Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Jerry Grafstein: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1783

Episode Date: October 19, 2025

In this 1783rd episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike phones Jerry Grafstein to ask him about co-founding Citytv, Omni Television and YTV. The conversation evolved into much more, including Jerry's thoughts on news reporting today, Canadian unity, and SARSStock. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, Nick Ainis, Blue Sky Agency, Kindling and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail].

I read the Toronto Star, I read the Golden Mail, I read the Post, I read the Sun, I read the New York Post, I read the Wall Street Journal, I read the International News, business news, and I read the New York Times every day. I'm a newspaper guy. I don't watch social media. I'm not interested in social media because social media is too complicated and it's hard to define the truth. I'm a believer in the truth. Brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery. A fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times, and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma Pasta.

Enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. Blue Sky Agency, the official distributor of Silent, quiet, comfortable, and customizable office pods. Create sanctuary within your workspace. Nick Iienes, he's the host of Building Toronto Skyline and Building Success, two podcasts you ought to listen to. Kindling, go to shopkindling.ca for free one-hour cannabis delivery.

Recycle MyElectronics.ca, committing to our planet's future, means properly recycling our electronics of the past. And Redley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921. I attended a Hollywood sweet breakfast at the Royal York Hotel, and FOTM David Kines was nice enough to introduce me to one of the founders of City TV, Cherry Grafstein. Cherry's bio is so lengthy and dense.

Founding City TV almost gets lost in the noise. He's a lawyer. businessman, and retired politician who served as a senator from 1984 to 2010. Jerry holds numerous awards, including honorary chief of the New York City Fire Department and honorary commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps by the Canada United States Interparliamentary Group. He was named one of Canada's 100 most important public intellectuals in 2005 by the now. Post. In 1992, he was the recipient of the 125th anniversary of the Confederation of Canada Medal, and in 2002, Grafstein was the recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee

Medal. At 90 years old, Jerry is still going strong, and he was nice enough to agree to a recorded phone call with me. It's literally a phone call, so it sounds like a phone call, but I found it fascinating. I hope you do as well. Hello. This is Toronto Mike calling. I'm all set to talk to you, Mike. Amazing. So I want to thank David Kynes for introducing us at the Royal York Hotel last month. It was good to meet you. Nice to meet you as well.

I'm sure when people talk to you, Jerry, they're primarily interested in your political life. I mean, it's quite impressive. We could talk about you serving as a senator for how many years were you a senator jerry uh 26 and a half years they forced you to retire right because you hit 75 well 75 yeah i was forced to retire uh but i was there for and but i've been inactive in politics since i was a teenager okay do you mind taking us back what i'm passionate about is you being one of the founders of city tv i'm wondering would you mind telling us the story of who you were and how you were involved in how City TV was founded? Yeah, sure, very briefly.

I was a communications lawyer in Ottawa, and one day a woman by the name of Switzer came up to me. She was a consultant. Her husband had come up with a great idea of setting up a U.HF television station on a tower at Eglinton and Young. In those days, there were no UHF stations in Canada. And she showed me her program. She said, I'd like you to get involved with me.

And I said, I'm not interested. And I'm not interested because your financing is from a very good friend of mine at grocer. And the CRTC is not going to give it to a grocer. I can tell you that. And I said, but if your deal falls apart, let me know and come back. Six months later, the deal fell apart. She came back to my office, and I said, okay, let's get going. And she said, will you be a partner?

And I said, sure. And you handle a PR, I'll handle the legal. And we need a PR guy, a communications guy. And a good friend of mine, Ed Cowan, who's head of Carlton, Cowan was just one floor below me on Richmond Street, and a good friend of mine, I hauled him up. And then I said, we need a programmer. And she said, well, what about, she said, who do you have in mind? And I said, well, what about Moses Namer?

She said, oh, no, no, no, no, he turned me down. He thought it was a horrible idea. He turned me down. I said, well, let me call him. And so I called him. He was down the street working at an investment firm. And he came running, racing over, and that's how the partnership got started, the big four. It was her husband.

She was sort of acting in effect for her husband. Cirque Switzer, an absolute brilliant engineer. And Ed Cowen was the number two guy, and I was the number two guy to put it together. And then I got Ed Cowen, and I persuaded Switzer to get Moses, Namer. That's how it happened. Okay, so the big...

At 11, Richmond Street. 111 Richmond Street. Okay, they should put up a historical plaque. We should. We should. I bet you have connections. You could make a few calls. I probably could.

Okay, so just so I understand, and then maybe we could get a bit more granular. This, we're talking, the name you went by was Channel 79 Limited? Is that the... Yeah. Okay. And there's the... And the reason for that, it was up at Channel 7. 79 on the UHF band.

And then we, the Namer came up with the idea of calling it City TV and we got that approved and that's how it became the first local, local television station in Canada because up until that time, CBC, CTV, they were all

sort of national. There was no local, local television in Canada at the time, none. Wow. Okay. So you mentioned the big four just to walk through this. So Phyllis Switzer, who sadly passed away many years ago, no longer with us. Moses, of course, who's still going strong.

Yourself, how old are you today, Jerry? You sound great. There's a guess. I feel like my guest is an educated guest based on the fact that I've been doing some homework. I would say you are 90 years young. Exactly. Okay, good for you. Okay, so you and Moses still going strong, and then we sadly, we lost...

Well, we do, we do different things. where our career paths separated. I went on to found Omni Television and YTV and cable companies right across the world. Okay, those are good teasers here. So Moses and you doing different things, but still going strong in your respective battles here. But Edgar, we lost Edgar very recently, didn't we? Yeah, we did. So tragically, we did.

