Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Steve Paikin: Toronto Mike'd #1454

Episode Date: March 20, 2024

In this 1454th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike catches up with Steve Paikin about how things are going at TVO, the passing of Roy McMurtry, and more. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, The Advantaged Investor podcast from Raymond James Canada, The Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball Team and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail]

Welcome to Episode 1454 of Toronto Mic'd. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery. A fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma Pasta, enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. The Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team, the best baseball in the city outside the dome,

with eight championships since 1967. RecycleMyElectronics.ca, committing to our planet's future, means properly recycling our electronics of the past. The Advantage Investor podcast from Raymond James Canada. Valuable perspective for Canadian investors who want to remain knowledgeable, informed, and focused on long-term success. And Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921. Today, making his return to Toronto, Mike, is Steve Pagan. Welcome back, Steve.

Thank you, Mike. You've got a lot of sponsors for your podcast now, don't you? Yeah, I'm pleased with how things are progressing here at TMDS. It was an overnight success story 12 years in the making. But thankfully now the millions are coming into the coffers and you're dressing better, so good for you. You've noticed that, haven't you? I'm wearing my Hebsi... He gave me this, Mark Hebscher, it's for his sports line program, which you are a sports line viewer, right? Of course. Just making sure. Or should I say, yes guy. Well, if you do, Jim Taddy sends you an invoice. You know that, right? Okay, I take it

back then. Maybe he'll send it to TVO. Okay, a lot of ground to cover. We're gonna catch up, but I know how busy you are. That's why you're not in the basement. We're doing this remote. That's how much I like you, Steve. I appreciate you making the exception. We tried to find some time for me to get out to Etobicoke, to the mothership, but what can I tell you? The schedule's packed these days.

Too much going on. So I want you to witness this. I can't see you, but you can see me. I'm actually going to hit a timer and my pledge to you is that I will play us out before the 60 minute mark. So you can, you're in good hands here, but here I go. Timer is set and I'll let the listenership know the last time that you were on the program, Steve, you visited with Mary Hines. The last time that you were on the program Steve you visited with Mary Heinz Remember it well We love that we we actually loved you know Mary and I are still friends. We hosted a show called studio to on TVO

30 almost 30 years ago almost 30 years ago that the show debuted in 1994 September of 94 so it's coming up on the 30th anniversary. She said reminds me we got to do something Okay, Mary if you're listening I'm gonna get in touch with you and you and I are gonna plan a reunion for this fall for the 30th anniversary But that was really you you you provided us with an opportunity to Have some great conversations about the old days and we really loved it. So, thank you Well, I'm about to read read the description I wrote at the time but I remember that

was Mary Hines kind of announcing that she was retiring and therefore they were retiring her CBC radio program. How's Mary doing in retirement? She's great and you know what the the beautiful thing for her is and we you know we email fairly frequently because we both love baseball and she's a Yankee fan and I'm a Red Sox fan. So we don't get along too well during the season and given that the Red Sox are going

to come last for the fourth time in five years this year and the Yankees have started off the season wonderfully by having their best pitcher Garrett Cole be on the disabled list because of, or I guess they call it the injured list now, for elbow problems. I think both of our teams are in trouble this year, but we'll see. Well, I hate both of you. Yeah, you've established that, we know. You gotta hate her more though. You gotta hate the Evil Empire more, come on.

But it's really close, like to be honest. Now, I will say I cuz I'm I Was a fanatical fan with the original al east that the blue Jays were in so I still like I'm still mad at the Tigers Okay, so it's like if you were in that original al east I grew up with it's like I can't stand you Yeah, I get it. You remember what year was that was it 87? When the the Jays played the Tigers in the last week of the season and lost them all and that was it? Well, let me tell you this.

Yes, is the answer, even though I'm trying to block it out. But I had Dan O'Toole on the program yesterday from formerly of Jay and Dan on TSN. And we had a, like, I'll just promote the episode to say we talked about everything. And I mean everything. And if you're curious what happened with Dan and what happened at TSN and how he's doing and everything, you've got to listen to this episode. So Steve, that's your homework. Listen to Dan O'Toole on Toronto Mic yesterday.

You know I would anyway. I listen to most of your shows. I don't listen when you have, well I shouldn't reveal this, should I? CFNY guests. Yeah, you know, a lot of the new music stuff you do I I don't really listen to cuz you tap you know I kind of stopped listening I kind of stopped following music after mr. Sinatra died so I know I don't know any of these people I know I'm bringing up Dan to say that his favorite player

growing up was Garth Orge oh yeah which is such I find that such players sorry with a last name starting with I interesting okay I'm thinking of basketball players like Allen Iverson, but the others not very few in baseball I have Pete in Kavila comes to mind Jason is there any housing comes to mind Garth Orge? I'm sure there's more but there's not a lot of them. So Garth Orge was the final out in That final game of the 87 series. Like you said, we got swept in four there and that was the great collapse. My boy, George Bell, he went something like, and I always get this wrong, but something like one for 40 down the stretch. Yeah, but wasn't that the year he was

the MVP of the whole league? Yes, he was. Yes, he was. He had a phenomenal year, but yeah, he got hurt. He got hurt late in the year and he lost his swing and that was it. Yeah and we didn't make the playoffs that year and we had this thing going in Toronto as you know where we would win an odd number years so like we would 85 we'd win the pennant and then we were supposed to win in 87 we'd win again in 89 of course we won in 1991 and then we well we did also in a 92 so we broke the rule there but then we went again in 93 like we had a nice odd year run going in 87's collapse blew that uh that streak there and if you think about it mike i you know nobody because of the strike nobody won a world series in 1994 so the

