, being sent on special assignments here and there. Then I became national editor. As national editor, I learned, So as national editor, I learned, I presided over the coverage of the Multiculturalism Act, the policy of multiculturalism. I had to learn it. I knew multiculturalism by instinct in India, but what is multiculturalism? What is constitutional multiculturalism?

What does Section 27 mean? How does it play itself out in a day-to-day life and so on? One had to educate oneself. So as a national editor, you're blessed with staff of such caliber that they educated you, the editor, as opposed to you doing it the other way around. Then I was named

editorial page editor, which meant fashioning the editorial policy of the newspaper, presiding over the editorial page, the opinion page, and the letters page, and the cartoonists, and the columnists, and so on. And then John Hornrick, the late publisher, made me the offer of being a columnist.

And that was 1999. And I think by that time, he gave no reason for it but I had already spent good nine years or so or eight and a half years as editorial page editor which is a long stint he gave no reason and but I have said in the book kings don't need to give you reasons. They do what they do. I had pushed him back many times. To his credit, he had not fired me in the meantime. And I think he may have had too much of my pushing back. And he offered me the column, but he said, at the same time, you keep your role as a diversity promoter in the star and senior management

position will remain you'll remain of these part of the senior divisions head and so on column so you back to your quest switching to columnist is a different genre altogether as an editorial page editor you're you are simply collating the views of the editorial board, putting it into, they are writing it, you are guiding them, or you are writing the occasional editorial. The institutional force of the newspaper stands behind the editorial. There's no name on it. There's a good reason for it.

It doesn't say, this editorial today is by Mike Poon, or Mike whoever, or Harun Siddiqui. Because then the reader's prejudices or liking of you gets in the way of their receiving that editorial, which should be received on its merit. Good or bad, persuasive points, that is the institutional strength of the editor. As a columnist, you put your name on it. Your damn picture is on it. It's yours to own,

which means people can take pot shots at you. Oh, you say Diki from India. Do you know nothing? You're an ignoramus and so on. All of a sudden, it gets personalized. But then people don't realize it from outside. Writing is of a million kinds. As a columnist, you from outside. Writing is of a million kinds. Columnist, you can be a columnist of a dozen kind, you know.

You get on your soapbox. Do you use adjectives every day? You shout or do you use reason? Do you lower the temperature? Do you let the facts do the talking and hope at the end of it like hell that the penny drops in the reader's head? Ah, I've always said the greatest compliment

you can get from a reader is say, I didn't agree with a damn thing you said, but you made me think. Right. Thank the Lord. This is Canadian civility at work. He disagrees, she disagrees, but says, you made me think.

What more do you want? Right. So, and they start, we used to have a dictum. A columnist is a reporter, first and foremost. So you do your own reporting as opposed to rewriting somebody else's copy. So you need to talk to people. You need to consult experts and so on.

Their names may or may not appear, but it is the cumulative knowledge that you are passing on. You are going on a journey, and you take the reader on the journey with you so that they say, I learned something from this. Every time you write a column, you learn something yourself. And you take the reader along, and that to me is a better way of writing a column

than just sort of jabbing your finger in people's faces. This is not a hotline radio show. Right. So 1999, when you become a columnist, then 9-11, what, two years later. Please tell me what it's like being a columnist in Canada's largest newspaper when 9-11 happens on September 11, 2001,

and how you see Canada change post-9-11. You see, the first column that I wrote after that was, of course, in solidarity with the American friends for their loss. Second column was in the same way and the third column was headlined is the American foreign policy stupid and that in effect argued this is horrible as it is it's a cumulative cumulative what response a cumulative explosion if you will of the american foreign policy

that has been at the forefront of killing and butchering many many muslims around the world and being unfair and then the moment that column came out the establishment came thundering down my head. How can you say that? This is not the right time to say it. It's the best time to say it, you know, because that's the reason. And including one or two of my bosses were quite upset about it. And then within about 48 hours or 72 hours, I've forgotten, I had 750 emails or thereabouts.

An overwhelming majority of them said, thank you for saying it. So what do we have here? We have an establishment that is more pro-American than Canadians themselves. A majority of Canadians are saying, thank you for saying it. This is what has caused it, as horrible as it is. That was one part of it. This divergence of the establishment thinking one way

and majority of Canadians thinking another way was one revelation right away. And then a significant minority of canadians became very abusive and anti-muslim all of a sudden and from a journalist who happened to be muslim i became a muslim journalist i was personally responsible for all these terrorist acts and so on. Something has happened in Beslan. I know exactly what my inbox would say. What do you have to say, Siddiqui, about what has happened in Beslan? I am responsible for what happened in Beslan.