And Edward was a good friend of mine, and he was a good friend of mine, And he was the youngest, at the one time, he was the youngest president of any PR company in Canada. He was a PR company for a major communication, advertising agency. It was called Carton Collins. He was quite a brilliant young guy. Yeah, I'm sorry for your loss there. But can you tell me a little bit about how you raised the money? Like, who contributed what?

Well, that was interesting. Well, first of all, I insisted that the guy. the grocer that put up the money, his name was Ray Wolf, a very good guy. We'd go to him for, give him a unit, and we ended up in, we needed $25,000 units. And so we went across the city to make sure that the station reflected the community. It wasn't some big shot, you know, sitting off somewhere. It reflects the community. So we went to a number of people in the community to put up $25,000 each.

and then we ran into deep, deep trouble and it was picked up the company we needed financing to always need to financing so then we went to a group in Montreal and then John Bassett bought that and John Bassett then agreed to let us be loose because he couldn't own two television stations

in the same city and then we went on and finally we ended up with Alan Waters and so it was controlled and operated by Alan Waters, quite a brilliant salesman. Oh, for sure, legendary figure himself, of course, with Chum Limited, right? Yeah, Chum.

He was the guy that built Chum, and he was a very, very interesting and brilliant guy. He was a great salesman. He wasn't a broadcaster, really. He was just a fantastic salesman. But Chum doesn't enter the fray until, what, the late 70s? A couple of years later. We ended up needing money desperately, always needing money desperately because we were UHF and it was hard to get advertising.

And then we did something that was quite brilliant. It was a Neamer's idea to do a blue movie on Friday night. And we owned 75% of the market on Friday night. And then we were charged by our opponents, McLean Hunter charged us. for falling below community standards and we went and fought that one off and beat that one off. So it was a fight, it was an economic fight, and it was a fight against all the other broadcasters

who couldn't stand us sort of being a, how can I put it, a bumblebee in their rear end. Yeah, you guys were like a little pesky, I guess you would say. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So initially, Jerry, it was about to, start up the station initially you needed about $2 million, is that right? No, $250,000.

$250,000. Oh, I'm so glad we're talking because there's sort of a I guess it's... Well then we kept look, the longer we went on, the more money we needed. And it was always a desperate fight for money until we got up with

Alan Waterson and money never became a problem. It was just doing it and getting it done. And we were the first I'll give you an example. the word everywhere everywhere the whole idea

was that these little news guys would be everywhere CBC used to have six or eight people go off

a location to do a new site we end up with one person with a photograph with a mobile

machine and that person had to do everything so we tried we it revolutionized

It revolutionized how news business was done. And today it's the same thing. They have to be much more cost-efficient to stay alive. Okay, there's a perception out there that you had to raise $2 million to start up this station, but you were able to start it up for significantly less. Yeah, and it was never enough, never enough. Never enough until Chum Limited came in to buy.

What, they bought 45% of the station? What did Chum Limited end up? I can't remember, but we ended up, the founders ended up with a piece of the deal. Okay, so. And continued on with Chum for a while. I'm going to ask you. Until Chum sold out. Right.

And when Chum, okay, until Chum sells out. But to go back, I'm wondering, it's a little bit of a sensitive question here, but there's a perception. out there, Moses, Moses, Moses, Moses, Moses. Like, the fact that there are these four founders, I feel might have been lost to history because the convenience story is, oh, Moses started City TV. Yep, well, it was wrong. Okay, so you're setting the record straight here on Toronto, Mike.

Well, it was, Ed Cowan once did an article for broadcasting magazine where I set it all out very precisely. Okay, but so Moses, can you just, again, maybe in a little more detail, I'll break down everybody's. So you guys started up. There's some money involved, of course. But were you a lawyer? You mentioned the legal aspect.

I was a lawyer. I then had to go to my law firm to make sure that they wouldn't, they didn't think it was a conflict. And they agreed. And they said, as long as you produce, you know, revenue for our firm, that's fine. So I was able to do things on my own, aside from my firm. and Amor was at that time he was I think he was working for a small venture capital firm so he was free to go and Ed was part-time because he still had his own company and and Phyllis had her business as a consultant and she was involved but the key

the genius behind the idea was her husband Sturkey Switzer he was a genius and he was a guy that figured out that we could do a low-cost tower at the corner of Egerton and Young that would cover all of Toronto. That was the genius of it. It was all low-cost, all low-cost, not heavy cost. Well, the perception is, so I'm a big fan of the station, but I'm kind of show up in the 80s, so I kind of miss the 70s on City. Although still dear friends, still dear friends with Peter Gross, and we have many chats

about the showman files and the shows of this nature. So I've kind of caught up in the history books here. But it always seemed like, you know, part of the charm, I suppose, was that the videographer would have to also file the report. Like basically saving money, this seems to be a theme when I talk to people like Joel Goldberg, for example. Well, it was all cost. We had to do it.

We had no choice. There's no choice. Right. In other words, if you don't have any money, you've got to innovate. Necessity is the mother of invention. Yeah, and the good news is we didn't have unions, because if we had unions, we wouldn't have existed. Could not have existed.

