Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Rocco Rossi: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1923

Episode Date: June 24, 2026

On this 1923rd episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Rocco Rossi about the World Cup, his foray into politics, finding grace on the Camino de Santiago, that Tweet and more.A version of this podcast without programmatic ads is available to all Toronto Mike'd Patrons at patreon.com/torontomike.Toronto Mike'd, an award-winning podcast, is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball, Ridley Funeral Home, Nick Ainis, and RecycleMyElectronics.ca.If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I am Rocco Rossi, long time listener, first time caller here on Toronto Mike. Unbelievable, I am here in the fortress of solitude itself. We've got paraphernalia and pictures. I see Brian Linehan over there, all kinds of leaf stuff. This is fantastic and I am looking forward to the next hour. You never know who's listening. Welcome to episode 1,923 of Toronto Maked, an award-winning podcast proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery.

Order online at greatlakesbeer.com for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma Pasta! Enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta. This is Saga and Oakville. Visit palma pasta.com for more. Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball. Catch a game at Christy Pits this summer. No, ticket required.

Fusion Corp's own Nick Aienies. He's the host of Building Toronto Skyline. And Mike and Nick, two podcasts that you ought to listen to. Recycle MyElectronics.ca. Committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past. and Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921.

Joining me today, making his Toronto Mike debut, it is indeed Rocco Rossi. Hello, Rocco. Hi, Mike. So you're a listener. I was listening to that cold open. I had no idea what you would say.

I count you in. You say whatever you want. And I need to know more details. How long you've been listening? Tell me what you know. Probably about two years. you are incredible. I mean, kind of one of the pioneers of podcasting.

You've been at this since when people were laughing about podcasts, and now they're saying, oh, my God, if you're not on a podcast, you're nowhere. Well, this is amazing. So thank you for these kind words. But do you remember your gateway? Because I've been doing this 14 years. This is episode 1923. So a couple of years ago, it's kind of recent.

Like, what was your gateway? Do you remember? Do you have any recollection of what episode drew you in? I think I found out about it actually through Paul Henderson. I was at an event with him and he mentioned it. He had listened to something that he found intriguing and he said, you should check it out. Wait, 1978 two Summit Series hero, Paul Henderson.

Yeah. The guy who's still not in the Hockey Hall of Fame. And for years, I refused to go to the Hockey Hall of Fame because they had not inducted him. This is supposed to be a celebration of fame. This man, not only the overtime winning goal in the last one, but the last three games. Yeah, it wasn't overtime, by the way. But yeah, very late in game eight in Moscow. I mean, I wasn't alive, Rocco, but I have seen the documentary series on the Summit series

in infinite number of times, like so many times. But this is what strikes me about you telling me, Because there's many Paul Henderson's. I must be a different Paul Henderson. No. Here's what blows my mind. I, and this is actually going to tie back to Joe Carter, okay? Have you ever had the pleasure of meeting Joe Carter?

I have not. I've been at an event, but I didn't speak to him. I saw him in the distance. You were intimidated. You said, that's Joe Carter. He touched him all in 93. Who am I, Rocco Rossi, to talk to that man? I know what that feels like.

But, and I bring up Duke Carter for two reasons. One is that he's also a guy who had a moment. Great career, actually. I love Joe Carter. 30 home runs, 100 RBIs every season. And he had that moment, a walk-off home run to clinch the World Series in 93. But he's not in the Hall of Fame. He's not even in

the conversation, to be honest. Paul Henderson had that moment. He had that string of games, but I don't think the Hall of Fame is for like Flash and the Pan Excellence. It's for like, you know, it's for a longer period of time to have that caliber. That's my

two cents. But why am I bringing up Joe Carter? Because I was recording an episode of Toronto Mike from the Joe Carter Classic at the Glen Abbey Golf Club, maybe one, two, three years ago. And everybody, people were there. Like, I remember Josh Donaldson was there and Jose Batista. And I would, like, go up to them, like, just this independent podcaster. You're here in my humble abode here in South Atobico.

You're completely underwhelmed by this experience, Rocco. But I said to these people, I said, Mr. Batista, would you have a few minutes to talk to me on my podcast, Toronto Mike? And you'd look at me and you'd be like, okay, and he'd do it. And this kept happening. People would come on my podcast, Dave Stewart. Great listening. Ernie Witt.

Of course, Joe Carter. I went up to Paul Henderson. He was, sir, would you come on Toronto mic for a couple of minutes? He said no. He's the only person who, well, some people had to go with, you know, a couple people had to get out and get some swings in before the thing. So he's not the only one to say no, but he's a glaring example to me of a guy who said, no, I will not go on that microphone and talk to this independent podcaster.

So it blows my mind to hear you say, Paul, Henderson brought up the podcast in a positive light. Well, I never, never trust a catcher. I think is, is I think the lesson out of all of that, Mike. Who's that, Ernie Wett? Yeah.

Shout out to Ernie Wett. Okay, so that's amazing that Paul Henderson's celebrating this independent award-winning podcast. I'm going to put that in my bio. You should. And he is, by the way, one of the nicest people you will ever meet in your life and has been fighting cancer.

And it was through that cancer charity work that we got together. Well, he was tight anyways with a gentleman named Paul Burford. They went to the same church. And Paul Burford made a little documentary about Paul Henderson's relationship with God, essentially. And Paul Burford is known to me as the man who created just like mom with Fergie Oliver back on in aging courts. So what a small world here.

Okay, so happy to have you on the program, Rocco, and I'm glad that you're a listener. It's a pleasure. Feels good, man. It feels good. World Cup talk off the top, if you don't mind. Are you a soccer fan? I am.

I have to say, I've been delighted by Canada. I was hugely saddened when Italy didn't make the cut because of that superpower. otherwise known as Bosnia-Hertegavina. But that's classic Italian team management. They have, you know, incredible recruitment, great young players, and then there is this seniority system that takes over whereby they never let players go until it is way too late. And I don't care how great you are, you know, in your late 30s,

it's hard to keep up and run the full field with someone who's 20. And yes, Messi is managing it, but it's a very, very small percentage. And they just won the world's under 17 and they'll figure out a way to mess it up again. How many World Cups in a row has Italy missed? Is it two?

Three. Three. That's wild. That is beyond wild. It's a tragedy. That's a tragedy. Now, my B team,

team is Canada. We play at 3 p.m. today. That's why we thank you for moving up the time. I'm like, I can't have Rocco Rossi in the basement at 3 p.m. because I got to be there for Canada versus Switzerland. I got to see that. But my B team is Ireland, because my family comes from Ireland.

And apparently we were like up to not. Like soccer, you say 2.0. 2. You don't say 2-0. It's too hockey-ish. Okay. 2-0 with like something, I think it was like 20 minutes left. And if Ireland had won the game, they were going to go to the world.

World Cup and somehow they collapsed and lost in like a shootout. And so that's how close Ireland got to making this World Cup. Well, also starts with an eye. I think there's a coincidence. When Gino Vanelli was on the program, which is an episode you should check out in the archives, I didn't, I went to McGill and I saw him in Montreal and wild horses. It's just a phenomenal talent. Yes, he's got great chest hair too.

Just throwing it out there. Okay, but he was here. I made my opening remark, he's sitting there, that's Gino freaking Vanelli, you know, looking like a rock star, you know, I've got all the jams loaded up. And my opening, I don't know why. It wasn't like rehearsed or planned,

but I look at him and I go, Gino Vanelli, that's Irish, right? That was my opening line. And I was thinking, Rocco Rossi might be the most Irish name I've heard since Gino Vanelli. Well, actually, my wife is Irish. And when I first went to see her mother,

was a very traditional lady, God rest her soul. I arrive at the house, and I am the first non-Irishman to marry into her family. And so she's at the end of a long haul in a chair that came right out of the game of thrones, right? And I'm shaking in my boots as I go up to her, and I bend down, kiss her on both cheeks, say, ma'am, I am rock O'Rossi of the Dublin O'Rosses. and she laughed and we got along very well. Okay, I don't have any Guinness for you. I have something better and we should crack this on the mic

and we're going to get into it. There's a lot of places I want to go. And I also would like a prediction what you think happens of Canada in this tournament. But you have a Canuck Pale Ale, Mr. Rossi. That is, courtesy of Great Lakes Brewery. I've got a sunny side session IPA. So I'll count you in and then right on the mic here, okay?