blue jays were actually three years in a row the champions of Major League Baseball because nobody dethroned them in 1994. You are correct, Steve Pagan. Now I'm going to read the, I'm assuming Ed McMahon there. Shout out to Ed McMahon who would do something something in practical jokes. What was the name of that show he would host? Something, Prank Something in Practical Jokes. I can't remember the name of the show now but I used to watch it. Like we didn't have any options back then. And if this was on TV, it was like it had my full attention back then. I'll Google the name for it in a minute, but let me just read the description about you

and Mary Hines visiting. I think it was fairly recently, but yeah. In this 1376th episode of Toronto Miked, Mike chats with Mary Hines about her tremendous career at the Globe and Mail, TVO and CBC Radio 1, her late husband Randy Starkman, why she's retiring from CBC and tapestry. Steve Pagan joins her as they share stories about working together at TVO. Steve also updates us on the labor situation at TVO, the status of the agenda, and we pay tribute to his late mother, Marnie. This episode, we went almost two hours, and I got to tell you one of my favorite episodes of all time, Steve.

Well, I'm glad to hear that. That was lovely. And I remember you got me to tell a story about my mother on that episode in which I actually dropped an F-bomb because I was quoting something else and that would be the only time I think I've ever used profanity in my 40 plus year career. It was all for you Mike, you got it out of me. Well that's what I'm here for. I try to make people either cry or swear or both. Well you got me to swear.

I haven't cried yet but you got me to swear. I'll get there eventually. Okay. So in that episode, there was quite a lot of talk of Ben Johnson because Randy Starkman covered the story for the star and we talked about Mary having like a scoop. And we, the update I want to just give you, Steve and the listenership is that I had a conversation with another Mary, Mary Ormsby and Mary has written a book about Ben Johnson and soul and Whether he got due process etc And I'm here to announce that Mary arms be will return to the basement and we will do a deep dive into

Everything related to Ben Johnson and we'll talk about her new book and I think this is a great future topic for you Steve at TVO. I'm glad you told me about this because I was just thinking the same thing and and Mary Ormsby, you may not remember this because I'm not sure you were born yet but but Mary Ormsby was a regular Monday night contributor on a sports panel that we used to do on a show I used to do called Studio Two with Mary Hines and then with Paula Todd and yeah Mary Ormersby was part of a three-person panel I think I'm trying to remember Stephen Brunt was on it, Bob McCowan was on it for a while, Nora McCabe was on it for a while, yeah yeah so thank you for the tip I'm gonna get right on that. Well I've noticed this is happening now so there's a gentleman

named John Pole who I had on the program to talk about, he bought four of those radio stations that Bell Media just sold. And we had a great conversation about like, why are you buying radio stations in 2024? What did Bell Media do wrong that they said it was like, there was, you know, I can't remember the exact quote, but there's basically no future in this. And then Ian Hanomansing, who listens to every episode of Toronto Mike was listening to this episode And then he said I want to talk to John pole on the on the the national said the agenda on the national And what's happening cross-country checkup? I think it was the national like it might have been both but definitely the national because I saw the video from the national

But what I'm saying here is maybe this is my role and everything. I'm the guy, boots on the ground in his basement, holistically one man shop doing this and that. So people like you and Ian can hear the guests. It's like a pre-interview and you're like, okay, I'm bringing that to mainstream media. We owe our entire careers to you. We'd be nothing without you. You give us our ideas. You give us our inspiration. You are the wind in our sails. Shall I go on or are you ready to throw up? Okay

I thought you were gonna sing bet Middler's the wind beneath my wind beneath my wings. No, no Because okay because I I did see speaking of FOTMs who appear on TVO and I do think like straight up I think you got to do a Ben Johnson episode with Mary Ormsby. I guess that's kind of an order I'm giving you on that one there. But I did see that you had talked to FOTM Ron Sexsmith. Oh yeah! And in fact, Ron, when he walked into the studio, he had one of those kind of strange

moments where he said, I get the feeling I've been here before. Now he didn't remember exactly, but in fact he had. And I reminded him that we had done an interview for Studio 2, again this show I used to do before the agenda. Oh my gosh, how many years ago? Well it would have been more than 25 years earlier. And that was the first time I think he'd been back in that studio in 25 years. And we had a great chat and his significant other sort of reminded me

yes reminded me before the interview that he's he doesn't love doing television interviews and he kind of feels you know just a bit awkward about the whole thing but I thought he was superb and and we had just a lovely authentic Toronto mic style conversation and I went on social media afterwards to see what the feedback was like and it was universally wonderful. So yeah. He's universally beloved and underappreciated as you know in this country but I wondered,

did Ron Sexsmith know that you only listen to Frank Sinatra? You know, did he know that? We certainly talked about Frank. We definitely talked about Frank. But you know, well, Mike, just so you understand this, while I love Frank Sinatra and I saw him perform three times live, you know, I do have musical tastes and appreciation beyond that. I don't just only listen to Frank.