Not that I'm against unions, but it just couldn't have happened from a cost-effective standpoint. Did all four of you put in an equal amount of money at the start? Yeah, well, all of us put up, we all put up our time. Or time. I didn't have any money. I was a lawyer. As a Numer, I don't get any money. We didn't put up our money. We were the ones that raised the money, and we got a piece of the deal putting together the deal. I think we got something like 20% of it or something like that. I can't remove the exact number. Okay. Who decided that 99 Queen Street East would be the headquarters? That was the Numer's idea. Okay. Okay. So this environment, you know, we got accustomed to the environment and the kinetic energy and the spirit, a lot of that programming was from Moses? Yeah, it was Moses and a lot of other people. Phyllis added some stuff. It added some stuff, but Moses was the executive director of practically every local thing that we did.

I don't know how he kept it up, but he did. Now, along the line in the history of City TV, when do you drop out? Is that when Chum enters the fray or do you still? No, I continue on as the executive chairman of the executive committee that ran City TV for about, I know, seven or eight years after that. And why do you eventually leave? I had a disagreement with Alan Waters. Is there any chance we could get a little more detail on that? Is that...

No, that's it. That's all again. Okay, so you had a professional disagreement with Alan Waters. Well, it wasn't... It was a little more complicated than that, but I don't want to enter into that. He's passed away, and I never say a bad thing about a person that's passed away. Fair enough, absolutely.

That's a classy of you, so I appreciate that very much. Do you have any relationship at all today with Moses? Not really. Have you had a relationship with him since you left when you had that disagreement with Alan Waters? No, after that I did not. Okay. I really don't want to talk about that. That's past history.

The good news is that City TV is still surviving. It's become institutionalized. It's in strong financial hands, and it does a fantastic job. So do you still watch? Always. I watch everything. Oh, it's seven screens a night. And I read eight newspapers every day. And the reason for that is it's hard to find the truth today in the newspapers.

What are your trusted sources for news? I read the Toronto Star. I read the Golden Mail. I read the Post. I read the Sun. I read the New York Post. I need the Wall Street Journal. I read the international news, business news, and I read the New York Times every day.

I'm a newspaper guy. I don't watch social media. I'm not interested in social media because social media is too complicated, and it's hard to define the truth. I'm a believer in the truth. Well, you and I both. The problem, Jerry, as you know, is... Hard to find. The problem, as you know, is far too many people, particularly of a certain vintage, are going on social media like Facebook,

and they're consuming a lot of news, but they're not checking the sources and corroborating. See, look, the good news is from the social media, here's the good news, what you're doing and other people are doing, is that all of a sudden it's totally democratic. It doesn't base, it's not based on institutional things, it's news. That's the good news. The bad news is very little of it, very little of it is truthful. And so today, if you are interested in the truth, the truth, it's hard to find and you have to piece it together yourself. Which requires some work.

which requires some work so i spend a i spend about a half an hour three-quarters an hour a day reading the newspapers and then i at night i try to watch as many television channels as i can that goes with i watch cbc which is absolutely horrible absolutely horrible uh it's it's tilted in a unfortunate fashion uh c tv is a touch better global's not not so bad either. And then you have to go to BBC, and then you have to go to Fox News, and you have to go to CBS and ABC.

I go to all of them at night. An hour on the phone, an hour or two just flicking. And the good news is you can get it all. You can get it all now. But it's disappointing to hear that it sounds like if I'm interpreting what you said correctly, that the CBC is broken.

Yeah, it is. How do we fix it, Jerry? I have no idea. I have absolutely no idea. Look, at one time, if you go back to news, we had impeccable news sources. We had Edward R. Merle. Okay? Inpeccable.

They checked these sources endlessly. That's not it today. Today, 80% of television news is opinion. And there's no differentiation, no differentiation between cable news and traditional news sources. But if you watch CBC, if you watch CBC, I keep saying, that's wrong, that's wrong, that's wrong, that's wrong. And what we've lost at CBC and what we've lost in broadcasting is a thesis called balance programming. If you have one view, you have to have a counter view or two. They don't do that.

It's one view, and quite frankly, some of the anchors are tilted. Would it be possible, Jerry, to give maybe one example of something you've seen on CBC that you pointed out of the team? It's every day. Just look at it. The reason I can't give you one example is because there's multiple examples. multiple examples I'll give you an example you listen to as it happens

okay which was under Barbara from which is impeccable in terms of balance in terms of if you had one side you had the other side or the three sides okay you don't have that today look at it listen to it it's that person talking about their bias

their bias and I don't call with people having a bias just declare you've got a bias I'm a lefty, I'm a righty, I'm a this, I'm a that. And wokeism is taken over the media. Jerry, when you say wokeism, you mean this need to be politically correct? Yeah, and it's not politically correct. It's trying, it's identity politics.

I'll give you an example. Sure. In politics. When have you last heard? anybody talked about national unity. Unity, the word unity. Well, it was coming up quite a bit, though, during the 51st state rhetoric

when it was heating up before the election. No, they talked about Canada, but they didn't talk about national unity. There's a difference between the two. There's a difference between unity. Why is separatism climbing in Canada and in Alberta? Why? Why?

It's because people, there was a fundamental belief I'll give you an example because this is my political experience okay when the constitution came in everybody said Quebec didn't sign the Constitution okay now what are the two

most popular Canadian institutions in Canada including Quebec 88% the flag and the Constitution and Quebec is still peddling some Quebec nationalists

are still pedaling, they were left out of the Constitution. Well, they were not. So there are certain fundamental flaws in the way we approach things, the way we approach things. And I remember the anchors of CBC, they were impeccable, impeccable. I knew them. They were good. Anyway, that's not going to, that isn't going to change.