Three, two, cheers to you, Raucco Rossi. This is going to taste good. Just had a nice bike ride. about that in a moment. Don't mind us all. We're slurping our Great Lakes here. Oh, that goes down nice. I'm sending you home with some fresh craft beer from Great Lakes.

Well, this is part of the reason I came because I hear about all of the amazing swag you give out on every show. Oh, yeah. You want it now? Let's do it now. I'm here for the swag, baby. You know, who wasn't here for the swag? Paul Anderson.

I'm going to go off on him all episode. Okay, so the Great Lakes beer is yours, but I also want to. to invite you, Rocco. To Great Lakes Brewery, which is not far from here. It's at 30 Queen Elizabeth Boulevard, down the street from the Costco, in South Atobico,

and tomorrow, which is June 25th, 2026, if you're listening in the far-off future, tomorrow from 6 to 9 p.m., we are, and I say we, the TMU, the Toronto Mike universe, FOTMs like you, you're now an FOTM, a friend of Toronto-Might. We're all collecting at Great Lakes Brewery

Brewery 6 to 9 p.m. because not only is your first pour of Great Lakes on the house, but Palma Pasta. Okay, Rossi, I know if that's surname, I want to know what you think. Palma Pasta is going to feed us all, and they have also sent over a frozen lasagna for you to take home with you. Thank you, Palma Pasta. I need a thorough review of the lasagna from Mr. Rocco Rossi.

Grazie mealy. Let me know what you think. And if you don't like it, I'll tell the Petrucci family. Rossi's out of the family. Okay, so you got a lasagna there. Also, I have a measuring tape for you courtesy of Ridley Funeral Home. Measure what you wish.

But I don't need to hear about it. Also, Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball have sent over a book for you, the history of Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball, and you can catch games at Christy Pitts this summer. It's excellent baseball. You know, Yassie L. Pueig is playing. You bat's third, and you can grab yourself a beer,

a hot dog, and enjoy the game. My gym teacher back in high school, Mr. Badali, played for the Maple Leafs. He'll be in the book. He'll be in the book. So I'm looking forward to that. Mr. Badali, in the book. In the book. Okay.

So, and last but not least, Recycle MyElectronics.cairotronics. C.A. Rocco is where you go. If you have old electronics, old cables, old devices, don't throw it in the garbage. Go to recycle myelectronics.ca. Put in your postal code and find out where you can drop that off. to be properly recycled. You got it? Well, I actually have a collection of about 18 blackberries back to the early days. That's for the museum.

Yes, exactly. That's not going to be recycled. My first ever smartphone was the blue, the blueberry I called it, the blue blackberry. So, so yeah, rock that hard. Okay, the good old days. So where to begin with you? There's so many places, but there's a question that came in on the live stream. I think it might tie to the book you have in front of you here. So I'm going to go to live.com and Andrew Ward gets the first question. He says, my dad walked the Camino de Santiago. So did Rocco.

Can you ask Rocco how he reflected after the experience? So this is our gateway because I see the book in front of you. And you got to start somewhere. We'll start here. You walked. Tell us what that is. Tell me what you can about this experience. walking the Camino de Santiago.

Well, first of all, you should know that the Camino de Santiago is not just one way, and it's often misunderstood because people have seen the Martin Sheen movie, or they've read about it, and they know of one route. The most famous one is known as the Camino Francaise, the French way, but there are actually 80,000 kilometers of trail through Europe, and think about it. When this pilgrimage began in the Middle Ages, people didn't have planes and buses and trains to go to a specific starting point.

They started wherever they lived. And so there are an infinite number of paths through Europe, but because of rivers and mountains and so on, those get streamed into four or five main routes. I have walked 23 variations since 2002, over 14,000 kilometers. Whoa. the equivalent of 32 marathons or walking from Newfoundland to BC and back again a

Canadian forest gump. Whoa. How many pairs of shoes? Well, pretty much two through each trip that I've taken. And it's a fabulous question from Mr. Ward. Look, I keep going back. So it suggests that the reflection is a good thing. And people often ask, well, look, you, you,

You've gone once, you've gotten twice, 23 times. Why? And I say, well, you have a great friend. Do you only ever visit them once? Or you enjoy listening to Toronto Mike. Do you only listen to one episode? Make it Gino Vanelli. Or Gino Vanelli or, you know, or one piece of lasagna or one pizza.

If you find something that you love, the real question is, why don't you do more of it? And it's a Christian pilgrimage, right? It started as such. You end up walking to a town in northwestern Spain called Santiago de Compostela, where the church tells us the remains of St. James the Great, or one of the apostles of Christ are found. But you don't have to be Christian to do it. I've walked with Jews.

I've walked with atheists, and people find what they need. whether you're formally religious or not, all of us have the need for time of reflection. All of us are so busy, so distracted in our day-to-day lives that, you know, it becomes impossible for us to answer the incredible question from the talking heads, which is, my God, how did I get here? And so by taking this time and space in a long pilgrimage, you give yourself that opportunity. to figure out what it is that you want to do with the rest of your life. I thought you were breaking into talking heads there for a minute here.

How did I get here? Okay. Question from me. Can I cycle the Carmino de Santiago? Absolutely. You can cycle many of the routes. Now there are portions of it where they're going to put you on a bike route versus where the walkers will go just because the rocks and so on.

make it impossible, but lots of cyclists do the route each and every year. Okay, this is a chance. So I love to bike. I'll walk too, don't get me wrong, but typically I'm out there biking. And I know you biked Young Street, the whole thing, right? Yeah, from Rainy River to Toronto, 1900 kilometers over 19 days. Oh yeah, I was going to ask you how many days that took you to do 19. You know, you could have, you could have done that in fewer days, but.

I could have, but it was a funder. fundraiser for the Heart and Stroke Foundation. And so we were stopping in towns for media events and fundraising events. And also, I'm not, you know, a studly cyclist like you. So I have to take it easier. Who amongst us can make that claim? Exactly. Who amongst us can make you?

You and Lance Armstrong. Although I will tell you this, Rocco Rossi, because, you know, real talk here. I do bike a lot. Like already today I did quick 32K. I did a bunch of rides. And I did something else yesterday. I'm going to ask you about in a moment because not only, Are you walking and cycling?

There's another activity I'm going to ask you about. So yesterday, well, I'll do it now because it tells you what I'm talking about. But yesterday I did my first kayak of the season. And what I do is I have a foldable kayak that goes in a backpack. And I bike it to the mouth of the Humber River. So I bike it from here to where the Humber meets Lake Ontario. And on the beach, I build it out. And then I basically kayaked to the Old Mill Bridge and back.

Love the Humber River, especially now that the, boat club is closed. It's much calmer and I don't have to worry about compete. Dying. Okay, which is nice when you're doing that kayak. So what I noticed though is my PFD, okay, because I always wear a PFD when I kayak.

It doesn't fit like it did last summer. Like without a doubt, I put on a couple. Like this PFD was always a snug fit, but now it's like a won't fit. So I'm here to tell you, I think I've been enjoying a little too much.

palm pasta this past winter. Just think of it as carboloading for a season of cycling and toddling. You got a good attitude. But speaking of kayaking. I'm Italian, you've got to have a good attitude about food, man. You can burn it off here. Okay, so in addition to the 1900 kilometers of Young Street, which I think is a cool idea for charity, actually.

And these many walks you're doing, Camino de Santiago, I was reading that you kayaked from Toronto to Ottawa. Yes, also a fundraiser this time for, it was strokes for stroke. And so. Shout out to the strokes. They were just here. It's a 500 kilometer paddle.

