Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Neil Herland: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1501

Episode Date: May 31, 2024

In this 1501st episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Neil Herland about his career as a journalist, primarily with CBC News, running the joint CBC Radio-Canada Bureau at United Nations Headquarters, breaking news on CBC Radio and more. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, The Advantaged Investor podcast from Raymond James Canada, The Yes, We Are Open podcast from Moneris, The Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball Team and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail]

From the CBC News, the world this hour. I'm Neil Herland. We begin with breaking news from Washington. Welcome to episode 1501 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. Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. The Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team. The best baseball in the city outside the dome. Join me Sunday, I'm throwing out the first pitch at 1.45pm.

Neil I wanna see you there! And then I'll be on the mic recording live from beyond the left field fence. Find me, say hi. RecycleMyElectronics.ca. Committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past. Season six of Yes We Are Open, an award-winning Monaris podcast hosted by FOTM Al Gregor and Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921.

Today, making his highly anticipated Toronto Mike debut, it's the CBC's Neil Herland. Welcome Neil. Hi Mike, how are ya? How do I know you're Neil? Like how do I know you're not your twin brother? Well, I have ID with me. But how do I know that's not his ID? Well, it could be, that's true.

So, I need to ask you something, only a CBC, so your brother's not a journalist, is he? He's not, he's a lawyer and he lives in another country. I'm gonna keep my good eye on you to make sure. I'll be trying to find out during this episode if I have the real Neil Herland, a voice. Sometimes you're the last voice I hear before I fall asleep.

Like I literally have these Google speakers. I have one in my bedroom, there's one down here, there's one in the kitchen and I'll say, and I'm afraid to say it because it's gonna activate it, but I'll say, Google, what's the news? Did it activate? And then it'll start playing the news this hour or whatever. And often, just as I'm falling asleep,

it'll be, I'm Neil Herland. And then I'll be I'm Neil Herland and then I'll hear you tell me the news and then I'll drift away and so you're like the last voice I'll hear before I fall asleep. And you know while you're sleeping I'm up the whole night reading the news every night so. What's your shift at the CBC? Like what I work Sunday to Wednesday night I do four overnights a week so I come in eight o'clock on a Sunday night and I'm there till six in the morning. So right now it's like I'm trying to so you're basically this is early for you? Is it early for you? Well I have weekends off so I'm very fortunate. I used to do the weekend shift which was Thursday to Saturday night. And then eventually I got the Sunday, the coveted Sunday to Wednesday overnight

slot, which means you have a weekend of Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday daytime. Okay. I'm about to, uh, blow your tires here. I'm going to toot your horn. And so as I do that, I'm just going to let you know, this is not the CBC. So you might be a little far away from that mic actually. So I'm wondering if maybe you make a little adjustment, get like, if you can get five centimeters in front of that thing, you're going to be grateful you did that. I promise you. Okay. I'm a lot closer. There you go. Wow. There's everybody. There we go.

Okay. So you said, I said I pump your tires, blow your tires. That's like a, that's something completely different. I'm pumping your tires. I want to tell you, even before we met, before you made your Toronto Mike debut, I would say you're a great FOTM because you've been kind of instrumental with some great feedback. I know you listen and I feel like you might be the reason that Tom Harrington did Toronto Mike. Have I?

Yeah, he's never heard of you. In fact, what? Well, he had never heard of you. In fact, a lot. What? Well, I think probably most CBC folks now know exactly who you are. Thanks to you. Because you've built a reputation. I first discovered you when Mike Wise appeared on your show maybe 10 years ago.

Yeah, that was a long time ago. Yes, Mike was the 11 o'clock news anchor in Toronto at CBLT, if we can refer to the call letters. Yeah, I love the call letters. And he told me that he was on a podcast and I was reporting live for the 11 o'clock news every night during that era. And I had never heard of you

and I started listening to this podcast. Who's this guy who wants to talk to Mike Wise? Yeah, so I really, I was more interested in learning Mike Wise's life story. And in doing so I sort of, you know, latched onto the Toronto Mike podcast. Love it. Yeah. So, so would you consider yourself like, I'm curious, do you cherry pick the gap by the guest? Like how many, like what percentage you're episode 1501. You know, in the past you had asked me to appear on the podcast.

Of course, you're the last voice I hear before I go to bed. Yeah, I just- We sleep together. And the reason I said no repeatedly or I delayed my appearance was I just didn't think I was important enough to appear on the Toronto Miked podcast

because you've had some pretty big names. You've had Peter Mansbridge, you've had Tom Harrington, you know- Matt Galloway. Matt Galloway. So I just didn't, Dwight Drummond. Yeah. I just didn't think I was like big enough. And you know, occasionally you'll have like, you know, an obscure radio host from Brampton that I've never heard of. And I didn't want to be the guy that people are listening to the podcast.

And they say to themselves like, who is this guy? I don't know who this person is. Why is he on the podcast? Well, if I may, I invite people over because I want to talk to them. I never consider for a moment whether this is somebody who will draw flies. Is this a big name? You know, I don't think, Oh, I should have Ron McLean on instead of who will I pick on Laurie Cullen. Okay. Unless you're one of those Ron Sexsmith,

Kurt Swinghammer, indie Toronto music heads, you're like, who's Laurie Cullen? I actually don't give a shit whether you know the name. What matters is that I wanna talk to this person and I wanted to talk to you. So don't worry about whether you're Tom Harrington, okay? Tom Harrington's got a couple of years on you. He was once a Neil Herlin too.

That's true. Yeah. So let's get you now. Like the fact that you are at the CBC. I'm at the reach for the top stage of my career to borrow a Tom Harrington metaphor. Right, okay. Now we need to shut out the great Mike Stafford, okay, who appeared on, I believe

he appeared on Reach for the Top as well, but he definitely also appeared on Jeopardy, but okay, I digress. So because you're an FOTM and I know you listen, feel free to sprinkle the inside references throughout and I'll be the judge of how big a listener you are. Where will you be? Where will you be, Neil, on June 27, between six and nine PM. Are you working? That's a Thursday night. Thursday night? I might be free that night. Okay. This is important because I literally, in fact, you're getting me a little sauced

and I think that might make for an entertaining episode. I don't know if you're allowed to drink on the CBC. Are you allowed to drink beer while you read the news on CBC? I would think that would be against the corporate policies. I would not do it myself. You wouldn't do that. And is there like, I know that would be against corporate policy, but do you think that might be against CRTC policy? Like the CRTC have a rule when you're on the public airwaves, which I'm not on, but if you're, they have no jurisdiction here, Neil, but do you think that might be a rule you can't actually drink while you're

broadcasting? I don't think that's a rule, but it might be an FCC rule in the US. And here's a little, years ago I was working on a on cue as a producer at CBC. And there was a cut they would do for public radio stations in the US. And there's like the seven band words by the FCC,

which if you know the George Carlin routine, there's like the seven words you by the FCC, which if you know the George Carlin routine, there's like the seven words you can't say on the air. And so CBC had a producer who would edit the US version of Q and they would have to go through and make sure that the seven words did not appear because on Canadian broadcasting, we can kind of have, you know, they're a bit more relaxed about some of the, you know, there are a bit more relaxed

about some of the, you know, salty language that you can use. A hundred percent. I totally see that. And I'll just pick one of those seven words. I think one of them might be bitch. Okay. Like I feel like you can say bitch in right in the proper context, you could drop that on cue. I feel I don't have any evidence of this on my hand, but I feel like that might be something that would have to come out for the American broadcasters. We tend not, we tend to be very careful for morning radio because there's a lot of families and kids that are listening. So we tend to bleep out swear words that appear on morning radio. But if you watch the national at night, there is occasionally maybe once a year You'll hear a protester or a swear word in the context of something where someone's really angry and raging and you might hear a clip

With an F bomb so I'm really looking forward to getting to know you better and I was pointing out I'm a little sauce and I'm not totally sauce. I was at Great Lakes Brewery for a meeting Mm-hmm, and I had a couple I had a few drinks of Great Lakes beer and I want to shout out to good people at Great Lakes Brewery. A couple places I want to go. One is I want to say hello to Ian Hennomansing. Ian Hennomansing loves his Toronto Mike. So he's listening to you right now, Neil. Great. Ian's a wonderful guy. And you know, there's something I have in common with Ian. We both did debating in university.

I don't think Ian knows that I did debating, but Ian was like a well-known debater on the debating circuit in Canada. What university did you go to? I went to Carleton University. I studied journalism. So in first and second year, I joined the university debating team.

And in first year, I made it with my debating partner at the time, Linda McMillan. We ended up in first year, we made it to the North American Debating Championship, which was held at Dalhousie in Halifax. The following year, we qualified for the World Debating Championship,

which was held at Princeton. So we made it to the Worlds at Princeton. We debated Gerald Butts, who later became one of pure or Justin Trudeau's, right, you know, right hand men. And I think we may have beaten Gerald Butts in a debate, but don't quote me on that. It's been many years we did perform quite well against Gerald Butz in a debating tournament. Amazing. So you're at Carlton, you're a debater, and Ian Hannah Mansing, a little bit older than you, and he was also a debater. Ian Hannah Mansing will make Ian, sorry, handsome man thing, will make his Toronto Mike debut at some point. When you were at Q, and I'm going to bounce around a

bit, but then we're going to pick this up, but that was Gion Gomez? She was the host of Q. That's correct. Did he treat you? Well, this is I'm not gonna get you in trouble I know you're still at the CBC. I'm not gonna ask any god your questions, but did he treat you well? Yeah, I have no complaints about working with him. That's it. You know, you just tell the truth on this show. That's perfect Okay, so again, I considered you a great FOTM before your first appearance. Here you're making your first appearance in the CBC land. I saw yesterday that Simon Dingley's wife, Jeannie Lee, just up and announced her retirement yesterday and I'm hoping to get her exit interview.