This collation of collective guilt onto all Muslims. So 19 terrorists were Muslim on 9-11. So all Muslims are terrorists. Is that the point? The counter-argument is, but most of the terrorists these days are Muslims. So, you know, at some point they were Muslim and they were Tamil Hindus

and some other time in 1940s they were Jews in Israel and so on and so forth. What does that prove? Nothing. Do we say that because of the IRA all Irish people are terrorists? No.

So this was the second revelation that a kind of Islamophobia and bigotry appeared that I did not think existed in Canada. That was the second revelation to me. But then you see, you develop a thick skin as a journalist. You say, okay, this comes with the turf. Don't take take it personally just get on with it um and that's what happened you know i just kept going and uh i kept uh writing what i wanted to write nobody ever told me what not to write except once that um john hondrick said um he had come back from florida and he brought a column by some muslim woman so you should write, you may consider writing like this or words to that effect. And I knew who the columnist was.

The columnist was of the type that was a new cottage industry that had grown up in North America. Some Muslims who were more critical of Muslims than the others. So, you know, in the old days, we used to call them Uncle Toms. So there was a great demand for Uncle Tomary at that time. Tell us, confirm for us our prejudices. How bad your own Muslim people are. So here is a whole band of Muslims writing,

yes, Islam is very violent. Muslims are very violent people. So Sharia is bad, on and on. So we have extraordinarily selective third-rate journalism, a colonial practice that the British used to use in India and the French used to use it in Algeria and so on, and the Maghreb. You find locals who will do your bidding for you,

who will confirm your prejudices for you, you know. And the main body of Muslims just simply were absent in the media. What do the majority of Muslims think? Can we find out? No, there's no room for them anywhere in this narrative. And then that takes us to 2003, that the Iraq war on this trumped up charge

of weapons of mass destruction. The proof is, the no proof, the proof. I remember the Kretschian speech there. You remember, good for you. You see,

that's a very, very Canadian moment. Here was a prime minister who said, where is the proof here? You know, United Nations inspectors are not telling us.

He had a backboard and he said, no. And he called me on, on a Saturday I got a call from the Prime Minister's office which happens once in a while if you're a columnist or editorial page editor

the Prime Minister wants to talk to you of course he wants to talk to you tell him I'm busy and he said I am going to the White House on Monday to see Mr. Bush what do you think I should tell him about the Iraq war? So I said, Prime Minister, far be it from me to tell the Prime Minister of the day

what to tell the President of the United States. But if your question is, what am I hearing from Canadians? Yes, yes, yes. I said, I'm hearing overwhelming opposition to this war. And you know what the old grizzled prime minister said he said that's what I hear especially from new immigrants from new Canadians

his antenna was up you see he tweaked on to something that is a new feature of new Canada is that most of the new Canadians have bring a different internationalist sensibility than the old parochial one old parochial one was you looked up to london then you looked up to washington here are people who are saying no we know this is crap why are we

getting involved in this americana you know we did not go to the vietnam war we did not participate why do we want to participate in the Iraq War? He was on to it. And then, of course, in typical Christian fashion, he low-bridged it in Parliament. He did not make much of it. He said, if the United Nations approves it, we will be there with our American friends and so on.

I mean, that's extraordinary. Up to this day, anytime he gets up anywhere or the liberals anywhere bench on that moment, round of humongous applause in this country, you know. Haroon, think about it. Think about it for a moment here.

Okay, so you as a young man, you arrive here in 1967. In what, I don't know, 35 years later, you're receiving a phone call from the Prime Minister of Canada seeking your advice, your insight, which I've been enjoying this past hour, as to what he should say to the President of the United States of America.

Let that soak over you. That is remarkable. No, that is not as remarkable as you're making it out to be. Mr. Kraychan was a very smart politician. He got on the phone all the time across the country. He didn't rely on polls. He consulted people across the country all the time. You must remember, here is a prime minister who used to rule this country on the basis of one-page memos.

He told bureaucrats, don't write me these 40 pages. Give me the essence of this in one page, you know. But he used to talk to people. And he had an innate sense of what the country was, what the pulse of the country was. I mean, just think of last year. He's what, 91, 92? Yeah, he's up there, yeah.