So I have listened to Ron's music in the past and I got his the Vivian line album Because actually I have a granddaughter named Vivian and I intend to visit her next week and bring her that album Which I will do and part of the reason we're rushing this episode in is that you will be out of the country Making that visit soon. So that's exciting. You excited about that trip? I am not thinking about it yet because it's still a long way off I got a lot a lot to do before then but you know, we got an Ontario budget to cover next week and and You know lots of stuff still to go but then yeah, I'm gonna go visit her so I bring up the Ron sex myth episode not just to say another guest we share but to And you also at the same time I heard you say what I thought

you were going to say was wind beneath my wings, but that Miller and then I want you to know, Steve, this is interesting to you and your love of Frank Sinatra is I had the funeral director for Ridley Funeral Home, Brad Jones. I had well, actually, sorry, this wasn't my show. Oh, my goodness. They're all conflating. They're all merging together. This is actually Brad's fine podcast, which is called Life's Undertaking. And we counted down when he started in the funeral services industry in the late 80s, he wanted to share with his listeners the top funeral songs, like the most requested songs to be played at a funeral when he started in the funeral services industry. And the first song

we played in that fine episode of Life's Undertaking was, you want to guess? It's got to be My Way. My Way by Frank Sinatra. All I could think about was FOTM Steve Paikin. Well, I'll tell you what, they did not play it at his funeral. I think I've told this story to you before, but in fact at Frank Sinatra's own funeral, the song that he wanted to be buried to was Put Your Dreams Away, written by Toronto, Ontario, Canada's own Ruth Low. That song came about because one day, they'd worked together on a... His first number

one hit was I'll Never Smile Again, which was another Ruth Low song. He called her up one day and said, I need a theme song, can you knock me out something? Two days later, she handed him, put your dreams away for another day. That's the song they buried him to. It's a great compliment to Ruth Lowe. The reason this memory was triggered by you singing Bette Midler to me, because now when I remember this episode,

I'm going to remember that you did break into song and sing sing Mike you are the wind beneath my wings but okay all this thing that was also one of the top requests when he started in the funeral industry Brad Jones from Ridley funeral home that was another one of the most popularly requested songs to be played at a funeral was wind beneath my wings hmm yeah well it's great song yep if you say something good a wonderful job on it. Well, she gave it her all, the Divine Miss M. And it's funny that when you tell the Ruth Lowe story, you say, I wonder if I, did I tell this story before?

I'm just here to tell you, Mr. Pick, and I keep track here. I got a little, you can't see it, there's a whiteboard here, and that is the 19th time you've told me the Ruth Lowe story, but I actually, I love it every time you tell it. Well, that is just a reflection of the fact that I'm now 63 years old and can't remember anything anymore. So apologies for the 19th time. Now I can't see you but do you dye your hair? You know you ask me this question all the time and I give you the same answer all the

time. No Mike, I do not dye my hair. My father did not go gray until he was about 70 years old. So I just had the good fortune to pick my parents well, that's all. I ask you every time, because I'm into, I just can't believe it, it's unbelievable. I know you can't believe it, and your jealousy,

because I'm looking at you right now, and you look like Jack Frost with that shocking white mock of hair there, and yeah, your jealousy is really unbecoming of a person of your stature but such is life. My stature this guy in his basement here okay a turd in his basement I think that's what Mike Stafford once called me on 640. I have that printed on the wall over here okay so since you came on with Mary I think that was right after you had resolved your, the labor issues at TVO, well documented on this program and elsewhere.

But since that moment, has the agenda resumed? Is there agenda episodes yet? Okay, cause only the reason I knew this, the agenda has resumed things are, are they back to normal at TVO? Back to normal. That's a really interesting question. Hmm, back to normal.

Well let me put it this way. The strike ended I think in late November, and one of the ways in which the dispute got unstuck was that management offered buyout packages to whoever wanted to take them, and as it turned out, about three quarters of our staff on the agenda took them. So we couldn't get back on the air until we staffed up. And I guess ironically, we're probably the only show, we might be the only channel anywhere in the country that's actually hiring journalists as opposed to laying them off. Everybody else is laying them off. But we actually

went out and we hired a mess you know, a mess of people and the reason I sort of pause when you say are things back to normal. I've been here 31 years and I'm working with a lot of people now that I don't know. So I'm getting to know a whole new cast of characters and you know we're slowly but surely getting to know each other and we got back on the air in February. Make a long story short, we're back on the air five nights a week doing the agenda.

The big change is that the first half of Friday's show is now a video version of the On Poly podcast which I do with John Michael McGrath. And we love that. We love the fact that we have sort of a second window now for this Ontario Politics podcast. We had kind of a nice, loyal audience audio only, but now we're finding I'm getting a lot of feedback from people who never heard the podcast before, but are only experiencing for the first time on television. And the great part about that, Mike, I don't have to wear a suit and tie for that.

I wear different casual clothes every Friday now, which is a wonderful thing. And last week, I think I, no, two weeks ago I wore a tie-catch shirt, which was wonderful. Okay, that's a teaser for a question. I'm going to bang off some questions now. And the reason I know the agenda is back but i don't think by the way john michael mcgrath shout out to another f o t m i think the episode before mary uh... hines in you was you and john michael mcgrath and that was uh...

so i like that you're now bringing when you visit in person you're bringing somebody to introduce them to this world i love that well i i feel like you've deputized me as your sort of associate producer so I see it as part of my responsibilities to bring you new guests. I'll get you like a star or something like a deputy badge or whatever. Okay. I got a question because I said hey Steve Bacon and this was put together very quickly which we'll explain later what this was going to be and what I've decided it now is but cuz I'm the boss around here

