Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Steve Paikin: Toronto Mike'd #1048 #onpoli

Episode Date: May 10, 2022

Mike chats with TVO's Steve Paikin who sets us up for the 2022 Ontario provincial election with an #onpoli primer. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Canna Cabana, StickerYou, Ridley Funeral Home and Duer Pants and Shorts.

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Learn more at cannacabana.com. Joining me this week to give us our 2022 provincial election primer is host of the Agenda on TVO and co-host of the On Polly, hashtag On Polly, podcast, which runs daily during the election campaign. It's Steve Paikin, everybody. Hello, Toronto Mike. Welcome back, Steve. Delighted to be here.

Really delighted to be here, as opposed to talking to you on Zoom. This is great. I was going to say, I love you on the show, but I can't do any more Zooms with you. I want you here. So thank you for making the trek. It's not easy.

You don't live next door. I don't. It took me an hour to get here, but it is great to be here for episode number George Armstrong, Red Kelly, Ron Ellis. Nice. And Ron Ellis is your favorite Maple Leaf of all time. Ron Ellis is my favorite Leaf of all time.

Although today I am wearing Johnny Bauer's jersey, autographed by Johnny Bauer. Amazing. Because I'm trying to channel some good energy to our goalie tonight. I better get this out of the way. A couple of, you know, I opened it up for questions thinking I'm going to get questions about the provincial election because this is our 2022 provincial election primer. But of course people know you're a big Leafs fan and people want to know what are your thoughts? Essentially it's a best of three now.

We have home ice advantage. And what's going to happen tonight? What's going to happen in the series? Okay, keep in mind that I'm always wrong, okay? So just let's get that on the table for starters. I think we win tonight. I think we lose game six and flip a coin for game seven. I feel like I've seen that movie before. And when you flip that coin,

the movie I keep watching has us losing game seven. How many times have the Leafs had a chance to wrap up a series in game six at home? Like, in my lifetime. Well, they won't be home for game six. No, you're right. That's true. But we're home tonight, so you think we win tonight, then we lose game six.

Because they never lose two in a row, right? No, yeah. Tampa hasn't done that in forever. They never in playoffs lose two in a row, so we have to win tonight, lose game six, and then win game seven. I'd take a coin flip game seven with the two-time defending Stanley Cup champs for sure. Okay, now people know you're a big Leaf fan, but people also know you're a big Red Sox fan. You're going to bring that up, eh? Craig M. writes in, I know Steve is a

big Leaf and Red Sox fan. I believe from his dad, did his faith in either team ever waver? Okay. I'm not a Red Sox fan because of my dad. I'm certainly a Leaf fan because of my parents. They took me to my first game in 1966, and I've been obsessed ever since. The Red Sox, I became a fan of in 1975 before the Blue Jays were born. That was a great World Series. If you can remember the Carlton Fisk home run in Game 6. That's the one with his arms. Except the other way, Mike. The other way. Going this way. That's right.

Pointing it to the right of the Fisk pole. There's a mirror effect on the camera. And they are having a horrible year, which is a shame, but as I always like to remind people, it's been a good century for the Red Sox. You know what? That was the next question, and I just want to give credit to Neil Jenkins, because he wrote in what does steve think about the red

sox start to this season well it's pretty obvious they're terrible they're having a terrible start none of the guys there's two guys two pitchers and two position players who are playing well and nobody else is and guess what mike can't win a lot of games when you got four good players out of 25 playing on your roster so there there you go. That reminds me. I did get a question from Dr. Brian Goldman. Listen to that one. He was going to ask you about the power of teamwork because he's got a book he's selling, and it's a good book.

People should get it. But the Red Sox, not a good team this year. Not yet. Not yet. And I don't know. You can't win the World Series in April, but you sure can lose it. And I think they're on the verge of being out of it altogether.

Now in 1989, my beloved Blue Jays were 12 and 24 to start the season. And then they brought in Cito, they got rid of Jimmy Williams, they did a few other things like Mookie. Mookie came over and some different little tweaks here, but turned it around and won the pennant. It can happen. It can happen. Although I'm not predicting it for this year.

I just, I don't see the Sox having the horses this year and too many things have gone wrong. But that's okay. You know, Mike, I think they won the World Series in 2018, 2013, 2007, 2004. So I've had a lot of joy from a team that I watched for 30 straight years win nothing. I've had a lot of joy from a team that i watched for 30 straight years win nothing right i've had a lot of joy over the last 18 years now you've been spoiled i've only won one thing in

that time period the 2019 i i did it all uh the 2019 nba championship yeah that was great too that's what i got and again i should apologize to all the cfl fans out there that i'm sure the argos have won in that time period i am sure ty. Ticats have not. No. Okay. Well, there's later, there's a little Ticats love coming from a big fan of yours. So we'll save that. But before I shout out your previous episodes and before we begin our sort of a deeper dive into the 2022 provincial election in this province, are there any conflicts of interest you'd like to declare? Don't worry, Mr. Pagan, we have plenty of time. I'll just sit back and listen. Just run them off. Well, let me think. You and I are friends, so I guess we should get that on the table in the

interest of full disclosure. Put it this way, depending on the questions you ask, I will let you know if we have any appearances of conflict to worry about. Thank you for that. Yeah, I just wanted to give you that opportunity. That's why we give you two hours for these recordings. One hour for the conflicts of interest, half an hour to praise the podcast here, and then a half an hour to talk about Ontario politics. Okay, so if this is your first Steve Paikin on Toronto Mic'd encounter,

well, shame on you. You have some catching up to do. Here's what I recommend you do. Okay, episode 515 in the archives mike chats with steve pake and about his start in radio at chfi and cftr his stint on the fan 590 his years at cbc hosting the agenda on tvo and why he loves the boston red sox that was your initial visit and the initial A to Z deep dive.

That was episode Bill Borilko Pat Boutette. Okay, got it. Keep going. Okay, I should go get, I have a Borilko jersey upstairs. I should grab it. Okay. Then your next appearance is episode 572 and you were not alone, but I'll just read the description. Mike chats

with the host of the Agenda on TVO, Steve Paikin, and jazz musician and Toronto Mike lawyer, Ron Davis. And that was another great episode. Your second appearance was with Ron Davis. So that was episode Bill Borilko, Tim Horton,

Ian Turnbull. Good. Love this. Still working on it? Love this. All right. Shout out to those in Ottawa listening because your next appearance was episode 613.

Oh, that one's easy. That's Ronnie Ellison, Matt Sundin. Matt, Matt, goal scored by number 13, Matt Sundin. Shout out to Andy Frost, who's also on FOTM. Okay. Mike chats with the anchor of TVO's The Agenda with Steve Pagan. And I guess we just caught up. That was just

like a let's shoot the breeze. I think that one. Did I do that one with Landsberg? No, that's the next one. Okay, so that was 613. And then episode 668. You want to do that? You can't use Pittsburgh Penguins because you got two you could use because you got a Mary Lemieux into Yarmou Yager there.

668. Why don't I go Leafs Ticats and I'll say Ronnie Ellis and Angelo Mosca. Okay, love it. Okay. Mike reunites Michael Landsberg and Steve Paikin, who first broadcast together 42 years ago at CIUT

and Willow Downs Cable 10. So that was me putting you and Landsberg back together. Yeah, that was lovely. I remember that program very well. It was lovely. I like to pair you with people, Ron Davis, and then he was so excited, and then with Michael Landsberg.

And I'm not done pairing you people. Well, first you came back, I think via Zoom, of course, during the pandemic. 791, Mike catches up with Steve Paikin before he kicks out the jams. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That'd be the Tim Horton. Gosh, nine.

Not too many Leafs have worn nine. Who wore nine? Teeter Kennedy wear number nine? Give me a second to think on nine. I'm drawing a blank, but I got lots of things going on here, Bacon. One would be Bauer, of course. Number one, Johnny Bauer. Right.

Stan Weir. Did he wear nine? What number does John Tavares wear? 91. Yeah, so you could do... Oh, that's right. There we go. Yeah.

Got to go to modern times for that one. Okay. And here is your most recent appearance. And again, this was also Zoom, so I'm really glad you're here in person. Episode 1010. Mike is joined by Steve Paikin and Bruce Dobigin as they discuss Tony Sinatra versus Tony...

Sorry, Frank. Did I write that? I think I wrote that description wrong in the website. Like I have to change that after this episode. I think his first name's Frank. Frank Sinatra, Tony's his less successful brother, I think, or cousin. Frank Sinatra versus Tony Bennett with songs and stories.

And that was fantastic. An hour and 48 minutes. George Armstrong squared, 10, 10. Yeah, I love it. Now, the funny thing about that is I had a disclosure at the beginning where I just wanted to make sure that having Bruce Dobegin on the program does not

mean I support his tweets and his controversial thoughts on various subjects of the day. Little did I know, about a week later, I needed a disclosure for Mr. Steve Paikin with those conflicts of interest. Any words to say on that before we continue? I did read your piece you wrote, and it sounds like your problem, and I totally understand, is that you can't declare conflicts of interest when you

have a million of them. Well, it's funny. I was interviewing Jean Charest not too long ago, who's running, of course, for the leadership of the Conservative Party. And during the course of our interview, I said, and in the interest of full disclosure, Mr. Charest and my oldest son, Zach, co-authored a piece for the Globe and Mail, an op-ed piece, and we just want to get that out there for everyone's edification. Then during the course of the interview, he mentioned Patrick Brown, who's also running for the Conservative leadership. And I said, and just in the interest of full disclosure, Patrick Brown and my wife are friends, and she's done some work with him in the past, and we put that out there. And you were at his wedding. People's edificate. Well, my wife got invited, and I'm her husband, so I was her plus one. Yes, I was at his wedding for that reason. And then I think at the end, I think he mentioned somebody else, somebody else in the family,

and I had to do a full disclosure on that as well. And at the end of the interview, he said, boy, you've got a very engaged family. And I said, yes, that's right. And that is the difficulty you run into when you're in a relatively big family of people who are very much engaged in a lot of different things. You know, right. Somebody's volunteering for some party somewhere like that. Yeah, you're right. So I think the safest bet going forward is just to clear them all. Like maybe get that guy. You remember the guy who could talk really fast.

He used to do those ads in the eighties. Do you remember this at all? Like, uh, just get that guy to do them all off the top and then you can just do your, do your thing. I'll certainly take that under advisement.

Yeah. You worked, I'm just going to, we have a lot to cover here, but, uh, I do need to talk about some Toronto Mic'd episodes since your last visit. Just a couple.

You worked with Mike Cooper and Tom Jokic, right? I did. Yes, indeed. I worked at CHFI from 1982 to 1985. And Mike Cooper, I knew from then. And Tom, the Joker as well, I knew from then. And thanks to hearing them on your programs I reconnected with both of them I hadn't heard from either one of we hadn't been in touch in

many many years and we got some lovely emails back and forth uh which was uh which was wonderful you so I brought you so I not only am I reuniting you with like like Bruce Dobigan and Michael Landsberg and then Ron Davis but also Mike Cooper Cooper and Tom Jokic. Yeah, yeah. I rely on you to sort of keep me up to date with people I worked with 35 years ago. Well, I'm not even disappointed in this. I just find it interesting that Mike Cooper came over and he did the 90 minutes where we talked about everything, right? We talked about everything. He was amazing.