That's not going to change. But I appreciate this perspective because, like you said, you're reading the newspapers, you're watching all the different sources. I'll give you another example. I'll give you another word example. Values. Values is a fraud word. Values.

I've got Canadian values. Well, what the hell does Canadian values mean? What does it mean? It means something different to everybody. As a liberal, as a classic liberal, I don't. don't like the word values. I like the word principles. If you have a liberal principle, it's different than a liberal value. Some politicians use the word value to say anything they want it to say. It doesn't mean what it says. It's a fake word. And when everybody

says, I'm supported Canadian values, you say, well, I don't have your values. No. Give me your liberal principles. That's different. That's different. So words are important. Words are important. They are to me. I write books. My next book is coming out called The 1990s. I write a book every two years.

What's this book about the 1990s? Just about the decade? What is it specifically about it? It's about the decade. It's my take on the decade. It's the speeches and essays and things that I gave in the 1990s. And a lot of it is quite valid. A lot of it is quite valid today.

So it's coming out the end of this year. But my best book is, if anybody's interest, it's called A Leader Must Be a Leader. It's 11 Prime Ministers I work with, from Defenbaker to Justin Trudeau. You worked with Defe, the chief, you worked with Deithenbaker. I became, I thought he was the enemy because I was a liberal, but that I got to know him, and I took him on his first trip to Israel,

which was quite extraordinary, 1973. Wow. So, okay, so for timeline purposes, that happened after you founded City TV. Yeah. So what made you get into politics? Just this is experience? No, no. I was sort of acting with my father was an immigrant, and he was a scrutinier at the elections in London, Ontario. I was born on the other side of the tracks in London, Ontario. And my father, who's a Polish immigrant, was a very, very, very staunch liberal. And he, at the time, used to be scrutinered in elections.

So as a young kid, he'd take me in. I said, Daddy, why are we liberals? And he said, liberals are people that help people that can't help themselves. So that was my benchmark. And I went to university. I wasn't very active. I was just, I went to come student parliaments and things like that. And then I came to Toronto, graduated law school, and married my wife.

And we lived in a tiny little apartment up on Avenue Road just at the 401. And my wife said, I'm tired of you hanging out with lawyers. I said, well, every weekend you're going with lawyers, lawyers, lawyers. You're not going to build a career unless you get out in the world. And I said, well, you know, you're good in the analysis. What exactly you mean? He says, well, here's a little sheet. There's a meeting some liberal organization about a mile away from here.

And that was the annual meeting of the York Center, the liberal association in the basement of Jimmy and Mazzoni's house, a real estate agent. So I went to the meeting. And that day, that night, I met Walter Gord, Keith Dady, Jim Service, Vern Singer, and I said, and Dick Stanbury, and they were all big liberal, you know, heavy weights. And all of a sudden, here's this young kid lawyer walking up, and they may be a young liberal president. Nine months later, I was president. My job was to organize young liberals across the city, which I did. I ended up with 10 or 12 of them, and then I became young liberal president. And then three months after that, that's nine months after I started.

I was English speaking vice president of the young liberals. And a day later, I was sitting beside Mr. Pearson and on the national campaign committee. Wow. And after that, I never turned back. Wow. And as we... My team mentor there was Keith Davy and the late Jim Coots. Wow.

And we did touch it on the top. I know the, there was an excellent exit interview with you and my good friend Steve Paken that you did when you were... That was a good one. Yeah. So that covers quite a bit of your political life. And you served as a senator from 84 to 2010. That's a long time.

Right. In fact, I was reading that you're the longest serving member of the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade. It's the only job I ever won. I never got it. I was a bit of a skeptic and a bit of a critic, so I didn't get that. But I was banking chairman for a short period of time. And so here are so many lessons that I learned. in Ottawa. In the Constitution, in the BNA Act, there's a provision that says that we have free trade between provinces. Well, we've never had free trade between provinces. We've broken

the law about that over and over and over and over again. And finally, this guy by the name of Trump forces us to become more Canadian than we've ever been before. And we still haven't got free trade between the provinces. That's been in the Constitution since 1867. It's not there. I'll give you another example. We don't have one national security exchange, not one. They're all broken up, and we still haven't done that.

So there's huge work to be done in Canada that's undone because of laziness of politicians. They're lazy. But the free trade between provinces should be absolutely should be a priority. Why can't we get this done? Well, you tell me. You tell me. I brought in, I passed, I tried to get an act done to have a national security advisor. It was turned down.

That was years ago, years ago. Look it up. I'm disappointed in our political classes. I am. And it's not liberal or whatever. I'm just, I'm, I'm dissatisfied with our political classes. We always like to blame the other guy. I always like to blame the other guy.

It's not me, it's them. You know, I'll tell you a little funny story. What's the difference between Obama and Trump? Obama lied every day. Trump lies every day, but Trump believes his lies, and Obama knows the difference. Right. I can't stand when politicians get up and say, we're going to do this. And it never gets done.

Example. Housing. Housing. Think about it. I'll give an example. There's 186,000 people in Toronto waiting for social housing. We probably built 8 or 900 units last year. Right.

Come on. And everybody says, we're going to have housing. We're going to have housing. We're going to have housing. Everybody says housing. show me i'm i'm i'm a i'm a bad mathematician but when people say they're going to do something i said tell me how many i'll give you an example we were going to plant billions of trees okay how many trees have we planted in canada no idea in the last 10 years well peanuts i try i put more

in my backyard than probably the justin trudeau did oh my goodness 286 trees in my backyard. Well, how big is this backyard? It's big. It's a big backyard. Is it in Toronto? Yeah, it is in Toronto. And I don't want to tell you where, because I don't want to be flooded by people coming to visit.