Steve but yes, you are I had questions You got a question for Steve Pagan and one came in from FOTM Alan Zweig and I'll say to Alan Alan. I first learned about you on TV. Oh because it was the vinyl documentary I believe I was watching on TV. Oh, and I'm like, I love this and I'm like this guy's in I like the way this guy Makes a documentary and I started to follow Alan's wags career now He's a good friend of the program, but he writes in will the agenda ever return so Alan like it's been back since February Yeah, that doesn't surprise me and I'll tell you why because

Probably half the people watch our program on television, on TVO, and the other half watch it either on Twitter or YouTube or some other kind of social media. So given that all of the shows are archived on YouTube, for example, or on our website, for the people who watch it that way, you could argue the show never really left. They could dive in and watch our stuff whenever they wanted. So the notion that the show was off for several months and then came back is not something that would have been part of their experience. I certainly got a lot of emails and letters and so on from people who watch it on television

saying, ìHey, where is the show and when is it coming back?î But if you watch it on YouTube, it's just sort of always there. But now it really is back. But if you watch it on YouTube, you know, it's just sort of always there. But now it really is back. Yeah. So Alan, this is to let you know, the agenda has returned. But the second question from Alan's WIG, I'm interested in more than that first one. Do your homework, Alan. Come on. Why this is Alan's words. Why do I remember him playing goalie? So Steve, just for the record, I know you're a big Ron Ellis fan, you hockey fan,

but have you ever played net? Never once. And it's funny that Alan says that because he and I actually played in the same pickup hockey game at Phil White Arena, formerly Cedarvale Arena in the old city of York, basically Vaughan Road in St. Clair area of Toronto. We actually overlapped for a little

while a long, long time ago. Ralph Ben-Murgy was in that game as well, and there'd be a bunch of guys that Alan grew up with who were in that game. Now the funny thing is, we had our last game of this season last night, Tuesday night as we sit here talking, it's Wednesday morning as we sit here talking and We were doing some of the math we went out for a sort of a final celebratory beverage after the game and we sort of looked around at each other and you know, okay You started when I started seven years. I started 12 years ago. I started 15 years ago Somebody said Pagan when did you start in this game? And I said I started in this game 42 years ago I said I started in this game 42 years ago

I could scarcely believe it. I've been playing in this Tuesday night hockey game since 1982 Wow and and of course nobody else who was playing then is still around I was the youngest guy in the game then and I'm now maybe the second oldest guy in the game now Maybe third oldest but but definitely the longest standing. And the guy who used to be the commissioner has long left and I've taken over and I'm the commissioner now. Wow. So I got to deal with City Hall and all that stuff. Wow. And Alan thinks you played a goaltender, but... Never did. Never once.

So it's mistaken identity. So he's confusing you with someone. I wonder who he's confusing you with. I don't know. Oh, you know who he might be confusing me with because my my ex-brother-in-law Steve Werger used to play goal in that game and he may have his Steve's confused. That's possible. That's I'm gonna guess that's the conflation here so Alan let me know and I'll report it back here next time we get Steve Pagan on which who knows it could be next month who knows okay another question came in from Dan Spearin also an FOTM and he's on the radio at 640 so hello to Dan how and again you kind of touched on this but the question is very specific how did he feel about so much of the senior staff at the agenda going on strike and then having to take buyouts and he puts

having in quotes and you can talk to that in a minute. How has the turnover changed the show? Yeah, I mean, I may be nitpicking here, but nobody had to take a buyout. They were often buyouts and some people, you know, opted to take them and some people did not. I think most of the people who took buyouts took them because some were of retirement age, you know, they were just at a stage in their lives when they could. The strike lasted kind of a long time.

It was almost three months, so a number of people got other jobs and took them for that reason. But you know, I mean look at this, I think the reality of our business, Mike, is that constant turnover and churn is just the way it is. And I've been in journalism now, I'm in my 42nd year of doing journalism in Toronto. And I've worked with just innumerable people, and it's kind of what you sign up for. People come and go in and out of your life in journalism as people you work with all the time.

To be sure, nobody liked the strike, nobody wanted the strike, but we did it, we went through it, we're back in business now, it's behind us. I'm actually beyond thrilled to be back on the air and diving into all of the stuff that I really missed doing when the strike was on. So with this, just to add on to Dan's question, so with this turnover on the agenda specifically, has it changed other than that you refer to that hour of your podcast that now airs on Fridays, but has the show changed with this turnover? It has a little bit actually, yeah.

The show now is the same in the first say 30-35 minutes in as much as it's a studio based interview or panel discussion, but the second half, the back end of the program now tends to be, not always, but tends to be more field pieces. They want us to get out more and see more of the province. And so a number of the people that we hired are people who will not go on camera but who are field producers. And their job is to go out there and find those kind of neat Ontario stories. So you're going to see more of that in the back half of the show right now.

And in fact, I've done a couple myself. They sent me down to Queen Queens Park a couple of times, first time to interview Bob Runciman, who's a former cabinet minister and senator, because he wrote a book called From Mad Dog to Senator. His nickname was Mad Dog Runciman because he was a fiery personality. So I went down to Queens Park, interviewed him, and then another interview I did just last week, and which will be on in the days days ahead as they say, is with the only the second ever Green Party MPP elected, and that's Ashlyn Clancy who represents Kitchener Center.