And then I said, hey, I'm doing a special episode 1050 all about the history of 1050 Chum as a top 40 radio station. Because I know that means a lot to a lot of people like even though i never actually listened to 1050 when it was a top 40 station i know this means something to torontonians of a certain age so i wanted to pay tribute for episode 1050 and i just said hey mike you want to join the zoom i'm gonna have and we're gonna we're gonna talk about like roger ashby's on this thing jim van horn like you know it's it's gonna be uh scott carpenter's on this thing um a bunch of other guys and then uh he said no thanks i i'm only looking forward i'm done looking at the past and i said okay that's fine but you just spent 90

minutes talking about the past well yeah so he i guess he figures he's done it and and as and as charming and good looking as you are there's only so much of you we can all take you know oh that's that's a good point steve that's why you got the tvo gig okay so uh one more thing i want to say uh about recent toronto mic'd episodes unless you have something you want to add is the mike wilner episode in the backyard where mike came over and we did like a 2022 blue jays primer you as as a Red Sox fan enjoyed that episode and it might have sparked and inspired this one we're recording right now. 100% true.

And the fact is I read about baseball every day, but of course I read the Boston Globe because I want to know what's going on with the Red Sox. And I don't really follow the Blue Jays all that carefully. So I appreciated that episode with you and Mr. Wilner because as a guy who doesn't know as much about the Jays as I should, I thought that you guys laid it all out there for me and prepared me for the regular season.

And it's going to be a good season by all accounts. And yes, it did give me the idea that maybe we should do the same thing, kind of a primer on what's going on with Ontario politics. But you know, can I raise one that you didn't raise? Oh my God, yeah. I listened to your Dave Thomas episode last night. Okay. And like, I've known Dave Thomas for 50 years. Dave Thomas's parents and my parents were friends. We're all from Hamilton. I know Ian, his brother better than I know Dave. I haven't seen Dave in a long time since he went to California, but I knew him, you know, I knew him a little bit back in the day.

Martin Shorts from Hamilton, Eugene Levy, I knew that whole crew. And when they started talking about doing Godspell with Gilda Radner and Jane Eastwood and Rudy Webb, Victor Garber played Jesus in that one, and Paul Schaeffer was the music director. That just brought back some fantastic memories. I think I saw, because Martin Short was a great family friend, my grandfather and his father were best buddies. I think I saw Godspell at the Royal Alex,

oh, I don't know, 15, 20 times. I knew the whole thing by heart back in the day. And so I loved that episode with Dave Thomas and I learned so much about him. I didn't know 75% of the stuff that you guys talked about, so it was just terrific. It was a perfect storm of an interesting guest who can tell a good story,

basically saying to the host, don't worry about the clock. Like, I gotta say... He gave you two hours. He gave me, yeah, like two hours, 17 minutes or something, and I didn't feel like I had to wrap up. I just thought, at some point, you gotta respect your guest. You can't make him do six hours, although I wanted to.

But thank you. And I want to say thank you for connecting me to Dave's brother, Ian, because thanks to you, I engaged Ian Thomas. And Ian Thomas is now in the calendar and will make his Toronto Mike debut soon. Fantastic. And I know you talked with Dave about favorite songs and my favorite song of Ian's, I mean, Painted Ladies is obviously the one everybody loved. And he was a kid when he wrote that. I think he was all a 21 or 22 or something, but I always liked Long, Long Way, which was the title track of his, in my view, best album. And I just love that song. And that song stayed with me for like 50 plus years. love it okay so now we begin the and i don't even know how to say how do you say the name of your podcast you're doing

on poly podcast so you don't need the hashtag you don't have to say the hashtag but i put it in there because right because that's it's called the on poly podcast because on twitter the hashtag for ontario politics is on poly and twitter will put a little like voting box icon next to it if you use it which is just fun yeah it's just fun so on poly 101 so basically this is a lot like that wilner episode on the jays where i didn't want to make assumptions like i didn't want to make an episode for the die hard who already knows like who's who's in buffalo already like i wanted it to be to somebody who's like a casual baseball fan and just needed a primer like who are these people right what positions do they play are they good like is this a this new guy this new third baseman is he

special like you know you know i i wanted a primer no assumptions made so in many regards this will be just like that like this is not for the politicos out there who just follow this thing like it's their it's their sport of choice this is for Ontarians who are just interested in what's going on at this election. So you're here as the subject matter expert. Are you up to the challenge? I'm going to give it a try. And I think it's actually important that we engage in this for a couple of reasons. Number one, if you look around the world today, Mike,

it is a sad and dangerous place in too many places, and we are blessed and lucky to have democracy here in the province of Ontario. We shouldn't take it for granted. I just finished a book about John Turner, the former prime minister, which I hope you'll have me back for to talk about. No, I'm done with you. Well, John Turner always said, you know, democracy doesn't come all by itself. You've got to participate. You've got to be engaged. Otherwise, you run the risk of losing it. And said, you know, democracy doesn't come all by itself. You've got to participate. You've got to be engaged. Otherwise, you run the risk of losing it. And so, you know, I'd love people to be more aware of what's going on in terms of this provincial election.

In the last election four years ago, I think the voter turnout was 57%. Wow. And that's not good. When I was a kid, we had provincial and federal elections routinely with 75, 80, 85% turnout. So I'd love to get people more engaged in the people, in the issues, and maybe get them voting on voting day, which would be great. Now, tell me what happened May 4th. We all knew this election was coming on June 2nd, but what is the issue was called? Can you tell me what the heck happened on May 4th? Sure. Now, we knew the election was coming on June 2nd.

We've known that for years because we have in Ontario something called a fixed election date law. Back when you and I were kids, the premier of the day could basically call the election whenever he wanted to. Right. And there was no particular date that said if he wanted to go after three years, he could. If he wanted to stay for five years, he could. But there was a ceiling, right? Like you couldn't. Yeah, five.

Five was the ceiling. They tended to go every four years. But the reality is you could, if you were the premier, you wanted to call it at a time that was most advantageous to you. Dalton McGinty, who was premier from 2003 to 2013, said, you know what? The people deserve a more even playing field. And so we're going to take that advantage away from the premier. We're going to pass a law saying elections every four years on a fixed date. And they basically have stayed to that ever since.

And as a result, we have known for four years that Doug Ford was going to go, as he did on May the 3rd, I think, in the afternoon of May the 3rd, he was going to go visit the lieutenant governor think, in the afternoon of May the 3rd, he was going to go visit the Lieutenant Governor and basically fire the starter pistol for the election. And what he does is he says to the Lieutenant Governor, Ms. Doudswell, I, as your First Minister, am advising you, the Queen's representative, to dissolve the Ontario legislature and draw up all the writs for the 43rd general election. And she will say, thank you, Premier.

I accept your advice. I will now take these 124 documents, one for each riding. I will sign each one of them. The house is dissolved. The election is on. And that's how it starts. Fascinating. Okay, so that's a bit of a historical symbolic practice there.

Doug doesn't have to wear a wig when he does that, right? He does not. I'm just checking out. Okay, so in this system that McGinty put in place, and we're all familiar with this because we're used to seeing

an American presidential election every four years, and you can predict that date, and you know exactly when that's going to be. So June 2nd has been in the calendar for a lot of people for a long time. Now, we know that's the election day, but of course, you know, there are advanced polling and mail-in ballots.

And again, I'm not making any assumptions in this episode, so I'm not going to assume people know exactly how they can cast a vote. But how can you vote for this in this election? Well, what I always do is I go election day because I want to take into consideration every single possible piece of information right up until I walk into that voting booth and mark my ballot. You never know what's going to happen on June 1st. Something could happen June 1st. That might change your mind. Right. So I want every bit of information I possibly can. There will be many people of the 10.7 million eligible voters in the province of Ontario who will think a week or a week and a half before election day,

you know what? I've heard enough. I know. And therefore, there are, I think, 10 days of advanced polling where people can go mark their ballots on those days. And they don't have to wait until voting day, June the 2nd. And in fact, the folks who organized the election, Elections Ontario, Mike, here's my first conflict of interest, full disclosure. My daughter got hired as an Elections Ontario worker. I don't know what she does, but the province of ontario needs 55 000 people every time it holds an election to do all sorts of jobs putting up signs enumerating voters getting the voters lists

organized all of that so she's one of the 55 000 she got it as a bit of a summer job after her first year university ended okay and so uh the elections ontario folks would probably love it if not everybody showed up on June 2nd, but if some people showed up at the advance polls, because that would obviously make their life easier. And can you do mail-in ballots? That's a really good question. I don't know.

Because this is all the news in the age of pandemic. I'll tell you what you can do, because I asked Greg Essence, who is the head of Elections Ontario, and whose brother, if you're a hockey fan, you may know. I mentioned Oilers. Bob Essence. I think Winnipeg Jets. Okay.

Who am I thinking of? I don't know. Oiler of a similar last name. But Bob Essence is Greg's brother. Bob played a goalie for the Winnipeg Jets many years ago. And I said to Bob, what do you do if you're visually impaired? Or what if you're in a wheelchair and you can't get to a polling station? And he said, that's one of the jobs of the 55,000 or four.

We will come to your home, we will drive you to a polling station, and we will help you mark your ballot. So that definitely can be attended to. If you have some kind of disability, it's no reason not to vote because Elections Ontario can help you. Who's eligible to vote? I know that sounds like a dumb question. It's not a dumb question. Can somebody who's, I'm not even sure what the proper nomenclature, we used to say homeless.

I'm sure that's not the proper nomenclature anymore. If you are a Canadian citizen, you can vote. Now, what that means is if you're a resident alien or permanent resident, but you don't have your citizenship, you can't vote vote which a lot of those folks think is unfair because after all they live here they're paying taxes but they're not citizens only citizens over the age of 18 can vote and there will be lots of conversations about whether we ought to lower the voting age to get more younger people actively involved in politics but at the moment 18 plus you, you can vote. This is the last election. I was telling my 17 and a half year old daughter, this will be the last time she has to watch from the sidelines.

Ah, good. She'll be at the next one. Do you remember who you, what was your first election? Do you remember? Yeah. I feel like I voted for John. When did John Turner last run for the liberal party? Okay.

1984. Because you're an expert on this stuff. Okay, that's impossible then. I'm doing the math in my head. June. Okay, so who was the leader before Jean Chrétien? The leader before Jean Chrétien, well, Chrétien took over in 1993, took over from

John Turner. Okay, so I voted, yeah, at some point, that election, I feel, is the first one. I think that was October. The one before that? Might have been October 25, 1993 was the election that Jean Chrétien won. How old were you then? Okay, what year?