Did you tune in for Simon Dingley's exit interview by any chance? I did and when I was young, I grew up, so I was born in Montreal and I grew up in Ottawa. So I grew up watching the CTV stations in Montreal and Ottawa. So the Montreal station was CFCF. Both Simon Dingley and Jeannie Lee were both reporters there.

And when I was a kid, my brother and I, we loved watching I Dream of Jeannie. Of course. And when we saw that there was a reporter named Jeannie Lee, like we just lost it. We were just so excited. So I must've watched Jeannie Lee in her first year of reporting on CFCF. Wow. Okay. So it was called pulse news at the time and an interesting,

like this is an interesting tidbit. So Gord Martinow was at CFCF Montreal and he was hired at City TV and they took the name Pulse from Montreal and that's where City Pulse came from. See, you know the show well because I was going there because that's exactly true. And then I learned from my episode with John Gallagher, just I guess about a week ago, I talked to John Gallagher. There's been a lot of episodes lately, so time is a bit hazy for me. But John Gallagher revealed that Gordon Martinow before that Montreal gig was actually cutting his teeth in Halifax. So shout out to FOTM Gordon Martino coming up next family. He wasn't

family. What's the name of the sitcom? Uh, shit. How do I not remember the name of this, this show? Uh, modern family. That's it. Okay. So the final shift of Gordon Martin's illustrious City TV career, he throws to Modern Family and then he's gone. Like he's just gone. Okay. I don't, I don't know if you, uh, you were aware of his final words there, uh, as an anchor at City TV. I was not, but I remember, uh, I was working at CTV Ottawa in my first job and City TV was originally not available in Ottawa, but in the late 90s or mid 90s, they got a transmitter in Ottawa.

And so you could finally watch City TV in Ottawa. And I remember the CTV Ottawa newsroom when they actually saw City TV for the first time on their screens and they thought Mark Daly and Gord, they were just really blown away. Just one of it was the style of the newscast was quite different and, you know, groundbreaking maybe at the time. It was cool. It was cool.

You can say that, it's cool. And, you know, there was a certain swagger and anchorman quality that both Gord Martino had and also Mark Daly. Let's hear a little Mark Daly here. The following program contains adult themes, nudity and coarse language. Viewer and parental discretion is advised. So as you're, you know, and we'll get to your origin story here, but did you ever

wish you had a voice like that? Neil? No, I think everyone's got like their own voice and everyone's got like their own style and, uh, you know, maybe, I don't know, did he smoke cigarettes like for years, like that may have something to do with his voice. Yeah, that's when you find out someone's got a great voice. Yeah, I started drinking at nine and I've been smoking, you know, cigs since I was 12 years old.

And you're like, oh, that's how you get that voice. So I don't know about Mark Daly's secret, but I will say I find you have a distinctive voice where I am known to do a Neil Herland impression. Really? I do a Toronto mic. Hey, do it! No, I'm just kidding. I don't really. And I'm still not sure I'm talking to Neil Herland impression. Really? I do a Toronto mic. Okay, do it. No, I'm just kidding. I don't really. And I'm still not sure I'm talking to Neil Herland,

but we'll see. The jury's still out here. Could be the twin brother I learned about here. So let's go back to Ottawa. So you're at Carleton and I know you start on CJ, I hope I get these call letters from out of town places, right? But CJ OH TV. Yeah, but your first journalism job, it's at extra. Yeah. So I in first year of university, I started writing for the student newspaper, the charlatan at Carlton, the

new student newspaper was called the charlatan. And after first year I had clippings, I started then I went to places that actually paid including Extra Magazine, which if you remember back in the day had newsstands everywhere. And they published an edition in Ottawa, Vancouver and Toronto, and I was originally hired at the Ottawa version of Extra, which was called Capital Extra.

The Toronto one was called Extra and the Vancouver one was called Extra West. And I got a press pass for Parliament Hill and I became Extra's Parliament Hill correspondent. And I was covering federal politics starting in second year university for Extra. And we landed some pretty big interviews. We got Mike Harris, we got Bob Ray,

we got Lynn McLeod during the 1995 Ontario election. And then I got a sit down interview with Preston Manning for Extra Magazine. And that really sparked national headlines. McLean's Magazine wrote a piece about it. The Vancouver Sun newspaper wrote a piece about it. It got like a lot of attention. And it was a time when the Reform Party,

led by Preston Manning, was really trying to make itself appeal broadly to a wider swath of the electorate. And so they agreed to do a sit down interview with Extra to try to sell their economic policies. Good for you, you know, all you need is a press pass and some gusto and you're off to the races, right Neil? And it was a really exciting time, you know, so Extra for the people who may not be familiar

as a gay and lesbian, it was a magazine slash newspaper. It's now a digital website. So they, you know, rest in peace. Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. Yes. We don't say rest in peace on this show. We say shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. Exactly. So they, you know, if you remember back in the day, every street corner in Toronto would have like I Now, Extra, a bunch of real estate publications. And you know, that whole industry has really shrunk. You know, the alt weeklies, the monthlies.

Well, I want to shout out Basement Dweller, who's on the live stream because we're at live.torontomike.com. And he's also much like I am, he's missing those free newsstand magazines and those community papers, you know, that was a big part of us growing up, right? Those newsstands. Yeah. If you recall, that that was a big part of us growing up, right? Those newsstands.

Yeah. If you recall, like on before the weekend, if you were going to plan like what bands you'd go to, what clubs you'd come out on a Thursday, you'd have to go through the listings to find out what was happening and you know, that's like a lost art form, the alt weekly. So you're at extra and that was what you write one of the, uh, yeah. So I was going to Carlton university studying Extra and that was what you write one of the yeah, so I was going to Carleton University studying journalism And I was writing part-time for extra for three years

All right, so pick us up. So how do we get to? CJ OH TV so in high school it actually goes back to my high school days So in high school, I got a job. So there's the X in Toronto, which is the Canadian National Exhibition. And there used to be an exhibition in Ottawa called the Central Canada Exhibition. And every year, the CTV Ottawa station, CJOH, would set up a big pavilion and they would broadcast the six o'clock news live every night. And there would be like hundreds of people there, like fans, like groupies. And they would sit there and watch, you know, the legacy, the legend of Ottawa, max keeping would read the six o'clock max keeping. Yeah.

Okay. I'm learning something. Yeah. The late max keeping and you know, they needed a promo and marketing team to show up there to give out like stickers and fridge magnets and to hold the autograph cards. So for four years when I was in high school, I held the autograph cards at CTV Ottawa. And I, you know, I was part of the, you know, the promo team.

So they would let us give out like fridge magnets and TV schedules and Max would sign the autographs and we would hold the autograph cards for Max. So he was also the news director in addition to being the six o'clock anchor. So I got myself an internship there when I was going to Carlton and they all remembered me from when I had worked there in high school

in the summertime for the marketing team. And after third year of Carleton, I got a part-time job in fourth year of Carleton as a weekend reporter at CJOH television. And there's quite an interesting story of how I got this. I love interesting stories, Neil. Yeah, so what happened is every summer they would hire And there's quite an interesting story of how I got this. So. I love interesting stories, Neil. Yeah. So what happened is every summer they would hire often a third

and a fourth year student to work on weekends as a reporter. And one of my classmates at Carleton, Steve Chow, who later became the CTV Asia correspondent and later joined Al Jazeera and has now had like an incredible international career. So Steve Chow was working after third year. They posted a job saying hiring a weekend reporter. I applied. I didn't get it. My classmates Steve got it. I was crushed. And then fourth year I come back first week of September.

I'm at the Carlton Journalism School and I walk into the lobby and there's two of my classmates and they're Gossiping and one of them said hey, did you hear Steve worked at CJ OH this summer? The other person's like no Wow, that's incredible. And then the other person said yeah, and they even offered him a weekend reporting job this year but he said no because he wanted to focus on his studies and This classmate of mine said oh said no, because he wanted to focus on his studies. And this classmate of mine said, oh, that's too bad. I'd love that job. And I heard that, and I ran to a payphone,

because none of us had cell phones then. I dropped a quarter into the payphone, called the TV station, asked to speak to the news director. I said, hey, I don't know if you remember me, but I did an internship last year. I hear you need a weekend reporter. And the news director at the time, Dave McGinn said, yes, I do.

