Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Steve Paikin and John Michael McGrath: Toronto Mike'd #1323

Episode Date: September 11, 2023

In this 1323rd episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Steve Paikin and John Michael McGrath about who is on strike at TVO, why they're on strike, and what's they'd like to say on their TVO podcast if they weren't currently on strike. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Pumpkins After Dark, Ridley Funeral Home and Electronic Products Recycling Association.

The Pokeroo was here? Yes, he just came back from a trip. Oh, I missed him again. What up, Miami? Toronto. VK on the beat. Check. I'm in Toronto where you wanna get the city love.

I'm from Toronto where you wanna get the city love. I'm in Toronto where you wanna get the city love. My city love me back for my city love. Welcome to episode 1323 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.

RecycleMyElectronics.ca. Committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past. The Advantaged Investor Podcast from Raymond James Canada. Valuable perspective for Canadian investors who want to remain knowledgeable,

informed, and focused on long-term success. Pumpkins After Dark. Use the promo code TOMIKE15 and save 15 15 this month at pumpkinsafterdark.com and redley funeral home pillars of the community since 1921 today returning to toronto mic is steve pagan and making his Toronto Mike debut is John Michael

McGrath. Welcome, gentlemen. So good to be with you, Mike. It only took us an hour and a half to drive here. What a joy to see you after the end of that. I am so sorry about our awful congested highway system here, but I have a question for you. Like, if you

had a guest coming on a taping of the agenda and they were 30 minutes late, would you roll without them? What would you do on the agenda? Absolutely. That actually happens more than you think, where, you know, you're waiting for a taping and somebody texts in saying, sorry, subway running late or traffic is awful. And usually what I say to the director is, we got three people who are on time, so let's get going, and we'll ease them in when they can get here. So in this case, one person was on time, and no one wanted to hear from him.

They've heard enough from him. So I waited for you guys, but John Michael McGrath, you're making your Toronto Mic debut. How do you feel about that? Well, I'm open to new experiences. I try to be anyway. So yeah, very happy to be here.

Have you ever heard an episode of this program? I have not. I didn't think so. I could smell it on you there. Okay. I feel bad about that, but I, yeah, I have not encountered the podcast yet. This is the Matt Sundin, Eddie Shaq edition of Toronto Mic'd. You'll find that your sports metaphors are wasted on me.

Clear the track. Here comes Shaq. I know. You got the tune your sports metaphors are wasted on me. Clear the track. Here comes Shaq. I know. You got the tune right, but have you got the numbers right? This is the Matt Sundin, Eddie Shaq. Oh, 13. Matt Sundin is 13. Yeah. And? Eddie Shaq, I have no idea to be honest with you. Well, what number episode is this? This is, oh my goodness gracious. There you go.

There's clues everywhere. I didn't pluck these numbers. It's 23. Okay. There you go. So this is, okay, Matt Sundin, Eddie Shaq. Yeah, 1323. That song I was singing there, like I'm too young to remember that in real time, but I absolutely have listened to Clear the Track, Here Come Shaq on YouTube. He knocks him down and he gives him a whack. He can score goals.

He's got a knack. Eddie, Eddie Shaq. John Michael. Now, I was warned. You are not John. You are not Mike. You are John Michael. Those are two names that make up your first name. Shack. John Michael. Now, I was warned. You are not John. You are not Mike. You are John Michael. Those are two names that make up your first name.

Tell me. Yes. My father and I both have the same name, and he was also a reporter for a different public broadcaster and also reported on Queen's Park because we are not creative people in my family. We chose poorly, maybe. But in order to try and minimize the confusion, I go by my full name. And my father was, professionally, was John McGrath. Well, this is an exciting, fun fact right off the top.

Shout out to Jane Sibury. So basically, your father reported on Queens Park for the CBC. Yes. See, I knew that was the other public broadcaster. And you want to know what's kind of crazy? I love knowing crazy things. I worked with his dad and now I'm working with the dad's

kid. What does that say about me? That tells me you're old. But as I learned at TMLX 13 when I saw you last Thursday, you do not dye your hair. Like that's completely natural. Mike, you ask me that every time I come here. I know that. John Michael, look at his hair.

That's an 85-year-old man. No gray at all in that hair. Every time I come into this basement, this beautifully appointed basement, you always say, so who's coloring your hair these days? I'm just jealous. I just wish you would. First of all, who needs to color their hair out of all of us here? That would be the 49-year-old who's completely gone silver.

But if you'd seen my dad at my age, you would know that I don't color my hair because he never had to either. How's your dad doing? My dad just turned 90, and he's awesome. Thank you for asking. Because I actually, if he's up to it, and you'll have to tell me closer to the date, but I would do a Father's Day 2024 episode with you and your dad.

Put it in your book. Let's do it. Because we almost did it and then it didn't happen, but I think that we better do it, right? So I'll follow up with you closer to Father's Day 2024. And if your dad's up to it, I would love it. So we'll have the Pakins in here for a Father's Day treat. How did you enjoy, what did you think of TMLX13 that was your first Toronto Mike listener experience it was and I had no idea what to expect and showed up and I'll tell you what you have a lovely community of people you really do

I met a lot of people that I'd never met before including Mark Weisblatt who I'd never met before amazing you guys had a summit we did we had a good long chat actually met so many nice people a couple of guys who I actually used to play baseball with on Sunday mornings. Oh, yeah. Brian Gerstein.

Brian Gerstein. Yes, that's right. Who used to advertise on this here podcast. Propertyinthe6.com. There you go. Yeah. So, a good time had by all. And, of course, good food, good drink.

Loved it. Met Mr. Bullitt, the proprietor of glb yes peter bullet yep okay amazing i think i accidentally said his family he corrected me i said oh peter's family owns great lakes but really i got confused it's the petrucci family that owns palma pasta and anthony is a member of that family but peter bullet owns great lakes brewery so you enjoyed a great lakes beer you enjoyed your palma pasta the. The good news for John Michael making his debut before we get into all these questions people want answers to. John Michael, you are

not leaving here without a lasagna. So hopefully that makes the traffic worthwhile. I love a good lasagna. Did you know, John Michael, it's funny, two first names, but I've adapted here. Did you know, John Michael, that we sing songs on this show like

you've already heard a few songs we just belt out songs as they come to us what kind of music do you dig we know that mr pakin here's a big sinatra buff what's your jams oh gosh i mean most of the stuff on my phone is like what was the top 40 hits when i was in high school right okay so what is that like are we talking madonna what are we talking about here no um what oh gosh yeah i'm just bon jovi yeah there's definitely some bon jovi on there there's some guns and roses on the docks okay um and then you know it's it's it's bifurcated where there's like a lot of stuff that was like you know popular music when i was in high school and now more recently i have uh you know i have a young daughter and so i also have like a lot of stuff that was like you know popular music when i was in high school and and now more recently i have uh you know i have a young daughter and so i also have like a lot of disney

uh animated picture soundtracks on my phone as well let it go this is like a frozen soundtrack because i have a seven-year-old and i've heard a lot of frozen songs i've got frozen and moana and um uh encanto uh all We don't talk about Bruno. Yeah, like haunting my dreams. Pagan, oh, I'm trying to think. Do you have any grandkids that are like Encanto age? What's going on over there? My grandkids are two and six months old.

Okay, a little young for Encanto. Too young for that still. Okay, you're a lucky man, okay, Mr. Pagan? Okay. Hamilton, Mike heard that you were coming on, Steve. And we're going to learn more about John Michael. And of course, I've got a ton of TVO questions, of course. But Hamilton Mike was saying that there is this hit piece on Martin Short in Slate.

And everyone came to Martin Short's defense as if he needed it. But you have a personal remind us because you're connected to this family in hamilton somehow remind us all martin short's father and my grandfather did business together in the steel business in hamilton and we're great friends and our respective families have known each other for whatever the math turns out to be 70 years something like that 75 years and yes i saw the hit piece in slate uh boy am I allowed to offer an opinion about that? You can even swear if you want. This is not TVO.

Well, I'm not going to swear, but I thought the piece was trash, and the outpouring of love for him in response to that piece doesn't surprise me at all because I think he's hysterical, and apparently so do lots of people who've watched him over the years in any number of movies, plays, television shows, Broadway.

You know, the list goes on. So he's terrific. And I don't get the piece, but I guess everybody's got to make a name for themselves somehow. John Michael, what do you think of Martin Short? Funny or nah? Oh, I mean, I have loved Martin Short. I mean, I was, I think i must have been six or seven when i watched three amigos and uh i have always enjoyed everything i've watched martin short in i

have enjoyed and that includes at least i've watched the first season of uh only murders in the building i have not yet gotten to uh seasons two or three yet you know where he got his start you know the first television station he ever worked for? Why am I raising this? Well, because it's TVO. Exactly. He did a show back in the day called Ferguson Short and Ross. And Ferguson was Max Ferguson, who used to do a show on CBC Radio a long time ago. And they did, I think they did a season of, it was a variety kind of show on TVO.

Unbelievable. So it's pre-SCTV. Oh yeah, way pre-SCTV. Way pre-SCTV. And I asked, I remember talking to Martin about this once, and I said, so did that, how instrumental was that in getting you onto the journey that has resulted in you becoming one of the most successful

show business people of all time? And he looked at me straight in the face, and he said, not one bit. Zero. But it was part of the journey. I love these fun facts, man. Just drop them. Drop them like they're hot because

they fuel me. John Michael, don't hesitate to drop a fun fact or two as they pop into your head. I'm never going to be able to compete with Paken on the sheer volume of fun facts. Certainly at least fun facts about TVO that he is able to drop. Do you know who Pokeroo is? I've been trying to figure that out

for 40 years. Is it Pagan? You can tell me, John Michael. No. At least I have been in a room with Steve Pagan and Pokeroo at the same time. That's significant. Thank you. That gave me a little insight there. Confirms it's not Steve Pagan.