You go from Toronto to the mouth of the Rideau Canal, just the other side of Kingston and then up the canal. Wow. That's a long one. And just spectacular camping every night. And really an extraordinary. experience. But how many clicks on a kayak are you able to do a day, like approximately? What are we talking about here? Because I will say this as a guy who cycles a lot. Like, so I'll go off, I'll do 40, 50, no problem on a bike. But then I get in the kayak and it's like 10 kilometers later. I'm like, oh, I need to, that was tough. Like 10 kilometers on the kayak

feels like, I don't know, 60 kilometers on the bike. No, I was doing about 30 or so. Good for you. Good for you. And again, you know, you stop for lunch. The thing about big challenges, whether it's a thousand kilometer walk in Spain or a long bike ride or a long paddle is break it down into bite size chunks. And so stopping every so often, having a snack makes a difference. Rocco, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time, brother. I tell my kids that all the time because, yeah, you look at that goal. And I really do practice what I preach here.

And it's like, I can't do that. But it's like, yeah, I stop looking at this big thing and just one day at a time. And it's amazing what you can accomplish because you think about the tragically hip, you're dropping songs today. Pretty much. Well, Gord Downey and I shared a birthday. And a buddy of mine, a classmate of mine was his road manager. And when I was at McGill and they were in Kingston and we'd often go to Kingston and listen to them. And we exchanged birthday cards.

and still an incredible tragedy that we lost him so young. And I believe to this day that, you know, the line in Bob Cajun where the constellations reveal themselves one star at a time is one of the most beautiful lines of any song written at any time. Right up there with those checkerboard floors. Oh, baby. That's a great song. I mean, you're preaching to the choir on this one,

but it's fascinating to me that you were watching that band pre-J-Gold. I like to say, you know, pre-J gold in the early days. When they were kind of doing a lot of like them covers, right? Like the Van Morrison band and that kind of stuff. And look what they became. Like, who would have thunk it? Some blue-eyed soul and turned into their own thing. That bluesy rock thing and up to here.

And it's just, just what a band. I mean, I just did this. I just did a one-man show at the El Macombo rock. I was looking in the crowd. Where were you, buddy? Tell me about it. It was great. It was great.

But we are going to dive deep into it during the next FOT. TM cast. And I get the sense you might be allowed to listen. It's for real heads only. I think you can actually listen to FOTM cast. We're going to record, I think, next week. I am honored. Well, in a couple weeks, we're going to talk about it.

You're worthy of listening for sure. But, yeah, it was amazing. Like, so we'll get into it. But I talked in this one-man show, I talked about this past winter in what a song, like, it's kind of a lesser-known song because it's like later hip. It's not like the early years where all those bangers are still on the radio. But it's called the Depress. I don't know how deep your hip knowledge goes, but the depression suite bounced around my head all winter, and I talked about it in my one-man show. But I love the tragically hip.

Well, it's a good one to love. I mean, it's a national treasure for sure. Do you have any thoughts on 90s alt-rock band Rusty? Because I can see a member of Rusty is on the live string. He's tapping out. He's tapping out, Jimmy. You got me, Jimmy. You got me. Oh, by the way, we talked about Camino de Santiago, but you didn't mention that book that's in front of you, Rockwell. Yes, I've written my first book after 23 Camino's. I've had this idea kicking around in my head for 20 years. And so I decided to do a novel, not another journal, not another memoir. There are a lot of those. I want people to be able to see themselves in it.

It's really, it's a story of someone's search for me. meaning it's a hard charging business guy who has a tragedy that suddenly reveals that all of this climbing up the corporate ladder he's been doing and he's now at the top and he looks around and he thinks my gosh this ladder may be leaning against the wrong building and so goes through a crisis of the soul and receives this mysterious package from an unknown woman in Spain. And it's a written blessing, a Campostela that has been gotten on his behalf. She's walked 800 kilometers on his behalf and gotten what's called the Vicari pro

Campostela. And it is curious to him. And he decides to go to Spain, try to find out what it's all about and encounters this incredible cast of characters, learns a ton. and finds grace. Andrew Ward wants one for his dad. How does he buy this book? Well, you can go to Amazon.ca,

Finding Grace, Rocco Rossi, or go to my website, rockorossi.com, and that will take you through to the Amazon site for fulfillment. What if he wants you to sign a copy? Well, I think you need to come to an FOTM event. TMLX22 tomorrow. Are you going to be there? be signing away.

Will you be there? Six to nine tomorrow? I got to check with my wife, but we will see. Come on. A good Irish woman like her? Put her on here. Okay. But I know Andrew will be there, but he's just looking to get a Rocco sign copy for his dad.

So one more, Andrew, Andrew, you know, ask as many questions as you like, you're a good guy. But he, you know, you dropped a couple of times. McGill. Yes. The reason I didn't react is because I feel like I'm like a jukebox. And this is often discussed on FOTM cast. but you press a button and I say the same damn thing. But my daughter just graduated from McGill.

So I'm well aware of McGill. I'm not wearing my hoodie today, but I wore it yesterday for Maureen Holloway. We'll see if you, Rock or Rossi, will spill any Toronto Radio tea like Maureen Holiday did yesterday. But Andrew Ward wants to know, what was it like for you going to McGill? It was incredible because it,

I started the year after the referendum. And it was an incredible time to be in Quebec and to be in Montreal. You know, just as sort of a heightened sense of, my God, how close had we just come from breaking up the country, but still hard feelings and still a lot of fascinating discussions. It was an incredible experience for me. I was very fortunate. I won a scholarship to go there. And it was the first time I'd been out of the city and on my own and a real adventure.

And Montreal was, you know, so much hipper than Toronto. It was a place with tons of clubs. I mean, now, you know, Toronto is more than caught up. But at that time, Montreal, despite, you know, losing all kinds of energy because of the rise of separatism and people flooding out of the city, businesses and so on that really helped to reinvigorate and grow Toronto was still an amazing place

and still is to this day. So when you graduate from McGill, do you have a moment where you consider staying in Montreal or were you always coming back to Toronto? No, I was always going to come back And actually, I went to the states for graduate school. I was fortunate and went to Princeton. Never heard of it.

Yeah. It's a small place in between New York and Philadelphia. Yeah, some obscure school of higher learning. Right. And anyway, it was. But you got a master's degree in politics from Princeton. Yeah. So they tell me.

So they tell you. Okay. Wow, okay, I didn't realize you're too smart for Toronto Mike. No, no, I don't think so. I think the Paken podcast is more your speed. I'm thinking you need to find a... Steve's a dear friend and actually I just recorded one with him, which he'll be coming out in July.

Is it about the... About the book, about Finding Grace. Okay, so Paken's a dear friend. He's been to many at TMLX event. Wonderful. Yeah, you know, he's never had me on his podcast, but I've had him on this show many, many, many times. Hey, so when you were talking about that book,

finding grace that you wrote. I mean, you're writing books, man. I can't bear a read a book. Well, a book, not books. But you talked about the, your words were hard charging business guy.

Is that based on Rocco Rossi? You are the hard charging business guy. There's definitely autobiographical elements. I mean, at the end of the day, you can't write about something you don't know. But, but it's a different cat.

Why am I here? No one's interested. Something. you didn't do. Weakings. Okay, Rocco, I'm just going to name all the songs you're alluding to here.

Well, I steal whatever I can. Well, if you're not stealing, you're not trying here. Okay, so I'm sorry of interrupting you there, but another hip lyric through it here. So, okay, so you go to Princeton, then you come back to Toronto. Yeah, I was actually working on a doctorate at Princeton.

I got a master's as a consolation prize along with some rice errone. I get that reference. My mom, my mom got very ill and we were afraid she was dying. And she, you know, classic Italian immigrant mom wanted her firstborn son to be a doctor or a lawyer and didn't understand studying political philosophy at Princeton. And so I phoned up Osgood Hall. and I said, I'm coming to class in September, and they said, well, you know, you've got to write the LSATs and go through this process. And I said, no, no, no, you don't understand.

My mom wants me to be a lawyer. She's dying. I'm coming to the class. So you either have security or a seat for me. And they were, they were awesome. They had a chat with the folks at Princeton and sorted it out. And so I went there. And I lasted one semester.