And I went down and did really quite a lovely interview with her. Tears were shed Mike, but not mine. So you'd have been proud that that happened. And she's just really a, well I guess I can say this, I think she's exactly the kind of person you want in public life. She is publicly spirited, publicly minded, she feels like she has a mission to accomplish down there. You know, obviously in a house of 124 MPPs, she is only one of two green MPPs, but they tend to punch above their weight and get issues

on the public's agenda that may not otherwise get there. So we had a really lovely conversation and people should watch out for that as well. So a couple of thoughts. One is, you're talking about going out into the field and you went all the way to Queen's Park, eh? Well, next month I'm going to Ottawa to interview John Ibbison about his new book on Lester Pearson and John Diefenbaker. I have been assured that I will be scooting out around the province once we sort of get

settled back into our… I was going to say, you're going to leave the 416? I'm now just taking a note because I just learned something. Ontario is not Toronto I'm just taking that note because I I always have to you know, okay We are Mike we are TVO not TVT just so you know, right? I got remember that for for next time and a shout out to Ralph Ben-Murgy who works with the provincial Green Party and Very proud of getting a second MPP there there the first of course is an FOTM

So maybe the second will become an FOTM as well. You're talking about Mike Shriner Yes, he's the leader of the party and also not only a great guy, but we share the same birthday Wow Okay, actually it's crazier than that. Yeah Mike Shriner and Elizabeth May the federal Green Leader And I also share the same birthday see mind-blowing and no. No one can see me, but boom, my mind's blown. When you had that celebratory beverage after that hockey game yesterday, was it a Great Lakes beer? You know what happened? I didn't actually order it.

What happened was a guy I was with ordered, and so it was not. It was Guinness. Boo! But I'll tell you this. Here's what I did do, Mike. You know, it was Guinness. Boo! But I'll tell you this, here's what I did do Mike, you know you'd appreciate this. At the end of every season, I bring in a few alcoholic beverages for the guy who drives the Zamboni and keeps the place nice for us. His name's Alan and I brought in a six pack of Great Lakes beer for him.

Maybe a Canuck Pale Ale or something like that. That sounds exactly right. Okay, well shout out to Great Lakes, they're gonna give everybody who comes to TMLX15 on June 27, this is gonna take place at Great Lakes Brewery, their Southern Etobicoke location. They're gonna buy you your first drink and then Palma Pasta is going to feed you the big question for you, Steve, before I get to Peter Kent's question for you. Oh. I know, now you're Oh I know you're nervous,

now you're nervous. Okay, will you be in attendance for TMLX 15 on June 27th from 6 to 9 p.m. It is not just the 15th Toronto Mic listener experience but it is also my 50th birthday. Oh man, see now why don't you consult with me before you make these plans? Before I, before I, uh my birthday which has been etched in stone for almost 50 years. Oh man, see now why don't you consult with me before you make these plans? Before my birthday which has been etched in stone for almost 50 years. Well here's the thing, you know I like to do a baseball road trip every summer

and I'm gonna be in St. Louis that day Mike, we're going to a Cardinals game for a baseball road trip. So damn it, you should have consulted with me before having your birthday. Okay so let me ask you this then, is there any way I can get you to Christie Pitts on May 12th to hang with me during the home opener of the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team I'm looking at my calendar right now because I have been to Christie Pitts many times to watch Toronto Maple Leaf baseball games

What was the date you said again May 12 2 p.m? What was the date you said again? May 12th, 2 PM. Hep C is going to be there? Yeah, May 12th, 2 PM. Yeah. Okay, stick it in the calendar now while I read the question from Peter Kent. Because I'm going to, I'll even score some Toronto Maple Leafs. Cause I know you're a Red Sox fan in Major League Baseball, but when it comes to the

IBL, I hope you're a Toronto Maple Leafs fan. I'll get you some swag. How's that? Absolutely. Absolutely. Done. No, I I knew Jack Dominico and you know I used to go die, you know, I got four kids so I used to take them down to the pits every now and then we used to watch games because it was Frankly a lot easier than trying to do the skydome. So a lot less expensive too. Yeah. Yeah

So the new owner Keith Stein is become a very dear friend of the program and he's going to take care of FOTMs on May 12th so I'm glad I can tell him Steve Bacon will be there. Is he the same Keith Stein who used to work at Magna? Yes sir. Okay, so I haven't seen him in many, many years but I've met Keith in the past and am delighted that he's made this commitment to try to keep this team going because it's a beautiful part of our past.

Oh yeah, high high hopes and future. Absolutely. And next time I see in person, I've got this wonderful hard-covered book on the history of Toronto Maple Leafs baseball. And I think you're gonna love it as a fan of the city's history and I'll give that to you next time you drop by. Awesome. Thank you. You know, I remember when Jack ran the team at least once a year. He used to bring some just like shockingly big names in For special occasions. I think I like Bob Feller came in and Warren Spahn came in and you know He I don't know how he managed to make that happen, but he did well this year I'm gonna bring in Rick Emmett from triumph. Well, I you know, I

Don't know what his gloves like but but I hear his bat is amazing. Actually, a slow pitch league superstar with no joke there, that's part of the spin here. But everybody come out May 12, again, free to come to a Toronto Maple Leaf baseball game. Say hi to me and meet Rick Emmett and meet Steve Bacon. That's going to be on the poster, meet Steve Bacon. And maybe you'll be dressed as Polka-Roo. What about it?