Okay. And shout out to the Thomases. We just did a Best of Toronto Mike episodes 1001 through 1250. Al Grego curated this with the help of some nice FOTMs, many of which were at TMLX13. And Dave Thomas' appearance on Toronto Mike made the

Best of. So I just heard that clip on Friday. And when I think of Bacon, I think of, you know, in his connection to Martin Short, I remember that you connected me to Ian Thomas and I got Ian on the show. Yes, you did. And Dave and Ian Thomas' parents and my parents were friends in Hamilton. And, of course, I remember Ian Thomas. We came out with Painted Ladies when he was 21 years old, I think,

and I knew him then. I was a teenager. And he did a show in Oshawa, I want to say three months ago, something like that. And my wife and I went out and drove to Oshawa to see the show. And he was terrific, terrific, a full house. And great for him. Still rocking it. Still rocking it. Now, I'm going to come back to you, John Michael, just to learn a little more about you. Because, of course, you're fresh meat.

And I want to know more about who you were, what you're doing at TVO and everything. But I'm going to ask this big question, and then you guys can both answer this. But who exactly is on strike at TVO right now? The CMG workers at TVO are on strike. We are about 70, 75 workers. There are two unions at TVO.

There's Unifor and there's CMG. CMG is the smaller union representing a lot of people in the journalism side of things, the digital education side of things, and the documentaries side of the office. So that is who is currently on strike. Okay. And that includes you, Joe and Michael. It does indeed. I am currently on strike and we've been on strike. We are going into our fourth week. Includes me too. I'm also on strike. That was my next sentence.

Yep. I'm in the union and I'm on strike as well. Okay. So you've been on strike. So you said going into its fourth week, you said? Yes. Okay, so just dumb this down again. A lot of people well-versed in everything here. I'm not so bright. So for four weeks now, you've been on strike.

So has TVO been having discussions with you? Has there been any progress? There are formal bargaining days where the union and TVO lock themselves in a room and they try to work out some kind of an agreement. There were no bargaining days last week, but they have been negotiating. They obviously have not arrived at an agreement

yet because we are still on strike they're still on strike like were you literally on the picket line today yes i was on the monday september 11th before we drove here okay that's why you were late i think that's a good excuse actually one of the reasons one of many and peking kept wanting you to probably uh pull into a drive-thru and get another coffee or something like that. The man loves his ice cream. What's your favorite flavor of ice cream, Steve Pekin? Chocolate. Yeah, me too.

I knew we had a lot in common. I knew I liked you for a reason here. Shout out to Mike Rogotsky. I thought he looked a lot like you. You both have very strong chins. I don't see it. I met him at the TMLX 13. I don't see it.

You know what? I'm going to tweet that. I have the photo, and i will tweet it and we'll do like maybe a poll like does mike ragotsky from esri look like steve bacon we'll do a little poll here okay so you're on strike you're in your fourth week why are you the cmg workers and i have okay so you said there's two unions at tbo like it's uniform and cmg yes so the uniform who's like who does that entail and are they they're working the uniform workers uh would include like a lot of the um technical services people like cameramen editors uh some of the it people i believe but it's not my union, so I actually shouldn't be too...

Allegedly. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, many of them are, I can speak for at least some of the people I know who are still nominally at work, but we have heard back from them saying like, yeah, it's a ghost town, they don't have any work to do, and they're showing up to their jobs as they are supposed to but without new content coming from for example our podcast or the agenda or you know the stuff that i write for the website uh there is nothing for them to do what are like why are you on strike what are you looking for here and tell me why you guys went on strike. The short version is that after a decade of taking zero and one and one and a half percent pay increases, we are asking for some very, I would say, modest wage increases that just do a slightly better job of keeping up with inflation. wage increases that just do a slightly better job of keeping up with inflation. I want to be clear that what we are asking for would not really come very close to reversing the losses we've had over the last decade, but it would be just a bit more than we have seen previously. TVO has offered us

substantially less than what we were asking. On top of that, they have asked for a change in the protections that we currently offer for contract workers. And, you know, TVO, like any large organization, you know, it does need to use contract workers. We understand that. But what they are asking for is a change in the collective bargaining agreement, which would remove one of the key protections that we've got, which basically says that after two years, a contract worker has to become a permanent full-time employee and get all of the benefits thereof.

And TVO wants to remove that protection. All right. Help me out with something here. So TVO is of course fine. The budget for TVO comes from the provincial government. Like, tell me how the, what is it?

Two thirds, two thirds of it. That's why you're here. You got all the specifics here. Okay. So when you're negotiating with TVO, like, does that mean you're negotiating with the progressive conservative party,

which is currently in power? Is this a, a, a unaffiliated, independent broadcast consortium? Can you be specific, just for the average Ontarian, as to what it means to be going straight to TVO? Let me put it this way. Like any other unionized environment,

management represents management, and the union leadership represents the union. Now, management when you are an agency of the Ontario government very much takes its orders from the chief shareholder. And in this case, the chief shareholder is the Minister of Education. So it is obviously reasonable for TVO management to ask the Minister of Education, how much money can we offer these folks? What can we do on side issues like the contract issue that John Michael just referred to? And so while technically at the table, TVO management is facing off against the union, you can, I think, be reasonably well assured, John Michael,

that the Ministry of Education has a significant role behind the scenes in all of this. Yes, you've got the Ministry of Education, and you can go even further up the ladder where the Ministry of Education has to consult with the Treasury Board Secretary and the Minister of Finance to know how much money there is actually to play with. Yeah, but you know, we're 74 people here, Mike, 74 people. So I think you can imagine that the amount of money that's being discussed here is a pimple on the back of an elephant as it relates to the significance to the bottom line of the province of Ontario. I'm trying to say it sure wouldn't take much to make this issue go away is what I'm saying. No, okay.

So then I can probably have the liberty to say a little more than you guys will find out in this episode of Toronto Mic'd here. But Pagan, can I call you call you pagan i'll call you steve steve pagan listen to me now hear me later okay steve so you gave me this fact which is and and you can now confirm whether it's true or false right now but there's only ever been one premiere since tvo was started that refused to speak to TVO? Since John Robarts was the premier of Ontario. Love his library, by the way. Yes, indeed. And it was his government that created TVO in 1970. Bill Davis, the education minister, and his successor at the time doing it.

There has been one premier of Ontario who has declined to give an interview to TVO, and that's the current one. Doug Ford. And we're sad about that because he's actually been to TVO and done three interviews with us before he became the premier. He did one when he was on a book tour because he and his brother co-authored a book. He did one as a contestant for the PC Party leadership in 2018, obviously before he won the leadership. And he did not another one, uh, with,

uh, Olivia Chow and John Tory when he was a candidate for mayor in 2014. So he's been here three times before 2018, but not once in the five years that he's been premier. And I don't think that's because he has a problem with us. I know he doesn't. I have a good professional working relationship with the Premier, but I'm not sure that some of the people who work for him

think it's a good idea for him to do it, and therefore he hasn't. He also did an episode of Political Blind Date. Yes, he did, which was on TVO. Where he and Jagmeet Singh were paired up, and yes, that was also a TVO show. So that's a fourth appearance on TVO. Okay, so obviously until I get Doug Ford on the program, I won't know why

he's not appearing on TVO, but I know he's not appearing. And I do know that having you guys for four weeks, you guys meaning the CMG union people at TVO, like having you not working and on the picket line instead,

it means there is absolutely less coverage of, for example, the Greenbelt scandal and any other... It feels like every day now, I mean, Colin DeMello just published something last night I woke up to. It seems like we're getting a barrage of what I would call negative press

for Doug Ford's PC party. And having you guys basically muted and silenced is a good thing for this party right now. But you're ignoring the other side of the equation. Tell me, educate me. Well, the good things they're doing, for example, on labor, Monty McNaughton's a highly successful minister of labor

and some of the announcements that he's making all the time, he's been a guest on our program before. We can't have him on either to talk about the good things they're doing in that regard. They've got some good stories they think to tell as it relates to the bottom line of the province.

The books are in not as bad shape as people feared a few years ago. We can't have the Minister of Finance on right now to tell us about the good things he's doing in that regard. There's two sides to this coin. I would just add to that.

We could talk about the Minister of Energy. One of the infrastructure projects that almost nobody knows is going on, but they're doing massive refurbishments of the Darlington and Bruce nuclear plants. They are coming in on budget and ahead of schedule, and that's going to be a

core part of the energy transition that this province makes over the next several decades. I would love to tell that story. We do cover those stories. John Michael and I covered on our podcast. Oh, no doubt, no doubt. And we covered on the agenda.

But you would probably concur, I would think, or maybe it's just average Ontario citizen Mike talking here, that the sexy topic of the day is the Greenbelt scandal and everything surrounding it. And that not being covered by TVO right now is probably something they are enjoying in the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario. Well, I think that the additional harms

that we might do by covering it are pretty marginal compared to what the government is already having to endure. Would you elaborate? Okay, I was thinking, okay, I can't tune in here. Let's listen to the last intro I could find for the On Polly podcast, because that might be a good way to kind of discuss how this podcast is not recording and then to get into it. But here, this is only about a few seconds here welcome everyone to the on poly podcast i'm steve pagan and i'm john michael mcgrath today on the

pod one topic and one topic only the auditor general's report on the provincial government's handling of the Greenbelt. It's Tuesday, August 15th, 2023, so let's get to it. August 15th, that's almost a month ago, and that is the last time you guys could publish a fresh episode of the On Polly podcast. You know what? Here's a little behind the scenes. You like these fun facts? I love behind the scenes. Here's a little behind the scenes. What do you think you're here for? I love behind the scenes. Here's a little behind the scenes. What do you think you're here for?