93. 19. Okay, so you could have voted in that one. Okay, that's how I remember it anyways. Yeah, you know, I always encourage, well, I have an older son who's 20 and he's already voted once because we had a federal election since he turned 18. And it's like, to me, it's your duty. Like to me, I would be so disappointed if I knew my kids were not, you know, participating

in this democracy. Can I tell you a little story about that? Of course, of course. My daughter, who's in first year Queens, just finished first year Queens, was 18 during the last federal election. And she wanted to vote and she wanted to vote in Kingston, where she lives. Right. And for whatever reason, there was some difficulty with the paperwork and she didn't get enumerated. And she went to her polling station and they said, you don't have the right ID or you don't have the right something. You can't vote. And she called me in a panic and she said, what do I do? I mean, I really want to vote and

I don't have the right stuff. I think maybe she couldn't prove her address. That was the problem. Her address on her driver's license was back in Toronto. So I said, you know, run back to your home, get, get, you know, a hydro bill or get some mail, something that proves that you live at a certain address in Kingston and that you can vote there. And it's already, I think at this point, it's already 10, like it was a 10 o'clock at night. Anyway, it was, they were keeping the polls open late because there was so many people who hadn't yet voted. And she went home, she got what she needed. She ran back to the polling station, which was a long way away. I think it was six kilometers away.

And she ran to the polling station. She got in there. She voted. She took a selfie of herself with the ballot in her hand. And it was, I got to tell you, it was a very emotional experience for her dad because I thought there's somebody who made a really good effort to cast their ballot and exercise their franchise. And I was very proud of her for making such an effort to do so.

Yeah, because we make it as easy as possible for people. But there's an example where it wasn't necessarily easy. It was kind of a pain in the ass. But she did it because it mattered to her. It's funny that story reminds me of my oldest first time voting. He voted in Waterloo. But you're right, a lot of his address stuff is a Toronto address. So I remember telling him, I remember on the phone,

he was like, okay, bring whatever I can't remember, bring whatever. And I'm like, if they give you trouble, call me back and we'll figure it out. But they let him vote in Waterloo and awesome. Hey, quick question. You mentioned, you know, if you're over 18 and you're a citizen, can prisoners vote in the provincial election? Another good call. I warned you, this wouldn't be easy, Mr. Bacon.

I got questions. That's funny because we just had Greg Essence on the agenda, and I did not ask him that question actually. I don't know if prisoners can vote. Because we get a lot of our media and our movies and television from the United States, and we'll often hear about how

a prisoner can't vote in the States, and I always felt like it never seemed fair to me, and I always felt like we hopefully were better up here, like we'd let a prisoner cast a vote, even though they're in jail. So anyway, I guess we'll have to find out, and we'll have to update this.

If somebody from Elections Ontario was listening, they should let us know that. Yeah, and I will pop in. So I should point out we have a pirate stream, live.torontomike.com, and a bunch of people watching this live. And I will pop in there at some point. So if somebody can find out the answers to these questions that are stumping us,

I'll pop in there and see if somebody has dug up the info. Okay, let's talk about the leaders. And this is where I shut up and we listen to Steve Paikin here. And by the way, I'm going to disclose something before you talk about the leaders. Maybe I'll disclose it as you talk about the leaders. Where do you want to begin? With the current premier

and then work? I think we should go in the order in which the parties were in the last Ontario legislature. So that's PC's NDP Liberal Green. Let's do it. You want me to start? Start.

And I'm just going to talk to Dave here. Dave says yes. Dave, is that yes that prisoners can vote? Just let me know there. And yes, begin, Mr. Pagan. Okay. So here's one thing, another thing that happens during the course of the election campaign, just again to make things super fair and give all the leaders sort of the notion that they're at the starting gates equally.

And that is we actually don't call Doug Ford the Premier during the course of the election campaign. We call him the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party leader. And that way, it doesn't give him the advantage of incumbency that he would have over all the others. So, for example, next Monday night, I'll be co-moderating the leaders' debate, and I will not introduce him as Premier Doug Ford.

I will introduce him as Doug Ford, leader of the PC pc party so you're good at that by the way i'm going to just pat you on the back a bit to say that i think you're fantastic moderating those debates oh thank you even though at least somebody on twitter said we should do it together i can't remember you and i yeah that'd be great love to so this is doug ford's second election of course the first time was in 2018 last time he was rookie leader. He won his first time out the gate. That is fairly rare. It puts him in very select company. He now has a four-year record to campaign on. And you can be sure that the opposition parties are going to, over the remainder of the campaign, let people know everywhere that he fell short. People know everywhere that he fell short. There's one thing in particular that Doug Ford has going for him if you are a historian. And that is, if you look back at 150, where are we right now?

1867. So if you look back at 155 years of Ontario political history, there have only been two elected premiers from a first-time government that didn't get re-elected. So if you've won an election as a rookie, as a first-time premier in a first-time party, everybody's got a second term except for Bob Ray, one term NDP, 1990 to 95, and Ernest Drury, United Farmers of Ontario, 1919 to 1923. Every other rookie premier from a first-time party in power has got reelected. So Doug Ford certainly has that wind in his sails. I have some clarification on can inmates vote in this province.

Okay. This is actually a federal rule, but it lets you vote provincially. In 2002, and thank you to D. Trevor for digging this up, in 2002, and Dave as well, and Leslie, there's a lot of people chiming in here. In 2002, a Supreme Court decision granted all inmates in Canada the right to vote, and since then, Correctional Service Canada has been ensuring that all inmates can Canada the right to vote. And since then, correctional service Canada has been ensuring that all inmates can exercise that right. Is that for federal and provincial elections? Yeah, get clarification on that. It's a Supreme Court, so it sounds federal,

but I'm assuming it trickles down. But let's confirm here. Here I am on the CBC website from 2019. So in other words, one year after the last provincial election. And it said here, as thousands of inmates cast their ballots in the federal election, that's the 2019 federal election,

there's a group of inmates in Canada's largest prison for women that are planning a legal action after being denied the vote in last year's Ontario provincial election. Because Dave says both. So that would be, continue that reading.

It says here that seven women at the maximum security Grand Valley institution in Kitchener didn't vote in the 2018 election because of administrative error, according to Correctional Services Canada. So I guess they are allowed to. So they had the right to vote, there's some administrative error.

They had the right to vote, but for whatever reason, weren't given that right. Look, you're learning something. Oh, here we go. Here it is, Mike. A Supreme Court decision in 2002 ensures offenders have the right to vote under Section 3 of the Charter.

So there we go. We got our answer. See, look at that. We got some... Eventually got there. Awesome. Okay, so Doug Ford is the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, and they've decided they're going to stay Progressive Conservative Party, and they've decided they're going to

stay Progressive Conservative, even though at the federal level, they have morphed into the Conservative Party of Canada. Right. That all happened actually a long time ago. It happened in the middle 2000s, when the Federal Conservative Party dropped the Progressive and they just became the Conservative Party of Canada. And people asked John Tory, who was then the leader of the Ontario PC Party, you going to do what the federal party did? And he said, no, I think we've got a perfectly fine name as the Ontario PC Party. So we're going to keep it. And it has stayed the same ever since.

Whatever happened to that Tory guy? Do we know? I think he actually ran into some pretty good success. I think he won a couple of elections. And he's running again, I noticed. And I wouldn't want to go up against him. Okay. I think he won a couple of elections. And he's running again, I noticed. And I wouldn't want to go up against him. Okay. And he did record something for episode 1000 of Toronto Mike, as you did. So thank you for doing that.

In fact, I think I might have let off with your... I think you did, Mike. I think you gave me the first bite of the apple. I was very honored. Well, I loved it. And I think you name checked Erin Davis. So I let her back, you know, right after you. So awesome to drive you in.

Okay. So we've talked about the Progressive Conservative Party, and next we talk about the NDP. The NDP, right? This Andrea Horvath is the leader of the NDP. She is from Hamilton, Ontario, born and raised. She represents Hamilton Centre in the last Ontario legislature and has for many, many years.

This is her fourth general election as the NDP leader. That is really, that's really quite amazing because as we've seen in the federal scene, Mike, you know, you can lose one election and they get rid of you right away. The last two conservative leaders have lost one election and they got the boot right away. Andrea Horvath has a great deal of support in her party.

And whenever her leadership comes up for review, she's managed to get very good numbers. I think 75, 77, 78% support. So this is her fourth general election. Most of the pundits say that her best chance to win was last time when the liberal vote basically cratered. And she was in first place in the polls for a little while, but then came down, and she ended up, though, as the leader of Her Majesty's official opposition. She came second, one of the very few times in Ontario history that the NDP came second.

I think it's only happened twice before that. And so she is obviously trying again to become Premier for the fourth time. Yeah, well, we're going to talk about the Liberal Party now, but what I remember last election was a, like almost like a, when the zeitgeist or the general will of the people was basically like disliking passionately of Kathleen Wynne. And I sensed, let's punish this party now.

This is how, I don't know what you sensed, let's punish this party now. This is how, I don't know what you sensed, but you're right. So decimated the results for the Liberal Party, which had been in power for how many years? 15.

15 years. Okay. So talk to me about the leader of the Liberal Party and then I'll declare a little conflict of interest myself. Uh-oh. What's your conflict?

Stephen Del Duca is an FOTM. Well, that's right. He's been on before. I'm going to just let everybody know if they want to hear my episode with Stephen. And I should point out, I actually invited all leaders of the biggest four parties in this province.

I invited them all over and two took me up on it so far. So Stephen Del Duca came over and we sat in my backyard and that was episode 708. Mike chats with Ontario Liberal Party leader Stephen Del Duca about his swimming pool, Doug Ford's back to school plan. This is of course during COVID-19,

which apparently is still going on, but I'm not so sure. Our climate emergency and the sweet Soul of Otis Redding. I remember that. I listened to that episode. Mike, I've been following Ontario politics for 40 years, and I don't think in all of that time there has been another leader who had as challenging an inbox, if I can put it that way, as Stephen Del Duca. He won the Ontario Liberal leadership in March of 2020.

And two days later, we were in the midst of an international pandemic. So he basically had to do a bunch of things, find a lot of candidates, raise a lot of money, start a policy development process, and he had to do it all on Zoom from his living room. Very, very challenging. And let's remember, the Liberals were so decimated in 2018. They'd been in power for 15 years.

There was a sense among a good chunk of the electorate that it had been enough, and the electorate decided to punish the Liberals, and they came third for, I think, I'm trying to recall now, I think for the first time ever. I don't think the Liberals had ever come third before. Oh, no, I take it back. In 1975, they came third. In 1975, ever come third. Oh no, I take it back. In 1975,

they came third. In 1975, they came third by one seat, I think. But it's extremely rare for the liberals to come third. And as a result, Stephen Del Duca had to go out there, having lost his own seat. He didn't win personal election. He lost his own seat, and he had to go find 124 minus 70. He had to find 117 candidates to run for the next election because he had so few people elected. But they got that done. He raised $10 million to get the party out of debt. He's put the policy process together, and in fact, just earlier this week,

they unveiled their, as they call it, fully-costed party platform. And this is, of course, his first election as a major party leader. And, you know, so far, he seems to, the polls suggest, so far, he seems to be doing pretty well. He's got the Liberals in second place, which is a long way from where they were four years ago. So we're here, we're setting the table, essentially, you know, you're introducing us to all the leaders. And then I'll have more questions and we'll kind of get into some specifics here. We're setting the table, essentially. You know, you're introducing us to all the leaders. And then I'll have more questions. And we'll kind of get into some specifics here. But what's next here?

Okay. One more FOTM. One more. Let's go for it. Yeah. And do you want me to read my little, you know, declaration here? My conflict? Okay.