It'll just be me. I'll bike over and we'll have a coffee or a tea. Well, after we go offline, I'll give you the address, you come over and you'll see my, I go and plant, I'm in my backyard for half an hour every day. Well, you know what, I do have to, when we stop recording, I do need to bike over for our photo. Every guest gets a photo with me by Toronto Tree,

but it sounds like you have a bunch of trees, so we need a photo together. You can name your tree. I've got them. Amazing. Okay, so I want to, if you don't mind, I find your perspective on all this so interesting and so educated

because of your life, and it's, wow. I want to go back. And by the way, I'm still at it. No, I know. You've got a book coming out. No, no, no. I help candidates. I'm trying now with just really to find a new candidate of the leadership of the Liberal Party in Ontario.

I'm a two grits, so I'm working at that, working with good candidates. If you're part of Canadian life, you've got to be part of the politics of Canadian life. And the way you do that is, first of all, to get out and vote. And second, all, to help good people. Why hard to work at that. Well, glad to hear it because there's been a lack of strong opposition to Doug Ford, which has made his life very easy. No, no, no. I don't want to be critical of Ford.

I want to be critical of the voters. Take a look at the number of people that show up to vote. In Toronto, it's three or four hundred thousand. I mean, it's pathetic. It's pathetic. It's apathy, right? There's a... No, no, but there is a reason why there is apathy.

And that is, today, if you take a look at Toronto, over 50% of the families in Toronto can't make it to the end of the month. And so they are struggling to... I mean, go to the... I still go to food banks once a quarter just to keep my field on the ground. And you take a look at and you see these well-dressed people coming for a box of food.

Why? In Canada, in Toronto, the richest country, one of the richest countries in the world. And people are lined up for food. Now, the good news is just recently, and I've got to commend him on this. Mr. Carney just passed, did two things. He said he's going to provide food for kids at school. That's good. and they're going to try to help up the working class, the working class, the poor working class,

get access to some benefits. That's good. That is good. I'll give an example. How many people in Ontario know about the Poverty Reduction Act? Do you know about that act? No. Okay.

Well, it was an act that was passed by law. in, I think, essentially to say that if you're poor, you're going to be helped. And if the government doesn't do it, they're going to be, they're going to be criticized for it. Well, there hasn't been any criticism on that act for the last two or three years or four years or five years or six years. So we've done the right thing sometimes, but we've never, we open the file, we don't close it. We open a file, we did not close it. That's what Mr. Pierre Trudeau taught me. If you have an idea, make sure you could, you used to say to me, don't give me an idea, tell me how to do it, how to get it done, direct action results.

Right. Well, our political classes aren't in that particular mode at this particular minute, but it'll change. It'll change. I'm an optimist. Well, I'm glad that you're still fighting the good fight. Well, I am fighting the good fight. I pay my taxes. But it's not just good enough to pay your taxes. You've got to be a public, how can I put it? You have to be a citizen.

You have to be a citizen. And if you're disappointed as I am in the political classes, then you can't just complain. You've got to try to do something about it, as best you can, as best you can. Are you okay if we go back a little bit to the media stuff? only because we covered the founding of City TV, but there's a couple of other, like, for example,

we now know it as Omni TV, but it was called MTV Multilingual. What was the full title? Tell me that story. Well, a guy by the name of Dan Ionutsi used to do on Saturday for City TV multilingual programming, okay? Johnny Lombardi was doing it on radio, but this is on TV, the first on TV. and then it outgrew it.

And Dan, who was a good friend of mine, and rest in peace, he was a terrific guy. He, in effect, said, Jerry, I want to set up, I want to have another UHF station, and I want you to come and help me. And so I went and cleared all my conflicts with TV and with Waters and others, and I helped him, and he got started.

And that was the beginning of Omni television. And again, that ran into financial, difficulty and finally was rescued by Ted Rogers. And that's on me today. So the original name... Yeah, go ahead. Well, that's how it started. So the original

name though, MTV, when they launched the all-music station in the United States called MTV, was there any conflict? Like, you're the lawyer, did you... No, no, no, no, there wasn't. No, MTV was multilingual television, and

the United States was different. That was different. It wasn't a problem. And that was just a call signal. Okay, because I do have a pretty good relationship with Joel Goldberg, who not only started Electric Circus on City TV there, but he also was hosting a music show on this station, MTV Multilingual. There was much music.

No, it was CFMT. Okay, well, I don't know. Yeah. A lot of water under the bridge. Well, just curious about how all these pieces fit. So you not only found one of the founders of City TV, but you're one of the founders of what we now call Omni TV, but can you tell me the YTV story?

Yeah, the YTV story was interesting. I was involved with a cable company called, at the same time, with a guy by the name of Jeff Conway. And we had the smallest cable company in town, and Ted Rogers had the biggest cable in town. And we were both doing programming, and finally we decided to get together and do something that cable companies couldn't own, but they could control,

and that was specialty channels. And we decided that we wanted to do something. We had some programming that we hadn't used, and Ted had some programming that he hadn't used, and we decided that we would throw it together in a partnership. We, Ted and I were the founders of YTV. And YTV was the most successful launch of any broadcasting company in Canada, probably anywhere. The first quarter, we made $267,000.

Net. Net, it was the most successful broadcasting launch in Canadian history. And that complex in Liberty Village. Now that's where Moses calls home. Well, that had nothing to do with that. No, no, no, no. Just a fun fact, small world story, I suppose. Yeah, yeah, it has nothing to do with that.