I was on vacation at that time, and the report came out from the Auditor General, and John Michael and I sort of got on the email blower together, and I said, we should do a thing on this. And he said, absolutely. And we did. And, you know, one of the nice things about working at TVO, when we were working at TVO, is that you don't have to go through 8,000 levels of bureaucracy in order to get a decision made on this. We wanted to do it. We got a green light almost instantaneously. I was up in Manitoulin Island, but I brought my podcast equipment with,

knowing that this kind of thing happens. You never know when news will break. And we recorded an episode, and that was, as you say, almost a month ago. Yeah, August 15th. And I think we made a modest contribution to the public's better understanding of the issue. I've had people email me and call me saying,

you know, we didn't just do what was in the Auditor General's report. If I remember, John Michael, we went back, we did the background, how did the Green Belt get started in the first place, what were the criteria that went into the creation of it. It was a real primer on the background, the present, and the future. And I wish we were back doing that kind of stuff right now and the longer this bloody work dispute continues the less likely that is to happen so we're hoping to get back to the job soon so john michael so that again that's august 15th your own voice i heard that a time stamp in that

episode and almost a month ago uh i'm i mean i'm sure you guys are chomping at the bit like chomping chomping what's the word chomping is that true john michael yes it is is correct a horse what's the origin of this term and do you know the etymology of that expression well you think it's chomping because the bit is in its mouth but he's not actually chomping at the so you're champion at the bit that's a and for jmm you somebody said you can call him jmm somebody told me to do that you can do it jmm so did you really just know that or you're champion at the bit that's a and for jmm you somebody said you can call him jmm somebody told me to do that you can do it jmm so did you really just know that or you're just playing along with steve you knew it was champion are you kidding well if i didn't know it already believe

me after working for long enough i would i would know it by now steve champion at the bit is why i like co-hosting with this guy he knows stuff he knows a lot of stuff you know why because at two o'clock in the morning, while the rest of us are sleeping, he's reading the Planning Act. That's why. Wow. Okay, so you can't record an episode

of your TVO podcast right now. You can't do that because you're on strike. Correct. You're on strike. Okay. But you're allowed to come on other third party? You can come on Toronto Mike. Well, we're interviewees here.

We're not interviewers. I would love it. And you tell me if you can do this. I don't want we're interviewees here. We're not interviewers. I would love it. And you tell me if you can do this. I don't want to get you in trouble with the union, but can you share with me some of your thoughts on what has happened since August 15th? All this info that I would be listening to the On Polly podcast, which people should subscribe to right away.

All this stuff, I can't get there because of this strike. And I don't know when this strike's going to end. Would you guys have a little chat about it now on my microphones? If you asked us to. I just did. Well, okay. Listen, we haven't planned anything here, and we didn't do this ahead of time, but I think if we were working, and in response to Mike's question, I might open the podcast by saying something like, well, John Michael, the big development in the last week has been a minister has finally fallen on his sword. What's that all about?

So, former Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Steve Clark resigned in the aftermath of a report from the Integrity Commissioner, which found that he had violated provincial ethics legislation. This is not a crime. He did not face any jail time or anything like that. This was simply a breach of provincial ethics law. But Clark decided last weekend that he had to God, was that just last weekend? He publicly announced that he decided he had to resign I think part of his justification was

he believed that he was becoming a distraction to the government's housing policy efforts and so now that sparked a whole sort of mini cabinet shuffle. And Clark has been replaced in the housing file by Paul Calandra, who was the Minister of Long-Term Care, remains the government house leader. And Calandra, I would think it's fair to say, had a rocky few press conferences to start and is now will be tasked with reviewing the government's housing policies going forward. We don't really know yet what that means. Now, if we were doing a podcast,

Mike, here's the point at which I would come in and try and give, as you call them, fun facts to put things in perspective. And I would say something like, you know, John Michael, this reminds me of a situation that Paul Rhodes once described. Paul Rhodes, his father actually, was a cabinet minister in Bill Davis's government representing Sault Ste. Marie in the Ontario legislature. Paul Rhodes was an original common sense revolutionary for Mike Harris, one of his top advisors. And Paul Rhodes always used to advise the premier of his day, which was Mr. Harris, thus, he would say, figure out where the story's going and go there. And his point was, don't try to suffer through drip, drip, drip,

death of a thousand cuts by dragging it out, which is exactly what, unfortunately, this government had done. Steve Clark famously calling a news conference on a Friday afternoon where everybody sort of expected him to announce his resignation because what he did was, I think in the view of many, a resignable offense. And yet he basically just came forward to apologize and say, I'm going to do better going forward. And basically there are no consequences. And that is not an example of figuring out where the story is going and go there. That is an example of figuring out where the story's going and go there that is

an example of crossing your fingers and hoping the story is not going to go there but in fact it did and it just earned for the current government you know three more days of bad headlines ultimately he went where the story was going and announced his resignation and they've replaced him and now they have a chance to change the narrative but they sure couldn't when he was there well and i would say clark uh found where that story was ending um and i think it's still very much an open question as to whether the government has found the ending i don't think we are at the the end of the green belt story yet um police investigation still to come. Well, exactly. And as I've said before with you

when we were doing a podcast, this is not one story that has one beat and then ends, right? Every one of these potential developments is going to have their own story with their own beats. And in the worst case scenario, you can imagine protesters chaining themselves to trees

to try and stop bulldozers, that kind of thing. Like, this just has, this still has the potential to stay bad and get worse for the government. And, yeah, and you guys shining a light on that fact might be one of the reasons why they're hesitant to get you guys back to work. Well, at the risk of repeating myself, the Minister of Labour has some very good announcements

that he's been trying to bring forward and get attention for. The Minister of Energy has some very good announcements that he's been trying to get some attention for. And he would have, they would have, garnered some attention either on the agenda or on the On Polly podcast if this work dispute were over, but it's not. At TMLX 13, Steve Bacon, there was a woman named Leslie Taylor. Leslie's sister, fun fact, is Carolyn Taylor,

who is going to be on Toronto Mic later this month. And Carolyn Taylor is a very popular comedian, and she has a new Crave series. So we're going to talk to Leslie Taylor's sister, Carolyn. But Leslie writes this, and this is for you as well, John Michael. How come there is no accountability in politics anymore? The government didn't release a platform before the election, and then they refused to release mandate letters.

In the past, scandals like the Green Belt would have ended a government, but not anymore. That's why I think John Tory's resignation was so shocking. Leaders don't seem to take accountability and resign anymore. What recourse do we as an electorate have to force them out when they break the public's trust? I mean, the short version is that as a voter, you can still, you know, you can still call your MPP, write them an email. I mean, probably the most effective thing is, you know, MPPs are public people. They exist in the world. And if you happen to see your MPP in their riding

locally. I saw mine yesterday at the Taste of the Kingsway. There you go. Who's your MPP? Christine Hogarth. Hogarth. Yeah. Progressive conservative Etobicoke Lakeshore. Correct. And if you get a chance

to bend your MPP's ear and people do respond to that kind of feedback and then they take it with them to their caucus or even sometimes cabinet meetings and they will say to the leader of the party

who happens to be the premier as well, hey, I'm getting an earful from everybody in my riding about this really, like, it sounds kind of trite and almost, like, cringeworthy, but, like, it does actually matter. And we saw it matter, for example, even during COVID. And, you know, there are things called elections, Mike. You know, if enough people obviously don't... Well, it's Leslie, right? That's her question. Oh, right. Okay. So, Leslie, there are things called elections. And if enough people feel, as you do, that there are problems of accountability, you can take it out on whoever's in power at the ballot box.

That is a tried, tested, and thankfully still true way of getting a message to those in power. Now, one of the interesting things when I listened to that episode from August 15th is you guys, and you particularly, Steve, but discussing how you can't pretend to know how a scandal here in September 2023, how that will resonate with the public or affect the next election, because we're still a few years away from this election. That's a long time off in the playground. So we will never know. I mean, I'm going to note to self to come back to this episode and then find out what, you know, what we said, but,

but yeah, of course, when you give a majority to a government, which Doug Ford's party won a majority government, if you know, we're stuck with them, we're stuck with that party in power until, until the next election.

But do you, do you feel like a scandal of this nature is one that should result in the leader? Okay. And I'm not talking to Steve Clark here. I'm talking Doug Ford. Doug Ford resigning? Well, you're asking me should, and I'm not in a position to give political advice to anybody, so I'm not going to answer the should, but I will say, could this be the beginning

of the end of the Ford government? Could this be the beginning of the end of the Ford government? Could this be the beginning of the end of the Ford government? The answer, of course, is it's possible. You just never know. If the government does the right things to recreate the bridge of trust between itself and the electorate that so far has started to really crumble during this whole Greenbelt saga, well then, yes, of course, they can come back. But if they don't rebuild that bridge of trust,

people will potentially look back three years from now and say, aha, this is when it started to go off the rails. Because I don't know about you, I listen to a considerable amount of talk radio. I like to know what the people are saying. And I talk to people on the street, on the subway, at malls, wherever. At TMLX 13.

Absolutely. People come up to me and they share their views with me about all this kind of stuff. And there's something different about this issue that resonates in a way that previous problems did not. You know, when Doug Ford tried to cut the size of Toronto City Council in half when he took over back in 2018, he very skillfully managed to portray that as an issue that maybe a bunch of downtown Toronto left-leaning,

white wine-sipping people cared about, but real people didn't. Or when he made changes to election expenses or campaign finance. Again, stuff that might have been a little too much in the weeds. There's not too much that's hard to understand about inappropriate access by some developers to the highest reaches of government, enriching themselves to the tune of $8.3 billion that average people cannot understand. So that's why if they don't get a handle on this one, it's a problem because the public has been very clear in its concern about this and they do get it. has been very clear in its concern about this, and they do get it.