I hated the law. My mom got better. And so I made a deal with her. I said I would write the end-of-term exams. And if I did badly, I would stay and complete the program. But if I did well, I would leave because I wanted her to know I was leaving, not because I couldn't do it, but because I didn't want to do it. Right.

And so I wrote it and I did well and I left the next day. That's a fair deal. Okay. So, okay, so you leave, I mentioned the Andrew Ward questions were on the live stream, but just before I record, I dropped in the, there's an not so secret FOTM group on WhatsApp, and I said, Rocco Rossi, 1 PM, because we got to get him out of here before the Canada, Switzerland match.

And before you leave here today, you're going to give me a prediction, okay? Yeah. We'll get back to that. VP of Sales, he's going to be on FOTM cast, okay? He wrote, I met Rocco in 1998 when he was founding, publisher of Toronto.com. He poached my friend, Chris Carter from the star.com,

to be managing editor. So tell me about this. You were the first publisher of Toronto.com. And what this was a tour star thing? Like, tell me what I'm talking about here. Yeah, I, um, just to back it up a tiny bit. Yeah, back it up.

I was at a place called the Boston Consulting Group and, um, for a few years. And, uh, one of our clients. was Torstar. And they were looking at this whole quote unquote internet thing, among other things in their restructuring. And so we were doing some work for them and the management like me. So they hired me from BCG to be a VP.

And I took over their corporate development work, which included putting the Star online, creating Toronto.com, putting the beginnings of Workopoulos together and a bunch of other things. It was a ton of fun. And Chris, a brilliant editor now works for the CBC in Ottawa and doing super well. And we were one of the first city guides and a funny story about that. We ended up going with city search as our internet partner. and the opponent technology at the time was being peddled by this guy called Elon Musk

who had just graduated from Queens and was doing the internet thing. And so he and his brother came into my office. And he actually refers to this in his autobiography, says, president of Torstar, turned me down. And I wasn't the president of Tourstar. I was president of Torstar in New Media. And his just wasn't as good as the city search. And we were doing work with the Gannett company in the U.S.

And they were using City Search as well. So that's where we went. But that was my one-time encounter with Elon Musk. And I get to say I turned him down. I'd get a T-shirt. I think you were ahead of the curve, to be quite honest. very advanced of you. Now, I mean, I was kind of surveying this whole world since about, about 98, I suppose, when you're at Toronto.com.

But it feels to me like Toronto.com lost its way at some point. Like, it felt like it had a 4-1 lead with 10 minutes left in the third period. It, um... Like, what can you say about what would become a... Because you'll get poached yourself from Toronto.com, but... Yeah, and it happened. I mean, we were still on the rise when I got an offer that I couldn't turn down. Because, you know, you get to work with a global beer company and how can you say?

And this is interbreu. Right, which had acquired Labat. But interestingly, it almost became a kind of a reverse takeover because the CEO of Labat at the time of the takeover by Interbreu was this amazing guy called Hugo Powell. And he was a brilliant marketer and just recently passed away sadly and saw that the global beer industry was going to get consolidated. And Interimbreu was a private company, needed to go public in order to compete in that world. And his kind of two I see was an amazing.

guy called Don Kitchen, who headed up Labat when Hugo ended up being CEO of Interbrew. And Dawn hired me. And we created beer.com, which was the world's largest consumer beer beer site and had a ton of fun introducing a bunch of brands. And sadly, you know, we went to Belgium together, the two of us to present to the board and had an amazing time just before we were going public. And he and I were to meet for breakfast the next day. We celebrated that night as only beer executives can celebrate.

And sadly, he didn't come down for breakfast. He hadn't checked out and tragically died in his sleep of a massive coronary, age 44. Wow. Two boys in school with my son at the time. and my world really melted down at that point. Well, that's horrible. That's horrible.

It was an awful, an awful tragedy. And long story short, that eventually led me to walking the Camino the first time. And I've walked it every year since with the exception of COVID. and now in my rewirement phase of my life, I go more often as I can. Okay, we're going to have to get back to that word rewirement. Okay, so I'll hit some hot points here. I'm curious about, but we've got to get back.

Here, taking a note, rewirement. I think I need a rewirement myself, actually. Rewirement, okay, taking a note on that one here. Okay, so at what point does InterBrew become InBev? after they they become public they start to acquire a bunch of stuff and then there is a a Brazilian company called ambev that owns a bunch of brands and so the two of them combine right and that would have been early 2000s and it's now the world's largest beer company it's been an enormous success globally.

I once did a podcast consulting gig with InBev on Queens Key there, and I spent a lot of time in that pretty cool space they have on Lake Ontario. It is a spectacular place. I started in BCE place and was part of the team that moved over to the Queens Key facility, the first class, if you will. So before we move on, though, did you want to take a moment to take a shot at what became of Toronto.com.

I just feel like when you have a 4-1 lead and the 10 minutes left and the third, you got to seal the deal, especially just game seven. Yeah. And, you know, part of the problem,

and it's always the, the so-called innovators dilemma in the sense that when you're part of a legacy business, as I was, you know, you're part of the legacy newspaper business, the legacy business

doesn't want to cannibalize itself. Right. right so it's always going to try to keep the the cream business in the main line in the newspaper and the opportunity was really to build out um the new media assets uh and to direct the business there because what we could do with the internet is we could have had the city guides it wasn't just about toronto dot com i wanted to be vancouver dot com and montreal and halifax etc And we had the muscle, we had the momentum, we had the technology. But no, Rocco, why would we do that?

You know, we're making so much money in the newspaper. And I, you know, I left and I sold my shares at the time. And it was, you know, sort of double digits dollars. And, you know, Torstar at the end of the day ended up being sold for pennies on the dollar. and it's a fraction of what it was because it refused to make that change. And this is a similar story, maybe different scale, but similar story, you know, Jeff Bezos ran into problems with Amazon back in the day. And he had been an employee of the Washington Post.

He offered up Amazon in the day for about $100 million. And now like $100 million. million bucks, would more than buy the Washington Post, and it's worth hundreds of billions. Right. Well, this is like Blockbuster having a chance to buy Netflix. 100%. Right. Yeah.

Wow. Okay. So here, I'm keen to get you to the 2010 municipal election in this city, but on our way there, a moment regarding the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario, because that's where you're hanging your hat, right, prior to the election in 2010. That is correct, along with an interregnum just before the 2010 in Ottawa as the national director of the Liberal Party. But five years running the Heart and Stroke Foundation and really is a tribute to my mentor, Don Kitchen, who had died while we were traveling together in Belgium. I thought this was a way of honoring his memory and really.

it was an amazing experience and full circle moment for me towards the end of my term at at heart and stroke. I get a call from a woman who says, you know, you don't know who I am, sir, but my father was going to an event at Copps Coliseum three days ago and he collapsed on the stairs from cardiac arrest and the paramedics told us that he would have died by the time they arrived, but for the fact that there were CPR trained individuals at cops and a defibrillator on the wall, which kept him alive. And we talked to the people at cops and they told us that the Heart and Stroke Foundation had just put that in and done the training. And when we talked to Heart

and Stroke, they said, this has been your, you know, sort of personal hobby horse to get defibrillator into public arenas. And, you know, back to that bike ride from Rainy River, that had been all to raise funds for our defibrillator initiative. And so I just want to tell you that we're celebrating Christmas with our dad instead of going to his wake. Wow. So feel, I mean, you know, I've worked on huge deals.

Nothing has been as satisfying as an initiative that, say, lives each and every year. Amazing. Now, I'm going to quote Wikipedia before we leave the Harden Stroke Foundation of Ontario, where you were from 2004 to 2009. Wikipedia, this is a quote. Yeah. Under Rossi's leadership, the Harden Stroke Foundation built a $130 million reserve of tax receded funds. While some have criticized collecting and not using millions in funds for which tax exemptions

were issued, Rossi has remarked, quote, it's a criticism I will bear with honor. I'm proud to say, I'm proud that we built a healthy, long-term balance sheet. You still feel this way? This would be how you feel about that here in June 26?