So, Mike Schreiner is also an FOTM. And that's episode 1025. So, not that long ago. This is only 1048, although at the rate I'm going, that might have been last week. I'm not sure. Okay, in this 1025th episode of Toronto Mic'd,

Mike is joined by Green Party of Ontario leader, Mike Schreiner, as they discuss what brought him to Canada, his dual citizenship, his move to politics, being elected MPP for Guelph highway 413 are you guys calling it highway 413 or highway 413 what are you guys calling it at tvo 413 413 okay because there's three ways to go with that one okay highway 413 his mental health platform ending

terry on and i have a question about that later, decriminalizing drug use, passing Ontario's first ever green law, the jams he loves, and more. That episode was about an hour and change. Please proceed, telling us about the Green Party of Ontario leader. Mike Schreiner is a great example of somebody who tried and tried and tried again. He's originally from Kansas. He came up to Canada, was a small business person, decided to try to make a name for himself in Green Party politics, got the leadership of the party, ran for a seat and lost.

Ran again for a seat and lost. Ran again for a seat. And guess what happened, Mike? He won. No, he lost again. I should have known. But when he went for the fourth time in the last general election in Guelph, it was sort of like a perfect set of circumstances coming together. The former sitting member for the

liberals retired. So it was an open seat in Guelph. The liberals were, as we suggested already, being punished. So they were not a threat. And Mike Schreiner actually won that seat handily, won it going away. And I like him as an example of somebody who, you've heard this expression, they punch above their weight. Mike Schreiner's one green MPP at Queens Park. He's the only green MPP, and yet he somehow manages to get a disproportionate amount of attention for his issues because, you know, there's very little BS with Mike Schreiner. He doesn't engage in a lot of the petty partisan political BS. He's on the issues. He's a very sincere, authentic guy. And for the first time ever, we've had lots of, I think more than a dozen leaders debates in the history of the province of Ontario.

They've always only ever been with three candidates. For the first time ever next Monday, Mike Schreiner will be on the debate stage because he's the leader of a party that has a seat in the legislature. So there will be four leaders on the debate stage next Monday. And Mike Schreiner is an example. You know, when people often say to me, oh, come on, one person can't make a difference. Just do a bit of a Google search on Mike Schreiner is an example. You know, when people often say to me, oh, come on, one person can't make a difference. Just do a bit of a Google search on Mike Schreiner and you'll see one person can make a difference down there at Queens Park.

He absolutely is influential in, you know, helping form public opinion and helping the, you know, he's the one guy in this race who will say, I know I'm not going to be premier and I hope all the other parties, whoever wins steals my ideas. Does he say that? say, I know I'm not going to be premier, and I hope all the other parties who ever win steals my ideas. Does he say that, like, I know I'm not going to win? Oh, yeah. No, he said it out loud. He knows he's not going to be premier.

Did he say it to me? Did he listen? I've got to review the tape. Okay, what day is this debate you're referring to? The English language leaders debate is happening next Monday at 6.30 p.m. on TVO. Okay, that doesn't conflict with, well, I guess we'll see if there are Leafs advance, because I'm just worried about you. Okay. No, game seven is Saturday.

Right. So then Sunday. I just wonder when round two starts. Okay. So when you introduce Stephen Del Duca and Mike Schweiner, will you introduce them as FOTMs? Can you slip that into the, would you do that for us? The answer is no.

Oh, at least you're not going to BS me. Okay, because I get excited. I'm keeping it real, Mike. No, I cannot do that. All right, so while we're on the topic here quickly, and we're going to get into these questions in a moment, but Green Party of Ontario, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that I did have a candidate on the program.

Oh, you had Dianne Saxon. Yeah, so in episode- In fact, you did a podcast with her. Well, okay, well, you had Diane Sacks on. Yeah, so in episode... In fact, you did a podcast with her. Well, okay. Well, we're still doing that podcast. So I just want to say, and I did see Diane Sacks on the agenda. She's one of the deputy leaders of the party.

Yeah. And she is seeking election for the Greens in the riding of University Rosedale. Right. And by the way, no one works harder than Diane Sacks. I think I can just say that as somebody who's known her quite well. Can I tell you a story about her? Please. I mean, you know her very well. I remember when her father was a member of the Ontario legislature, Morty Shulman, back in the 1960s for the NDP. I followed Diane Sachs canvassing on Sunday morning. I'm going out with all the major party candidates in University Rosedale to write a column about it for the TVO website. And Diane Sachs is all business.

She gets out there and she walks up to people, cold call, and she's a very introverted person. So it's, you know, she's overcoming a lot of shyness and so on to go right up to people and say, Hi, I'm your Green Party candidate in this riding. What would it take to get you to vote for me on June 2nd? And she'll just engage people in conversation. And I have to tell you, a lot of people just walk right by her and don't give her the time of day, which is very, you know, it's very hurtful. I told her, Diane, it's not personal. They just, you know, they got other things to do. Don't take it to,

don't take it hard. She knows that, but it's still hard to see that much rejection. And then when she does manage to get somebody who's prepared to talk, she's got this little portable seat that she carries with her. And she opens it up and she sits down and she starts talking to them. Because remember, she's a,

I asked her how old she was. She said, I'm a senior citizen. So I'm guessing- Well, I know, you know what? She actually went to high school of my mom. They're the exact same age and they went to- Oh, so how old? Born in 49.

Okay. So she's... Do the math. She's 73? That's not possible. Turning, yeah, turning, yeah, born in 49. Wow, okay. So turning 73.

She's in phenomenal shape for someone who's 73 then because, you know, she's out there hour after hour, day after day since last October, knocking on tens of thousands of doors, trying to drum up support for the Green Party. And, you know, you've got to... knocking on tens of thousands of doors trying to drum up support for the Green Party. Here's one of the things that I always like to remind people. 85 to 90% of the people who are going to run in this election are going to lose. And most of them know it already.

And yet they go out and they do what they do anyway. And one of the reasons they do it is because they believe in democracy. Another reason they do it is because they want to give voters a choice. Another reason they do it is they want to champion an issue that they think is of importance. And another reason they do it is because you just never know. Maybe the wheel turns, and you get lucky, and you win this time. But most of them are going to lose, and yet they do it anyway.

So I think we have to respect that commitment to democracy and public life. So yeah, my mom remembers Diane Shulman from school and was a great student back then and I think an Oakwood collegiate at this school. Now, can Diane Sachs win? Well, let's put it this way. It's an uphill fight for her to win. The Greens won one seat four years ago.

And that was their first seat ever of all time. That was their first seat ever, that's right. It is, you know, the Green Party has had more success in other places. They actually won a few seats in British Columbia two elections ago and held the balance of power in a minority parliament. So that was very influential. Same story in Prince Edward Island, where they also won seats. But Ontario is a very, we have, I think, the least dynamic political situation of any province in Canada in the province of Ontario. We've had Liberals and Tories and New Democrats,

and that's it since World War II, basically. So for one green to win last time was really unusual. And, you know, I won't say it'll take a miracle for a second green to win, but it's an uphill fight. So let me read the description. If people want to hear more about the fascinating Diane Sachs, that's episode 688. So go to episode 688 of Toronto Mic'd. Mike chats with Ontario's last environmental commissioner, Dr. Diane Sachs, about her father, Morty Shulman.

Shout out, by the way, to the Shulman Files. I actually had Peter Gross. Love that show. Used to watch that show all the time as a kid. It seems like I missed it, but I've seen it on YouTube and I had a good chat with my friend Peter Gross about it. I heard that. I've seen it on YouTube and I had a good chat with my friend Peter Gross about it. And yeah, man, it's one of those great city TV shows, you know, the great character shows. So Morty Shulman, her career in environmental law, her years as Ontario's environmental commissioner, why that came to an end and her excellent new Green Economies.

I shouldn't know how to say this. I've said it a hundred times. Green Economy Heroes podcast. So yeah, let's declare this conflict. I do produce Diane Sachs' Green Economy Heroes podcast, but damn if she's smart, no nonsense, and the hardest working person I know. So shout out to Diane Sachs.

She had a very funny line when she was out on the hustings on Sunday morning. She walked up to somebody who was at an outdoor cafe and she plunked down her little chair and she sat down beside them and started to engage them in conversation and, you know, asked the usual question, what would it take to get you to vote for me? And anyway, the discussion continued and it emerged that the people she was talking to were not big fans of Doug Ford. So she said, and this is her line, not mine. She said, well, if you really want to piss off Doug Ford, vote for me. He's been trying to shut me up for a long time. And that goes back to your previous conversation with her, where she did describe how she was fired by Doug Ford as the last environmental commissioner of Ontario. Right. Right. Now you're ready for some questions

from FOTMs. Okay. Ted Nesbitt, I gave him the first one. I got several here, but Ted says, are their pants really on fire when they answer your question, Steve? As in liar, liar, pants on fire. Let's put it this way. I really dislike the use of the word liar when confronting politicians or interviewing politicians. I think that is a terrible trend that has started in the United States where they all just spend all their time calling each other liars. It's a very, I don't know, I was brought up to say it's a very harsh word. I don't actually think you can accuse somebody of being a liar unless you know for a fact that they are knowingly telling a falsehood. And a lot of times they're not. They're just wrong.

A lot of times they're just giving're just wrong a lot of times they're just giving you their opinion which may be wrong so i'm i'm not a fan of that word and i never use it almost never i think i almost i think i did about trump because it was pretty obvious that donald trump was knowingly telling falsehoods well with donald trump he would see the photo of his inauguration and he would say something like it was the best attended inauguration biggest attended and then it's just one of that that's a lie well that's not spin it's empirically provable right yeah and he knows it so please okay kevin says if a bill and he goes let's say bill 42 has passed second reading but is not ordered to committee by the premier and sits for three years does it die

off or would it stay active if the same government is re-elected no every everything dies off everything that has not been passed and proclaimed by the lieutenant governor dies on the order paper that's the expression it dies on the order paper as soon as the lieutenant governor dissolves the last house, then everything that had not been passed dies. Now, there's nothing to say that it can't be reintroduced in the next legislative session after the next election. Won't be the same bill number,

but the same ideas could be brought back and reintroduced as the same bill. It's also, it raises another interesting issue, which is to say, we have no MPPs right now, Mike. I don't know if people realize that. We have no MPPs right now. Anybody who says, you know, I'm the MPP for such and such riding, well, actually, no, you're not. Once the House is dissolved, everybody's a free agent. There's no MPPs. We still have the cabinet. The cabinet is still in place. The premier is technically still the premier.

The health minister is still the health minister. The finance minister is still the finance minister. Because if, God forbid, an emergency happened, we would need the cabinet to gather and make decisions. So that caretaker government still exists. But there's sort of an understanding. There's a convention, a practice, that no government during an election period will make big controversial decisions. They will only sort of mind the store. And that

is something that all parties have respected from time immemorial. And that's an unwritten rule? Correct. Yeah. It's not a law. Those make me nervous. It's a convention and a practice that have developed over time, and people respect it. Well, let's hope they keep respecting that one. It sounds like that's a sensible one. Okay, this one's me now because I've left the – I've got more questions to come, but this one's me. It's been like a bee in my bonnet for a very long time, Steve.