And I would add, I mean, we are just starting to see the impacts in public opinion polling. It's not the only or even the most important thing about government and politics, but governments really do pay attention to the polling. And we are just starting to see the beginnings of that. And I think we are getting an understated signal from the polling right now because one of the major parties in the legislature does not have a permanent leader. And I think voters, even people who aren't entirely plugged into politics, know that you can't ask people to vote for a null. You know, you need to, they need to have an alternative. And at the moment, one of the alternatives is not there.

And, you know, if we're starting to see a bit of cracks in the foundation, if I could put it that way, for the Progressive Conservative Party, what's really got to worry them is what happens in December when the the liberal party elects a a full-time leader or a permanent leader and uh voters really start to to clue into the choices that are before them okay so the alternative that's not there this is a perfect segue thank you jmm perfect segue into a question i received from penny mallet and I want to shout out Penny because Penny is the mother of Canada Kev, a beloved FOTM, who was also at TMLX 13.

So Canada Kev's mom, Penny, says, sorry, Jan, but this is a little Steve-centric here because Penny's a Steve fan. She says, I am a Steve fan and I remember well his interview a while ago with Ted Hsu, MPP for Kingston area. And the islands.

And the islands. Never forget the islands. And a candidate for provincial liberal leader. I was so impressed by Ted Shue, and I got the distinct impression that Steve was too. Although, Steve, you're easily impressed. Is that correct? All right. I put that in there.

Okay. Although, Steve, you're easily impressed. Is that correct? All right, I put that in there. Okay, but then Penny picks it up and says, is Steve prepared to comment on the upcoming leadership race? And then again, Penny says, I'm not a Bonnie Crombie fan, but last I heard, she's leading comfortably.

What say both of you about the Liberals? Is it a done deal here? Bonnie Crombie is going to win easily? Well, nothing's a done deal, but you also do look for markers at this stage of the race and again the race still has three months to go but you do look for markers to see how things are going and certainly all the public opinion polling i've seen on this shows crombie with a big lead this is the mayor mississauga of course uh it also shows that she's raised the most amount of money. It also shows that, I think, what are there, four other candidates in the race? And they're all sort of pretty far back at the moment.

Now, comma. Having said that, you know, it's also fair to say that people don't truly start to engage on these races until, you know, X number of days before the thing happens. And the liberals are doing something a little different this time in as much as, well, actually they did it last time too. You don't have to pay any money to become a member of the liberal party to participate, although the deadline has passed. But you don't have to pay any money to be a liberal party member or supporter in order to participate in this leadership race.

And the thinking on that is it can bring a lot of new people into the political process. And there are five, I think, pretty strong candidates, all of whom are offering different strengths to the race. Ted Shue, certainly I think on that day on the agenda that Penny's talking about, did a much better job than those who didn't know anything about him thought he'd be capable of. He was very strong on the program, I'll grant you that. So we watch with interest and the debates that the party itself is running are about to

begin. I think there'll be a couple of media debates if we ever get this strike over with. I know that we're in the books to have all the candidates come in and do an episode of the agenda, which I hope still will happen. And then, is it December 2nd? December 2nd. They will crown their new leader. John Michael, what do you say about the race

to be leader of the Ontario Liberal Party? Well, you know, as Steve says, I think if you, what data points we have about the race, you would assume that Bonnie Crombie is well ahead of the other candidates. I would suspect that the dynamic we are going to see, let me maybe dangerously head into prediction here, but I feel like this is going to become a Crombie versus not Crombie ballot question. And the liberals are using a ranked ballot in this election. So you could see,

in this election. So you could see, you know, Bonnie Crombie could lead on every single ballot, except the last one. That is, that is a possible outcome where she could be ahead and ahead and ahead. And then suddenly in the last ballot, it comes down to Crombie versus maybe it's Nader Eskin-Smith.

Maybe it's Ted Shue. Maybe it's Yasir Naqvi. And the, the, the. Adil Shamji is going to want you to say, don't forget about him. And Adil Shamji, yes, of course. And it would be very interesting to see, does Crombie, there's certainly a group within the party that thinks that the Liberal Party went too far left under Kathleen Wynne, and Crombie has been unabashed about saying that and about her vision for bringing the party either to the center or to the right, whatever your directional preference is. But I don't know whether she's got a majority

of the party behind her yet. And I don't think anybody could say confidently that she does. Okay, thank you, Penny Mallett, who canceled, I think, Canada Kev wrote me that she was going to postpone her shopping trip to watch you guys live on the Toronto Mike Live feed, live.torontomike.com.

You are so popular. I do well with the pennies. The only penny we have left, Penny Mallet. I miss the pennies. Okay, so thank you, Penny. Your son is a sweetheart. He had the longest hair and then suddenly he cut it off and I think he donated his hair like for

wigs for cancer patients or some excellent cause of that nature. So we're talking about a sweetheart here. Also a member of your union, by the way. I just saw that in the live chat here. A member of your CMG workers union there. Okay. So where do I go next?

Okay. I'm going to quickly shout out a couple of partners and then I have some more questions for you guys. And then I want to learn a bit more about John Michael McGrath. And then I have some more general questions, I think, considering what day this is and who I want to learn a bit more about John Michael McGrath and then I have some more general questions I think considering what day this is and who I'm interviewing tomorrow so stay tuned for that but I do want to tell everyone listening that there is an award-winning event in Milton Ontario called Pumpkins After Dark. Pumpkins After Dark is going to start up in

September that's this month the 23rd and it runs through Halloween. And if you buy your tickets for Pumpkins After Dark right now, you save 15% with the promo code TOMIKE15. So go to pumpkinsafterdark.com, get your tickets, use the promo code TOMIKE15. You can thank me later. Thank you, Pumpkins After Dark. And this is important, guys, because I know how much Steve Paikin makes. I've seen the sunshine list. So this is important. Learn how to plan, invest, and live smarter with the Raymond James, the Advantage Investor podcast. Whether you already work with a trusted financial advisor or currently manage your own investment plans. The Advantage Investor provides the engaging wealth management information you value as you pursue your most important goals.

So subscribe to the Advantage Investor while you're subscribing to the On Polly podcast from Steve and John Michael. And Recycle My Electronics, that's where you go if you have old tech, old electronics. You don't throw that in the garbage. You go to recyclemyelectronics.ca, find a depot near you to safely drop off that old technology, and it will be properly recycled as it should be. Shout out to FOTM, Diane Sacks. You know what? I was just talking to my wife about this very thing today because we got an old iPad that is...

Recyclemyelectronics.ca. Yeah, we'll do that. Do that. Don't, because lazy people, not people like you good people in the Bacon household, but lazy people, they throw it in the garbage and then they don't have to worry about it. Don't do that.

It's a bad, bad, bad idea. All right, I'm going to go to Chris Drew here. Ask them about the planning act so I can scratch that off my toronto mike podcast listening list this started as a joke actually i think we were having a discussion about some municipal planning issue and you know john michael got so deeply in the weeds about some arcane little factoid and and and unlike your show mike his are not fun facts they are deeply disturbing facts they're a boring fact and i think i said to him how the hell do you know that and he said well i was up till

two in the morning reading the planning act and ever since he said that you can imagine i've teased him with it ever since love it so thank you chris jew he's a great cyclist too chris jew i've been on a little cycling event with that guy he's good good. Okay. So John Michael, how long have you been at TVO? Almost nine years. I started in October of 2014. And what are your responsibilities at TVO? Make me look good. What is this?

It's like an office space. What would you say you do here, John Michael? Well, so my joke when I started at TVO was that it was my job to explain to Toronto what the province of Ontario is and why it matters. TVO, I think it's fair to say that we try to

explain Ontario to itself and tell Ontario's stories. So, I do print journalism for the website, which is to say TVO.org. Exactly right. And so I will write reported stories. I have been more for the last few years doing more opinion column pieces.

Still, I would like to think, you know, often well-reported. And then a few years back, Steve and I started doing this podcast called The On Poly Podcast together. And that- Our newsletter. And our newsletter. Yes. Which people can also subscribe to, though it is also in abeyance while this strike goes on. Right.

So yeah, basically writing for the website, podcast, newsletter, whatever other job. Oh, I've been on YouTube a few times. I've seen, no, I've watched a lot of your YouTube stuff. Uh, well presented. Uh, you make facts, uh, interesting and consumable for dummies like me. That's the goal,

right? Is that the mandate over there? Uh, explain complex things to dummies like Mike. Uh, you weren't named when they gave me the job, but if the shoe fits, no,

what's that? Nerds on politics. Is that what we do? That's it. That's it. Nerds on politics. Yeah. We'd like to? Yes, that's it. Nerds on politics. We'd love to get back to doing those. And as I say, people call me, I'm not a nerd, because nerds are smart, right?

This is a key detail about nerds. They're very intelligent people. Nerds on politics. Okay, amazing. So what did you do before you got to TVO? Give us a little sense of what you were up to before you joined them nine years ago. So let me go back a little bit further than that. I'll start with the story that I was telling Steve on the way here. I got out of journalism school in 2008, and I sort of bounced around for

a little bit. And then in early 2010, I got a gig writing short blog posts for torontolife.com about municipal politics. And did you say 2010? Yeah, 2010. That's the hard one. That's Rob Ford land. Well, exactly. You've figured that out.