150%. Is that possible? I'm going to do the math on this. 150% because, you know, and it's one of the issues and the difference between for profit and not-for-profit. in the not-for-profit, there's this,

you're not allowed to invest for the future. You're not allowed to have long-term strategic plans because the money comes in, it's got to go out. We actually raised over half a billion dollars in that time and spent the rest on initiatives, but having those additional dollars allowed us to make commitments, multi-year commitments into the future, so that researchers knew it wasn't going to,

be feast or famine, that their research projects were going to be protected and funded for five years into the future. And so absolutely, that's the way I want to do it. I don't want to be like a government budget that has to blow the money out the door by April 1st or that budget gets reduced the next year. That is not the most efficient way to spend the funds. And so it's not like I was putting that $130 million into my pocket, it was there to serve the cause in a strategic and long-term way. Okay, so 2010 Toronto mayoral election in a little context as we get there. You can imagine, I'm curious to chat about this one, but a little context, you mentioned

that you were the national director of the federal liberal party of Canada. When was that? 2020... When was that? 2009 to 2010. 2009 to 2010. The first year of Michael Ignatiot's time as leader of the party. Okay, Iggy. It's difficult.

I think it's difficult in this country to be a leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and not end up as Prime Minister. It is difficult. It happened with him and it happened with Stefan Dion, but it's not very common that this happens. Okay, throwing it out there. But also, just this is like a fun fact on our way. to 2010 election

is that you managed John Torrey's campaign in 2003, 2003, when he ran to be mayor of Toronto. That's correct. So, okay, so, well, so many places I want to go. So, so,

so David Miller, of course, so we had Mel Last, this is, I'm going to talk Mega City here, okay, so post-Megas City, which was 98, I suppose. So you get Mel Lastman, what a fun time that was. And then, of course, you get David Miller,

and we get him for, I guess, a couple of terms. If I remember he correctly. That is correct. And he decides, okay, so I remember the John Tory. I remember this election 2003 pretty well. But where do you think John Tory goes wrong that he loses the 2003, Toronto municipal election?

And is it your fault, Rocco? Oh, for sure. It's my fault. He started the race at 3% name recognition. David Miller had been a longtime counselor, was better known. John was very well known in the business community, but the general public didn't know from John Torrey.

And we went from 3% to 47% and almost winning. It was just a couple of points short. And I think had the election gone another two weeks, we would have caught him and won. And it was really a matter of raising the profile. It is an amazing thing in municipal politics where you don't have the party backing you, that individual name recognition is the single biggest factor towards success. And we just didn't have enough time to close that gap.

But am I remembering correctly at the beginning of this election cycle, Barbara Hall was the frontrunner. That is correct. Okay, because... And then she collapsed. She collapsed all right. I'm just checking out. We'll do percentage of popular vote here.

Okay. So David Miller becomes mayor of Toronto by getting 43.3% of the vote. John Torre is a pretty close second. He got 38% of the vote. But Barbara Hall got 9.2% of the vote. Jeez, yeah. And she started with a massive lead. Yes.

Ed Keenan comes over every quarter. And I remember him talking about how, like looking for example, because this came up with Brad Bradford, and maybe we can talk about that after we talk about, you know, 2010. But Brad Bradford, in the, got to get my years right, in the by-election we had three years ago.

So, 2020, I guess that was, because John Torrey resigns. Have you heard that? Yeah. We'll get to that maybe, too. There's so many plays I want to go if you, I'll go. But there was, but Brad Brad Bradford finished. I can't remember if it was eighth or ninth or something,

but he barely beat Chris Sky. Do you know this name? Yes. Like, and there were so many, so I've been saying to Ed Keenan all along that if Brad Bradford becomes mayor in 2026, it will be the greatest. You won't find another example of a comeback of that nature. Like, he truly got trounced in 2023, which was only three years ago. Right. And so, so, so, Mike, where are you going with all this?

Maybe we address 2010, but now we have this context that you did work on John Torrey's campaign, which was 38% of the popular vote. He lost by, it looks like, it's about 36,000 votes or so, 36,000 votes. It was pretty close. David Miller becomes mayor. What made you run in 2010? Look, I am the child of immigrants who came here with absolutely nothing

and have been able to build an amazing life for themselves and for their five kids. And I feel like the kid who woke up on third base hit a bunt and gets credited for a home run. And that is really about what this city, what this province, what this country has given me, along with my parents. And I felt it was a way to serve. So if we remember correctly, this is the election that gives us Rob Ford as mayor of Toronto. That is correct. So I'm going to just read the popular vote again here.

So Rob Ford won convincingly he had 47% of the popular vote. And second place is a fellow FOTM, George Smitherman. He was 35%. Then you got Joey Pants, Joe Pantelone, who was about almost about 11.7%. And then we get you, Mr. Rocco Rossi, with 0.6% of the vote, 5,000 votes. How did you feel getting less than 1% of the vote? Well, I actually, the thing that's missing here is that I withdrew from the race before the voting day. Right.

Because it was clear it was a close run thing between Rob and George. And, you know, while I wasn't at 1%, I was maybe in, you know, 12, 13% in the polling. And I felt that, look, I didn't want to drag. the people and the team that had been supporting me all of this time, we clearly weren't going to win. Right. And many of them, politics is their life. And so, you know, they either wanted to go to George or to, to Rob.

And so the best thing I thought is having given it my best shot is to release them to go where they would. So tell your followers, don't vote for me. I said, yeah, I said, you know, make the choice between who, actually has a chance to win at this point because it's a crucial election. But did you back a candidate? No. I did not endorse a candidate because, again, I had equally, you know, I drew from liberals and conservatives and, you know, truth be told, my vote went two-thirds to Ford and one-third to George. Okay, okay. We'll touch on that in a moment. But what are your thoughts, Rock O'Roc.

on first past the post versus a ranked balloting system. It feels like that's part of the problem here. Well, it is and it isn't. I mean, again, all systems end up showing their issues. And, you know, I move from one to the other in terms of ranked ballot versus first past the post. And I think you can make a case for both. I feel like ranked balloting is more democratic in my mind. Because, you know, I'm tired of voting for example.

Just random example. Oh, it's a provincial election. Oh, in my writing, who's got the better chance to be the progressive conservative candidate? Is it the liberals or the NDP? Oh, it's the liberals. Oh, I'm voting liberal. Like, I'm not voting for or I'm voting against. Right.

Like I just think if we had ranked ballot in that would do vote for. But if the ranking ends up, yeah, but if the ranking ends up, you know, those votes going to the liberal anyway, what's been the real difference for you as an individual voter? Well, because I'm savvy enough to look at the polls and see who's a bit. But most, you know, you've got to let people who are like, I always vote NDP. Well, in this particular ride in you're sitting in right now, NDP is not going to win a provincial election. Like it's been a long time since they've been, it's going to be. either liberal or PC and they pass the baton back and forth. So if you're savvy enough to do your research,

but to me, rank ballot, I'm just throwing it out, the rank balloting. I believe a certain leader of the Liberal Party promised this at some point, but I don't remember happening, Rocco. I don't know if you're keeping tabs on your old party there. Yeah. All right, so you withdraw from that election.

Rob Ford, how do you think Rob Ford did as mayor of Toronto? I think it was largely a disaster. You know, I came to appreciate Rob over the course of, you know, 11 months of campaigning. We debated, all of us debated over a hundred times. There were some days where there were three debates a day. We got to the point where we could finish each other's sentences. Right. And, you know, one thing I will say about Rob is that he genuinely wanted to help people.

and he was a phenomenal counselor in the sense of this is a classic ward healer you want you know potholes fixed you want to deal with your garbage being picked up that that was fantastic but there was no I would argue there was no sort of bigger picture strategic vision for the city and where it could go because you know he was constantly saying well you know if we if we take care of the pennies, the dollars will take care of themselves. And I said, well, sometimes when you take care of pennies, you just end up with more pennies. And we need to come up with decisions that will affect the dollars and the tens of millions and the billions of dollars. It's a massive budget. Right. And I think that was overwhelming. And of course, he had his own personal demons

to fight. And so, you know, I think, I think it was a period where, um, it was not the optimum for the city. And Rob Ford, of course, refused to resign and measure for me me to kind of work around him, right? But I find it interesting to compare and contrast because, you know, eventually John Torrey would become mayor of the city.