Again, this is a primer. We're not going to assume anything. So when you have Election Day and all the votes are finished being counted, whoever has the most wins, this is a first-past-the-post system. Correct. Okay. You want to tell people what that means? First-past-the-post just means whoever's got the most.

It doesn't matter if you have 20% of the votes. If you have the most votes, you win. That's right. It comes from an old British horse racing expression because they used to have a post at the finish line so the first horse past the post wins it doesn't matter if they win by a nose or by a thousand meters and it's the same thing in in our british parliamentary system if you win by one vote right or you win by 10 000 votes it's still a win now here's my why I hate the system passionately for many, many years, because what happens more often than not, and I'm speaking for myself,

I'm not speaking for Steve Paikin, there might be a candidate I don't want this candidate to win, and I end up feeling out which of the other party's candidates has the best chance of beating the candidate I don't want to have win, okay? So let's use a real-life example. Let's say strategic voting, right? I can't remember the last time I voted for who I wanted to win, because let's say, hypothetically speaking,

I don't want the progressive conservative candidate to get re-elected in my riding, because she won last time. I will then wait as close as I can to June 2nd and determine, does the NDP candidate or the Liberal candidate have the best chance of beating the Progressive Conservative candidate? And then I will vote that way. Why can't we introduce ranked balloting, which to me would be far more democratic and would be far more satisfying for me as a citizen of this fine province? Well, of course, we could have it if the Ontario legislature passed a law saying we can have it. But the Ontario legislature has not passed any such law.

And in fact, the city of Toronto wanted to have that as an option in their last municipal election. And when Doug Ford became premier, he said, I don't care that, well, I shouldn't say it that way. I should say, the premier said, that's very interesting that the city of Toronto wants to do that. But I have the final say and I don't say it that way. I should say the Premier said that's very interesting that the City of Toronto wants to do that, but I have the final say and I don't want to do it. So City of Toronto does it the old-fashioned way, first past the post. So we only have ranked ballot in very few circumstances. The Conservatives are running a leadership convention right now, right? The federal Conservatives.

That will be a ranked ballot. You vote once, you rank your choices. First choice, second choice, third choice, fourth choice, etc. We could do that for provincial and municipal elections. And basically what would happen is, under that, I assume you like that because once the lowest number in power, but are split between NDP and liberal. And Green and everybody else. Right, yes, and everyone else. I'll get to everybody else soon. There's a question about everybody else. But then what happens is progressive conservatives now have power, even though the non-PC vote was higher than,

it's under 50% basically. I feel ranked balloting would be far more democratic. Well, the advantages of ranked balloting is that once you reallocate all of the votes, the second choice and third choice votes of people, the winner will have more than 50% of the vote. And many people believe there is an added legitimacy to at some point having more than half the votes in the riding. Right.

The downside is that many liberals like that system because they believe that being the sort of moderate middle party, that they'll be the second choice of conservatives and New Democrats, and therefore that system favors liberals. That's their view. I don't know if that's true, but that's their view. and therefore that system favors liberals. That's their view. I don't know if that's true, but that's their view. And so it's unlikely for a conservative or New Democrat government to pass a law allowing for ranked ballots because they think it favors liberals.

That's the argument. How long have you been at TVO, Steve? 30 years. 30 years, okay. This question is a fascinating one to me, and it pertains to the very specific nature of your full-time gig there. So Kevin says, why is Doug Ford afraid?

And this is his words, afraid to do a straight up interview with Steve or anyone or any other mainstream media or pretty much any other mainstream media or a show for leaders debates. Now you can tell us he is showing up for your leaders debate, right? He's definitely showing up for our leaders debate next week. And as you and I sit here taping this on what day is today? Tuesday, 10th of Tuesday, May 10.

They just had a debate in Northern Ontario. He was there. North Bay and he was there. Okay. So he is there, but is he the first, I think I saw you tweet this. Is he the first sitting premier to refuse to do an interview with TVO? The reason I don't know the answer to that question is I don't know whether he's refused or whether his communications people are refusing to allow him to do it.

I have interviewed at TVO every premier of Ontario since Bill Davis. So that's going back 50 years. Right. of Ontario since Bill Davis. So that's going back 50 years. Right. Doug Ford is the first premier of Ontario that so far I have not been able to convince to come in to do an interview. He has been to TVO to be interviewed by me when he was running for mayor of Toronto. He has been interviewed by me when he was running for the Ontario PC party leadership back in 2018. He was interviewed by me when his book came out and he came in and did a book interview.

But for whatever reason, his staff have not seen fit to allow him to do an interview with me since he has become premier. Every time I've asked, they've simply said, the premier is unavailable. No explanation beyond that. I think it's a little strange, actually, because you do know who owns TVO, right? The province of Ontario.

Correct. So Doug Ford, as the premier of the province of Ontario, basically is the controlling shareholder of TVO at the moment. And yet we are the one outlet in the entire province that he hasn't given an interview to. So hope springs eternal. I hope he will do an interview with us before the election is over. You're not holding your breath. I'm definitely not holding my breath, but I'm still hopeful. There's something rotten in the state of Denmark.

I mean, there's something there that doesn't smell right at all. I know you have to be far more careful with your words than I do, but that's a black and white. I don't want to face your questions, Mr. Bacon. Well, let's put it this way in,

in, I think every public opinion survey for the last six months, the progressive conservatives under Doug Ford have been in first place and they are at the moment. I don't think this is a controversial thing to say. They are running a classic front runners first place strategy, which is don't do any more than you have to and avoid making an unforced error. And there's every possibility that if he did an interview with us, I would ask him something that perhaps, you know,

he might screw up the answer to. And the opposition parties would then take that little clip and put it in their ads and it could be problematic. And I guess their view is the people who like Doug Ford already know that they like him and they don't need to hear anymore. And I guess their view is the people who like Doug Ford already know that they like him and they don't need to hear anymore. And the people who don't like him already know they don't like him and they don't need to hear anymore. So what's the upside in doing the interview? Well, listen, we're going to talk about these parties and their most interesting policy announcements thus far, but I would like to just take a moment to give you some gifts for making the long trek to the TMDS studio here.

Makes the hour drive worth it. Besides just seeing your sunny face and talking to you. Well, listen, Ozzy, we haven't seen each other in person for years. Yep. And, you know, Zoom is one thing, but it's nice to have you here. Your wife is Italian, of Italian descent?

Certamente, senor. Did she enjoy the, did she have any of the pasta las Certamente, senor. I, did she, did she enjoy the, did she have any of the Palma pasta lasagna? Of course she did. You know she did, yes. So she enjoyed it. I don't know if she knows Palma personally, but she knows her pasta. That's for darn sure.

Palma Petrucci is a real person, and she, I believe, I don't want to misstate her age, I think she's 95 years young. Auguri. Tanti auguri. It's the sauce that's keeping her vibrant. So, much love to the Picucci family and Palma Pasta.

Go to palmapasta.com. They have stores in Mississauga and Oakville. And I have a lasagna for you in the freezer, Steve. You're going to take home with you today. Grazie e greggio. Sono molto lieto. Have you listened to the Brad Jones podcast, which is called Life's Undertaking? He's the funeral director at Ridley Funeral Home.

Have you sampled that yet? I have not sampled that one yet, but I am aware of its existence. Okay, well, Brad Jones does a great job on his podcast, and Ridley Funeral Home have been pillars of this community since 1921. And here, you never know when you have to measure something. This is a measuring tape for you to keep, but you never know.

Put it in a glove compartment or something. You never know when you have to measure something. Big M, I am going to take this to the cottage this summer because we need this at the cottage frequently. I bet. So shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. Great Lakes Brewery, delicious craft beer. You're taking some home with you, Steve Bacon.

Beautiful. I actually have some at home already because I was introduced to Great Lakes when I made my first appearance on your program and just started purchasing it after that. So I still have some at home. You know what? That's beautiful.

Thank you for that. First of all, it's delicious and it's a family run business here and delicious as heck, but it's great to support those who help fuel the real talk over here. Cause you know, yeah, I'm not TVO, but you know,

I'm trying to, to, to have these interesting conversations and share, share these stories with the, the masses. So we're, we're both doing the same thing, just different platforms here. Hey, I never got a full page ad in the star. So we're both doing the same thing, just different platforms here.

Hey, I never got a full page ad in the Star. You did. And that was well done, incidentally. Wait a minute. That was very impressive. Do you mean this one here? I happen to keep... You just happen to have right there?

Just in case somebody brings it up. I subscribe to the Toronto Star and... What was it like when you opened... You were at the kitchen table, you had your coffee, you opened up the paper, and there I am staring at you. It was the... I didn't even have to open it, Mike. You're on the front table, you had your coffee, you opened up the paper, and there I am staring at you. It was the same.

I didn't even have to open it, Mike. You're on the front page there. You're on the front page of the Together section. I didn't even have to open it to see you. It was, I was delighted for you because I thought you deserved the props for really being a pioneer in this space. So good for you. Thank you so much.

That's a kind words from, praise from Caesar, as we say. Okay. I'm not done yet though i am wearing and i don't know if you checked me out when we before we sat down but i've got a great new pair of pants on here today okay these are the most comfortable pants in the world uh did you notice i i i don't want to break your heart here but i was not checking out your butt before you sat down well on the way back when i walk you out you're're going to be checking out my ass because I'm wearing Dewar pants, comfortable as heck,

and they're so rugged and I can bike in these. I can go from the bike lane to the boardroom. They're a pretty new sponsor, aren't they? Brand new sponsor. And man, just like I have no style. Like I say to the guy wearing his Johnny Bauer jersey,

that's kind of my style, I suppose. But even the shirt, which has a collar, I don't remember the last time I had a collar. This shirt is from Dewar. So D-U-E-R, the world's most comfortable pants and shorts. But I'm going to throw in shirts. Damn comfortable.

You can save, everyone listening can save 15% right now, either online at Dewar.ca or in the retail stores. There's a retail store in Toronto. Use the promo code TMDS, Toronto Mic Digital Services. TMDS, save 15%.

Let a doer know that it makes sense to sponsor a fine program like this. And honestly, world's most comfortable clothes. I love it. I finally have style. Pagan, controversial question here. Yes, sir. When you're finished your hard day at work at TVO,

do you go home and light up a fatty? No, no. That one's easy to answer. I do not. No, sir. You do not partake. No. Okay.

For those who love cannabis, the listeners who love cannabis, Canna Cabana is where you go. They won't be undersold. You can't beat the prices on cannabis or cannabis accessories. And even though you're not smoking anything, Steve, if you have a neighbor or a friend, that's a ashtray from Canna Cabana.

And there's actually a toque here under your shades there. This is keeping you warm. Bring that to the cottage too. That's from Canna Cabana. Well, I shouldn't say this on your program, but it's entirely possible that I have kids who partake in this stuff. It's legal, you know. It is legal, I know.

So as they often remind me now, although I don't think it was when they started, and I will happily gift this to them. I work for the Pokeroo Network, Mike. I'm not sure I can be wearing a toque with that. Shout out to Pokeroo. And I still think you might be Pokeroo. Have you ever seen the two of us together? No.