So four weeks after I started writing for torontolife.com, Rob Ford announced his mayoral candidacy. And it has just been a real rollercoaster ride, almost unbroken ever since. So I wrote about Toronto city politics for a few years, and then in 2013, moved to Queen's Park, where I wrote for an outlet called Queen's Park Briefing. And then after about 18 months there, I came to TVO. Man, it's in your blood, as we discussed off the top, like you were born to do this. You know, I resisted it for a long time and my wife

loves to tell the story of how when we met uh she was in uh journalism school and i was let's say between educational opportunities uh i i was a high school dropout and uh high school dropout i was yes that my scandal has passed wow you were too smart for high school uh I was, yes. My scandal has passed. Wow. You were too smart for high school. Well, I made some poor life choices and some of them might've involved

the kind of beverages that we have here. Steve, you can leave now. I'm now very interested in this conversation. Go for it, man. I'm learning so much here, yeah. But my wife says to me, oh, you should come audit one of my journalism classes. I'm sure you would love it.

And I was like, no, I'm not gonna be a reporter. That's what my dad did. I'm gonna do something else with my life. And I was like, no, I'm not going to be a reporter. That's what my dad did. I'm going to do something else with my life. And then, of course, you know, inevitably, the force of gravity brought me back towards journalism. Well, remember, Michael Corleone said, remember he said. Every time I think I'm out, they suck me right back in. How many times, a serious question,

how many times have you watched Godfather 3? Three. Is that right yeah because i've watched it once and i've never had a moment where i should watch godfather three again isn't it and it was nominated for best picture like this is not a terrible movie no but it's you know when you're the third of a franchise where the first one was arguably the greatest movie ever made and the second one was arguably the greatest movie ever made, and the second one was arguably the greatest movie ever made. Correct, correct. That's a lot to live up to. Yeah. I've seen the first one probably 20 times.

But you did go back three times. Yeah, so you see, if I ever stumble, I was in a hotel room in Amsterdam once, and I stumbled, like, anywhere I am, if I stumble upon the first two Godfathers, I'm stuck. Like, I'm actually, like, I'm now, I'm no longer able to move.

I must watch this. Like, no matter where you end up, like, and I own them on, I have the DVD trilogy trilogy where am i looking over here no that's the wire i have it somewhere the the godfather but i've never watched uh number three more than the first time like i watched it i go okay and that was it i'm just curious when people tell me they've seen godfather three how many times did they re-watch that because we all re-watched those first two a million times but now i'm gonna ask john michael and's going to tell us he's never seen The Godfather. Is that correct, John Michael?

That is, in fact. While we're discussing all of my scandals, I have never seen any of the Godfather movies. Back up the truck here for a moment. Okay, so, but you have heard that, hey, you know, nine out of ten guys say this is their favorite movie of all time. Have you never been curious to see, like, what is this movie about? I'm curious, but, you know, at this point in my life,

I've also, you know, I've in my life i've also you know i've got a young kid and there's like not a ton of time young kid you didn't have the young kid till recently like what about those decades of life before he was too busy reading the members integrity act and the planning act and the auditor general's reports and before that there was you know toronto zoning bylaws that i had to you know those things aren't gonna read myself they're not gonna read themselves mike you know he's got to read them well as you know, acquaintances myself with. They're not going to read themselves, Mike. You know, he's got to read them. Well, as you know, Steve,

because I know that John Michael might not know this, but Michael, you know, he tried very hard not to follow in his father's footsteps, but eventually... That much I know. ...had to, ended up doing so.

And you're the same way. Yes. This scandalous past is fascinating. You haven't heard the half of it oh i'm listening there are limits to what i'm gonna say on a hot mic all the mics are hot at the tmds studio that is for sure that is for sure okay so you it's do you ever at any time say i miss rob ford because that guy was a like a fascinating story maker like it was a quite a time in uh it was a, like, a fascinating story maker. Like, it was quite a time in the municipal. It was a lot of work.

I mean, you know, like, you could never, you couldn't, like, put your phone down for more than, you know, 30 minutes at a time or you just missed a story, right? Can you shout out, I always, like, whenever I have, I don't know, Ed Keenan on or whoever, like, whoever was a part of that scene, Matt Elliott or whatever, like, I love to, like,

do you want to shout out the other Rob Ford journalists of the day? Just name check them. Well, I think the one who's moved on to the highest position has to be Daniel Dale, who, of course, is now with CNN in the US, but was with the Toronto Star. Ed Keenan is back from the US, but is still with the Star. And he's here next month he comes every quarter

you've mentioned Matt Elliott David Haynes was also one of the people who was covering that he's moved out of the industry but still in my thoughts and prayers Katie Simpson Katie Simpson visions of her running down the hallway

at City Hall. Well, I just, I remember her, spit take is not exactly the right word, but her gawping during some of the press conferences. Yes. Yeah, no, there's a few, you know, some great names from the Toronto City Hall press gallery. I don't think I was like,

I was never a formal part of the press gallery, but... Don't forget Robin Doolittle. We should name-check her. Of course. A key part of the John Starr coverage. Can I give you just another fact here? Yeah. How do I put this?

The Premier of Ontario, obviously Rob Ford's brother, Doug, has an office on the second floor at Queen's Park, and in that office, he has a big portrait of an office on the second floor at Queens Park. And in that office, he has a big portrait of Rob Ford on the wall. And I've had, for various reasons, circumstances in which to find myself in that office. And you can tell that the premier still very much misses his brother. And while it is hard to remember those years for anything other than the sort of scandalous day-by-day that took place.

You know, we also have to remember that Rob Ford died. He left behind a couple of kids. And there's a very tragic story at the end of it all. And he had certainly his personal demons that he dealt with during that time. And I just think we shouldn't forget about that, too. Without a doubt, absolutely. A human being who died far, far too young, without a doubt.

Thank you, Steve, for that. Thank you very much. Okay, so, yeah, I think we name-checked most of the cats that were key in, I'm trying to think of who we're missing, but what a time in municipal, Paul. I don't think, although we came close recently, actually, the words I never thought I'd hear,

John Tory sex scandal, I didn't see those words coming. Mel Lastman had his share of malapropisms when he was the mayor, the mega mayor, first mega mayor. Yeah, but sort of like how we thought, you know, oh my God, George W. Bush, and then we got Donald Trump, and then it's like everything George W. Bush seemed kind of charming and quaint or whatever, like by comparison. So that's a bit of what happened with mel lastman there but did you were you surprised john michael when john tory announced his resignation oh yes i mean when it happened uh i guess my initial thinking was why uh there

there was no requirement for him to resign and nobody could force him to and uh you know as the the news sat with me and as more reporting uh came out about um the the uh let's say the nature of john tory's indiscretions um you know i i sort of came to the conclusion that this was a decision you know made really you know entirely by john tory that uh was a decision, you know, made really, you know, entirely by John Tory that, you know, this was, you know, as I say, nobody could have forced him to leave office. There was, there's no, if I can cite not the Planning Act, but the Municipal Act, there's no mechanism to impeach a mayor of a Toronto or of Toronto or of any- Well, we learned that through the Rob Ford years.

Well, so what happened there was city council took some of Rob Ford's powers away from him. But they, you know, they were unable to remove him. And the province did not change the law since then. And so I just think that, no, it was extremely surprising. And so I just think that, no, it was extremely surprising. I think that the election that followed was, I think, on net, I want to say, I think it was a healthy one for the city. There was a real... I wanted to make a nautical metaphor here, but my brain is just seizing up on me. You know, captain of the ship, or she's got her hand at the tiller or something.

Yeah, I love nautical references. Are you kidding me? Nautical disaster, great tragically hip song. Fun fact, the 66th mayor of Toronto is 66 years old. See, I think that's a fun fact. I bet you Jane Sibury, who's on Manitoulin Island right now, would tell I think that's a fun fact. I bet you Jane Sibury, who's on Manitoulin Island right now, would tell you that's not a fun fact. I can tell by your eyes.

You haven't heard yet the Jane Sibury episode. I haven't heard that one, no. You know what, cue it up because it created a great debate on what is a fun fact? This is the great debate that has sort of bloomed out of that episode. So check out Jane Sibri on Toronto Mic'd, and then we can have a private conversation about what is a fun fact, because I think that's a fun fact. By the way, speaking of the John Tory sex scandal,

and we should do so often, David Ryder was at TMLX 13. Did he get a chance to say hi? No, I didn't see him. Mind you, I don't know what he looks like. Okay, well. Someone would have had to introduce the two of us. You know what, I tried to introduce you to two things,

and I probably screwed that one up, but I did introduce you to Mark Weisblatt, which my work was done, I guess, at that point, because I saw you, if I remember correctly, you were kind of close to the boom box, and it was at that point, because we were, John Michael, we were only playing songs by, you know, that included people who had been on Toronto Mic'd.

FOTMs, like yourself now. Friends of Toronto Mic'd. And it was Helix. Rock You was on, and I think you had to get away from Helix. If it was Sinatra, I would have been singing along, but if... But Sinatra's never been on Toronto Mic'd. No, it hasn't. You know what I mean? Well, it sort of has.

Remember, Dobigan and I did a show on... I don't think that counts. Okay, okay. But yes, it was a little loud, so we had to... So you sat down with Mark Weisblatt for a summit. On a picnic table, and I got the 411... Anything you can share about that? Anything at all that you can share from your conversation with Mark Weisblatt? A deeply private and personal conversation, Mike. I would never betray his confidence.