Moses was not involved in that at all. No, no, no. No, I wasn't even suggesting so. Or Omni at all, quite the contrary. Alan Waters liked Johnny Lombardi, and I like Danny Lombardi. Interesting. So City TV, Omni TV,

well, we now call it Omni TV, YTV, these are a few of major success stories in Toronto media, and you were right there at the forefront. I was a co-founder. Yeah. So when you look back at your life, like, you know,

you have this massive contribution in the political world, and you were a senator for a very long time, but you also have this massive contribution on the media side, which one gets your, juice is flowing more or is it a tie like where is your heart there my heart is still in politics yeah and the reason the reason for that is that um politics is what makes the world

go around all these institutions are interesting and they're fascinating and they're exciting quite frankly quite exciting but but the most important thing is is the politics And you can help the most people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's where your basic, your internal basic philosophy is. And I told you my philosophy can be summed up in a very simple sentence. Why are we liberals, Daddy? We're liberals because liberals help people help people that can't help themselves.

And more people are in need today in Canada than ever before. before and the waste of government is incredible incredible speaking of incredible not to interrupt you Jerry I don't mean to do that but I want to ask you

your role in sort of a big moment in Toronto following SARS but what were your what was your role in Toronto Rocks not the TV show but the SARS the concert? No no no well I've been involved Look at it. I'm a stuntman, so I like doing stuff that excites me and helps people.

And what happened is that when SARS broke out in Toronto, here's an example of government. We went to the federal government. We said, you've got to help Toronto. We're going to do something. They went to the city of Toronto. Can't do anything. I went to the province, can't do anything. So Dennis Mills, absolutely a great, great MP in one of my closest friends, and I got together. and we convinced the guy by the name of Michael Cole who was running the stones to come to Toronto to do a program

to do a concert that would go around the world so that people would come back to Toronto because Toronto was absolutely broke in terms of tourism. Everybody stayed away from Toronto so we needed something that would go out to the world. A local show wouldn't do it. And so we convinced the stone to come here. We didn't have any money at all.

Ultimately, we got money and did we convince them to come and we got Molesons to back it. And all of a sudden we ended up, we're in the Guinness Book of Records, believe it or not. It's the largest ticketed concert, the seventh largest ticketed concert in World History. Five hundred and over 550,000 people showed up. That's incredible. That's incredible. And we did it all in three

weeks without any federal funding and the funding came later oh my god jerry i'm glad we're talking about so so once you secured the roll of stones yeah if you want that story i did i didn't uh i think in a book called chicken soup for the canadian soul for the chicken soup for the soul so i did a chapter in that called romancing the stones so once you get stones on board right that that draws the other bands yeah well no they did it all We got them and they produced the whole show for our down payment to them was $5 million, which we got from Moulson's. It was called Moulson's Rock.

It was fantastic. Well, I mean, I'm of an age where I remember it very well, July 2003. Yeah, right. And I knew that fun fact, which is a bit of a mind blow when you think about it, the largest ticketed band concert in history. Right. And you're a co-creator. Woodstock was $237,000 over three days.

We got over half a million, okay, in one day. And you got a rush to play it. Here's an example. You've just raised an example that is a burr under my saddle. Down to you was due to the efforts of one MP, a guy named a Dennis Mills, it became a urban park, the first urban park in Canada. That's where we hold Elvis Stones concert, okay?

And now, what do you think they're doing there? There's a big Rogers Stadium. Yeah, what else? No, what did they just denounced? Remind me. Social housing. You're taking an urban park and transforming it into social housing. Now, it's true we need housing, but there's thousands and thousands and thousands of acres owned by the following, by the city of Toronto, by the federal government, by the Ontario government.

And then you take an urban park and transform that into housing, give me a break. Where's the imagination? That, to my mind, is unbelievably, incredibly wrong. Are there any other burrs under your saddle do you want to share with me? Lots. We haven't got time. We haven't got time. Maybe one more before we say goodbye. I'm learning a lot talking to you. Well, I'll tell you the other thing that happened. It was quite interesting. When 9-11 happened, right?

Yes. I went to Mr. Crutchin. I said, let's get a group and go to New York because Giuliani made a speech saying, if you want to help New York, come for a weekend. So I was really complaining about that. And Kretchen said, well, blah, blah, blah. And as soon as somebody says, blah, blah, blah, blah, I say, that's not wrong. Don't waste my time.

And so I came home and my wife said, you know what, let's take a group to two. New York ourselves. So we did. We put together a little group and that ended up, we had a commercial. I did a commercial and I got Norman Dewison to get it done. He was fantastic. And all of a sudden we ended up getting over 26,000 people to go to New York for a weekend. Wow. Wow. It was called Candlews New York. Wow. And that was all a volunteer. All volunteer, no government money at all. And we ended up getting a little place called the Roslund Ballroom, and they wanted money. I didn't have any money. And they gave it to us just for the cost of the maintenance.

And then we ended up getting, I thought we'd get maybe $4,000 or $5,000. We ended up with 26,000 people. And the Rosalind Ballroom would hold $3,500. And so we got the police in one day to put up television sets. so we'd get half of it and then correction heard that it was coming on and he came he said he called me up from he was in LA at the time and I said prime minister you can't come he said I want to come I said no I can't come unless you bring two RC&P officers which I asked him for before so he brought them and he came and it was true to mania I had to walk up and down the street from from 54th right to 66 both sides of the street in New York City crowded with people it was it was it was

It was maniacical, but Canadians were happy just to be there. And then just to finish the thing, Julian, we have the event in the Rosalong Ballroom. We brought up some crippled kids. George Cohen did that from here in Toronto. And we gave some money. The cops gave some money to the police $110,000 that they raised for T-shirts. Canadians are fantastic. So, Giuliani, at the end of it, says to me, he says, Senator, this is the most fantastic event since 9-11.