He was in Alberta last year. And there was this whining that's been going on in alberta lately you know separation this and that and what did mr krechan say separation so tell me if you separate will that get you a coastline brilliant brilliant you know right he didn't have to say anything else. So, Mr. Gretchen was... Consulted people, that's all. Nothing special. Then let me just remind you that humility

is also a very Canadian attribute that you're demonstrating right now. No, no, that's a fact, yes. Go ahead. No, I'm enjoying the conversation very much, and I find your insight fascinating, and I would think that John Hondurek was wise

to give your voice such an amplification back in 1999 so that Canadians, we have it coast to coast. John was constantly told by people, what are you going to do about this Siddiqui guy? And it turned out nothing. See, he was one of those old-fashioned publishers who protected columnists. Said, you know, they have their voice,

and I will not interfere that's extraordinary that doesn't happen very much these days i think you might be right about that now we talked a little bit here about john kretchen but uh i'm curious your thoughts you covered of course the uh the uh stephen harper uh period as a prime minister what did you think of stephen harper as a prime minister. What did you think of Stephen Harper as a prime minister? He was a prime minister. He had a backbone of steel. He knew his mind. He wanted to do what he wanted to do and he would not listen. That was a negative quality. I'll tell you a story. I mean, you remember the famous question 19

of the national census? Question 19 was a detailed question that Statistics Canada and the census people ask in some detail. Who are you? What is your ethnicity? What language do you speak at home? And he, in some libertarian flash, said we want to get rid of this question 19. Question 19 is very important. Question 19 is very important to people, not sociologists across the country. It's important to municipalities, school boards, businesses,

because it tells you what services need to be provided, where, and so on and so forth. But he said no. And there was a storm of protest across the country. But he would not listen so Mr. Flaherty who was his finance minister former finance minister for Ontario and his political minister for Ontario very powerful man

he comes to Toronto at that time and on a Saturday or Sunday he was having breakfast with a local Tory. And the local Tory tells him, what are you going to do about this? This is ridiculous, you know. We conservatives are looking stupid on this thing.

And Mr. Flaherty reportedly said, you obviously don't know the boss. Number two man, Deputy Prime Minister minister political in charge of ontario says you don't know the boss he cannot tell mr harper that he should not be doing this so that's the answer to your question that's what so it's safe to say before we get to number two steven harper was not calling uh harun for advice no of course no in, Mr. Harper never even came to the Toronto Star editorial board, let alone Haroon Siddiqui, you know. No, you see, one of the most negative things he did,

and one gives him the benefit of the doubt, he ran the most anti-Muslim administration in modern era. He was at Donald Trump before Donald Trump. So was he ideologically anti-Muslim or was that just a thing to do because that's where the wind was flowing at that time. There were votes to be had. And one cannot think of a contemporary prime minister or any prime minister dating back a long, long time

that so overtly officially openly opposed a group of people based on their faith you know that's what he was doing i mean he he he sidelined the mainline muslim community he would not talk to them the only muslims he talked to are the kind that i have mentioned before uh who would who would confirm all the prejudices of the Prime Minister. That was an extraordinary period. But out of some bad, great things come out. It is the Canadian judiciary that always upheld the rule of law. In the case of Mr. Harper wanting

to, for example, floating the idea of taking away the right to vote for women who wear the niqab, full face covering. You and I may not like somebody wearing a full face covering, but on what legal basis do you withdraw the right to

vote? It was the chief electoral officer who said, no, I will not do it. Then Mr. Kenny, Jason Kenny to vote. It was the chief electoral officer who said, no, I will not do it. Then Mr. Kenny, Jason Kenny wanted to deprive the right of a niqabi woman from taking the oath of citizenship. It was the courts

that three times turned him down. Omar Khadar, it was these courts that said no to every turn for Mr. Harper's turning this young man into a postal boy for his anti-terrorism policies. We may like or not like what somebody is doing, but there's a rule of law in this land. And it is the courts and it's the judiciary that upheld it in the end, you know. And the government was forced to pay Mr. Khadr $10 million.

We may agree and disagree. This is a democratic debate. But it was the courts. So something good always comes out of these things, you know. And then 2015 comes around. Yeah. And they come up with this stupid, barbaric cultural act, and that was one straw too many for Canadians, and they got turfed out.