Rocco, I'm here to fill you in. And you want to three elections? Am I remember, that correctly? Three, that's amazing. Okay. Although Doug Ford is now won three majorities in a row. So goodness gracious. Okay.

But, yeah. And John, sadly, was not able to complete the third. Well, that's where I'm going with this, though. He had sort of a moral code where he, you know, his ethics were, he basically realized he should resign and he did it. And it was interesting to me that, oh, he actually did resign because I felt he should resign, but I also felt Rob Ford should resign. And he was never going to resign. It's just interesting how John Torrey, not unlike Rob Ford, would basically realize,

I should resign. So did you think John Torrey, who you worked closely with in the 2003 election, did you think John Tori should have resigned? He made that decision, and so absolutely he should have. Because once you, once that's where your head is at and your heart is at,

I'm not going to second guess that kind of choice because you're making enormous sacrifices one way or another. Does John Torrey ever call you up or text you and seek your counsel? I consider John a friend to this day and always have to get this call. That's your, that's your job. You got to get, I want John Torrey. That's going to take a lot more lasagna, my friend. As much, I listen, I got the Petrucci family on speed dial as much lasagna as it takes

because it'll be a very fair, dignified, wonderful conversation. Right. That's all I can say. John's listening at home here. Would you, like, if you were asked by John Torrey, what should I run again in 2026? Because John has said he's not going to run in 2026. But would you have recommended that he do run in 2026? Or would you have said, okay, you've served your time, you're good.

Like, what would you have told John Tori? I think he made the right choice for him and the city. I think it's important for us to move forward. hitting up of all the 2026 municipal election questions here. Do you think Olivia Chow is doing a good job as mayor of Toronto? I have a number of issues and they really boil down to very often in municipal politics you have people running who really would much rather be,

MPPs or MPs. And we have this constant complaint at the municipal level of stuff being downloaded by the province or the feds. And we only have property taxes as revenues, a few other odds and ends, but really at the end of the day, it's the property taxes, which is not a mechanism to fund big social programs. But then you have people who come in who just can't help them. themselves and much as they want to do great things, as my father's always taught me, the difficulty

in life is never the choice between good and bad. Any idiot can make that choice. The difficulty in life is the choice between good and good. There are lots of great things that I wish we could do and we should, you know, we want to do an employment programs for kids and lunch programs and everything else. That is not the responsibility of the city government because we do not have the revenues to be able to fund those on a sustainable basis. And so what you end up having is you try to do lots of great things and her heart is fantastic.

She wants to do all of these wonderful things. You do not have the wallet to pay for them. And then you give the signal to the province and the feds and you let them off the hook because they say, oh, well, the city has a program in that area. So that's fine. They've taken over that responsibility. That's a disaster. So I'd like to see a far more focused program that understands that at the end of the day, we're in charge of police. We're in charge of congestion in our roads. We're in charge of setting up a system where housing can be built. Development happens. let's stick to the basics.

And that is something that I think it's important to have a soft heart, but you shouldn't have a soft head at the same time. Well, we'll get back to your soft heart shortly, Rogo, but are you keeping an eye on what's happening in New York City with Mayor Mom Dani? I am. And he just had a remarkable show of strength last night in the, in the primaries where he took out two sitting members in the primary by supporting more left-of-center candidates from his perspective.

So stay tuned. I feel, yeah, we'll see. I was reading about the money they're investing into education. And I was thinking, oh, wow, like education. Like, what an idea? Yeah. And then what are you saying? You're saying that you're taking the state and the feds.

off the hook for doing the right thing by education. Like that is something. Sure, but kids are getting educated. But you want to do it on a sustainable basis. And that's the thing that worries me is that you do that. And then it means that you don't have the money to do the other things that you're supposed to be doing. Warren Kinsella was here fairly recently making his Toronto Mike debut.

And he revealed to me that he's working with. Brad Bradford on his 2026 mayoral campaign. What are your thoughts on Bradford, Bradford? I've known Bradford for a long time. And as you said, you know, it's sort of a big comeback from a shalacking. It will be the greatest comeback in Canadian political history. But I think what it's shown is not so much a comeback as a ongoing

insistence that this is his goal. And so he's kept. add it to the point where then you have, you know, John deciding not to run. Mike Ford was rumored that maybe that was going to happen, didn't happen. And typically what's happened within Toronto, we mentioned before at the municipal level, it's technically non-party, it's the individual, but the reality is the NDP has always organized very strongly at the municipal level. You're talking about progress Toronto maybe.

Yeah, and they're very disciplined to not split their vote. And typically the way that they can win is if the center right, if the liberals and the conservatives have multiple candidates. And then that's what leads to loss. If Bradford is fortunate enough not to have serious competition on the right, then this is going to be a very close election. So do you, that sounds to me, and I have these conversations of Ed Keenan every quarter, and I agree with you.

The worst thing that could have happened for Brad Bradford's campaign is John Torrey saying he's going to run again. It would be put a fork in it. It's done. But yeah, right now, if you're the, you're suggesting that there might be enough votes from people. We talked about this earlier. I'm not voting for somebody.

I'm voting against some people, but people change people who say, I don't want Olivia Chow to be my mayor. I want to change. then you need to vote for Brad Bradford. That is correct. If that becomes your only choice, then it's, you know, it forces the binary.

So his issue is raising his name recognition because she's still significantly ahead on name recognition. But the latest polls I've seen, it's tightened up considerably in terms of the difference between the two of them. And that's largely because for those who do not want to vote for Olivia, if they're provided with only one real alternative, then that's where they're going to vote.

If they vote. 100%. Right. If they vote. Sadly, municipal numbers tend to be in and around 40%. And it's actually been lower in some elections. But this one,

I think, we'll have a good turnout. And again, it's only June. There's a lot of time to go here. So, I mean, Olivia's got,

I mean, right now we have the World Cup here. We had a match. we had a match here yesterday. Yeah. And I feel like, you know, there's a lot of things that can go wrong for Olivia and a lot of things that can go right.

So we'll have to reconvene, I guess, in September or something and see where we're at. But we could do, we could do a mic, you know, election prognostication. You and Pagan? What do you think?

Sure. And Warren. And Warren. Absolutely. Really smart guy when it comes to these issues. I'm trying to remember, though. Is he based here now? Do you know, is he based here now?

I'm trying to remember. He was on a book tour. He has been for years. He has been for years. And he's got a great book out on anti-Semitism. Yeah, well, that's, that was the, sometimes these people drop by because it's amazing what having a book out can do for getting you great guests, Mr. Finding Grace.

Okay. So one interesting thing is that Brad Brad Bradford was a guest of Nick Ieenies on Nick's podcast, Building Toronto Skyline, which I happen to produce. And it's a great podcast. highly recommend it. But I was hired to produce a live event. It was actually in Concord because we, the restaurant tour there, with a whole bunch of reasons it was in Concord, which I think that's a fancy way of St. Vaughn. No, it's a subset of Vaughn, but it's in Vaughn. But Progress, Toronto filed a complaint with the Integrity Commissioner because this was a ticketed event and money was

raised. None of that money, as far as I know, and none of that money went to Brad Bradford or his campaign. But regardless, this is an ongoing thing. It'll be interesting. I'm curious about where this goes, because I've had conversations of Brad's lawyer, for example, because I was there and part of it. But just literally, I was thinking of the line, don't shoot me, I'm just the piano player or whatever. I'm just the producer here. I literally made sure it was a wonderfully produced live event with great audio and great video, but I had nothing to do of ticketing or... Guilt by association. Kiyo by Associates, stay tuned.