And I would never ask you to. I would never ask you to I would never ask you to not that he talked much smack about you he better not he was literally at my house for an episode trying to mic earlier that day and you know what I listened to it on the way home as I was driving home from what did you think?

you a fan of the Mark Weisblatt episodes? I do yeah I mean I told you before I don't listen to all of them but I do listen to some of them he's got a great energy and you two have a kind of a funny should I call it a love hate or what do i call it i don't feel any hate towards the guy okay but he had dreams i hated him but they weren't real you do have kind of a he said evil mike was being vindictive and recording things and airing them and that i had my lawyer lorn honickman after. And all of this is kind of makes me look like a jerk until you remember these are dreams

he's having. Like they didn't happen. No, no. But he's, I don't know. There's something about you too when you get on the microphone together. He gets very bizarre. My mom listened to that episode and her note to me was, he doesn't let you talk. He doesn't let anybody talk.

I got news for you. Don't take it personally. We love that guy. He's in the FOTM Hall of Fame. Maybe one day Steve Paikin will get there. And John Michael, what do you think so far of this whole ecosystem you've been dropped into? I kind of wonder what it's like for you as somebody who has no idea what to expect today. You know, I just, I came in ready to talk. Ready to rumble?

So far, I don't think I've said anything incriminating. Well, let me see if I can change that. Okay. I do want to just ask for your take on I'm personally grossed out by what's happening at Ontario Place because I don't understand why. Two things I don't understand. Again, I'm just an average Ontario resident

who's a little bit dumb. Two things I don't understand is why does the private spa have to be on this uber valuable lakefront property that that was supposed to belong to ontarians like why not move it to the cne grounds or somewhere else it's just a private spa and i don't understand why there's so much public money going into the private spa and i don't understand why they get a 95 year lease like this all stinks to me shed some light on it john i almost called you john michael montgomery that's another guy

you're john michael mcgrath shed some light on that to me i think it stinks uh well okay so the the first question why does it unpack there why does it have to go there it doesn't um there's there's no uh law of the universe that requires a private spa on the site that is currently Ontario Place. It's not in the books, the act? No, there's nothing in the Planning Act that requires it. But the province owns that land. And ever since the previous Liberal government

shut down Ontario Place as an operating amusement park back in 2011 or 2012, I think. 2012. The province has been at a real sort of impasse about what to do with that land. There was discussion under Kathleen Wynne and even, sorry, under Dalton McGinty before that about, you know, do you add commercial uh uses there like to draw more visitors there how much of it do you make it into a park because obviously some of it has been turned into a park and uh here i'm just gonna let steve cut in to say who is that park named for i believe it was the 18th premier of ontario william grenville davis if memory serves we know something about

bill davis at tvo uh because he created the agency and Steve knows even more than... The patron saint of Steve Bacon. Yes. So then the question of like, why don't they do a land swap with the CNE? Well, the province owns the land at Ontario Place and the city owns the land at the CNE and the province wants to benefit from things like the Ontario line. And if they put the spa on the CNE lands, then it's going to be the city that benefits and not the province. And because the province ultimately controls everything the city does anyway, yes, they could probably finagle some way to make it so that the province benefited more, but that becomes a much bigger headache. I think, Mikey, you got to cut this story in half, in two halves. The first half is the actual spa itself, and honorable people can disagree about whether or not it's appropriate for a private company to build a spa on the waterfront at Great Land. I think I saw Rosie DiManno wrote a column about it the other day in which she said she was okay with it.

But there's a second part of the story, which is the $500 million that the taxpayers are going to spend to build a parking lot there, much of which is going to be under the water. And that one, I suspect, is a little tougher to understand or a little tougher to explain as to why the taxpayers of Ontario are going to help this private company by spending $500 million to help their customers park there. Maybe there are perfectly good reasons for that happening, but if there are, I'm not sure I've heard them yet. Well, I would just add that the fact that the parking lot is going to be beneath the waterline of Lake Ontario

is one big reason why it's going to cost $500 million. Whether we should be pegging a public attraction to the size of the parking lot we can build is, I think, a public attraction to the size of the parking lot we can build is, I think, a fair question, especially in a city where we also have, at least in theory, the province has like climate goals and how much more motor vehicle traffic do we want to be locking in with our infrastructure choices? That's a whole other... And there's a subway going to be going there anyway. Well, exactly. And there's already a GO station that goes to the CNE.

And there's a subway going to be going there anyway. Well, exactly. And there's already a GO station that goes to the CNE. Yes, there is. And is it like a 95-year lease? Is that typical? I get a little ignorance here. It just seems like a very large number.

It is a large number. It's not unheard of in government agreements. I mean, there are, for example, there are cottages in provincial parks in some parts of this province where those cottagers were given 99-year leases. And that is just, that is something that they do in, you know, legalese. It's not quite ownership, but it's very close to it. And in theory, it would be possible for a future government to break a lease. But if you want to look at, future government to break a lease.

But if you want to look at like the Highway 407, which is also a long-term lease, and I don't remember if it was 99 years as well. I think it was, yeah. But, you know, in practice, governments find it very, very difficult to break those leases.

So when I asked the question to you guys about like, why does this spa have to be on this very valuable uh waterfront property i'm going to just shout out a few people on the live stream here so t.resident chimed in to say the same reason that housing has to be on the green belt that's in uh quotation marks uh i don't i think he's being sarcastic housing does not need to be on the green belt that's a whole separate story we need to talk about the green belt which we touched on earlier but vps sales wants you to

know steve pagan that you did talk to david rider he just didn't know you were talking to david oh is that right okay maybe i won't tell david rider that as i say i don't know what he looks like so it could be these print guys it's like how would you know unless you had seen the uh the photo of me by the tree with with david but the the fellow who just chimed in there he's absolutely right t.o t.resident t.resident okay yeah i mean the spa is going uh john michael is absolutely right the spa is going on the waterfront at ontario place because that's where the premier wants to put it and he is within his legal rights to want it there and to try and make it happen there and if people don't like that they can try and defeat him at the time of the

next election and if they do like it they can endorse his choice by re-electing him that's kind of the way it works. That's democracy. And there's one other thing that voters and residents in this city and in this province can do. And I think we're starting to see some of it, which is to make it politically toxic for the private companies. We've already seen some people, like I believe TIFF had a partnership that they have canceled. Put in abeyance. Put in abeyance. Yeah, put in abeyance.

They've not canceled it yet. They're just thinking about it. Yes. And, you know, like private companies are in some ways more sensitive to political liability, even than political parties. Interesting, interesting.

Now, HeyRef chimed in to say that it was great meeting Steve at TMLX13. He's a very easy guy to chat to chat with sorry so thank you hey ref um thank you for that now okay so there's another question that comes in every time steve pakin comes in so i'm gonna do this for the guy he goes by the name xp man you might have seen him on twitter xp man and he goes hey mike possible question for steve if the topic moves into tarion, so Tarion didn't come up organically. I'm forcing it in here.

He says, regarding the 2019 AG scathing report with serious allegations against Tarion, the agenda covered it on one episode but has never had any follow-ups, even though not much has changed for the good at Tarion, as Steve suspected, except for yet another death of a new house buyer. Again, this is XP talking here. Since that report was released. Question, who programs the agenda topics? And if their mandate is still to educate Ontarians,

why have they not covered it? I think TVO is still funded by the government. So do they have to be careful as to what topics are covered? P.S. I don't think anyone cares that Steve's brother is building on the green belt as long as the deal was legit. Okay, a lot there. But maybe let us all know that there's no political interference when you're...

Tell us. You say it. You're the horse. Let's hear it from your mouth. Well, under normal circumstances when TVO employees are not on strike, which they are right now, the executive producer of the agenda

decides what's going to be on the agenda. So we have a weekly editorial meeting that happens every Wednesday afternoon, usually lasts, I don't know, two hours or so. And the producers and I all pitch ideas to the executive producer and she ultimately decides which ones we're going to go with. So when you ask who decides what goes on, the executive producer decides what goes on. So that's number one. Number two, I'm happy to remind everybody that my brother is a home builder

in the Hamilton, Niagara area. Do we need another hour? Are you going to do all your conflicts of interest? Because do I have that kind of time? I got to pick up the kids at school. Yes. And I'm trying to remember what municipality it's in i think it's grimsby is it grimsby that's what you know dave hodge lives in grims yeah yeah okay you know that um

i okay i believe my brother owned a piece of land that was in the green belt in grimsby but the town of grimsby wanted that land out of the green belt so it could develop it. It went to the province. It sought an exemption to get it out. It got it out. My brother is the developer. He is building on there. I don't, I mean, that's as much as I know. That's as much as you know. I don't know that that one is all that controversial

because this is not a case of developer going to chief of staff, of housing minister to ask for the land to be taken out of the green belt this was the town of grimsby itself asking for the land to come out so anyway there's not my like i i don't leap to steve's defense uh frankly i don't think i do it on the podcast but i will say just you know a background matter here is that like that that land around grimsby was controversial almost from the very beginning of the green belt and the town of grimsby had raised its objections to that land being put in the green belt from the very beginning uh so it is not surprising to me that if the province was signaling to various interested parties that they were open to revising the green belt i mean

this issue had come up every single time and obviously the previous liberal government had made different decisions but they absolutely knew that people in grimsby were angry about this but mike if i can come back to the original question which is what about tarian and what about all of that business uh there's a wonderful woman named Barbara Kaptein who occasionally does some columnizing in the Toronto Sun and she frequently sends me reports and emails keeping me up to date with what's going on. And yes, your emailer is quite right. We did do a program about this some time ago. If the question is why haven't you come back to it? Are you getting pressure from the province not to talk about it? No, the answer is no.