There you go. That's my work in theory here. And last but not least, StickerU.com. They make these great toronto mike stickers and honestly what a wonderful company in liberty village they're online though sticker you that's sticker you.com upload your image and order your stickers your decals your temporary tattoos there's a whole bunch of cool stuff you can get from them delivered right to your door wonderful company wonderful, wonderful partners of the show. Steve,

can you give us some of the more interesting policy announcements these big four parties have made here? Sure. I guess if I were going to go in, again, order of precedence in the last legislature, let's start with the PC party. They have not brought out a specific platform for this election campaign. You know, most parties, they spend a year or two years or whatever having their volunteers in the back room put some ideas together in a platform, and that's what you run on. You may remember when you were a kid, Mike Harris spent a couple of years going to church basements and traveling all over the province, and then gathered together together his team and they put together a document called the Common Sense Revolution. Right.

And it came out in 1994. And whenever people asked Mr. Harris, you know, what are you going to do for the province when you're running in the next election? He'd brandish his copy of the Common Sense Revolution and say, my whole plan's in here. And he did that for a year and it was very successful. And of course, he became premier in 1995. The Tories have not done this in this campaign, because they brought out a budget in the last week of April, and that essentially is their platform. It's a $200 billion spending plan for the province, includes things like $25 billion for road construction, tens of billions more for public transit, and I mean, the list goes on and on. So if you want to know what the Tory platform is, just Google the last Ontario budget and it's all in there.

Okay, next up, NDP. Now the NDP is, and again, this is Andrea Horvath's fourth campaign, so she's brought out numerous different platforms along the way. The NDP, as you might expect, is focusing very much on healthcare, on education, on Northern Ontario,

where they control eight of the, or they controlled in the last house, eight of the 11 seats that are in the north. And, of course, their view is we're out for you, we're out for the little guy. In their view, Doug Ford takes care of his buddies, but he doesn't take care of you. So the Horvath plan tends to focus. And I know you're an urban guy with a mind towards public transit, so the notion, one of their big ideas is to subsidize 50% of the operating costs of public transit systems all over the province. And they feel that that would be a good way of keeping costs down and that kind of thing,

and they'd spend billions on housing and so on and so forth. So that's, I mean, again, go online. They brought out a specific platform. They haven't costed it yet, but they have brought out a platform filled with ideas that they would pursue. I am personally passionate about getting people out of their fossil-fueled automobiles,

like this, you know, be it by public transit, you know, electric cars are my preferred mode of transportation. Bicycle. Bicycle, yeah. Well, they have something for you then. Did you notice what I drove up in today? It had a green license plate on it.

It did indeed. I drive a 10-year-old Chevy Volt, and it's got about 50 kilometers of battery power. And then after the battery is extinguished, it flips over seamlessly to an internal combustion engine. 90% of my driving is less than 50 clicks a day. So I am driving past gas stations almost all the time. And yet it's got that gas engine in it for when I drive up to Manitoulin Island and I got to go 650 kilometers an hour and I need to be able to have access to gas. But again, the NDP and and for that matter, the Liberals and the Greens, would offer big incentives, $10,000, $11,000 for people to buy electric vehicles,

I think $1,000 for people to buy electric bicycles, very much into those environmentally sensitive issues. Love it. Okay, great. Now, next up we have the uh liberal party of ontario right the liberals have gained a lot of attention for a promise that they made right out the gate of this election campaign and that was you probably heard this expression buck a ride province-wide right it may not be the best policy right i mean basically what they're planning to do is subsidize to the tune of 700 million million the first year,

and assuming it gets more people out of their cars and into transit, a billion dollars the second year, they're going to subsidize the cost of riding the rails or riding the buses or the GO train or the Hamilton Street Railway or, you know, the LRTs that get built or whatever. They're going to do that for two years. And it's a very simple slogan that people appreciate. I've mentioned earlier, I've been going door to door with some of the candidates. It does come up at the door, so there's great brand awareness, if you like, for this policy idea.

Buckeye Ride Provincewide is a big part of the Del Duca plan for making life more affordable. They also focused on education a great deal in the first week of the campaign. So they've talked about hiring 10,000 new teachers and spending billions to build new schools and retrofit existing schools. And, you know, on it goes, making COVID-19 shots mandatory if you want your kids to go to school, that kind of thing. Lots of focus on education early in the campaign. And how about the Green Party of Ontario? You won't be surprised to hear the big focus for the Greens is on climate change. And in addition to all the incentives that we talked about already in terms of purchasing bicycles or electric cars, the Greens have really a very deep and profound program as it relates to climate change. It's probably, I think Diane Sachs told me the other day,

it's $65 billion over four years to do all kinds of things. And we're talking about retrofitting old buildings. We're talking about building environmentally sensible homes. We're talking about discouraging sprawl, intensifying development in cities, everything, you know, getting people onto public transit. I think before the Liberals came out with Buckeye Ride, the Green Party came out with their plan

to cut public transit fares by 50%. So anything that's good for the environment, you know the Greens are all over that. Okay, now some more questions from FOTMs. Tio Residence says, how can the Liberals and NDP get any flack from the media about their platforms when the PC party is running on a half-baked budget

that didn't even contain many of their election promises? Okay, that's kind of inflammatory language. It's a loaded question. Yeah, it's a bit. The biggest criticism I think this budget gets is that the Conservatives, there used to be a law in Ontario, Mike, that said you have to bring a budget in Ontario, Mike, that said you have to bring a budget in during the fiscal year. The fiscal year ended March 31st. And Doug Ford, when he

first came in, said, and if we don't bring our budget in on time, we are going to fine the Minister of Finance and the Premier. We're going to have to pay penalties. We'll dock your pay. And then a few months ago, they passed another little bill that said, except for this year, we're going to be allowed to bring the budget in late and there are no more fines for doing so. So the Tories have taken some flack on that. And the reason they wanted to bring the budget in late, of course, is so they could have it as close to the election as possible

so that the ideas that they have in the budget would be the platform. And they just go out to the people with that. The budget has not been passed. The province of Ontario is in fiscal year 2022, 2023, and we have no operating budget right now because the budget was introduced and then the house dissolved. Right. So it didn't get passed. Now Ford has promised if he wins a reelection that he'll reintroduce that same budget and pass it. But at the moment, we're kind of operating on last year's budget. Interesting. All right. I have to censor this one. It's so inflammatory. But here, let me get to the gist here. Rodriguez says, can the NDP, and I've heard this from a few people

wondering how can we do this? So I'm curious to hear your response to this. Can the NDP and liberals make some sort of deal so we don't have to get redacted Doug Ford for another four years? Well, this goes back to the strategic voting question that you talked about earlier. And here's the problem. Yes, Doug Ford is the premier that both Andrea Horvath and Stephen Del Duca want

to replace. The problem is they both dislike each other as much as they dislike the premier. Right. They both want to be the champions of the progressive vote. Right. So it's very hard for them at this early stage of the campaign to have some kind of non-aggression pact where one says to the other, you know, you've got an advantage in that riding, so I won't run a candidate there, and I've got an advantage in this riding, so please don't you run a candidate there. They both believe that they're capable of replacing Ford,

and therefore those kinds of deals are off. Now, Mike, here's the key. If after June 2nd, Doug Ford comes first with the most number of seats, but he doesn't win a majority government, in other words, if the opposition parties have more seats than he does, then at that point, Del Duca and Horvath can talk and say, look, if we combine our seats, we can kick him out and one of the two of us can become premier. And that happened in 1985. In 1985, Frank Miller won the election for the Progressive Conservatives with 52 seats. David Peterson for the Liberals came second with 48. Bob Ray came third for the NDP with 25. And basically what Bob Ray did was he said,

okay, you two parties that bested me, I'm the kingmaker. I'm going to spend a week negotiating with each of you, and whoever makes me the best deal, I'm going to make that guy the premier. And so ultimately, Bob Ray and David Peterson made an agreement, it was called the Accord, in which Ray promised to back Peterson, even though he had fewer seats. But remember, it was called the Accord, in which Ray promised to back Peterson,

even though he had fewer seats. But remember, it's not who comes first, it's who can command the majority of the seats in the legislature, which between the Liberals 48 and the NDPs 25, they could do. Very interesting. Very interesting.

I did see an April Fool's Day joke, and it was like pretending to be some release from Dil Duka and Horvath about, you know, basically preferring a candidate in each riding, sort of that scenario where you don't, you know, cannibalize each other's vote so that the first pass of the post goes to the progressive conservatives. But it was an April Fool's Day joke,

but it did get a lot of people thinking and talking. Okay. Well, they both have, I mean, listening to it from their point of view, they each have a claim on being the logical alternative to Ford, right? Andrea Horvath says, look, I won 40 seats last time. I was the official opposition last time. I am closer to potentially becoming premier than Stephen Del Duca, whose party won seven seats last time. But I'm sorry for interrupting because I know you're going here too, but we did discuss earlier, you said that was sort of the ideal,

almost a perfect storm for the NDP to have so many, like, I'm not voting for liberals at this point. Like, you know, we talked about, you can sense the vitriol in the air at the last election with Kathleen Wynne still leading the Liberal Party. What were you going to say there? I was going to say, you're right, because the NDP came second because many Liberals wanted to punish their own party and voted NDP. So Stephen Del Duca's position is, well, you came second last time, but again, the

House is dissolved. There are no MPPs. We're all starting at the same starting line. Everybody's got zero right now. I'm second place in the polls, and I have a better shot at being the second place finisher this time than you do, so you should come to me. Well, I will say, as a citizen of this province for almost 50 years,

yes, Bob Ray was the premier. I don't have a sense the NDP can form a government. I feel like official opposition is their ceiling. That's how I feel. I feel the Liberal Party of Ontario can actually win an election. This is how I feel. Well, if you listened

to the On Polly podcast yesterday, we had Greg Lyle on. Greg is a pollster with the Innovative Research Group, and he just took a poll, Mike, and you are in fact representative of majority opinion out there. When asked, who's the biggest threat to Doug Ford's returning as premier, 48% said the Liberals, 20% said the NDP. So it is the view today, it is the view today that the Liberals are the bigger threat to Doug Ford's continuation. But as I always like to remind people, Mike, polls are a great indication

of what people thought yesterday. They cannot predict what people will think tomorrow. Well, we're going to get to poll. I'm going to run through some questions from people who took the time to send them in. And I'm going to hold you hostage here

until we get through them all. And then we're going to talk polls here. But OK, so Rodriguez, we answered your question. Brian says, you know, this is property in the sixes, Brian Gerstein. So Rodriguez, we answered your question. Brian says, you know, this is property in the sixes, Brian Gerstein. So Brian, I want you to know I have a

special episode of Toronto Mike coming soon that's all about the Montreal Expos. It's a deep dive into the history of the Montreal Expos. John Bacabella. Yes. Remember him? No. You don't? What was his era?

60s and 70s. I used to go to Jerry Park to watch games, and I loved it when they introduced, and now at bat, John Bocabella. Just missed that. Just missed that. But I'm sure Brian remembers that. And Brian writes,

I have always voted conservative, and due to the mishandling of the pandemic, cannot do so in good conscience, can't vote Liberal or NDP either. Should I sit this out or do a protest vote with the Green Party or some independent? And then he asks at the end,

is the Rhino Party running? Okay, here's my answer to that. The answer is you are certainly, I don't think sitting out an election, like just failing to show up at the polls, I don't think sitting out an election, like just failing to show up at the polls, I don't think that's a good option. As I say, I think everybody should vote. It's an honor.