This is like in November. And I says, you know, me, you're full of crab. He said, what do you mean? I says, you don't understand Canadians. He says, what do you mean? I said, you show Canadians how to do something right, get out of the way, and they'll surprise you every time. And they will. Canadians are fantastic people.

They're fantastic. and all you have to do is show them how to get something done and they'll do it and so it's a great moment in my life I can tell you that well Jerry I love this chat and I know it's

tip of the iceberg because I read your I read your bio okay we would need several hours to even get like 1% one thing I thought I did my suggestion to you if you listen to if you want to know something about me on Wikipedia

don't do it until mid night at night. Because it'll put you to sleep, but it's all true. Oh, come on. SARS-stock enough, I think, would be entertaining. Oh, well, Saras-stock, but I must say that I have to hand it to Dennis Mills because he and I were tooth and glass. It was, it was, we had, we had so much fun.

I'll tell you what else we did. Yes. We didn't have the money to cut the grass, okay? You had to cut the grass. So I said, Dennis, we got it. We need $100,000 to cut. cut the grass at downfield. So Dennis said, well, we're in some lawnmowers.

So we went, we rented some mores. And we cut the goddamn lawns. Wow. You guys cut, you guys. And we loved it. So you're not only a co-creator, co-organizer, but you're mowing the darn lawn, literally. No, I'm a stunt man. That's what I am.

Just a stuntman. Clinical stunt man. Well, there's one more stunt, I just want to shout out. But you organized, are you sorry, you co-organized the, the Canada for Asia. Yeah. And you raised, what, $15 million? Yeah.

Well, I'll tell you how that happened. Yeah. So, CBC, outcomes of tsunami, and I go to CBC, I said, you've got to do something here. You got to do something. We can't do it. We need a star. I said, okay. So I called up Oscar Peterson, and he said, yes.

Just yes. Oscar was an unbelievable guy. I just called him once. He said, yeah. And all of a sudden, we got all the stars, and that's how it happened. if you go to people and you'd ask them to do something that they know is right, they'll do it. They'll do it.

And don't worry about the money. Everybody says, worry about the money. I said, no, no, no. Build it and they will come. You know, it's like the field of dreams. Build it and they will come. I believe that. And I believe in the greatness and the goodness of Canadians.

I've seen it over and over and over again. You just have to show them how. and first of all, why, and then how. That's it. Not complicated. Well, you've inspired me, Jerry. Okay. Well, I hope you change the media in Canada and tell people to believe in the truth.

You know, there's a great rabbinic story that I used to hear. I'll end with this. There was a guy named of the Cutskarabi. He lived 200 years ago, and he's one of my favorite characters. and because of the evil in the world he used to write a one-page story about the evil in the world and he had to burn it up there

just before the New Year's because it was horrible and then he had a nervous breakdown and so he hid in his little house right next to his small little synagogue in Europe somewhere and one guy from Western Europe gives up all of his wealth

and ends up in the rabbi's door and knocks on the door and he said rabbi, rabbi, I want to ask your question. He says, don't you know I'm in seclusion. I'm not talking to anybody. I'm not, get away. And the guy says, I just want you to tell me that the meaning of Judaism. He said, what? Okay, I'm going to tell you. But if you promise me, you'll never bother me again. He says, well, what's the meaning of Judaism? He says, in one word, the truth. And I'm going to give you a bonus, kiddo. The bonus is tell yourself the truth. If you think

it's easy telling yourself the truth is not. And all I want, I keep saying to myself, I've got to tell myself the truth, I've got to tell myself the truth. And it's very hard to do, I can tell you that. We are sinners, my friend. We are sinners. So,

we ask for redemption. All right, thanks to David Kynes for introducing us. He knows I'm passionate about the industry. By the way, David, now there's an example. There's a guy, and he was a partner with the Switzer's son, the two

of them started it together, there's a guy that's a very, very, very important Canadian, and nobody knows him. Well, listeners of this podcast know him, that's for sure. How many people know David Kynes? In The Great Unwashed, not enough, not enough. Exactly, and he's a great. Now, there's an example of a great, innovative broadcaster, and nobody knows anything about him. I know him. You know him. He has a big crowd of people that know him. The insiders know him, but he's fantastic. Take a look at the event he just did. Take a look at the event. He's competing with Americans for free of sake. He's competing toe to toe and he's doing a hell of a job. I agree 100%. We are smothered by American technology. We are smothered by American

broadcasting and that's why it's important to have cbc but cbc as we know it now is not the cbc as i knew it as i knew it it's not it's not the same read it watch it listen to it's it's sort of sometimes i have to shut it off it's so bad i'm sorry to hear that uh i'm sorry to hear it too Are you kidding? Are you kidding? That was a differentiator. CBC differentiated us from the onslaught of American media. And we've lost that differentiation.

Listen to it. Listen to it today. Listen to it this afternoon. Listen to it. I do. I punish myself every day when I get in my car. Well, Jerry, two quick stories before a hang up. One is I actually fashioned the Toronto Mic opening

theme song on the As It Happens theme because Curried Soul is the As It Happens theme. Mo Kaufman, I believe, did the original version there, but Moe Kaufman, there's another great Canadian. Great Canadian. How many people today know Moe Kaufman or play them? Not enough. Not enough.