And he said, could you drop off your resume today? Because people didn't really email resumes then. So I ran to like one of the printers in the journalism school at Carleton, printed out my resume, ran over to the TV station, dropped off my resume with the security guard at the front desk. I get a phone call the next morning saying,

can you come in this afternoon? So I thought I was going in for a job interview. I get there, he's got a contract on his table and says, welcome to the team. And so I got hired as a weekend reporter, which is typically covering fires and car accidents, community fundraisers and the rest is history. See in Buffalo, that would have been a full-time job

if you were covering the fires in Buffalo, but this is Ottawa, so it's just a part of it. Yeah, so it was probably leaning more heavily towards the the charity fundraisers and you know, so the weekend anchor at the time was Dave Wren who was a CTV national reporter on Parliament Hill during the week and on weekends he had a second job anchoring the weekend news at CJ OH and you know, he was he was quite a character like he was an old school newsman and you know he would announce the 649 numbers during the

Saturday night newscast at the end right and but before the newscast he'd pull out his wallet pull out his own 649 ticket check the numbers and we lived in we were terrified that he would some night win the lottery and then just like leave the station. Well he kept his job, Kent Brockman. And then I'd have to maybe step into the anchor chair and take over for him. So that was like, you're crossing your fingers, okay, your nightmare, but that would be the best thing ever that could happen to you. I feel like baptism by fire. Now when you tell the story of like overhearing about this opening and you run into a pay phone, drop it in the quarter, quarter, find out what you got to do. That sounds like a scene from like, remember the late shift when Jay Leno was like hiding in

the closet to hear like who was going to replace Johnny Carson because he wanted the gig and he didn't want David Letterman. Do you have any, any recall of this? This is like a scene from the late shift. I vaguely remember watching it. And I just remember just staring at like the actor playing Jay Leno and just thinking like the chin was just not right. It's tough to get that chin right. You know, they don't have enough clay in all of Hollywood to get that. Maybe like the prosthetics have gotten better in the makeup artistry. I feel if they made that movie today Jay would audition to play himself. Like this would be like I'll play myself in this thing here. But okay, when they make the movie of Neil Hurlins life

That's gonna be quite the scene when you you know, you're using the whisper 2000 and you overhear this conversation and you're sprinting to the payphone Yeah, I hope I get to maybe Stu Stone should direct this this is gonna be really really really cool Okay, so you're off to the races now because you're on television I'm on television in the Ottawa market. And, uh, you know, the great thing about working for a CTV station is that especially on weekends, they would pick up your stories and they would run on CTV national news and they would, like Lord, Lord Robertson might be thrown to you.

Well, it was Sandy Ronaldo on weekends, but Sandy Ronaldo did throw to me. Long may she run. Yeah, so this was like pretty exciting, you know, to be on the CTV national news, Sandy Ronaldo throws to you, local stations across the country. And every time we did a story, so back in the day we would record our sign off,

like CJOH news, but then we would also do a second sign off, which would be CTV news Ottawa at the end so that the network could take the story as well with the CTV sign off. This is awesome. Now a moment about, I know you work at CBC, but a moment with Sandy Ronaldo, I don't remember a time before Sandy Ronaldo. Like I've done some math.

She must be 136 years old. Like she has literally been around forever and she's still anchoring the news over there. Like she's still there. Right? Yeah. She's anchoring during the week now. She's off weekends. You know this, they would. Yeah. They introduced a new newscast or something. Like I kind of caught wind of this. Yeah. I think it's at five or five, you know, on the CBC head. So I struggle with my CTV. I understand. I hear it's at five 30. I see. I only watch CBC. So there's at five or five. You know, I'm a CBC head, so I struggle with my CTV. I understand that. I hear it's at 530. I see her.

I only watch CBC, so there's no way I know what time it's on. Well, you're contractually obligated, but I have seen her on like bus shelters. Like there she is. And I'm like, oh, Sandy Ronaldo, long may you run. You know, like let's go. Okay. So how do you end up at the CBC?

And then we'll walk through this. I got some clips and I got some questions. So that's an interesting question. So I graduated from Carleton University. The commencement address was delivered by Peter Jennings. Wow. You might remember him. Really great. Of course. Who had started his career at CJOH in Ottawa. He's an Ottawa boy. How could I, by the way, who do you think you're talking about? How could I forget Peter Jennings? I am turning 50 in June, Neil. Of course, I remember Peter Jennings. So Peter Jennings was the commencement speaker and I graduate. It was, I know you might find this hard to believe, but you know, it was a period of media cuts and job losses and layoffs. And, you know, it felt like there was doom and gloom in the industry back in

1997 when I graduated. You're you turning 50 soon as well. I'm doing some math. No, I'm 48. Okay. I'm turning 49 this year. Okay. We're closer than I thought. You know, you present younger. Oh, thank you. There you go. And then keep going. Cause you're a nice guy. That's, you present younger. Oh, thank you. There you go. Keep going, because you're a nice guy. That's true, though. So there was there were some expansion stations happening in the country.

So, for example, that that year, 1997, Global finally got into Montreal, into Quebec. And there were two new independent stations that were starting in Calgary and Edmonton, which at the time were called A Channel. So the original A Channel, the A stood for Alberta, and they had also applied for a license for Vancouver, which they wanted to call the V Channel, but they only got the A Channel in Alberta. Now, years later, that brand A Channel was used

on other stations across the country. And that's where the A came from. And then, you know, at that point, the A no longer stood for Alberta. But the A Channel was launching in Calgary and Edmonton. These were like two new independent stations. They were modeled after City TV. And so they had like a street front studio

downtown Edmonton. I was hired by the Edmonton station. So they hired about 130 people in the summer of 97. Most of us didn't even have a job interviews. Like I sent them a VHS tape, which is how you applied for jobs back in the day. Like you'd have to mass copy VHS tapes with your demo reel on it. You'd have to mass copy VHS tapes with your demo reel on it.

You'd have to get like a bubble envelope and you'd have to spend like $20 to mail it. And then you weren't sure if the news director would get it. And I knew this from the Ottawa station where I worked at, there was like stacks of VHS tapes that were just like falling off news directors desks because people would constantly send them VHS tapes to look at it.

And so I was hired just based on the tape, no job interview. They flew me to Edmonton, they launched in September and the salaries were extremely low. Like I think, I can't remember the exact salary. It might've been around $25,000 a year. Okay, so we're talking late 90s, right? Yeah, so they were paying reporters between 25 and 30 a year to be on air.

It's still very low because I remember what I was making in 99. Yeah, so these were like starter salaries and then they sort of would lure you by saying like, well, it's Edmonton, it's a major market. And they were really playing that up. But I had already worked in Ottawa and I think Ottawa and Edmonton might be like

medium sized markets. Like I would say Toronto and Vancouver are major markets in this country. So I was hired there, the pay was peanuts, the working conditions were- But you're in beautiful Edmonton, Alberta. I was. There's value there.

So I get there like the first week in September and I get off the plane and it's like five degrees with a howling wind. Like people don't realize this in Toronto is that in places like Alberta, like summer ends the last week in August and then winter starts the first week of September. There is no fall. Like you just feel this like you skip that. Yeah.

Like this freezing wind just hits you. So it was a tough place to work. After one month there, I got a job interview at CBC Edmonton. And just based on the job interview, I quit the A channel. Just based on the interview. Just based on the fact.

That's a ballsy move, Neil. It was a ballsy move. I go to CBC television in Edmonton. I sit down with the news director of CBC television and he said, hey kid, I like your tape. His name was John Baker. And he said, I like your tape. I don't have any work for you.

I just wanted to meet you. So then I said, well. Well, you're the idiot who quit his job for the job. Yeah, so then I said, well, do you know of any other work? And he's like, well, he's like, do you want to work for CBC radio? I said, do I want to work for CBC radio? Of course I want to work for CBC radio.

So he calls up at the time radio and television were two different beasts in two different buildings in different parts of Edmonton. So I go in the next day to meet the news director of CBC radio in Edmonton, 7.40.m. at the time, which is the same frequency that they had here in Toronto. Right. And she offers me contract work like right off the bat. So and oh and the salary was double what I was making at the A channel. There you go. Okay. So any were you insulted at all that they said you had a face for radio?

No, I don't think they said that but you know, I think now there's a lot more integration of radio and TV So if you work at you know, if you're working for City TV, you might appear on 680 if you appear on CTV Toronto, you'll appear on 1010. Oh, yeah, like I'm thinking of good people like Mike Apple, right? Is he radio? Is he TV? He's both. Yeah, you can kind of transcend any medium. So I was hired at CBC radio. It was like an incredible experience. It was a phenomenal time in Alberta history. Ralph Klein was the premier. And within six months, I was at the legislature

covering Alberta politics regularly, interviewing Ralph Klein and all of his cabinet ministers. Ralph Klein was like a living legend, even like at that time, he had been a former journalist in Calgary at CFCN television. He had become the mayor of Calgary and eventually he became the premier of Alberta. He, because he had been a journalist, he knew exactly how to, you know, he knew how to be tough when reporters would ask him questions.

And so, you know, if you weren't certain, if you had any hesitation in your question, if you asked something that wasn't quite like clear, he would just pounce on you. And, you know, so you had to be really prepared for a scrum with him because he was sharp, he was very sharp, because he had done the same job as you. He had been a journalist in the field.

And so he knew what kind of questions worked, how to ask a question and how to deflect a question. So you really had to be prepared in a scrum with Ralph Klein. Yeah, I suppose this was a was great education for you to be covering the Alberta government of Ralph Klein that early in your career You know if you can handle that you can handle just about anything Yeah, and it was you know the stories in Alberta are incredible. You've got wildfires disasters I remember covering wildfires. You know you would

You know you occasionally smell smoke from wildfires here, but you know, there were some summer. Yeah. But in Alberta, you get like smoke and haze and Edmonton Calgary. Like you smell the fire. You can feel the fire. And when you go in the fire zone, like it's, you know, you see, like you see the smoke, the smoke in the distance, you feel it in your body. And when you go home, like I remember washing all my clothes cause it's not smoky. Yeah. Okay. So this is a, yeah, you've been thrown in the fire, literally speaking here.