And thank you, Nick Aienis for being a proud sponsor of Toronto Mike. So much love to him here now. Okay. So I'm curious. If you were director of the Federal Liberal Party of Canada, why did you run as a progressive conservative candidate in 2011 after that failed mayoral run in 2010? Yeah, I would consider myself a blue liberal or a red,

Tory. And I've found through my life, so I'm fiscally conservative and socially liberal. And when I find that the liberal party goes too far to the left, I become uncomfortable on fiscal

matters. And that was the case. I couldn't bring myself to support Kathleen Wynn. And and so decided to run for the PCs here provincially because there's still the progressive conservatives and not straight conservatives. Right.

So you ran as a candidate in 2011, and how did that go? I lost again to Mike Cole, a longtime member in the riding, but far more competitive than the municipal one. and, you know, far better than most of the other conservatives in Toronto. So Mike won with 54% of the vote. And you were a strong second with 33.55% of the vote as a progressive conservative candidate.

And then the NDP were only at 9.8% of the vote. I actually know the guy who ran for the Green Party. So I just pointed out there. He's been a guest on the Humble and Fred show, which I also produce. Oh, so Humble and Fred, and I mentioned Maureen Holloway was my last guest. And Maureen Holloway spilled some Toronto Radio tea. Oh. Not just with regards to John Derringer, which is what everybody is interested in,

but also a gentleman named Darren B. Lamb, who was her co-host on CHFI, and seemingly disappeared, and then was replaced by Mike Cooper. And then they were all gone for Pooja and Gerdip, who came over from CP-24. breakfast. This is stuff you probably are too busy to care about. But do you have any radio tea for me to spill here, just since I said there was any, any Toronto radio tea now that I'm addicted? I don't, I don't have anything in that. You got nothing on Jesse and Jean or Scruff Connors or anything. Do you listen to any terrestrial radio? I haven't for some time. Well, you're not alone. Aside from, aside from, uh, aside from

680. Okay, so you listen for traffic and weather together and all that good stuff and all of that good stuff. It was a brilliant formula. In fact, for years, 680 News Radio became the most valuable asset on AM radio in Canada. Oh, I believe that 100%. I believe that 100%. I often say like Rogers, I believe, I believe, again, I'll spend. I think Rogers would shut down every station they own in the country and saved their two Toronto FM signals and 680 news or whatever they're calling it these days. I think they rebranded it. But that's how valuable 680. And shout out to Mike Eppel, who I hope to see at the TMLX event tomorrow. Yeah.

And I was actually on breakfast television this morning and he was on just before doing some business stuff. Lovely man. Yeah. Straight out of Tilsenburg there. Okay. By the way, Hey Ref is on the live stream and he says, and I'm just throwing this out randomly now, but how do you feel about heart and stroke canceling the ride for heart bike ride on the Gardner slash DVP? Hey ref participated for many years and he misses it. Do you know anything about this? I do. It happened after my time. All five years of mine, we had the ride. And now it's actually, it's been taken over by Bay Crest. So still supporting a phenomenal cause. cause and still the same time of year.

In fact, it was just a couple weeks ago. So it still happens. It still happens. It's not for heart and stroke. It's for Baycrest and it's for their incredible, you know, brain dementia stroke program. So really worthy, worthy ride. Absolutely. It's so amazing to come down the DBP without cars.

And my, because I did look into this ones. I did the the big one, ride to conquer cancer. Yeah, done that one. But I was, I think it's like 40K,

right? Like 40 kilometers or something to do this DVP one or something. Well, the DVP one, there, we had three versions. Oh,

sure, right. So you could do 25, 50 or 75. Okay. And then you let people do some loops. Love it. Okay. So you,

you did use the word rewirement. Yes. Okay. What the heck does that mean? Well, um, when I left to step down from, the Ontario Chamber of Commerce as CEO, they put this party for me,

and they dubbed it a retirement party. And I said, I have no interest in retiring. I don't play golf. I don't want to stop growing and learning and making a difference. And so I choose to call it rewirement, which is really about putting together a portfolio of things that have included, thankfully, the writing of finding grace. Right.

and travel and sitting on some boards and mentoring some young CEOs and working on a couple of charitable projects, including a fantastic program called Shift Canada, which is all about encouraging more entrepreneurship among young people. And yeah, and that keeps me learning and engaged. And I can still put on a pack as I'm going to in July and walk another 700 kilometers across Spain. And that'll be two pairs of shoes, you said?

Well, I wear one pair of, you know, sort of thick-sold shoes and then one pair of sandals. Okay, I'm always curious in the footwear for long walks like that, right? Because it's like, I never have the proper footwear. And after like 20K, I'm like, oh, I need different shoes for this. Oh, I get disgraces. Okay, by the way, you mentioned president and CEO of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, which sounds very impressive to me. but that was 2017 when you became.

So when did you get the, oh, you call it rewirement, but when did you leave Ontario Chamber of Commerce? So it was, what is it, we're 26 now, so it would have been 24. 24, okay, and that's why you found some time to write Finding Grace, which Andrew Ward is going to buy from you tomorrow, whether you're there or not, Rocco, okay? Come for the palm pasta, Andrew, and stay for the book signing.

I can tell everybody, because I just confirmed it with him, But here, do I have a copy here? No, I would like to... You know what? I gave my... Right. Cadence Weapon, who is a great rapper. He's from Edmonton.

He now lives in Hamilton. Caden's weapon is in a book that Cam Gordon wrote called Track Changes. And he's sitting here and we're talking about his contributions to track changes. And I said, did Cam give you a copy? And he said, no. I gave him my copy. So Cam Gordon, I'm telling the listenership that Cam Gordon will be at TMLX-22, tomorrow to sign copies of track changes. maybe he's going to be sitting beside Rock or Rossi signing copies of finding Grace.

But I need a copy myself, Cam Gordon, because I gave my copy to Cadence weapon. Just throwing it out there. Okay, so I want to call you out on something. I'm going to read, again, I'll quote Wikipedia and we'll hear what you say. And then we'll see if I have to beat you up, okay? Please. Because I enjoy this conversation very much. But I will say at least one valued FOTM who's been to every single Toronto mic listener

experience, which means he'll be at his 22nd one tomorrow. He called you, and I'm going to quote what he called you, okay, you ready? Yeah. Human garbage. Okay. And I said, well, I will have human garbage on Toronto Mike. As long as we can talk, as long as they don't tell me what I

can or cannot talk about in my own show. So I'm going to read Wikipedia and you are going to respond and then we'll see if we can live stream our fight. Okay, you ready? In 2018, you know where this is going, but I'm going to do it anyway. In 28, because I can tell it's painful. No, just kidding. In 2018, Rossi

acting as president of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce was one of several business leaders who lobbied Ontario Premier Doug Ford to repeal Bill 148 legislation implemented by the previous provincial government. Among other things, that legislation guaranteed workers paid six days, equal pay for part-time work and a $1 an hour raise

to a minimum wage of $15 an hour to begin on January 1st, 2019. Rossi publicly celebrated when Bill 148 was repealed, canceling the planned increase of minimum wage. On December 31st, 2018, the day before the canceled minimum wage increase was to take place, Rossi tweeted photos of caviar, some expensive champagne I can't pronounce,

and pastries with the statement, quote, celebrating New Year's the one-percenter wage. Let them eat cake. Happy face emoji, end quote. Rossi was roundly criticized by other Twitter users in the replies to his tweet and has since deleted it and apologized, claiming the tweet was, quote, satire.

Rocco Rossi, you're here making your Toronto Mike debut in the TMDS basement studio in South Atobico. Say it ain't so. This sounds like the Grinch wrote this tweet. Tell me about why you were so. against Bill 148 and why you would write that satire tweet celebrating people not getting that increase of minimum wage. Talk to me, Rocco. 100%. And I appreciate the opportunity to talk about it because the two are not at all related to one another. People chose to put it together. What I was doing, when I was growing up in

in Toronto, simple immigrant, Italian immigrant family. We have a saying, and I'm sure your friends at Palma Pasta will tell you, that we spoke of those who had wealth as the manja cakes.