That's what happened. Yeah, these anti-Islam policies, that rhetoric, it doesn't sound very Canadian. No, Muslims overwhelmingly voted against Mr. Harper. In nine Toronto- area ridings, the Muslim turnout was 87%, and 2% voted for the conservatives, and 65% voted for the liberals, or whatever, democracy. But it's the Canadians in general

that voted, that revolted against all this, and said, no, this is too much. This is non-Canadian. And the government got toughed out. Right. Although it sounds like that party might be uh on the verge of returning to a majority government i mean that's the any concerns about a return to that no you see that's yin yin yin and yang of democracy and there's a there's a uh what is the word i'm looking for um incumbency factor incumbency fatigue takes over at some point that's what happened to kathleen win there's nothing she could do to turn that tide right and it looks like mr justin trudeau cannot do anything to turn that tide but that's the sort

of ups and downs of democracy right i'm going to quote you so this is a i'm going to quote you. I'm going to quote you, Haroun. This is what you wrote. Multiculturalism changed Canada for the better. Now we are the only Western nation with an overwhelming consensus in favor of immigration. This is remarkable at a time when skin color is the major fault line in the US

and across Europe. So this idea that skin color is no longer a fault line in Canada, I'm wondering if you would mind elaborating on that and just explaining. No, what it is, I mean, you know what Mr. Trump did and what Mr. Biden is facing, this so-called threat from the Mexican border, that's one. All across Europe, there was this idea of Eurabia coming up,

meaning Arabs are taking over Europe, some fantasy. In England, they are trying to deport refugee claimants to, where are they sending them, to Uganda or someplace like that, some stupid policy. them to Uganda or someplace like that, some stupid policy. Canada is the only place where skin color is almost no longer a dominating factor. It is still a factor, but not a dominating factor. That's one.

Number two, you treat each other not on the basis of your skin color or your ethnicity or your language, but your adherence to the Canadian law and what you can contribute to this economy and what you contribute to this society for the common good. This is a revolutionary idea. It was Mr. Pierre-Eliot Trudeau who had said, there is no official culture in Canada. All cultures are equal. This is a revolutionary statement. For a majority white Christian country to hear that and accept it by and large is revolutionary.

I mean, there was a pushback. Certainly in the 1990s, you remember Preston Manning and so on. We must return to our European roots in immigration. Translation, stop the Brown Express. That's what it was. But Canadians have moved on, you know. There is still discrimination. Ukraine, we have 185,000 refugees that have come from Ukraine. People from Gaza, new restrictions new uh things have just been published regulations torturous you know cumbersome impossible uh of course we must do security checks but children and women we need to do security checks and so on um

the two michaels were held in China. But there's a bigger Canadian who is held up held in China as well. But the media was totally silent about it. So we still have not 100% equality but on balance in comparison to other nations.

We are well on our way to have made an extraordinary transition in a very short period. Never in the history of humanity have so many changes taken place and the place has become so heterogeneous in such a short time and accord these people equality as much as possible. This is nothing short of a revolution. So, you know, my friend Mort Weinfeld,

the sociologist professor from McGill, he sort of looked at this book and said, you know, none of my students would agree with you, all these positive things you say about Canada, because they're very, very negative about the country, about how racist we are. And I said, I'll come and speak to your class if you

want. But the point is, they are right because they are young, they are enthusiastic, they want to change things overnight. Who was it? Desmond Morton, the great Canadian historian who said, every Canadian generation feels the need

to change the country for the better and often does. So these people are doing their thing. Canada is not nirvana yet, but it is as close to nirvana as it gets. Well, that's very insightful, very interesting. And again, everybody should know that My Name Is Not Harry is available now at this book. It's a memoir

by my guest today, Haroon Siddiqui. Why did you write your memoir? Are you planning to die? Is this the next step? What is the memoir for? At the end of the road?

No, what it is, I started writing, I thought I would write a simple book with a working title of How Canada Has Changed for the Better. Right. In My Lifetime

kind of argument. That gives you a canopy under which you can put things. One of my former editors was the editor of my 2006 book, Being Muslim, Patsy Aldana. She's a good friend.