I've been a TVO 30 years. I have not a single example I can point to of anybody in the province of Ontario, provincial government, sticking their nose into the journalism and trying to influence what goes on there. Everybody understands the need for the separation of church and state in that regard. But I will put a little shout out here to stacy duncey who is our executive producer and um she gets bombarded non-stop by producers and hosts and viewers and emailers and phone callers who say you have to do a show on this right and we do on agenda, because it's long-form journalism, we do one or two topics per show. So the reality is, if you're doing a newscast

and you've got 40 items in the show, there's a much greater chance, much greater likelihood that you're going to be able to cover a whole bigger range of issues than if you're doing one or two. And keeping in mind, we're covering everything.

We're trying to cover the broad panoply of things that Ontarians are interested in. than if you're doing one or two, and keeping in mind, you know, we're covering everything. We're trying to cover the broad panoply of things that Ontarians are interested in. It's a big province. And not just Ontario topics either, right? Right, right. The job is to inform and educate people about things beyond our borders as well. When you're just looking for modest wage increases here,

there's no other details you've left out of. You're just looking for modest wage increases here. There's no other details you've left out of. You're just looking for a modest wage increase. I haven't asked for a helicopter, if that's what you're asking. Yes, I think the, yes. The short answer is the people I work with are very nice, talented people who have seen their real wages declined by about 15% over the last decade. Right. And you know what?

I think they're like, no one's entitled to anything in life, but I think it would behoove the organization to do a little better by them. How about that? Okay. So again, not that this means we're wrapping up

because I have a couple more things I want to ask about, but if there's somebody listening and Ontario Citizen is listening and wants to support UCMG workers at TVO, like what is their, what action item should you assign to them right now that they could help you guys?

Because four weeks, I don't want four weeks to turn into four months here and we'll be back. And it's like, and I'm giving you lasagna, John Michael, because you got to feed your family. So tell us. Well, we do have a strike fund that people can donate to.

If you go to our Twitter account, it's TVO underscore CMG. So tell us. Well, we do have a strike fund that people can donate to. If you go to our Twitter account, it's TVO underscore CMG, we have a link there that people can follow to donate to. And just so people know, I will not get any of that money. I'm not taking any strike pay. You have enough money, Mr. Bacon. I'm not taking any strike pay. All the money goes to the folks who really need it. And then the other big one that we're asking people to do is to contact your MPP.

You know, emails are good. Phone calls might even be better. If you see them at the farmer's market on the weekend, haranguing them, you know, whatever you can to, you know, tell your MPP, you know, how much you support TVO and how much you miss us. I do miss you guys. And as I defended you in the Mark Wiseblood episode, it matters. Like this is, you know,

an important part of democracy is a functioning journalist like you guys telling us what's going on. You guys do great work at TVO. And if it's a modest pay increase, I happen to, I'm at a point now where I'm getting in shock

when I go to buy that, I don't know, the pita bread I bought. For 10 years, I've been buying it 99 cents a bag, okay? And now I'm going in, and now it's $1.99 or $2.49, and everything is like that.

And we're not even talking about the price of this home. I could never afford to buy this house I'm in now. I could barely afford it 10 years ago i definitely couldn't afford it today everything's going up and if you're not keeping up with the uh the with inflation you are making less money as you work and that's no good and and you know we know that like lots of other people also don't have you know control over uh their own incomes lots of other people are taking pay cuts we are absolutely not unaware of that and we are not as i said before we're not asking to be made whole for a decade's worth of inflationary losses we are just asking for uh a modest wage increase yes

a modest rate wage increase okay so everybody you got your action items we can do something about that i actually popped over to Twitter because that account remind us, what is that Twitter account? And yes, I still call it Twitter. I know it's not called Twitter anymore. I call it Twitter. What was that? CMG? What was that? TVO underscore CMG. TVO underscore CMG because they actually, whoever's

running that account retweeted that you guys were coming on Toronto Mike today. So I thought that was pretty cool. But just quick, quick aside. And then I got to ask about something relating to my guest tomorrow. And then I want to ask a quick question about something relating to this date that you guys are on my show right now. But I,

uh, I was at this event for Hollywood suite and it was a nice breakfast at the King. Uh, where the hell was I? King George, uh, hotel.

Is that, is that a King that would have a George would have a hotel? King Edwards. King Edward. I don't know my kings. I got to catch up on my kings. So King Edward Hotel is where I was. And there was a woman there. I won't name names,

but she was on Much Music. And I had this like, oh, I would like to chat with this woman. So I went to her website and there's a contact form. And I said, I just saw you at the event. I'm Toronto.

I have a podcast called toronto mic here's a link to people who've been on toronto mics so they know i'm just making this up or whatever bacon's been on that's what i wrote and then i just said i would love to chat with you uh you can be flexible when we do it or whatever peace and love mike or whatever something like that and then the uh reply said i'm gonna read it thank you for your interest in having x on your podcast it would be great to get some information from you about it one who is your audience and how many listeners do you have okay that's the first question so if you invite someone on the agenda i'm serious about this or on your podcast let's say the on poly podcast they're like how

many downloads do you get like is that get? Isn't that kind of offensive? It's like, I'm only going to waste my time on your show if there's a sufficient amount of ears on it to make this worth my while. What do you think about this? I mean, the good thing about having Steve Paikin on the podcast is most of the time if we ask an MPP to show up on the podcast.

I know, it's a bad comparison because they're not going to hesitate right yeah uh people are usually quite happy to uh show up uh i i cannot think of it might have happened but i cannot think of a guest who has um refused because they thought we were too small time well because you because you're the agenda on tvo so it's really not fair but i i will say this is episode 1,323. We discussed it. Matt Sundin and Eddie Shaq. That's the episode. Thank you very much, Steve Paikin.

And this is the first time, but that's actually number one. Number two was, what type of promotion do you do for the podcast and its guests, i.e. social media? So the first in that bunch of stuff, which I'm fine with, there's four more things I'm okay with. But the first two, like how many downloads do you get?

How popular is your podcast? And what are you going to do to promote this episode with this guest and all that? To me, the minute I saw those first two questions, I was so turned off. I did not want this person on the show anymore. I was kind of offended at the questions. Anyway, I tweeted about it,

like a rage tweet which i probably shouldn't do but i did because you know i write whatever i don't answer anybody and i saw right now neil hurland and i want to shout out neil hurland because neil hurland is one of the voices i hear on cbc when i i listen to the news uh kind of before bed like give me the cbc news and neil hurland's often doing that and neil wrote in to say everyone in toronto media knows who you are and loves your show so i just want to say i love you neil hurland that's all i want to say to neil because i just saw that okay any final thoughts on that and then i'll move on to the relevant questions for our esteemed guests today i think you should just email this person back and say i have two million downloads a week and a phenomenal listenership

if i told the truth and answered, they would do the show. I'm kind of, like, I'm sort of, like, at a point where, like, what about the show I like that has 10 people listening, including their mom and their uncle or whatever? Like, you won't do their show? Like, I'm kind of grossed out by the premise.

You know what I mean? You know, I mean... John Michael's like, get over it, man. Hey, people have busy lives, and I think, you know, mean michael's like get over it man hey people have busy lives and i think you know one of our uh one of the things about our job is like lots of people say no for let's say more i wish that they just said no like i'd be just say no i've had a lot of no's like you know bob mccowan said no like you know just say no i'm fine we'll move on said no to me when i was in school too so okay we're in the same club of John McCowan no's.

Did Bob McCowan ever say no to you, Steve Bacon, when you were at the CJCL there? As a matter of fact, Bob McCowan was a guest on a show that I used to do at TVO called Studio 2, and every Monday we had a regular recurring sports panel. And he was on it. He was on it for many, many Mondays in a row. Never said no to you.

So he was happy it. He was on it for many, many Mondays in a row. Never said no to you. So he was happy to do that. And I don't know that, I'm trying to recall if he's ever invited me to be on his show. Not the podcast. Maybe. Oh, Primetime Sports? I'm not even sure he ever invited me on to Primetime Sports. I don't know. You and Mike Wilner got left off the list of invitees.

I'm in no danger of being invited on to a sports show. No, did you care that Canada beat US in international basketball? Does that matter to you, Joe? I mean, I was aware that it occurred. Well, that's something. Steve is going to be shocked that I even knew it happened. Well, Steve's a big hockey guy and a big baseball guy.

He likes the Red Sox. I won't hold that against him. I know, I know. But Steve- I'm holding it against him. Like, would you wake up at 4.30 in the morning to watch a bronze medal match, Canada versus USA in basketball? I'm just not

a big enough basketball fan to do that. Too early. But for hockey or baseball, I would, yeah. Yeah. I was saying to my... I didn't wake up either. My son had a soccer tournament at 8.30. That was early enough for me at Hyde Park. But I was thinking like, oh, if this was like a gold medal game in the Olympics, I would

get up at 4.30 and watch it. So I just didn't feel like doing it for Canada-US. But Canada won. Yay. Okay. So today is September 11th. Yes. And I am naturally curious what your memories are of that horrific day,

September 11, 2001. Start with you, Steve Bacon. I have a crazy, crazy, crazy story for you here. Are you ready? We're out of time, 2001. Start with you, Steve Bacon. I have a crazy, crazy, crazy story for you here. Are you ready? We're out of time, Steve, and that. This is a very, very weird story. I'm ready. I got married on September 9, 2001.

On the 10th, which was a Sunday, we were going to take a day off. And then on the 11th, no, let me get this right. Get it right. This is important. We got married on the 9th. We were going to fly to New York on the 10th. And on the 11th, we were going to go to the top of the World Trade Center for breakfast because that's what we did six months earlier when I proposed.

I proposed to her in New York. And then we had breakfast the next morning at Windows on the World, which was the top of the World Trade Center. And we were going to recreate that trip. On the morning of September 11, 2001. So September 9th, we got married. September 10th, we were going to go to- John Michael, are you listening to this story? This is incredible. This is the of September 11th. Correct. So September 9th, we got married. September 10th, we were going to go to- John Michael, are you listening to this story?