Probably not. You've never seen the two of us in the same place at the same time, right? Right. I missed him again. Okay. Peter Kent, who I just had on, and this name will come up later. He talked about Brian Mulrooney, who passed away recently. And this, again, we're going to talk about somebody else who just passed away shortly. But Peter Kent wants to know this. He says, why wouldn't Steve Steve with the political wisdom He's observed and absorbed over the past few decades Consider contributing to our province or country by standing for public office and in brackets Peter writes

I'd vote for him He's Peter I thought you liked me Jeez, Peter, I thought you liked me. Okay, well there's two answers to that question. Number one, I think I'm doing the work that I'm supposed to be doing. And I've never, not for a second, been tempted to run for political office. It's just never been part of, forgive the pun, my agenda. And that's not to say that other journalists have not made different choices. Peter's obviously one of the probably most successful examples of somebody who had a

great career in journalism, and then followed it up with a great contribution to public life. And you know, Pamela Wallin, Mike Duffy, they're in the Senate. I go back to a guy named Jeff Scott, who was a broadcaster on CHCH many, many decades ago, and he became a conservative MP as well. And you know, it's a long list of journalists who decided to make the change and go into politics. I think John Tory actually did journalism at one point in his life as well, and of course he went into politics also.

I'm going to tell you, I've never ever told this to anyone before, and certainly not to Peter Kent. Somebody approached me when Peter Kent was the Member of Parliament for Thornhill. Somebody approached me from the Liberal Party of Canada and said, �Steve, we would love you to run against Peter Kent in that writing, and it would get a lot of attention, like these two journalists going up against each other, and we think you could win the seat. I said to this person, who I will not embarrass because they were so incredibly full of crap in saying all of that, I said to this person, number one, I have no desire to run, I'm doing the work I want to do, I would never do it, thank you for asking.

And number two, nobody is going to beat Peter Kent, he's got an absolute lock on that seat, so I don't care who you've got running there, they're not going to beat Peter Kent. And that was the end of that conversation, I shut it down very quickly. But yeah, as most journalists are, and you've probably had this experience with other people you've talked to, because we're around politics so much and cover it so much, it's not unusual that from time to time, people put out feelers to ask if you ever wanted to run for something. I've had some very informal feelers like that put out in the past and I always shut it down right away. Not interested.

Trying to make my contribution in a different way. Well, this is a Toronto Mic'd exclusive there. Peter's listening and I'm gonna find out from Peter if he knew that at all, like if he had any inkling about that, but I think he made the wise choice and stuck it out where you were. Agreed. All right, so Viraj sent in three questions.

He calls them softballs, okay? But there's such, first of all, you need a crystal ball for half of these. But, so I'll ask them, but these are kind of quick hits here. So we're not doing like 10 minutes on each here, but. And it's just a prediction. I know maybe you're, I don't do predictions. I don't know. We're going to find out. But he wants to ask you Biden versus Trump.

He wants to know who's going to win in 2024. You know, who the hell knows? Yeah. What does your crystal ball say? I don't have a crystal ball. No, no point in making a prediction about something that's going to happen in November in the middle of March. Just no point. There's no benefit to that. You'll either look foolish or you know, you have a fit. So no prediction from Pagan on the first one. The second question is, next year, comma, will conservatives take over federally? So he's wondering if Pierre Pauliev is the next Prime Minister of Canada.

I think a lot of people are wondering the same thing and I just give the same answer. And you know, I'm not trying to be precious or cute here. I think a lot of people are wondering the same thing and I just give the same answer. I'm not trying to be precious or cute here. I think the reality is, once you've gone on record as having made a prediction about some future election result, you kind of start to … I want to be very open in the way that I cover events over the next however many years I've got left at this. You're not open if you make a public prediction because you'll then start to see events unfold through the prism of whether that prediction comes true.

So that's why I just never make predictions. Well, it makes complete sense to me. Also, you will be possibly seen as favoring your prediction, like you might be seen as not being the objective journalist right typically are because maybe you're rooting for your prediction to be correct. Right. So again, no marks in doing that. Well, Verage is trying to get you in trouble here. One more. This is a big one here. I'll read it as you wrote it. Seeing the nastiness across the global kind of written awkwardly, so I'll

read it as written and then I'll see if I can correct it here, Viraj, but seeing the nastiness across the globally politically where we can't chat based on political stripe, are we doomed? So the spirit of that is this bipartisanship that we're all witness to and my you know my way or the highway and lack of there seems to be in my opinion Reaching that consensus has never been less fashionable. I'm just wondering What do you think of Verage even asking the question? Are we doomed? What does your crystal ball say about this one? Again, I don't have a crystal ball, but I think it's a perfectly fair question. Here's how I'd answer it.

I would say there's more collegiality behind the scenes than we think there is, but there's still too much politics of personal destruction and nastiness in public than there needs to be. These folks actually, from different party stripes, they do actually, some of them, have good relationships behind the scenes. I can think of an example. I was actually at Queens Park the other day and talked to Lisa McLeod, who's a former

cabinet minister in the Ford government, MPP from Eastern Ontario, Ottawa area. She said she's putting together a kind of an all-party task force or panel or some kind of thing. Consortium? I just like saying that word, consortium. It's a good word. Some kind of group that would try to shine some light on what is becoming an increasingly problematic thing in politics everywhere in the world, but even here in Canada, and that is the kind of threats

to the personal security that many politicians have to endure these days. Before we get very cocky and think, well, none of that could happen in Canada, let's remember, I'm old enough to remember when a cabinet minister in the Quebec government was assassinated. This was in 1970 during the FLQ crisis. It wasn't that long ago that there was a member of parliament in the United Kingdom that was stabbed in broad daylight on the streets. We are living in very concerning times, and the protection of people who have the guts

to stand for office is an important thing. And yes, they need to be accessible to the public, and yes, we ought to demand of them that they do their jobs as well as possible. But Mike, I don't know about you, but I found it very concerning when, I think it was in Alberta several months ago, when a very large man darn near accosted Krista Freeland, the finance minister, who's probably all of 4'10", in a public place, and I could see why she would have been extremely fearful for her safety at that moment. And I just think we have to nip that in the bud.