Okay. We've got yet a CBC news now on the radio side. How do you end up running the joint CBC radio Canada bureau of, at the United Nations headquarters. So I was working on they gave me a contract in Edmonton. I eventually I wanted a staff job at the CBC. So I moved to Fredericton to the other side of the country to New Brunswick, to a small and I don't know if you've ever been to Fredericton.

But I have it's a small town of 45,000. But it's got two universities, it's got a legislature, it's got a big shopping mall, and it has a CBC station. So I spent three years in New Brunswick, and then afterwards I went to Saskatchewan for a year where I was working for CBC television. When I went to Saskatchewan, there was a project I was working on where they hired three bilingual reporters

across the country and we were filing in English and French. So I went to school in French. So I was born in Montreal and I went to school in French in Ottawa. I didn't have a single, so my family's Anglophone. We spoke English at home, but at school, our schooling was in French. This is French Immersion, right?

Yeah, French Immersion program. All my kids are in French Immersion. Yeah, so I end up working for Radio Canada in Saskatchewan. And I would report a story in English. I'd translate it into French. I would work with an editor at Radio Canada, and I would voice it in French. And then it would air on the the Radio Canada newscast in Saskatchewan

Which at the time was called so swar they've now rebranded all their local newscast to be called the Journal which is the name of their Flagship their 10 o'clock their national newscast is called little a journal and they also call their local newscasts little a journal You have a great accent. Well, it helps go in a French version, I guess. Is that your secret? Yeah. Okay. I can't even enunciate proper English words, so I'm just jealous. So eventually I end up at CBC headquarters in Toronto.

Okay. And that was in 2002, 2003. So wait, do you just parlay? So you're going from like, you're going, you're in Edmonton, then you're in Fredericton, then you're in Saskatch just parallel, so you're going from like, you're in Edmonton, then you're in Fredericton, then you're in Saskatchewan, and then eventually there's an opening in Toronto. Yeah, eventually I end up in Toronto at the CBC headquarters.

But did you target Toronto? Are you like, this is the center of the Canadian universe, I would like to be there. Yeah, I wanted to work in a larger center. I felt that, you know, it's difficult to live in a small town. If you're from a big city and you end up in a small town, it can be very difficult to adjust.

Even an Ottawa guy would have difficulty in a place like Frederickton. I think because I consider Ottawa like kind of quaint and smaller, but maybe it's all right. Got a million people now. Frederickton has 45,000 people, right? Like those numbers are different. Yes. Like my mother lives in Nepean, which has like 120,000 people. You know, that's like three times larger than Fredericton, right? All right. Good point. Okay. Yeah. That's you bring the facts. I like that. So I really wanted to live in a big city. I felt that I had paid my dues across the

country. I thought it was time. And so I came to Toronto for a desk job working. We used to have a version, we used to have a network called News World International. And you remember the CBC News Network originally was called CBC News World. And we had a full network here in Toronto, which is still now on the air. But we had a second network called News World International,

which was a for-profit venture. Originally, it was started with Power Corporation, and we broadcast a 24-hour news network to the US using CBC foreign correspondence and other networks that we partnered with around the world. And I came to Toronto to work as a writer and producer networks that we partnered with around the world. And I came to Toronto to work as a writer and producer on that. Eventually I became the morning show producer of that.

And so the anchors were Noreen Virgin. The late great from today's special. Yeah, so Noreen Virgin was the morning host. I tried so hard to get her on Toronto Mic. I really wanted Noreen Virgin on Toronto Mic because I loved today's special. Yeah, I remembered her from today's special and from polka dot door. I remember from polka dot door too. Well, we're only a year and a bit apart here.

Uh, we got some similar touch stones there and uh, I used to watch a lot of polka dot door on tv. Oh, yeah I think steve paikin is pokeroo Really? He's certainly tall enough for it Yeah, i'm i'm starting that rumor here. Okay. But Noreen Virgin, I've sat so sad when I learned she had passed because I really wanted to talk to Noreen and I also wanted her to be alive. She sounded like a wonderful person. She certainly was an incredible anchor to work with. You know,

she had hosted the national news at CBC. She had been an actor. She had this really varied career, and she was such an incredible and warm and kind co-worker. And not every anchor is like that. Like when you work as a producer, some people are divas. I want that list. Are you ready to name the divas? Yeah. You know, I think the business has changed actually a lot in the last few years. So you weeded out a lot of the divas. Well, I think that if you're, if you're a host now, like you're going through your own copy, you might be doing a lot of the writing in the show.

You might be producing and booking guests. So, you know, the days of big egos and personalities may be over. So Nureen Virgin was one of the hosts, Jennifer Mossop, who had been at CH Hamilton. She joined us. Sandra Lewis was one of our anchors there. There was a full roster of hosts and anchors.

That eventually was shut down when I was there. In 2005, Al Gore, the former vice president of the US, led a group of investors, and they bought News World International, and they moved it to San Francisco, and they called this to San Francisco and they called this thing Current TV and I think they paid 75 million US at the time and the only they didn't get the studios because the studios belong to CBC the

staff belong to CBC what they ended up doing is they built their own studio in San Francisco and all they got was the, what are called carriage deals with the cable companies. These were deals that said like, we're on channel 103 in Washington, channel 113 on digital cable in New York. So they had all these cable deals and they were in 20 million households in the US.

And that was seen as like a very valuable thing that someone might pay 75 million dollars for. It was pre-YouTube. YouTube didn't even exist and their concept was they wanted to do like user-generated journalism from around the world. But you know people didn't have cell phones, people weren't used to editing their own stuff and so it tended to be a lot of backpackers who were doing travelogues and the stories just weren't that gripping. Eventually they folded. That's an inconvenient truth.

Oh, that's a good line. So you can borrow that for your next interview. What ends up happening is they shut down and I'm still in the CBC building in Toronto. A few months later, we get this email at CBC saying opening opening New York City United Nations Bureau of Producer. So starting in the 1950s, CBC had a presence at the United Nations headquarters in New York. So there's a press gallery and a press corps

at the United Nations. There's probably between 100 and 200 journalists who covered the United Nations in New York City from all over the world. You've got the BBC, you've got NHK Japan, you've got CNN, Fox News, you've got networks that you've never even heard of. Right. You know, Iranian state television was there and, and there's an interesting story I'll tell you in a moment about Iranian state television.

And so CBC had a bureau there. There were times when we had a correspondent, there were times when it was just a producer. So the job that they were looking for was a bureau producer, a one person bureau that would run the United Nations Bureau. And we had correspondents in Washington, plus journalists in Montreal and Toronto. And when there was a big story at the UN, they would fly in from Washington or Canada to cover the story. And we had a permanent producer in the UN Press Corps

who would book guests, do interviews, go on the air. So every week, I would be on the air. And we have a lot of properties at CBC. So for example, we have a shortwave radio service that used to exist called Radio Canada International, which we used to have transmitters. Is that gone now? It is gone. So it exists in a sense in that there's a there was a website and RCI sort of, there was a website and RCI sort of, it sort of transitioned from a shortwave radio service to a web streaming radio channel. And now we have journalists from,

who write in different languages. So I think we have like a Spanish and a Russian journalist and maybe an Arabic journalist. It just seems like that defeated the whole purpose. Yeah, so now it exists as a website where we translate some of the CBC articles into different languages, and either new Canadians who speak those languages can read CBC articles

in other languages, or people in other parts of the world can read about Canada on the website. So we had, but back in the day, it was a shortwave radio service with its own programming that was heard all over the website. So we had, but back in the day, it was a shortwave radio service with its own programming that was heard all over the world. So every week I'd be on Radio Canada International talking about what's happening at the UN. And then when there were big things happening, like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,

the president of Iran would come to the UN and give a speech. You would cover it and you would be in the room with him. So I apply for this job. And the skillset was very difficult. They're looking for someone who's an experienced journalist who could potentially go on air, who has a track record, who's worked in radio and television, and who's bilingual because you have to,

so they would rotate back and forth. You know, it would be a Francophone who had worked for a Radio Canada and then it would switch to a CBC person and they'd go back and forth. And ideally like a twin in case one of you gets sick, you can just swap in the other. So what ended up happening is the person before

who was leaving the job, his name was Louis Amman. He came from Radio Canada. He was from Montreal and he was leaving. So they sort of felt like, okay, now it's a CBC person's turn. So I applied for this job and in 2005, I get this job and I moved to New York City. You know, you were looking for a bigger city and you said, what's bigger than Toronto? I know I'm off to New York city. Good for you. Okay. Now there's some fun stories. Like I was, uh, learning that. And I don't know, you're going to tell me this story so I can understand it, but the previous UN secretary general apologized to you on the day he was sworn

in. Yeah. So I was there during the period of Kofi Annan, who was a beloved UN secretary general and he became a rock star. He was on Oprah, he was on the cover of magazines, he was invited to all the big celebrity events in New York and the US really liked him and eventually when the US decided to invade Iraq what ended up happening was Kofi Annan sort of admonished the US. The US didn't really like that and so they thought when Kofi Annan's term was ending they wanted someone who would be a less flashy secretary general and they found it in the South Korean Ban Ki-moon.