It's a responsibility. I think we should vote. What you can do is you can go up to the person from Elections Ontario in the polling station who will hand you your ballot and you can say to them, I reject this ballot and hand it back to them. And your protest will be recorded by Elections Ontario. Okay. So that is an option.

Now, there are other parties out there. There's a party called None of the Above that is running candidates all over the province. And you could vote for them. Oh, with a Z in the front, right? I think, is this the Z? Oh, that's another one. Maybe it's the guy who changed his name. Okay.

Okay. So that's an option. If you want to vote for None of the Above, that's another way of registering a protest. Well, there is another party that, I'm going to get to the next questions about another party, but that's interesting that we point that out. So, because we would say, oh, spoil your ballot, like a protest vote, you'd spoil your ballot. Spoiling it is, no. That's different then.

That is different. If you spoil your ballot, as in you put the X in the wrong place or you, you know, you don't fill it out properly. Or you put an X in each place. Yeah. That does not indicate protest. That indicates that you just probably got it wrong. Right. If you say to them, I decline my ballot, they will register that, and then that shows up as a protest.

So, Brian, you got your marching orders. If you choose to go this route, you got to go to the act. You got to go, and then you got to say, I decline my ballot. But, Mike, let me add this one thing here yeah please there is a per vote subsidy that every party gets from the public purse so you can decline your ballot as a way of showing your protest or you can pick another party that you want to protest and every time you vote the treasury of ontario will give that party i think it it's two and a half bucks or something like that. So when you say, you know, I don't like any of them, I don't want to vote,

find somebody to vote for that is closest to your views, because at least you will then be supporting democracy and that party will benefit from your voting for them because they'll get a subsidy. Very interesting. Okay, and I think you'll find this. We talked a little Thai cats off the top. But Mike Gregotsky, he writes in, is the new blue party a realistic threat to take away votes from the progressive conservatives? Could they affect the results in any ridings? And then he puts hashtag Oskiwiwi cats in 2002.

Oh, from your lips to God's ears. Yeah, it's been a long time for the Cats. I think 1999 was the last time we won a Grey Cup. That's a long time. But you hosted and went to that. You were in that Grey Cup just last year. Oh, I went to that. I was at that Eastern Conference final, by the way.

I should have found you in the stands. That was such a sad... You know, to lose in overtime in Hamilton, in the Grey Cup game, was very, very sad, especially given what my buddy and I paid to go to that game. Wow. We paid face value for our tickets, and they were not cheap. Anyways, it was memorable.

New Blue Party. Right. Okay, a little background here. The New Blue Party was started very recently, just in the last few years, by disaffected progressive conservatives who thought that Doug Ford was not running a government that was conservative in name only, but not in action. Right. They thought it was far too interventionist in the economy.

Belinda Karahalios, who got elected for the PC party in Cambridge, she and her husband, Jim Karahalios, started this party. And Jim is running, I think, in Kitchener-Conestoga, I think, right next door. So you've asked a great question, which is, can enough irritated conservatives vote for the New Blue Party and potentially deny progressive conservatives victories in ridings they might otherwise win because they've bled off conservative votes? And the answer is, I don't know. The New Blue Party showed up in a

public opinion survey the other day for the first time ever. They were polling, I think, about 2% province-wide. But you never know. There may be some writings. I mean, Kara Holios is a reasonable one to look at because she has some name recognition, having been elected last time. It's not inconceivable that the New Blue Party, the Ontario Party, the Ontario First Party, the Trillium Party, which are all alternative voices for the conservative side of the political spectrum, they could all take votes away from Doug Ford and deprive him of seats he might otherwise have won. You never know. We won't know until June 2nd. Now, I did see that Theo Fleury was back in the New Blue Party. Well, I mean, they're a

legitimate option out there. They've put a lot of thought. First of all... I'm not sure that means it. Never mind. No, no. Have you been reading Theo's tweets lately? Yeah, Theo's, he's a little out there. But having said that, the New Blue Party is running candidates in every riding in the province. That is a true accomplishment for a brand new party to be able to find candidates for all 124 ridings. That's a real triumph of... Well, you know the question I have to ask next is, so what is the difference?

Like, why is Mike Schreiner getting treated like one of the big four and at all these events if the, and then the new blue party who has the same number of MPPs does not get invited to these parties? Because Mike Schreiner won his seat as a green. New Blue did not win their seat. Yes, she was a PC.

She was a PC. That makes all the difference. No, good point there. That's why you're here. You're here. By the way, Mike Rogotsky is with a company called Esri. And Mary and Guan from Esri Canada are watching us live on the Pirate Stream, live.torontomike.com. They're watching right now.

And full disclosure, we're full of disclosures today. I work with Mary and Guan on their excellent podcast, the Esri Canada podcast, Geographical Thinking. And Mike Rogozki also works there. So I just want to say shout out to Esri. You do a lot of shouting out, I notice, onographical Thinking. And Mike Rogozki also works there. So I just want to say shout out to Esri. You do a lot of shouting out, I notice, on the show. I've been doing more and more. It's fun. You should do some more shout outs on the agenda.

Okay? You should just start shouting people out on the agenda. I don't think I've ever done a shout out on the agenda in my life. Never too late. Okay. You mentioned polls. You know, that's what people are thinking today, not necessarily on June 2nd or whatever. But what are the polls saying? Well, the polls are quite uniform in saying the same thing.

They've got the progressive conservatives in first place in about the high 30s in most polls. So maybe on the cusp of a majority government, maybe not quite there, but close. They've got the liberals in second place so far in the mid to high 20s. And they've got the NDP in third place so far in the mid to high 20s. And they've got the NDP in third place right now in the low to mid 20s. And they've got the Green Party in fourth place, usually around 5% or 6%.

Now, again, that's the state of play yesterday. It is not predictive of what people are going to do 24 days from now. So there you go. Okay. 24 days from now. So there you go. Okay. And I remember in 2016,

I tuned in to watch coverage of the, the PBS coverage of the federal, sorry, the American federal election. And I still remember telling my daughter, I think she was like 13 or something at the time, or maybe younger, actually. I told her, oh, you know, Hillary's got a 98% chance of winning this thing. It never was that high, but I...

No? No. I feel like maybe it was 538 or something, but yeah. I think the number was 85%. Okay. I think the New York Times had one of those odds maker things, and it said, based on the current polling and the current conditions in the country, Hillary Clinton has an 85% chance of winning this election. So of course,

those who didn't stay up till three in the morning, as I did to see what happened, would have woken up in shock the next day to see that Donald Trump won. Well, you know what? The writing was on the wall by 8 p.m., as I recall, because at about 8 p.m., I cracked open my GLB and said, it looks like four years of Donnie. But you got to remember what that means, Mike. What that means is if we ran this election a hundred times, Hillary would win 85 times out of a hundred. But in 2016, it was one of the 15 times where Donald Trump won. It wasn't a hundred percent sure that Hillary was going to win. It was 85% sure. And that's not a hundred. Here's a great question about the poll. So Leslie, who by the way, Leslie's sister is a very funny comedian.

Carolyn Taylor is booked on Toronto Mike. Then people will know Carolyn from some many CBC shows, et cetera. But Leslie's question, who I will be seeing Friday night. Steve, you know, you're invited to TMLX9.

I just want to make sure I remember to tell the FOTMs listening that TMLX9 is Friday, May 13th at 6 p.m. We are, of course, in the year 2022. If you're listening to this in 2024, we might not be in Marie Curtis Park at 6 p.m. having our sneaky beverages. So please reach out if you have any questions about this because I know it all sounds very mysterious and weird.

But if you write Mike at TorontoMike.com, I will answer. And if you DM me at TorontoMike, I will answer any questions you have about TMLX9, which again is happening 6 p.m. this coming Friday, May 13th. And I know Leslie will be there. She says, Steve, what are your thoughts on whether polls should be publicized during the election period

and the role the media plays in reporting on them? It's a very interesting question because I don't really know what impact the polls have when they're published during the course of an election campaign. I have heard people say, you know what, if you see a party is in first place, it has a bandwagon effect and people will move to that party. On the other hand, it can galvanize the opposition to say,

oh my goodness, they're in first place, we don't want them, let's get our act together. So I can't tell you with great certainty what impact polls have. I do know this, it would certainly be a lot more interesting if polling were not permitted to be published during a campaign and you didn't know who was in first, second, third, or fourth. It would certainly be interesting. Especially for us strategic voters who look at the poll in our writing and that's how we determine who we vote for. The downside of that is the parties all know and the media all know. And in an era when the Charter of Rights and Freedoms says, you know,

there's freedom of the press to publish basically whatever they want as long as it's legal, it doesn't libel anybody. Do you think a law prohibiting the publishing of polling during a writ period would stand up to a charter challenge? I'm not sure it would. Interesting. Viraj Dave would like me to ask you, is there a defining ballot box question for this election? Well, there isn't yet, as far as I can tell. Although if there is one, probably the notion of affordability is the number one issue. And which of the four major candidates, and frankly, any of those beyond the four major parties, which party can best ensure that my life is more affordable

going forward? And I think that's why you have had all of the major party leaders, including the leader of the Conservative Party, out there with enormous spending promises. It used to be back in the day that if we had big budget revenues coming in, we'd want to bank that money and we would try to pay down debt because you want to have your bottom line looking good so that when times are difficult, you can afford to do some deficit spending. Well, the revenues have been flying in like crazy because the economy is very robust right now. But all the parties are pledging to spend that windfall on other programs because they're doing their polling and they see that affordability is a huge issue.

So if there is a ballot box issue right now, it's who's going to make my life more affordable. But again, that's now. It may change by election day. Maybe people, some people might be voting on the question of who handled, you know, did the government handle COVID well enough and could another party handle COVID better? I don't know. Lots of people have different ballot questions. Interesting. And Joe Lauria has two questions. I find the second one particularly interesting. But his first is, and I think you've kind of addressed this, but here you can take another stab at it. How much weight do you give polls when you're in a parliamentary system? How much weight do you give them?

Because that's a popular vote we're hearing here, right? So it's like, how do you apply that when it's a parliamentary system? Let me answer that this way. The polls can give you an indication of where things are at, but translating public opinion into seats is often difficult. And what do I mean by that? In 1990, Bob Ray won a majority government with, I think, 74, 76 seats, something like that,

with 37.8% of the vote. 38.7% of the vote got him a majority government. In 1999, Dalton McGinty got 40% of the vote, and that was good for second place. He got a bigger percentage of the total votes, but he got many fewer seats out of it, because it's hard sometimes to know how the votes are going to split. So that's why you can't always tell. Usually you can, but you can't always tell from the so-called total vote split how it's going to translate into seats. And here, this is interesting. I'm looking at you now, Mr. Pakin.