She said, no, no, you write about your origins in India. And I said, why would I write that? I want to write that, but that's a good friend she said no no you write about your origins in India and I said why would I write I want to write that but that's a separate book and Patsy said no not write about your origins in India because we are an immigrant country and we bring complicated stories to Canada which is what enriches our fabric. It is extraordinary for her to say that. And that got me going into this, diving into the history of India and so on. And then you have to learn to write cross-culturally so that you're not bored to death

and you stop reading and skipping to the next chapter. Hopefully I've succeeded. But you know, that ended up proving something. Ended up proving, disproving a cliche. What is a common Canadian cliche and mythology? Better not bring your baggage

from old country to Canada. Excuse me, what about the French and the English, you know? They brought their baggage, we're still paying for it in Quebec in some ways. Second cliche is people who are religious are retrogrades they are backward people but as I told you the story about my father and my Hindu

teacher those people were more liberal and more secular than many of the secularists and liberals in Canada today. So this idea, sometimes the baggage from back home is good because if you bring the multicultural ethos of India here, that proves to be useful and valuable. The family's fight against British colonial rule gave us an independent streak that is useful in Canada in the post 9-11 period to resist Washington's dictates. So we can

think for ourselves, for God's sake. We don't need to take orders from Washington. Haroon, so Canada let you succeed on your own terms. Yes, it did. You could stay a proud Muslim man. You could keep your cultural values from India and your connections to man. You could keep your cultural values from India and your connections to India.

You didn't feel any need to assimilate, as they said. Assimilate is a bad term. You remember that great Peter Zawski program, a radio show in the morning. He used to have these fun competitions. And one of the competitions was complete the following sentence as Canadian as dot dot dot dot

so the big competition for weeks goes on and on the winning entry comes from a high school student as Canadian as possible under the circumstances can you believe that and Peter had a great time with it under the circumstances. Can you believe that? And Peter had a great time with it.

So what it is, is that Canada has no official culture. So it follows that there is no standard way of being a Canadian beyond obeying the law. We all can be Canadian in our own way. And more important, Canada lets you be. That's the point. You know, I mean, I don't drink. I don't do drugs. I only vaguely know what marijuana smells like.

I haven't been to McDonald's for 40 years. I don't drink Coke. I don't drink any pop. I don't tweet. I don't have a Facebook page. I don't do social media. On and on it goes. I've never been to Vegas. I have not been on a cruise. I don't golf. I don't have a Facebook page. I don't do social media. On and on it goes. I've never been to Vegas.

I've not been on a cruise. I don't golf. I don't own a cottage. Canadians, let me be me. Right. That is the ultimate sort of tribute to Canada, you know. You can be what you want to be so long as you obey the law and, of course, pay your taxes.

That's very important. So it's safe to say you know when you arrived in 1967 looking back over your life and times here in Canada and most of that time

here in Toronto Ontario Canada any regrets? no none none whatsoever we are blessed

you know I always say we are blessed to be Canadian love it man love the conversation thank you enjoyed the book My Name Is Not Harry We are blessed to be Canadian. Love it, man. Love the conversation. Thank you. Enjoyed the book, My Name Is Not Harry by Haroon Siddiqui, a memoir.

Thanks for dropping by and having just a tremendous chat. Really, really, really appreciate your insight and love the convo. Thank you very much and good luck with the show. I'm very glad that you made a success of it. What did you say, 1,000? Oh, that's a good question because I'm going to say it now. 1,409. May you have another 1,400.

And that brings us to the end of our 1,409th show. You just heard from the man himself. You can't follow Haroon on social media. Don't go looking for him there. If you want to learn more about Haroon, My Name Is Not Harry is the name of his memoir. Available now from Dundurn Press.

Much love to all who made this possible. That's Great Lakes Brewery. Delicious fresh craft beer brewed right here in southern Etobicoke. That's Palma Pasta. Go to palmapasta.com. Authentic Italian food. Recyclemyelectronics.ca. That's where you go if you have any old devices, old electronics, old cables.

Don't throw it in the garbage. Go to recyclemyelectronics.ca. Raymond James Canada. Everybody should subscribe to the advantaged investor podcast from Raymond James Canada hosted by Chris Cooksey and Ridley funeral home pillars of the community since 1921. See you all this weekend to be specific. I think we're all getting together Saturday at four o'clock for another

episode of toast. We're kicking out definitive Toronto jams. And as, as usual for toast, it will be Bob Lillette and Rob Proust. See you all then. My smile is fine and it's just like mine and it won't go away Cause everything is rosy and gray Well I've been told that there's a sucker born every day But I wonder who, yeah I wonder who

Maybe the one who doesn't realize There's a thousand shades of grey Cause I know that's true Yes, I do I know it's true, yeah I know it's true How about you? Oh, they're picking up trash

And they're putting down roads And they're putting down roads. And they're brokering stocks, the class struggle explodes. And I'll play this guitar just the best that I can.