And so he became the secretary general. Something that a lot of people don't know about the UN is that it's got two official working languages, English and French as well. So to become a UN secretary general, traditionally you had to speak French. And it's the five permanent members of the UN Security

Council that really have the final say on who becomes the secretary general. And one of the five permanent members is France. And so the president of France, Jacques Chirac wanted to make sure that the secretary general always spoke French. So, uh, Bon sort of said he spoke French, and on the day that he was sworn in, he held a news conference, and I was on the list of people who could ask a question.

So my question comes, I decide to ask a question in French for Radio Canada, and it was a real softball question. The question is, I asked him in French, you know, tell me about the importance of the French language in your mind to the secretary general's position. It was a real softball question.

And he didn't understand the question. And he just stumbled and fumbled in French and he really couldn't answer it on the day that he was sworn in. So it became a bit of an issue in Quebec that the new and also in France that the new secretary general wasn't quite as bilingual as had been advertised. So that night they had the secretary general's inauguration ball, which is, you know, maybe a bit less glamorous than like the president's inauguration ball in in Washington, but I was invited to this thing. I get there and he sees me and he

takes me aside and he apologizes to me for not being able to answer the question in French. Look at that. That was day one. Look at you making a mark there. Okay, cool. So we've got you in New York. This is a very interesting gig you've got with the UN. Now, how do we get you back here? Like I go to bed, I said, you're the last voice I hear. If it's not my wife, it's you, Neil.

Okay, so that's your only competition here. I'll hear you tell me the news and then I might drift away. This is like a regular thing I do. How do you get this gig where you're you're you're reading the news to me on CBC? So in 2008, I come back to Canada, and I sort of flowed through a series of jobs at the CBC. I did a lot of writing and producing. I produced the nightly business show with Fred Langan for a summer. If you remember that, I worked with Jeannie Lee who- The aforementioned. The Jeannie Lee. So I had worked already as a business- Who should become an FOTM. She did tweet at me this morning that she's shy. I don't believe

her. Is Jeannie Lee shy? She can be shy. Because we had talked when her husband was on Toronto, but her husband only came on Toronto Mike literally. Like, this is kind of funny. It might tie into you in a minute, but Simon Dingley said, I will come on when I'm retired and he came on, I think like two days before his last shift. But he asked me to not drop the episode until he was gone. Like he went to Mexico or something.

So it's like, I, I never do this, but I did it for Simon. Like it says, fine. I can the episode for two days and then I drop it. Then I'm chatting. I can't remember how email or Twitter or something with Jeannie. And I'm like, you should come on Toronto Mike too. And she goes, when I retire, she says, this is only like six weeks ago or something. And then she announces her retirement. And then she's like, I'm shy. How shy is Jeannie Lee? Well, I've always found her outgoing and friendly, but I've been a coworker of her since about 2003, 2004. So for example, around 2004, I started filling in as a live business reporter. We used to have a studio at the Toronto Stock Exchange where we would have live business

updates every hour. And you know, it's an electronic exchange. So there was no longer a trading floor. So it was, you know, it was a very showy thing with these like big blue screens that would show like the stock ticker and the price. But it, you know, it had an exciting feel with that you were live at the stock exchange,

even though it was like, it was basically like on the ground floor, it was just a couple of like flat screen TVs with like a ticker tape behind it. But you know, it felt like, you know, it felt like a stock exchange, so to speak. So that's where I first met her. And then we just sort of, you know, we chatted over the years. So I talked to Jeannie regularly, probably she seems like she's a bit of an insomniac because she will message me like up until one, one two three in the morning Okay, so while I'm on shift, I Jeannie and I sort of chit chat back and forth. She keeps you company

Well, she does get hurt over there. Okay, so is this what did you say? 2008 but bottom line is what was there was there an opportunity in Toronto and you decided well Well, I was you know, so I there an opportunity in Toronto and you decided well I'll come back to Canada? So I had already lived in Toronto so when they move you back to Canada they call this repatriation when they repatriate you back to Canada you typically go back to the city where you last worked unless you you know ask them to move you so for example Lindsay Duncombe spent a number of years in Washington and Los Angeles for the CBC. And when she decided to come back, she came back to Vancouver because her family's in Western Canada and she wanted to be closer to her family.

But you're, you're an Ottawa guy, but you've decided that your base should be. I have a lot of friends here. I like the city of Toronto. It's a great place to live. So I returned to Toronto and I did a series of writing and producing jobs. And then I sort of did a lot of fill in jobs. So I spent a year in Calgary when the flood happened, the great Calgary flood of 2013. I went there. I did, I think flood stories for six months.

I stayed for a full year. Then I came back to Toronto. I worked for the 11 o'clock news in Toronto as a live TV reporter every night. I went to Montreal around 2016. I did various stints at CBC in Ottawa, where I would spend like two to three months with my family while working on air at CBC Ottawa. And eventually, they asked me to fill in reading the hourly

news in Toronto, because that's one of the jobs I had done over the years in various CBC. So probably going back to New Brunswick, I was reading the hourly news in New Brunswick. So we have local hourly news across the country. And then on evenings and weekends and overnight, we have network hourly news that comes out of Toronto. So the national hourly news that comes out of Toronto. So the national hourly news typically comes out of Toronto. So they asked me to fill in a few times

and I didn't mess it up. And there were some pretty big nights. I remember the Toronto Danforth shooting was an especially like emotional night. You know, there was just a real sense of shock because I don't think in Canada we've had that type of public or mass shooting. And so it really rattled people.

And I was working that night and eventually it became my permanent job. So I was sort of like an occasional guest fill in host. And then eventually that became Karen Howelluck, who read the overnight news for many years. She retired and eventually I got her gig. Okay, who else is reading the news with? I had Claude Fague on the show. Yeah, Claude is still there. So Claude fills in a lot.

We have Mike Miles. Yeah, I hear Mike's voice. Yeah, so Mike was a writer and producer and his writing and producing days go back to City TV in the 80s. And he's got like a- back to city TV in the eighties and he's got like, I love city TV in the eighties. We could do an hour on that. I mean, I talked to Peter gross almost every day these, these days. Yeah. So Mike had worked at CH Hamilton. He'd worked at city TV

and he dreamed of being on air. And, uh, in the last, maybe six months he has started to fill in. This is his first on air work. Yeah. Cause he's got a great voice. Yeah. He's fairly new to it. So he had done a few, I think there's a tape of him filling in like someone called in sick at city TV in the eighties and one night he got to do the weather.

So there's like a Harold Hussain. Who else could that be? There's a video clip of FOTN Harold, hurricane Harold 1980s at city TV. Okay. Harold Hosea was rarely sick though, but okay, he must've been sick that day.

So fascinating. Other fill in people, Julianne Hazelwood, who just came back from Matleaf. So she reads Friday, Saturday, Sunday afternoon, the hourly network news. Okay. And so when does Tom Harrington read the news? So Tom has the afternoon slot. So his first one is at 1 p.m. Eastern and his last one is at 8 p.m. Eastern.

And some of his newscasts are not, so like the two o'clock is heard in Toronto, the three o'clock, the four o'clock is heard, the five o'clock is heard in Toronto. There are most CBC stations run their own local hourly news during the daytime during the week except the three northern territories. So Nunavut, the Northwest territories and Yukon, they carry the network hourly news during the daytime. And Marcia Young got promoted. So what is her current? Marcia Young host world report, Monday to Thursday.

Right. No, can't keep in track. All you guys, it's a half of my job these days. Okay. Here. So we've learned quite a bit here about Marcia Young. I can't remember. You tell me, did you help me contact her? Do you have any memory of this? I know you think I encouraged her to appear on the show and I encouraged. I need to know everybody you've encouraged. Like so Tom Harrington, those are two people you definitely encouraged to come on the program. Okay. Keep it up, man. I'm enjoying this. Uh, you don't need to encourage Ian Hanham, handsome man thing. He's going to be on board regardless, but Jill Dempsey is in the calendar. Oh, she's

wonderful. I love her. Yeah. It's been hearing her voice for a very, very long time. And of course, David Common is now an FOTN, but I did that one. I do have an interesting Jill Dempsey story. Let's hear it. Actually have two really good Jill Dempsey stories. So one thing is when I do the news at night, we're actually building content for the morning because morning radio is where the prime audience is. So throughout the night, as news develops around the world, I'm writing and editing audio and I'm building stories, leaving it for the morning. And the local stations across the country, they can use all of this material in their local newscasts.

So when I'm done, I usually listen to the 5.30 CBC Toronto radio newscast at 5 30 in the morning, which Jill Dempsey reads. Right. And I will often listen just to see like how Jill reads something that I wrote. And if it's well written, then like Jill nails it. Right. And you know, if things go awry, I usually blame myself that it's just not written well. You got to fall on that sword. Yeah. But so Jill was, I think the 11 o'clock anchor in Calgary in the 80s.

And she once taught me a workshop at CBC. And she talked about those days in the 80s, anchoring the news in Calgary. And she told me she had this like wardrobe budget. And like, it was this like lavish wardrobe budget in the 80s. And I said, oh, do you still wear that stuff? And she's like, no, it was this like lavish wardrobe budget in the 80s. And I said, oh, do you still wear that stuff? And she's like, no, it was all shoulder pads.