Yeah, I've heard it. As the cake eaters. I worked in a grocery store at Dufferin and DuPont and they called me Muncha cake. Right. Because, yeah,

because you, you, you come from a more privileged background than they. did. And so what that was, and, you know, there was many glasses of wine and, and, and champagne as well. So the timing, and that's why I apologize, and it was an awful thing in terms of the timing. But what I was doing was making fun of myself, that I had become a manja cake, that I was, I was now able to celebrate, and I was with a bunch of other friends who had grown up

in the same neighborhood and we'd been fortunate together in building the lives that we did that we could now afford to have champagne and caviar and that was what that was about was making fun of ourselves there was never an intent and you know i i grew up in a in a family where my parents had multiple jobs where they put uh five kids through school doing that not speaking English as a first language, I would never attack people in that way, never want to harm anyone. There was no malice whatsoever. There was stupidity because of the timing, but it was literally

was not a celebration of legislation. It was laughing at ourselves that we had become what we joked about when we were kids. Okay, so let's park the tweet. I miss those charming days when your old buddy Elon Musk wasn't in charge of that app, and I used to enjoy it very much. Okay. But if we park the tweet.

But you were absolutely, you were absolutely happy to see Bill 148 repealed. Because while I would have been for several of the individual elements of the bill, the problem I had with it, and this was intentionally done by the wind gun. government is they wanted to jam and there were 23 individual elements within the bill. And we had had, there had been a promise that there would be a process, that it would go to small and medium sized businesses, but an election was coming up and they decided to jam everything together into one bill into the election, an election that they lost. Right.

lost badly. And lost badly. And so while again... And the writing was on the wall early. Like they knew they were going to lose. But while I would very much be in favor of individual elements of it and then spaced out over time, adding them all going into a period that was not robust in the economy at the time,

I thought was, and I still think, was bad policy. Okay, let me break, then let me break. So I can have a sincere smile by Toronto Tree because I've, I've loved this chat, and we haven't even got your World Cup prediction here yet. But okay, so just these big three things. So were you in favor of or against workers guaranteed, sorry, workers having guaranteed paid sick days?

I am for, again, it's take those individual ones, space them over time, work with the business community. The problem was jamming them all together with no transition period. Okay, you're in favor of that one. Okay, you're in favor of that one. And then what about, again, any of the individual ones spaced over time I would be comfortable with. It's putting them all together at the same time that made it untenable for business. So equal pay for part time work. You're in favor of that, just not lumped in with everything else, whatever you said, 23 items.

Exactly. Okay. And the last one, because I'm very curious about this, because I'm not even sure, what is the minimum wage today? Do you know? Do you know off high? Maybe I can Google this one later. But so this legislation was going to make it $15 an hour. It was a $1.

Right. On January 1, 2019. Yeah. What were your thoughts on that specific line item back then? Again, we weren't debating one specific thing. We were debating a bill where you had to suck it all up at the same time. And when you're talking about businesses, living on a small margin, that was devastating.

And I will continue to fight that issue. Small businesses. So we're talking about like the, I'm going to, for example, because I work very closely of a couple of small businesses, but like Great Lakes Brewery, which is owned by Peter Bullitt or Palma Posta, which is owned by the Petrucci family.

That's what we're, that's who would be hurt by all these things at one time. 100% because they don't have, they don't have a large balance sheet. that enables them to absorb shocks in the way that a larger organization does. So here's what I'll do for you, Rocco, because I'm nothing, if not a fair man, but this channel, I guess I can name them since,

I can name them, because we call him Langer, and Langer will be at his 22nd Toronto Mic listener experience tomorrow. So I'm going to see him tomorrow at 6 p.m. Come early on. I've got to receive the Palma pasta delivery. We're going to have food for a small army of FOTMs. so I got to get there early for that.

But I'll ask Langer if what you just said in this last little segment if he still thinks you're human garbage, okay? So you've finally, you had an open mic there. He's welcome to his opinion. But I will find out from Langer tomorrow if he still thinks Rocco Rossi is human garbage. So Mr. Rockal Rossi, in less than an hour, I'm going to be watching Canada versus Switzerland.

And if we draw, we both advance. to the knockout stage. As you know, Canada had, prior to this World Cup, Canada had never even earned a single point, let alone won a game. We've done both now, but we've sure never advanced to the knockout stage. As a fan of Italy, you've seen this many times

and you've seen World Cup victories. But how do you think Canada will do against Switzerland today at 3 p.m? I think we are going to do well enough to advance to the next round. We'll get at least a draw, if not an outright win. I, you know, saddened obviously by the horrible injury that we suffered in the, in the last, in the last game. But I think that's going to motivate people,

uh, on the team to win one for the Gipper. Yeah. Ronald Reagan reference. And, uh, it's going to get, um, tougher after this round.

Uh, I mean, this round was basically, this, this round was, was basically designed that all, all three host countries had a real shot at moving into the next round. We were in a weak group, that's for sure, for sure.

And also, we could theoretically, of course, we could lose today and still advance, because we have that tiebreaker. Right. And we won big. Six nothing. So those points count. Six nothing victory, my goodness gracious. First victory for Canada and our illustrious history at the World Cup,

which at that point included five, no, sorry, five plus a six. eight games total because we had three games in 86. We didn't score a single goal. And then, of course, in Qatar, we had our three games. We finally scored, did not win a game, did not earn a draw. But here we are with a draw and a win in our first two. I'm very excited. These episodes, when you do that with only a half an hour to go,

most people will hear this after the game. So they will listen to us talk about Canada advancing, and then they will know when they're, oh, my God, what a disaster. We completely collapsed. And how did we not make it the way Ireland did not happen? Not going to happen. Okay, Rock or Rossi. How was this your Toronto make debut? Fantastic and totally fair.

So thank you. And thank you for the opportunity. I'm not thinking it's not fair. Thank you for the opportunity to respond to the tweet. Is there anything I didn't ask you about that you really wanted to say? Like you could say it now if there's something like, oh, I never got to say this or I never got to say that. The only thing I covered it all. I think we covered it all except, you know, go to Amazon.ca.

and have a look at Finding Grace and be intrigued by your thoughts and your reviews and hopefully you won't think it's garbage. Yeah, it won't be human garbage or book garbage. Finding, that should be on the back. Pretty good for human garbage. Langer. We should put that in the back.

Finding Grace, a Camino de Santiago story by Rocco Rossi. Do you have a second book in you? I don't know. It took me 20 years for this. This one is for you. Are you still cycling and kayaking? Absolutely. Not just walking the trail there.

You're out there. Good for you, man. You look like you're in good shape. I'm trying to get there myself. You know, I think I'm in good shape. I just have an addiction to Palma Pasta. I'll work on that. But what a pleasure it was to have a deep dive

with Rocco Rossi. I hope to see everybody tomorrow at 6 p.m. And that brings us to the end of our 1,923rd show. Go to TorontoMike.com for all your Toronto Mike needs. And, you know, just drop by. It's 6 to 9 p.m. The diehards will be there all three hours,

but you could just drop by, grab some fresh Italian food that Palma Pasta is sending over for us. Get your first pour at Great Lakes and enjoy some fresh craft beer. And then, of course, you can buy more beer. If you need to see a television, of a certain match.

There will be at least two televisions tuned into that station. I'm not supposed to promote this, but this is a fact. Rocco signing my copy of his book. That's very kind of you, Rocco Lassie. Thank you very much. But come by, and again, I don't make money on these events. It's literally like a way for me to get the sponsors to feed and get beer for my friends, my listeners,

all of you, drop by 22nd TMLX event. Subdivisions. saying subdivisions and I'm going to really bust your chops here. No, you don't have to tell me. We all know it's Mark Daly from CityPalls. Much love to all who made this possible. Again, that's Great Lakes Brewery, that's Palma Pasta, that's Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball.

That's Nick Iienes. That's Recycle My Electronics.C.A. And of course, Ridley Funeral Home, they have a podcast called Life's Undertaking. It's very good. Here's some Gino for you. You ready, Rocco? Gino Vanelli, buddy.

No wonder you like this podcast. See you all Tomorrow with Blair Packam We're recording Rewinder And then I'm getting my ass to Great Lakes For TMLX22 See you all then Then