I'm trying to keep this spirit alive. I have Ed Conroy from Retro, Ontario is going to be on the show Monday so we could talk more about this. Fantastic. Fantastic. You know, Toronto at one time was one of the Greek jazz capitals of the world. Yes. On Yorkville, the Bohemian thing, and at the Park Plaza.

And by the way, the greatest jazz musician in the world, Oscar Peterson came here, was here. came from Canada Oscar Peterson is a Lakeshore legend we have a mural to him in my neighborhood here can I tell you something

he was an incredible human being do you know that his theme about Martin Luther King is one of the great themes of America how many people know that if CBC wanted to do something great they should do a retrospective

on the great Canadians in comedy, Lain and Schuster. Wayne and Schuster. What's the name? The guy that's got the Saturday Night of Life. He started here. Lauren Michaels.

Yeah, Lauren Michaels started here. We have great Canadian stories. Canadian stories, which are untold. Our athletes. I mean, it goes on, I'll give an example. One last example.

Who's the greatest woman? Who's the greatest? athlete of the first of the 19th century, the first half of the 19th century. Mark Hebscher would tell me it was a woman named Babe. No, Bobby Rosenfeld. Okay, okay. And my late father-in-law was one of her coaches. How do you like that?

I feel like... And he was a great athlete. He was one of the greatest athletes that Canada ever produced. Wow. The name was, What a Man Snyderman. He developed the... He developed the drop ball. Any relation to Sam the record, man?

It was a distant cousin. Distant cousin. Okay, okay. I know all those guys. I know all those guys. I know all those guys. In a small, nothing compared to what you've done, Jerry, but in a small way, I am trying to uncover these stories

and share them with the listeners. Truthfully, I really appreciate it, and it's a delight talking to you. And I sense that you get an excited. about doing what you're doing, and that's very important. You have to be excited about what you're doing. If you're not excited, you can't get anything done. You can't.

You have to excite yourself. You know, you've got to turn over your own engine before you can get anybody else's engine going. Look, if you're not excited, it's just a job, okay? And who wants to work a job? Exactly, exactly. Okay. So I'll leave you of a David Kind story real quick, which is David knows my passion for much music back in the day

and other city TV properties. But when he was cleaning out his office, this is pretty recently. He had boxes and boxes of much music pictures and posters and memorabilia and stuff, and he shipped it all to me. And I've said this to his face many times, but I was extremely grateful, and a lot of that much music stuff has ended up in my studio here.

And I've got to say, he's a good egg. Well, we should have a museum in Toronto dedicated to the great people of Toronto. the cultural figures, the athletic figures, I'll give you another little piece of information, which all is fascinating. I'm interested in facts. And my late father-in-law had a small hotel, and when Jackie Robinson came to town,

he couldn't get into a hotel. And he ended up in my father-in-law's hotel. When Louis Armstrong came to town, he couldn't get into a hotel and he stayed at my father-law's hotel. When Joe Lewis came to town, the Joe Lewis punchers, he came to town,

he couldn't get into a hotel. He stayed at my father-law's hotel. Oh, you like that? That's nowhere in Canadian history. And I didn't know about it until my father-in-law and rest in peace, told me about it. Jerry, I feel like you will be back on Toronto, Mike,

because you have, you know what, But you can't teach experience. You've been around the block, and maybe this is a question I was going to ask, and I thought maybe it's disrespectful, but I'll ask it anyway. Do you find that you encounter any ageism from people who simply don't want to hear from a 90-year-old?

I don't care. People come to me. I have people come to me every day on the phone, think, can you give me a hand, can you tell me about this, tell me that. There are people that are interested. There are. And I try to, the one thing you do when you get a little older, you try to pass on your own experience and hope that it will help other people. That's all you can do. There's not many people left. You can tell you about what they learn from John Diefenbaker. I know John Diefenbaker really well. I like him. I grew to like him. He was the enemy,

and I grew to like him. That's another story. You can look that up and read my book. A leader must be a leader. It's in that book. A leader must be a leader. Jerry, thank you for this. We'll be in touch because I do want to get that photo

and we'll get you back on Toronto, Mike. I love this very much. You have my number. Call me anytime. Don't email me. I'm hacked, but you can get me on my phone anytime. We'll do. Thank you, Jerry.

Thank you. I appreciate it. All the very best. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. And that brings us to the end of our 1,000, 7883rd show. Go to Torontomike.com for all your Toronto mic needs. While you're there, click on the link to become a Patreon. That would be Patreon.

dot com slash Toronto Mike. All members welcome. Much love to Great Lakes Brewery. I'll be bringing some cold GLB to TMLX21. That is November 29th at noon at Palma's Kitchen in Mississauga. Everybody's invited. Palma pasta will make sure you're well fed. It's all on the house.

I hope Nick Ieini's is there. He's a proud sponsor of this program. program. Order your cannabis online right now. It is so discreet. It's shopkindling.ca. Free one-hour cannabis delivery. Welcome aboard kindling. Recycle my electronics.ca. You know the drill. Blue Sky Agency. Dog at blue sky agency.com is available now to help you with creative and dynamic work environments. And of course, Ridley Funeral Home. Listen to Life's Undertaking with Brad Jones. You won't regret it.

See you all Tuesday when Arash Medanee returns to Toronto Mike. I can't wait to catch up with Arash. We're going to be able to be. Thank you.