I don't think we can allow that kind of stuff. And throwing gravel at the Prime Minister on the hustings and all that kind of stuff. I just don't think we can allow that kind of stuff. And throwing gravel at the prime minister on the hustings and all that kind of stuff. I just don't think that, we can't accept that. So I wish Lisa McLeod and whatever panel she puts together well in trying to bring some attention to this. Well said, Steve. And I just would like to piggyback on that

and let you know, Steve and the listenership, it doesn't matter if you've got a person who manages your financial investments or if you're doing it yourself. I'm here to let you know, Raymond James Canada has a fantastic podcast that you should subscribe to. What a segue. What a segue. Man, you are the king of blends.

It took me almost 1500 episodes to figure this out, but it is called the Advantage Investor podcast. You can subscribe. You literally pause this right now and go subscribe and then come back. The Advantage Investor podcast from Raymond James Canada. And since I'm shouting out, giving orders to people, I'm that kind of guy, I give orders, I want to let everybody know. RecycleMyElectronics.ca is a website you can go to and you put in your poster code

and it will tell you a place near you where you can drop off your old electronics like cables, devices, old phones, and they will properly recycle it so the chemicals don't end up in our landfill. So shout out to RecycleMyElectronics.ca. You got your orders here. Now one more question and then I'm going to show you how good I am at Segwayne. I'm going to show off my skills here but Jake the Snake writes in, you can probably know where this is going, Jake the Snake says, Steve, who will win the Great Cup this year?

You know, I'm very sad to say I don't think it will be my favorite team. The 20th century was such a good century for the Hamilton Tiger Cats, and actually the teams that incorporated to make the Tiger Cats, so we're talking about the old Hamilton Tigers, the Hamilton Flying Wildcats. Every single decade of the 20th century that the CFL existed, the Thai Cats or some incarnation of them won a Grey Cup. But they haven't won any in the 21st century. And I don't have to remind you, Mike, we are now almost a quarter century into the 21st

century and we have had no Grey Cups. And a couple of years ago in Hamilton, and I was at the game by a fingernail, by a fingernail, the Ticats just missed winning a great cup against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in overtime and that was just a heartbreaking defeat. I thought all the stars had lined up perfectly for the Ticats to win on home field at Timmy Ho's field, but it didn't happen and I don't know, and last year was not good and I don't think this year's Gonna be all that good either and not to be that guy Steve

But there's like what there's nine teams how many teams we got in this league I know nine teams and click even by the law of averages should be winning once a decade even bright Yeah, even bragging about a championship every decade You're talking like you know that's if the Red Sox do that you can brag if the CFL team does it that is law of averages you should win one a decade right I'm with you on this one Mike and I just don't know why I don't know why it hasn't happened it's it's it's sad but but I will continue to support my team there you go well speaking of sad and speaking of Hamilton I I saw on the agenda a recent conversation with Tom Wilson from Junkhouse, who I love.

Oh yeah, hey, guess what? Same birthday as me as well. Get out of here. And you're both like co-mayors of Hamilton, like that's wild. Do you know what? We're born one year apart. It's funny, I saw Tom last year and I pointed this out to him. I said, you know, you and I have the same birthday, we're born in the same city, we're born a year apart, so we sort of grew up under the same circumstances, but our lives were just shockingly different. You know, you know he's sort of in recent years had this revelation about his indigenous past, and you know, I grew up in this kind of Norman Rockwell painting on the West Mountain where we played road hockey after school every day and just like a really normal middle class existence and this poor guy, my gosh, what a life he's had.

Anyway, we had sort of a bonding moment over that. He was at TMLX 14, so if you had showed up, him and Stephen Brunt were there, there was a lot of Hamilton representation. Represent. And I think Brunt's going to be at this baseball game on May 12 as well he's committed to being there. I went to a TMLX. Which one? You came to one, absolutely the last one at Great Lakes Brewery you came to and it was amazing to see you there and I'm sorry I won't see you at number 15 but I'll get you to number 16 but the reason

I bring up that why is it sad that I'm talking about Tom Wilson I want to offer my sincere condolences to Tom Wilson and everybody, you know, in the Hammer and beyond who knew and loved Rusty Wilson, who was the original bassist for Junkhouse. Not only the original bassist, I saw Junkhouse at Horseshoe Tavern in December 2023, and I was right in front of Rusty Wilson, and that guy, man, he played with fire. He sadly passed away last week, so my condolences. Hamilton lost a great one and Russ Wilson.