It was like space commander suits with shoulder pads. Like there was a certain style of TV anchor shoulder pads that women wore in the 1980s that is maybe not in fashion anymore. Well, I'm going to pull that clip and play it for her. I just want you to know. So when, when Jill comes on and she's in the, uh, it was my favorite story of hers. It's great. I'm going to be repeating that for her when she makes her Toronto mic debut.

Now I don't know what you can say. I know you can only say was in the public realm, I suppose, but, uh, do we have an update on Jill Deacon because, uh, she's an FOTM, but sadly has been unable to work for quite a period of time. Do you have any insight? I actually, I've never met her and I've never worked with her. It's interesting that you can spend years at the CBC and there's people that you've never met and you don't know.

So for example, Adrienne Arseneau, because I work at night, I talk to her every night and she is a fantastic. Tell her to come on. I want Adrienne Arseneau on TribeLine. She would probably come. She is so like, I would like to speak to her. She's an incredible journalist, but also just a wonderful human being. Okay. You had me at hello here, Neil. Okay. Let's make that happen and just much love. I'm just throwing this in the universe because I so much just

adored my conversation with Jill Deacon thrown in the universe that I hope she's doing better and I hope we get to hear her again soon. Just putting that into the universe, Neil. Okay. We're pausing for a moment because I want to recognize some partners who made this happen, but I'm wondering if you can, how much of this you can share?

Like, isn't there a rule, I'm very curious, is there a rule at CBC about accepting gifts? There is, there's, I believe that our journalistic standards and practices and our ethical rules are on the internet. You could find it on the CBC. You're saying Google it. Is that what you're saying? Google it. Yeah. I don't have a copy with me. I haven't memorized it. So I'm naturally curious because when a guest comes on, typically I give them

stuff, but we're not talking about like a new car or anything. Okay. Maybe that's coming next year. Uh, but I will give you a large lasagna, a frozen lasagna from Palma pasta. I would give you that. I would give you fresh craft beer from Great Lakes Brewery. If they have any left after I was there this afternoon, I would give you that delicious fresh craft beer. I would be giving you a wireless speaker from Monaris so you could listen to season six of Yes We Are Open. Al Grego hosts that and it's fantastic. I'd be giving you a measuring tape from Ridley Funeral Home and I'd be giving you a history book on the history

of Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team and then I would be reminding you that I will be throwing out, I, Neil, it should be you, you're the famous person on the radio, I will be throwing out the first pitch on Sunday. That's June 2nd. I think first pitch is like 1.45 PM. Then I'm recording live from Christie Pitts. My cohost for that afternoon is Mike Richards, a great FOTM. Anybody can drop by, pop on the mic.

It'll be a fantastic time. And you'll enjoy great baseball. There's great beer. There's great food. You'd love it. I would be doing all of that, but you're not allowed to accept these gifts. Am I out to lunch? No, you are correct.

I ran it by my boss and we agreed that I would not accept these gifts. Okay, so I'm not giving you anything. I want to put it in public record that I did not give anything. I gave him a handshake, I think that was it. And I gave him a glass of water. You can accept that, I suppose. But I just find it gave them a glass of water, you can accept that I suppose. But I just find it interesting because I want you guys to follow the rules

because I don't want you getting in trouble with your jobs that you value. But I find that interesting that like if I said the retail value of all that was I'll make it up $90, let's say, it might be more than that. But let's say it's $100 for everything. An active politician can accept it, but a CBC employee should not accept that.

Because you want to, is that because you don't want to, if you ever had a story where you were covering craft breweries, you don't want to make it look like you were favoring Great Lakes because you accepted their product? Does it have anything to do with that? I mean, generally most journalists don't accept gifts.

You know, the, I think it's like, it's generally seen as a- Like a best practice. generally most journalists don't accept gifts. I think it's like, it's generally seen as a- Like a best practice. Yeah, it's sort of an ethical issue. I get it. So I've never accepted a gift. Yeah, certainly over the years. I get it. Okay, I-

People try to offer you, like, sometimes people will offer junkage trips or they'll offer free tickets to something. And generally, you know, I have a job I can afford like to buy my own things. So I'm not going to accept a gift from someone because when someone gives you a gift, you don't know like what they expect in return. Right. Like now I want to hear on CBC news about how delicious Palma pasta is like this. I want to be tuning in. What's the name? It's very delicious.

Well, here's this. I think you can accept this. Oh, I don't know. But when you come to TMLX 15 on June 27 at Great Lakes Brewery, it's from six to nine PM, June 27, no ticket required. It's a free event and Palma pasta will feed everybody who comes. And your first beer is on the house from Great Lakes Brewery. And I would love to see you there. I will try to make it to this event. I hope to see you there. That's for sure.

And you know what? Where does your twin live? Overseas? So my twin brother lives in New York City. And so he moved to New York maybe two or three weeks after I left New York. So they don't know you've ever left. No, they still think it's him. So and so my brother's name is Jonathan. And to this day, if I'm walking down the street and I hear someone say, Hey, Jonathan, I will turn my head. Like I,

I also answered to Jonathan and I have since I was a kid because people would get us confused. So we're fraternal twins, but when we were young, we had a very high photo. Yeah. We had a very high resemblance when we were kids. And as we've gotten older, our looks have diverged a little bit, but he's a lawyer in New York city, right? And, um, look at you too. You know, one's a respected journalist with the CBC. The other is a, I'm going to guess a respected lawyer with, uh, in New York

city. So you guys did okay. You did okay. But if you, you know, he makes the trip to Toronto for TMLX, it'll be him taking the pasta. He's going to know, right? So we're going to do like, I used to back in the eighties, I enjoyed like WWF wrestling and I went to a show at Maple Leaf gardens and this was the whole gimmick. I think it was the killer bees and they wore masks and they would, you wouldn't know. So one guy would be tagged in, in but then because of the mask the ref would think of the other guy and this was the whole gimmick and I'm ever thinking okay they're wearing masks but like you can't you really can't tell them apart mr. Raff but this is you know

so there there are there are some other twins who work at the CBC so for example here Tom Murphy and Halifax, his brother is Bob Murphy. So Tom Murphy anchors the six o'clock news in Halifax for all of Nova Scotia. His brother, Bob Murphy hosts the Maritime Noon Show, which is heard in three provinces at noon. There's a pair of twins in a Radio Canada. So the Bergeron twins,

who there's Jeremy and Jerome and their twin brother. So one now works in Toronto. So Jeremy works in Toronto. He is the live reporter for RDI, the all news network and his twin brother Jerome works in Montreal. Love the fun facts here. There was a period of time now they weren't working at CBC together, but I hope I say her name right. Charles C. Agro. Yeah. Her twin, I believe twins is Carly Agro.

Yeah. Carly and Charles C. Right. And Carly was, I know she's left actually, but she was at a sports net for many, for many years. And at one point they both worked at CBC. That's what, yes. Yeah.

So one was a sports anchor. The other was on the news side. That's why you're here. Yeah. And they, they had a very high resemblance. Like people would sort of mix them up. Right. And Carly is the FOTM.

I got to keep them straight. Yeah. Here's also a fun fact. So Mark Thibodeau, who's the sound technician that Tom Harrington works with during the week every day, he has a twin brother as well. I'm loving the twin talk here. Loving this so much here. What's the Cronenberg movie with the twins? Dead ringers, dead ringers. There you go. Okay. Keep it coming here. Keep

it coming here. All right. So now one last shout out, no gift here, so don't sweat it here, but I would give you this piece of advice. If you have old electronics, old devices, old cables, don't throw it in the garbage, those chemicals end up in our landfill. Go to recyclemyelectronics.ca and find out a place near you where you can drop those off to be properly recycled. So much love to recycle my electronics dot CA. Okay. So we've got you now at the gig where you're at today and remind me of the hours you're working.

So I'm working Sunday to Wednesday night and I usually start between seven 45 and eight PM. Okay. So this is explained. So I hear you. My first newscast is 9 PM Eastern. The last one you would hear in Toronto would be at 4 AM. And you know, I should point out because I also subscribe to these newscasts as a podcast. Like it's like they're five minute or whatever. 10 minute. What are we talking about? They're short little podcasts and you get in just any time listen to the most current one. But again, I just do that trick with Google where I just say, hey Google What's the news and I get the most recent one bang. I get my fix and I know what's going on in in the world What's next for you? Like is this is great. But do you have your eye on a certain prize like Neil? Is there a particular there is no there is no plan. I think Maybe when I was younger like I dreamed dreamed of working across the country or working internationally

and I've had those opportunities. And when you work in, when you work for a big network, there are those opportunities. Like I always describe the CBC as a place of opportunity because if you want to, you know, I know people who started out working in news and then they end up working on a talk show or a game show or a kids show. There's a lot of opportunities and people have kind of branched out in different directions. And I feel very fortunate that I've been able to do so many interesting things and live in so many different places across Canada.

Yeah, you've had a great career and since you're younger than I am, I could tell you there's many, many good years ahead, but are you at all worried? I know I asked Simon Dingley about this and then I just found out his wife, Jeannie's, like I'm going to. Are you at all worried about what lies ahead? Like when? I was going to say if, but I'm going to change it to when because I'm just going to be like that. When Pierre Pauliev becomes prime minister of this country, any concerns on behalf of your colleagues yourself and what will become of the CBC?