This is incredible. This is the first time I've heard it. September 10th, we were going to go out for dinner to the same restaurant where I proposed. And then on September 11th, we were going to go to Windows on the World for 8.30 in the morning and have breakfast as we had done six months ago. That was the plan. The executive producer I used to work for, I was doing Studio 2 at the time,

said, you know, I know you just got married, but the TV season has just begun and I can't let you get away. You can't have a honeymoon. And so we ended up going to Kleinberg on the 10th to go see the Group of Seven. Right, the McMichael. And I walked into work at about 5 to 9 on September the 10th to go see the group of seven. Right, the McMichael. And I walked into work at about five to nine

on September the 11th. And as the elevator doors opened, a guy named Ted Ambrose, who worked at TVO, said to me, you got to flip on CNN. Some plane just flew into the World Trade Center. So if not for the unreasonableness of my executive producer, you would not be talking to me today.

Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. That is a hell of a story, Payton. Told you it was weird. That's wild. And you hadn't heard that story before. No, I hadn't heard that one at all. If you hadn't been on this program on September 11, I might not have asked you about this and we would have been deprived one of the great stories in Toronto Mike's

history. You can't, I don't even want to go back to John Michael because you can't top that. Because you're younger than I am. Yes. So let me do two things real quick. A, you mentioned earlier not being able to afford this house if you had to buy it again. September 11th happens to be the anniversary

of me getting the keys to the house I currently live in, which is why it has a weird sort of mixed emotional resonance for me. Same year? No, we've had the house that I live in for 14 years. Gotcha, gotcha. But on September 11th, 2001, I was working at Starbucks at the time, and so I had just done a night shift the day before. So I was sleeping in and my phone rings and it's my father who was also a reporter. And he says to me, turn on the TV, turn on CNN. A plane has flown into the World Trade Center. And that was the first plane. And so I was awake and watching CNN when the second plane hit.

And spent the morning, you know, like all of us, in shock and horror and just trying to sort of make sense of things. It was late enough with the early internet that my first instinct was to log on and just start coding. We could stream, at that point, we could stream a news source on

the internet. And so, I mean, there was no YouTube, but there was still lots of sources. And then, I mean, the odd thing was I had an afternoon shift at the Starbucks and so I like I called up my boss I was like am I coming in and it was like yeah uh we haven't heard anything different so I went into uh Starbucks and it was only later in the day that uh the word came down from head office that uh all of because nobody knew what was going on nobody knew anything and so uh i don't know as we would now say out of an abundance of caution um they closed every starbucks in north america and uh so i i went home wow wow okay you know not as great as steve's story but pretty damn good though pretty damn good there okay all right now one last uh unless you

guys have something more for me. Tomorrow on Toronto Mic'd, I'm going to have a conversation with a gentleman named Bill Viggers. And Bill was with the Canadian Cancer Society and connected with Terry Fox when Terry Fox was in, where was he? In Edmonston, New Brunswick. Not to be confused with Monica's hometown of Edmonton, Alberta. That's a whole different place. Edmonston. Monica's his wife. Ah, okay monica's my wife shout out to monica okay so bill vigors meets terry that you know we all basically and then from then on pretty much until oh it definitely in thunder bay is kind of right right with terry he's in the van and i'm going to talk to bill

about the marathon of hope with terry fox and I'm reading the book that Bill Viggers wrote. And I get very emotional because I was this very young boy, but really aware of Terry Fox and what was happening. And it really affected me. I'm going to do the Terry Fox Run on September 17th. I do it every single year. And if people go to torontomike.com, there's a link at the top that says Terry Fox Run. You can give what you can. All money goes to torontomike.com there's a link at the top that says terry fox run you can give what you can all money goes to the terry fox foundation obviously you get a tax

receipt so do that but then i realize on this question is more for uh steve pakin who is a little older than us john michaels so steve my understanding is that you were at nathan phillips square when terry fox appeared in, it was 1980? Was it 80 or 81? 84, I thought. No, it's not 84. No, that for sure. Like, I just read the book.

So 81, I will actually Google it if it's 80 or 81, but do you mind telling me about this? I certainly remember him coming through town and they had a big do for him at Nathan Phillips Square in front of Toronto City Hall. And I'm trying to think, maybe, I covered it.

I know I covered it, and I was, the reason I thought it was 84. Because he's dead by 84. Okay. That's the only reason I know it's not that. Because I worked at CHF. 1980. Okay, so it was July 11, 1980. July 11, 1980,

more than 10,000 people crowded Nathan Phillips Square to pay tribute to Terry Fox as he passed through Toronto on his Marathon of Hope. This is actually from the Toronto Public Library digital archive. I'm looking at a photo.

Maybe you're in this photo. Okay, well, it shows you the tricks of memory because I thought that I had covered that as a reporter, but I was still two years away from getting my first

reporting job at that point. Funny how memories are like that, eh? Yeah, but I was there, I guess, just as a reporter, but I was still two years away from getting my first reporting job. Funny how memories are like that. Yeah, but I was there, I guess, just as a citizen cheering him on. And he had a Sittler jersey, right? Because Daryl Sittler gave him his all-star jersey. I feel like, I mean, I just read it in the book, so that's why it's all fresh in my mind.

But yeah, he gave him, he met with him and Daryl Sittler gave him his all-star game jersey. I guess the segue to this is i guess it was the cbc several years ago that had that greatest canadian vote for your greatest canadian yep and uh you know don cherry was on the list tommy douglas was on the list tommy won that tommy won it but i voted for terry fox i've i've always been incredibly moved by his story. Me too. I've seen the statue up in Thunder Bay where the statue is.

Okay, there's a few, because there's one in Mile 1 there in Victoria where I've got a photo. I believe there's one in Newfoundland. And yeah, his journey ends, sadly, in Thunder Bay. So that's the statue I've seen. And yeah, I was in my 20s at that time, so you could not help but be just deeply moved by the experience of a guy who was around the same age as me. And to see how that ended so tragically after he tried so hard to do so much, it's a beautiful thing that his legacy is so strong that all these years later, the Terry Fox runs are still happening.

so strong that all these years later, the Terry Fox runs are still happening. How about you, John Michael? I'm asking if you even remember it happening at the time, or maybe this is something you learned. I was born in 81. Monica was born in 81. Okay, yes, you're just a puppy. It was definitely still something that I think of as it was in the air when I was young. was definitely still something that I think of as it was in the air when I was young. And there, you know, it's been, you know, something that has been present my entire life. And, you know,

I have never done the Terry Fox run. I know, you know, I have friends and family who have, but, you know, as Steve says, it's, you know, it's amazing that it has had the legacy that it has. I just checked, and he's two years older than me, Terry Fox. So we were very much... Yeah, 58, I think. 58, he's born. I'm born in 60. And he passes in 81, I think. Yeah.

Terry Fox passes away, but yeah. So very much contemporaries. Whew. Now, yes, I am playing lowest of the low. That means we're wrapping up here, because you guys were late, so I have to wrap up, because I've got playing lowest of the low. That means we're wrapping up here because you guys were late. So I have to wrap up because I got to pick up the kids. But anything, anything at all in your mind you want to share with us, John Michael, or of course you, Steve Bacon, anything you want to share with the FOTMs listening? Only that we hope that this strike ends soon, that we can go back to doing the work that we love and that I think has value for everybody in Ontario.

And, you know, we're back at the bargaining table tomorrow, apparently. to doing the work that we love and that I think has value for everybody in Ontario. And, you know, we're back at the bargaining table tomorrow, apparently, and we hope to get a resolution. And if not, I don't know when we will be back. What he said. If there's no resolution,

you guys just know my door is always open to you and these mics will be happy to record any thoughts you have. But that's, of course, that's a Band-Aid solution. We got to get TVO back the way we like it uh so everybody reach out to your mpp make some noise donate what you can that twitter account is again i'm gonna do it by memory tell

me if i'm right tvo underscore cmg that's correct hey you know what I've always wanted to do on this show? And that. I've always wanted to say that. This is what, my sixth time on your show? At least. I haven't checked in. And I've always wanted to say, and that. And that. There we go.

Brings us to the end of our 1,323rd show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Steve is at Spaken S. Paken. That's how you can

follow Steve Paken on Twitter. I'm doing this from memory to J. M. Underscore McGrath. That's correct. Is how you follow

John Michael. And don't call him Johnny and don't call him Mike. It's J. M. M. Or it's John Michael.

I adapted quickly. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery, do you drink beer, JMM? I do. Great Lakes Brewery is one of my faves. Should have asked you that earlier. They were great hosts, eh, Mr. Pick? Totally, totally.

They were amazing. Everyone got their first beer in the house. They were just so delightful. Okay, I got some beer you can take home with you today. Thank you. Again, you get the lasagna from Palma Pasta. They're at Palma Pasta. Recycle My Electronics are at EPRA underscore Canada.

Steve Bacon's going to recyclemyelectronics.ca later today. Pumpkins After Dark. Save that 15% with the promo code TOMIKE15. They're at Pumpkins Dark. And Ridley Funeral Home are at Ridley FH. I have measuring tape for you from Ridley Funeral Home. Measure what you wish.

I don't need to know what you're measuring. See you all tomorrow when I'm chatting with Bill Viggers because he was there. See you all tomorrow. I'm picking up trash and then putting down roads And they're brokering stocks, the class struggle explodes And I'll play this guitar just the best that I can Maybe I'm not and maybe I am

But who gives a damn because Everything is coming up rosy and gray. Yeah, the wind is cold, but the smell of snow warms me today. And your smile is fine, and it's just like mine.