You're not wearing glasses. Are you wearing contacts? No. So you don't wear glasses? No. Well, I do at baseball games or hockey games. Okay, so you're like me. Like once in a while, my eyes get tired and I stick on the glasses. But like

99% of my life, I'm actually not wearing glasses. Which is good for us because it means we could get elected because Joe Loria wants to know why do voters hate leaders who wear glasses? And he's pointing to a couple of examples. I know you know where we're going here, but when Kathleen Wynne needed to

like, you know, get ready to get together but when Kathleen Wynne needed to get ready to get her party re-elected, she took off the glasses, and Stephen Del Duca has taken off the glasses. Well, he's got laser eye surgery. He doesn't need the glasses anymore. But clearly,

not clearly, glasses help you see clearly, but it does seem like taking off the glasses not clearly, what glasses help you see clearly, but, uh, it does seem like taking off the glasses helps your popularity with the votership. Wouldn't you say that? Or am I dreaming in technical? The short answer is I don't know,

but I, I have inquired with the liberals about this and they say that's getting, you know, getting laser surgery. They have said is something Mr. Del Duca has wanted to do for a long time. And it's just coincidental that we're coming up to an election that he got it done now.

Okay, good. Thank you for clarifying. I thought maybe you'll take off those glasses because you have a better chance of getting elected without glasses. But no, okay, because Clark can't wear glasses. Bob Ray used to wear glasses and then he got the surgery and David Peterson used to wear glasses and then I think he went to contact lenses. There is something to there might be something about seeing a leader in glasses that for whatever reason

you know it's the same deal about beards. We've never had a prime minister with a beard. We've never had a prime minister get elected with a beard. Because JT wore it for the pandemic there for a while. You can tell when election came around that beard was gone. I shouldn't say never. I should say since the 20th century. In the 19th century, we had prime ministers with beards, but not since.

Well, beards were mandatory back then, I think. Okay, so Neil says, with a provincial election, what does Steve think about... Okay, so this is another question similar to the rest. So maybe I'll go to a second. He's asking about advanced polling using tools like Polly. What is Polly?

Is that a tool I should know about? Okay, Polly is the nickname for the algorithm that is artificial intelligence that is used by a polling company out of Ottawa called Advanced Symbolics, Inc. Okay. And we have the CEO of Advance Symbolics, Inc., a woman named Erin Kelly,

on our program during the writ period. The writ period basically means during the campaign. Right. Every Monday. And Polly does polling in two different ways. She does it, Polly, like as in politics, right? That's the nickname. Right.

So Polly does traditional polling, you know, surveying people over the phone, yada, yada, yada, yada. But it also, through this artificial intelligence algorithm, looks at social media and tries to figure out what people are talking about and thinking about on social media and adds that to the mix. And as a result, we have Erin on the program every Monday on the agenda, 8 and 11 p.m. on TVO. Thank you, Mike. Talking about what people are talking about. Right. And, you know, she can tell, for example, I mean, you asked me what was the biggest liberal platform policy, and I said Buckeye Ride.

And why did I say that? Because Polly confirmed that there's a ton of talk on social media about it. Right. Okay. The Highway 413, also very controversial. How do I know it's controversial? Because lots of engagement on social media about it. Right. Okay. Highway 413, also very controversial. How do I know it's controversial? Because lots of engagement on social media about it. So I think that's what your question is referring to. So what do you think?

I guess that's the question. What do you think about these tools like Polly? Well, Polly is a work in progress. Polly accurately predicted Donald Trump's victory. Polly accurately predicted Donald Trump's victory. Pauli accurately predicted the Brexit in the United Kingdom. But Pauli did not accurately predict Joe Biden's size of victory. Pauli had Biden winning in a landslide, and he won good-sized but not landslide. And Pauli also missed, I think, the election of the Green Party in the riding of Guelph in 2018. So Polly's not perfect. Polly is an artificial intelligence algorithm, which every time it gets

something right, it learns from and takes that into itself. But every time it makes a mistake, it learns from that mistake and will apply it to the next time out as well. Okay, I have a couple of questions. Okay. This woman's name is Barbara, and this gentleman goes by the handle XPman. And I'm going to read you what Barbara wrote, because Barbara wrote, you had an interest this view, Steve, because I did not have this interview, but you had an interesting interview with the Auditor General after her scathing report on of the Auditor General after her scathing report on Tarian warranty in 2019. Consumers report that to this date,

little has been done to fix the major problems of Tarian. Will you ask the auditor, what's the point of these value for money audits she does if the public gets so little results from them? Her reports have lots of big talk, no teeth. Okay, I think that's, and Barbara, I know you've texted me before, and I know you've emailed me, and I know how your last name is spelled. I'm not sure how to say it.

I think it's Cap-tine, T-I-J-N, but I'm not sure. Anyway, Barbara has brought this issue to my attention numerous times, and it is an important issue. Tarion is a controversial organization, and let me say in the interest of full disclosure, my brother's a home builder, so he has dealings with Tarion. I'll get that on the table for everybody's notification. There you go. Put that on the list. Yep. Yep. Tarion either is a good organization that looks out for the interests of consumers and tries to solve their problems with developers when new homes are built,

or it is a toothless organization that is not doing nearly enough for consumers to ensure that they're getting adequate product built. And Barbara has been a fierce advocate for the latter position on this, and I completely respect her commitment to this issue. Bonnie Lissick is the Auditor General of Ontario. We did have her on the program talking about this.

And I gather Barbara's very unhappy with the Auditor General's position on this. So, you know, fair criticism. And alongside that, I want to read what XP Man wrote me. We keep hearing from all the parties of the importance of affordable housing. But what do they mean by affordable housing? It cannot be called affordable housing if new home buyers, especially first-time buyers,

after spending their life savings just to purchase an affordable house, find after moving in that they are left with very expensive repairs because fail-safes like building code inspections during construction or proper warranty protection from the builders and Tarion are not enforced.

Right. Okay. Which is why, what's his name again? The person? XP man. XP man. This is why XP man, you are hearing a lot of the candidates now talking, not just about affordable housing, but deeply affordable housing.

The liberals in their platform drop earlier this week talked about building deeply affordable housing units, taking hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars to help subsidize the construction of quote-unquote deeply affordable homes. The Green Party made the same announcement, I think it was just today, I think in North Bay earlier today. Mike Schreiner talked about building deeply affordable homes, which would basically require the Treasury of the province of Ontario to subsidize the construction of new homes in such a way as to make them much more affordable for first-time homebuyers. Because, of course, the market price of homes is out of sight for so many people. So this is why we're starting to see more policy planks certainly in the platforms of the progressive parties

urging much more intervention on behalf of the government of Ontario to get homes built that are much cheaper than they otherwise would be. So I just popped over, finally decided to pop over to live.torontomic.com and check in there. And Canada Kev there, who hopefully I also see Canada Kev on Friday at TMLX9, he's making a point. I'm wondering if you could confirm if this is true. I suspect it's not. But he's saying that the people who make up the data for the polls that we've been talking about, he says they are landline owners who actually respond. Is that

still true? No. In fact, because so few people either have landlines or will respond to a landline when a pollster calls, they've had to go to craftier methods to get their survey numbers. So a lot of the polling right now is done online. And what matters, of course, is the algorithm that you use. You have to have a sample of people who contribute online that is demographically representative of the population. If you don't have that, obviously, then you've got a poll that doesn't work. So, and again, Greg Lyle and I from Innovative Research Group talked about this on the OnPoly podcast just yesterday, where he pointed out that because you can't get people at home to answer landlines, he's had to do a lot more online surveying,

but he thinks he's got, and his numbers are very good. So he's obviously figured out the demography and all of that stuff to make sure it's representative sampling. I didn't think, it couldn't be true that it was just landline owners. Nobody does that anymore. In 2022, right. It's been a long time since I had a landline here. And last question from a listener, and then we'll see what else is on your mind there, Steve.

But Sandy says, can Matt Richter win in Parry Sound? He's the green candidate in Parry Sound? Yes. Well, let's put it this way. There are a handful of ridings around the province of Ontario where the Green Party shows better than it does in other places. In other words, Diane Sachs and I were talking about this the other day when I asked her, why are you running in University of Rosedale?

And she gave me a whole list of reasons. You know, the university she worked for is there. Her mother was born there. She was born there. She brought up her kids there. Anyway, there was she worked for is there. Her mother was born there. She was born there. She brought up her kids there. Anyway, there was a long list of reasons. And she said, and beyond that, we have done surveys that indicate that if a green breakthrough is to take place, that's one of the ridings where it could happen.

And so, you know, can Matt Richter win in Paris-San Mascoka? I tell you, it's a very heavy lift. That's one of the safest progressive conservative seats in the whole province. You know, could Diane Sachs win in University of Rosedale? Well, you know, she's got some signs up. There is evidence of the fact that there is a green campaign happening there. How successful it can be, we've got to wait until June 2nd to find out. And by the way, Canada Kev appreciates you clarifying that for him. So thank you, Canada Kev appreciates you clarifying that for him. So thank you, Canada Kev.

Thank you, Steve. And YYZ has chimed in to say he was pulled recently on his cell phone. But he does point out that there's definitely a bias towards people willing to answer cold calls. So there's a good percentage of the populace that simply won't answer a call unless they recognize the name. Yeah, I get that. unless they recognize the name. Yeah, I get that. But again, it's up to the pollsters to demonstrate their experience and knowledge

of making sure that the responses that they take in are demographically and geographically weighted appropriately so that they don't just get, you know, they usually do a poll of 1,000 people. And, you know, they got to make sure that a thousand people and, you know, they got to make sure that 900 of them aren't from South Etobicoke. Otherwise you got a poll that's not representative of the province. Right.

So they make sure that when they go through the numbers that they've got representative sampling from all over the province. Steve, that was amazing. Like, I won't even tell you how much time we took because it's probably more than you budgeted to spend here, but, and you will be home in time for a puck drop don't worry i know that's what you're thinking here did we miss anything is there anything i should have asked that would be nice to cover here i mean i do want you to remind us how we can watch the agenda and subscribe to your fine podcast i'll mention three things yes we are covering the campaign every single day on the

agenda which is of course live on television at 8 p.m repeated at 11 p.m live single day on the agenda, which is, of course, live on television at 8 p.m., repeated at 11 p.m., live-streamed on the agenda's Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube pages at 8 p.m. Eastern Time. We also have the On Poly podcast, which comes out every single day, should be up in the evening every day. John Michael McGrath and I review the events of the day.

And I would remind everybody next Monday, if you've ignored the campaign so far, if you've said, you know what, I'm too busy And I would remind everybody next Monday, if you've ignored the campaign so far, if you've said, you know what, I'm too busy, I just can't pay attention. Most people who want to be good citizens, the one thing they'll do is they'll tune into the leaders debate. And you can tune into the leaders debate next Monday, 6.30 PM for 90 minutes. Take 90 minutes out of a month-long campaign and do yourself a favor and get up on the issues just by watching that debate. And Steve Paikin is going to slip in FOTM Stephen Del Duca and FOTM Mike Schreiner. Probably not. Thought I'd give that one more shot. Mike,

great to be with you again. Thanks so much. It was really great to see you. Feelings mutual, Steve Paikin. You're a hell of a FOTM and can't wait for your next visit because I love these, man. And that brings us to the end

of our 1048th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Steve is at Spakin. S-P-A-I-K-I-N. Did I get that right? Correct. I should know that.

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But I'm a much better man for having known you Oh, you know that's true because Everything is coming up rosy and green Yeah, the wind is cold with the smell of snow It warms me today