So I remember when I did an internship at CTV Ottawa and on the first day I get into the news van and it was like an old school cameraman and you know the culture actually of newsrooms has changed a lot in the last 20 years, and especially among the technicians. So, there used to be a lot of really tough macho guys who became cameramen. And I remember, I must've been like 20 years old doing an internship.

I get in the news van, the guy lights a cigarette and he's smoking like the whole time, and he's just swearing and cursing and he was just like very pessimistic about the future and the industry he's like hey kid pick another job there's no work here and and i thought to myself like wow this guy's like very negative and i sort of vowed that i would never become that person and there actually is that person in every newsroom around the world, you know, the kind of crusty old timer who sort of thinks there's no future. One of the interesting things I learned

at Carlton journalism in a first year lecture was that the history of media is, you know, reinventing itself over and over so that when the printing press came out, people thought that, you know, that the maybe the tablet would kind of go by the wayside. And then when radio started, people thought newspapers would die. And when television came and when internet came, they thought television would die. And so every time a new medium arises, people are always pessimistic about the old media that exists and people find a way to either connect

with those older mediums. So for example, radio is extremely popular, depending on how you calculate it, we have hundreds of thousands of people who listen to us every night on CBC radio across the country, from Victoria to St. John's to the Arctic. And we're also heard on Sirius across the US. So if you rent a car in the US, and you know, you can change the

channel if it's you get in the car and it's like playing like guitar rock, 70s guitar rock, you can find the CBC radio. You want us to leave our lithium channel? That's the the the alt rock station. Yeah, you can leave the fish channel behind and you can tune into CBC radio. We just kicked out jam jams actually on toast on, uh, on Sunday. So shout out to fish here. So, and I do think when I look at what, like what's in danger here, it does feel like

CBC radio should be safe. Like, like it feels like, you know, maybe there'll be some cuts more on the television side. I don't have a crystal ball. I just know I get a mild case of anxiety because he's all, he said it, like he said, he wants to cut funding to the CBC. And a lot of us actually really like, in fact, a lot of us feel it's underfunded and we should do the opposite.

So it can be concerning to some of us, CBC heads out there. So I just hope everything's okay. I guess time will tell, right? I will shout out, I want to shout out somebody else because I did say that Chilled MC was coming on Toronto Mic'd and that is true. But also, because it's been rescheduled a few times and now I see it's back in the calendar.

So I believe it's going to happen this time. Robert Fisher is going to come make his Toronto Mic debut and Robert Fisher was there for a very, very long time and I think he's got a story or two. So I'm looking forward to hearing what Robert Fisher has to say. He's a wonderful journalist. I met him when I was working at CBC Toronto. He's definitely an old school newsman. He knows this province inside and out. The stories he has, you know, going back to the Bill Davis days and before, like some of the stories he tells are just

incredible. And in a wild coincidence, he's in the calendar and then my next guest is Bob Ray in the basement. Wow. I know. Yeah. So Bob Ray is the UN ambassador. It's interesting because when I started out covering the UN, Alan Rock, who was another former federal cabinet minister under a liberal government,

was the Canadian ambassador to the UN. The Harper government won an election and they replaced Alan Rock as ambassador. They brought in a career diplomat named John McNeese. And so under this Trudeau liberal government, they brought in a political appointee, someone who they knew in Bob Ray. And so it really depends on who who's in power and what kind of ambassador they want. Some ambassadors were very activists, some were very prominent. Bob Ray has been very vocal, like you hear him, he gives a lot of interviews, he gives

a lot of speeches. John McNeese was more of a career diplomat and at that point, the foreign affairs minister in Ottawa was doing most of the public speeches on Canadian government foreign policy. Alan Rock, I know for a fact, would have dinner with the New York Times correspondent regularly and try to sort of promote Canadian interests to the New York Times correspondent regularly and try to sort of promote Canadian interests to the New York Times and on the world stage. So depending on who the ambassador is and what their background is,

they might be a very media savvy, media friendly ambassador, or they might be literally reading the speeches that are written by foreign affairs in Ottawa. You need to be next level, you know, media friendly. If you're going to go to some guy's basement in South Etobicoke. Right? I guess so.

Yeah. Like, I mean, I mean, Kathleen Wynne dropped by, uh, last month and I was thinking, oh, that's pretty cool. Like Kathleen Wynne just dropped by by yourself, came down the same stairs. You came down. So I heard that podcast. Like it's neat, right? Like it's cause you know, we're, these people are from an era where, you know,

you're gonna talk to, I don't know, Global and CTV and CBC of course, and you know, maybe City TV and maybe CHC and then you go on and run these down. But all of a sudden, like, yeah, there's a guy in South Etobicoke you can talk to for 60 to 90 minutes and he's not gonna edit anything

and you don't get to tell him what you'll say and not say. And yeah, you know, if you're allowed to accept it, you get a lasagna and some beer at the end of it all. Yeah. So it really depends on, you know, some politicians are really good public speakers and some are not. It's like anything and the ambassadors can really, you know, sometimes every word that comes out of their mouth is written by a bureaucrat in Ottawa.

So the department of a lot of people don't realize this, is that the Canadian government has a mission to the United Nations. So they have offices in New York, and they have maybe a dozen or so staffers who write speeches. They sort of help shape the policy. And as a member of the United Nations, Canada gets to give speeches on the world stage. And it could be at the opening of the United Nations, Canada gets to give speeches on, on the world stage.

And it could be at the opening of the general assembly in the fall, or it could be at the committee level. So there could be like a committee on like ocean pollution. And then suddenly Canada gets five minutes at the microphone. I can't wait to find out what our, what our Bob raised jams, like what's he listening to when he's working out or whatever. So I realized that it would be kind of neat for the listenership. There might be a number of people listening who have never heard you on CBC radio.

Believe it or not, they're out there. I'll drop a name like from CBC that I listen to all the time. I'm like, who's that? I'm like, oh, this is like a blind spot for you. I know what that feels like. So I might play some of you, but before I do that, can you please share with me, what are your jams? Like if you're going to listen to music, what would be a genre, a band, an artist

that you might gravitate towards? So I do listen to a lot of musical theater. So like this morning I was listening to the new cast of Merrily We Roll Along on Broadway. Okay, you need to listen to Toast because Rob Proust, who was the keyboardist in Spoons, he sits here once a month with Bob Willett, who's also huge on musical theater,

but he worked on musical theater in New York. He lives in New York now, but he worked for years. Like this is his wheelhouse. And I just think you'd love to hear Rob Pruse. But go on. Yeah, so I saw this new revival of Merrily We Roll Along, Daniel Radcliffe, who played Harry Potter in the movie, stars in this.

Jonathan Groff is in the cast. I know this guy, cause my kids loved Frozen. Okay. Yeah, so I was listening to that this morning, so. And. Okay, but what about anything more, I don't know, more contemporary? What word am I looking for?

Well, this is, this is a new cast recording. Yeah. It may not be your jam, but it's certainly other people's jam. I respect that. Those are some people's jams, they're your jams. Do you have any affinity for I don't know Would you go I'm gonna listen to some Depeche mode or some new order? So my brother really likes guitar rock so I made that you know, shout out to fish like he's a huge fish head I love and in fact in two he's also a big dead head. So in two weeks, we're going to see dead in company in Vegas

Okay, we say hi to Canada Kev for me when you get there. That's awesome. That's awesome. At the Sphere. Yeah, that's in Vegas, right? Yeah, at the Sphere. I've been hearing things there. That's wild. Okay, but you're going there with your brother. That's not your jam. No, but I've been to Phish concerts before with my brother.

And it's a fun experience. Have you ever done it sober? After the third hour of, you know, guitar rock, all the songs seem to sound the same to me. I think that's like a common criticism. You said it, my friend. Can we hear on our way out here before we play some Lois and Lois, say goodbye? And I will say, I thoroughly enjoyed this. I learned so much about you. Hearing you say you hesitated because you didn't think you were famous enough tells me you didn't quite get this thing man This the whole idea of this thing is that a Peter Mansbridge and a Neil Herland will go back to back

And I'll be as excited to talk to Neil Herland as I am to talk to Peter Mansbridge That's like the whole point of this whole thing and I was super excited to talk to you He didn't disappoint if I'm looking at the crowd at Great Lakes Brewery on June 27 and I don't see your tall head popping up above the crowd, I'm going to weep. I just want you to know that. Oh, that's very sweet of you, Mike. Okay, can we play some of you? And tell me when to fade it down.

Because I have a lot of musicians on the show. Like I had Honeymoon Suite was here last Friday. And I'll play New Girl Now. And then I know when I'm bringing down New Girl Now. I've never really played a news report, but let's play a little bit. Let's go back to November 4th, 2020. There's a day in history we'll remember. November 4th, 2020.

From CBC News, the world this hour. I'm Neil Herland. We begin with breaking news from Washington. Republican Donald Trump is declaring victory in the U.S. presidential election, even though votes are still being counted. In a speech at the White House last hour, Trump also questioned the legitimacy of the results. This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win

this election. Frankly, we did win this election. So our goal now is to ensure the integrity for the good of this nation. This is a very big moment. This is a major fraud in our nation. We want the law to be used in a proper manner. So we'll be going to the U.S. Supreme Court. We want all voting to stop. We don't want them to find any ballots at four o'clock in the morning and add them to the list. Okay. CBC News is not declaring a winner right now in the U.S. election because the results in some key states are too close to call. Your patience is commendable. Okay so my question, when you're piecing this together, this is news as it happens, obviously there were a lot of mail-in

ballots that took a while to count. It turned out it was a quite an easy victory for Joe Biden, despite what you might have heard there in the early hours there by Donald Trump. We didn't seem to understand how it all works, but you're reporting this. Like who's putting the sound clips together and producing this whole thing? Like you're, are you scripting your own words that you say? So I actually, I haven't even mentioned my coworker, which is Noel D'Souza, who's my sound technician. So he has been working the overnight shift at CBC radio for 25 years. Wow.

He's an incredible colleague to have because he actually trained as an airline pilot to fly like big commercial jets. So he went to flight school in Texas. He's a trained airline pilot who now works as a sound technician at the CBC. And him and I work all night together. So he runs the audio board and the two of us,

we edit sound and I do most of the writing and producing of the news. So in the daytime, we have like extra sets of hands, writers and producers. On the night shift, it's just me and a technician. So we decide, you know, earlier in the evening, we inherit the daytime lineup. So the news that Tom Harrington has in the daytime

rolls into the evening. And as news breaks throughout the night, so for example, there was the night that Yellowknife was evacuated last summer because of a wildfire threat that happened in the middle of, you know. Do you wanna hear it? Sure. Okay, let's hear it. From the CBC News, the world this hour.

I'm Neil Herland. We begin with breaking news from the Northwest Territories. The government has just announced an evacuation of the capital city Yellowknife because of the looming threat of wildfires. Shane Thompson is the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. He's also the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources. He spoke at a news conference just minutes ago. The fire west of Yellowknife has continued to advance and now burns approximately 17

kilometers outside the city. Without rain, it is possible it will reach the city outskirts by the weekend. Facing this possibility, I'm directing residents of Yellowknife, Dettah, Delo, and Ingham Trail to begin evacuating in a phased approach determined by level of risk. Residents of the city West End, including Grace Lake, the Cam Lake Industrial Area, and Ingham Business District should leave first. Residents of Delta and along the Ingham Trail

should all leave tonight. August 20, 23, that was August 16th, that's the 10 o'clock news. Yeah, so when we get in at night, we don't know what's going to happen during the night. Anything can happen. And because it's just me and a sound technician, we're going by the seat of our pants and sometimes news breaks. I remember the night that Russia invaded Ukraine. Oh, I want to play that now. So you're just calling these out and I'm going to play them. That's a big one here. It's like the greatest hits here. Wow.

From CBC News, the world this Hour, I'm Neil Herland. We begin with breaking news from overseas. Russian President Vladimir Putin has just announced a military operation in Ukraine, claiming it's intended to protect civilians. Just within the last hour, multiple reports of explosions and gunfire in the capital Kiev and across the country. Just moments before the first explosions were heard inside Ukraine, the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, delivered an urgent plea at the UN Security Council

in New York. Breaking with international diplomacy, he spoke directly to Russian President Vladimir Putin. I have only one thing to say from the bottom of my heart. This is February 24, 2022. Oh my goodness, over two years ago, believe it or not. Yeah, these are, I'm listening to these and I listened to all three of those clips and I'm like, you were there, you're breaking the news. Yeah, and as the night goes on,

we started to get our correspondents. So we had Margaret Evans inside Ukraine. We had Susan Ormiston in Washington. We had people, we had Breyer Stewart was on the Russian side. She was our Moscow correspondent. She was in Rustov-on-Don. So she was, we had all these correspondents ready to go. There was an anticipation.

It was widely believed that Putin would invade Ukraine, but you never know till it happens. And there have been many of those nights where we go in, we think it's going to be a quiet night and then something big happens. There was the night that the flight out of Tehran was shot down by the Iranian regime with a lot of Canadians on board. We started to hear rumblings from Persian Canadians who either they knew CBC journalists or some of our journalists had heard about this. So we were prepared for the possibility

that there were Canadians on board. We couldn't confirm it till maybe two in the morning. And once it was confirmed, then we could go with the story. And I think it was confirmed, then we could go with the story. And I think it was confirmed. It was a Ukrainian airliner. And I believe it was the Ukrainian foreign minister who confirmed that there were Canadians on board that plane. Wow, you know, journalism matters. It certainly does. And, you know, people don't always realize that, like, we, you know, we're just as surprised as the public is when something big happens, it's unexpected, it's shocking,

and we're human beings. So when we hear that there's a tragedy or something that where people are hurt or killed, it's just as shocking, but we also have our job to do. And the first thing we think is, is this confirmed? Have we confirmed this? Have one of our partners has a news agency like Reuters or the Canadian press or the Associated Press confirm this?

How much information do we have? Are people awake that we can even confirm this? There's often a lot of noise on social media. So when someone posts a video of an explosion or a fire, we verify it, we can't just run with it. No, of course not. I mean, just last week there were these photos being shared of like some assembly of Trumpers.

And then it turned out, I don't know, these were scenes of like Obama's inauguration or something like that. Like you really do need to collaborate and check your sources and make sure that you're looking at facts Especially in this day and age check the source like, you know, I teach my kids. It's like you learn something Well check the source Is it Neil Hurlind telling you that on CBC or is it some guy's blog and has been quoted on your buddy's Facebook page? Yeah, and I think most of the presenters on air at CBC who are anchoring or hosting

or reading the news, they've started out at the bottom, like as a reporter in the field. And so it's almost like you need those basic chops to kind of advance to the next level where you spend years knocking on doors, covering those fires, car accidents, murders. And then once you graduate to the studio, you're still applying those same critical thinking skills, but you're also presenting the news. Right. And you know, journalism matters because facts matter. And I was fact checked in the live stream. So I guess I said that Kathleen Wynne was on about a month ago. checked in the live stream. So I guess I said that Kathleen Wynn was on about a month ago. Somebody has fact-checked the basement to other.

It was April. It was February. Really? I know it's funny time is tough for me. Okay. I listened to it in April because I was visiting my mother. I was driving her car and I was listening to this episode.

And I just, I was like, wow, they're talking a lot about bicycling was like my conclusion. I do like to bike, but that's three months ago, not last month. And, uh, I also want to shadow Jeremy Hopkins, who says he learned a bunch in this episode. Neil was great. Oh, thank you. That's you buddy. That's wonderful. I'm sure my mother will think I'm great. Will your mother hear this episode? I will send her the podcast. She asked me maybe a month ago what a podcast was, but now that she knows what a podcast is, I can tell her that her son is in Ottawa. She's in Ottawa, in Nepean. It's a long way in Nepean. Okay. It's a long way for her to go, but I hope to see her at TMLX 15

at June 15th as well. She can accept free gifts, so tell her to come out and I'll give her the lasagna and the fresh craft beer from Great Lakes. But thanks, Neil Hurland. Enjoyed this very much, man. We got to take a photo together, but thanks for coming by and telling me your story, your developing ongoing story. Well, thank you for inviting me here. So if you kicked out the jams of me, it would be a bunch of like Broadway musical show tune things? Yeah, it might be like the new Alicia Keys musical on Broadway. I wish I liked that stuff more. When I was very young, I went to see Annie for my like sixth birthday or something,

and all my friends and I went to see Annie, like 1980 or something, the movie Annie, I should point out, not a musical, but the movie based on the Broadway musical. And I loved it so much, I bought the soundtrack and enjoyed it very much. So I was a big fan of Annie. It's a hard knock life. And that brings us to the end of our 1,501st show.

You were so close, Neil, did you of our 1,500 and first show. You were so close, Neil. Did you want episode 1,500? I did. I would have bought a lottery ticket. Who was the anchor in Ottawa? Who was reading the, hoping they won? Who was that anchor again? Dave Wren.

The late Dave Wren. Okay, the late. Great. Okay. Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. You can follow me on all over the place. I'm at Toronto Mike. Where is a good place we can follow you, Neil Herland?

I'm on X at News Neil is my handle. See, because you're a journalist and a proper news person, you need to refer to it as X because that's the proper name. But I'm going to call it Twitter because I don't have the same standards. I almost called it Twitter. That's why I was just hesitant. I was like, what's this thing called? This is thing called. Did you say News Neil? News Neil. Okay. Follow News Neil on the app, formerly known as Twitter. You can always say that much love to all who made this possible. That's Great Lakes Brewery. That's Palma Pasta. That's RecycleMyElectronics.ca. That's the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team. I'm now nervous about my first pitch on Sunday. I hope I don't

embarrass myself. That's Monaris. Listen to season six of Yes We Are Open and Al Greggo kicking out the Jams this week. Or was that last week? It's all a blur. And Ridley Funeral Home and Ridley funeral home the official funeral home of Toronto Maple Leafs baseball see you all Sunday when I record live from Christie Pitts at 2 p.m. see you then I've kissed you in France and I've kissed you in Spain And I've kissed you in places I better not name And I've seen the sun go down on Chacla Cours But I like it much better going down on you

Yeah, you know that's true Because everything is coming up rosy and gray Yeah, the wind is cold but the smell of snow warms us today And your smile is fine and it's just like mine and it won't go away