I never saw him play. I'm not shocked by that one, Steve. Holy smokes, that would have been the mind blow of the episode. But speaking of death, I'm looking now, I set a timer. So these last 15 minutes, I would love to hear your, you know, your memories and your thoughts about the passing of Roy McMurtry, who as you wrote on the tbo.org website, was one of Ontario's most influential attorneys general. A lot of people might tell you he attorney generals,

but you know better. It is attorneys general. Tell me about Roy McMurtry. Thank you for the chance to do this because Roy McMurtry truly was one of the greatest public servants I ever met in my life. I first met him, again, we're going back more than 40 years. Roy McMurtry is a great story for a whole bunch of reasons. He was good, but he was also lucky. One way in which he was lucky is that he grew up in a nice family in Toronto, went to good schools, went to the University of Toronto, played for the U of T varsity blues football team, and one of the other guys on that football team was a guy named Bill Davis. You got it

right. You got it right. So of course, Bill Davis and he are lifelong friends. Mr. Davis becomes Premier in 1971. Strangely enough, Roy McMurtry did not work for him during that election campaign or the previous leadership convention which picked Mr. Davis because he had terrible back problems at the time. So, he was actually in hospital when all of that was happening, recovering from surgery. But he performed a singularly important role after the 1971 leadership convention which picked Bill Davis, because I know everybody thinks of Bill Davis today, to the extent that they do, as kind of this legendary figure in Ontario and Canadian history.

But the fact is, he won his leadership convention by 44 votes at Maple Leaf Gardens in 1971. It was an absolute nail-biter, and after the convention was over, there were a lot of hard feelings between the guys who came first and the guys who came second. Roy McMurtry was the guy who got both camps together at the National Club in downtown Toronto on Bay Street and basically said, �Look, we got to put this party back together because there's going to be an election later this year, and we need everybody rowing in the same direction.� He did that.

The both sides did come together to create, I guess not to create, to continue the big blue machine, which was such an excellent election-winning machine in Ontario political history for the Tories. So it went. Strangely enough, Mike, when Roy McMurtry was then asked to contest a by-election, his health got better, he was asked to contest a by-election in downtown Toronto in 1973, and even though he was a big friend of Bill Davis's and he was a well-known lawyer and sort of like an up-and-coming guy, he lost.

It was a shocking upset. There was a woman on Toronto City Council named Margaret Campbell who defeated him. It could well have been that Mr. McMurtry would have decided at that moment, well, I guess politics isn't for me and I'm not gonna try again. But his old pal Bill Davis said,

no, you've gotta try again. And he did in the general election two years later. and he won that time, served for the next ten years, and was arguably the most influential attorney general in Ontario history. And if you want, throw in a question and let me take a pause and talk about something you did. Because I'll say yes, and I've got a few notes of things I want to cover here, but I will say if you put a, and don't do this, but if you put a gun to my head right now and said, �Mike, who's our Attorney General right now?� I actually don't know.

I feel like … Mike, that's not unusual. I'm glad you made this point because I think back in the day, you knew who the Attorney General of Ontario was, mostly because he was either the second or third most influential or important powerful minister in the cabinet, that's number one. And number two, because Roy McMurtry's nickname was Roy McHeadline. And he got that nickname from a journalist at Queens Park named Claire Hoy, because Mr. McMurtry championed a lot of very, very controversial issues.

And like, okay, you and I are sports fans, so let's start there. Okay, well, I'll set this up because I think I know where you're going, but I watched last night my beloved Toronto May Believes lose to the Philadelphia Flyers, a far cry from the Broad Street Bullies of the 1970s. But I was reading in what you wrote about Roy McMurtry. Did he lay charges against members of the Broad Street Bullies? That's exactly right. The Broad Street Bullies, as you remember, this is a time when goon hockey is sort of in ascension. The Flyers have won two Stanley Cups in the middle 70s

playing this kind of goon hockey, although they did have some wonderfully talented players, you know, Rick McLeish, Reggie Leach, Bobby Clark, but mostly they were known for their goonery. They came to Maple Leaf Gardens and things just went off the rails. Just a crazy, crazy night, and Roy McMurtry, who played hockey incidentally, played pick-up hockey in his 50s, not just football, but hockey as well, he decided this cannot stand. He had charges laid against, against I think Mad Dog Kelly, Battleship Bob Kelly, I think against Don Sileski, might have been another guy who was charged.

I'm going by memory here from almost 50 years ago. And like Boria Solming got the absolute you-know-what knocked out of him that night. I thought you were going to swear again. Yeah, it was just appalling. The whole night was appalling. And anyway, charges were laid and Roy McMurtry sort of felt it was an obligation of his to kind of clean up hockey because it was so disgusting at the time. But I think the thing he's going to, two things I think he's going to be best known for.

Number one, he was part of that team Ontario in 1981 that worked with the current Prime Minister's father to repatriate the Constitution with a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. There's this great story about where he and Saskatchewan Attorney General Roy Romano, and the Canadian Attorney General Jean Chrétien are all in this kitchen in the government conference center where the negotiations are taking part, and they're up there late one night, and the thing is falling off the rails. It looks like the whole thing is going to fall apart. And these guys sort of, well, they figured out a way, you know, they figured out a way

to kind of come up with a compromise to make it all happen. So I think they get a lot of kudos, certainly the First Ministers do, but they get a lot of kudos for keeping the thing alive and finding a way through that. And the other thing is, you know, Roy McMurtry had the authority in cabinet by virtue of his friendship with Bill Davis and his excellence as an attorney general to unilaterally make the decision to make the courts in Ontario bilingual, where numbers warranted. You have to remember, we're talking 50 years ago now, almost 50 years ago, where let's say you were a unilingual francophone living in Sudbury, Ontario, and you've been charged

with something. You couldn't have a trial in one of the official languages of Canada. You have to maybe, who knows, drive three hours to a more remote French community to be able to find a French judge to hear your case in. And Mr. McMurtry, without telling his premier, unilaterally announced that he was going to make the courts bilingual. And I remember asking him, why did you do that?

Why didn't you give Bill Davis a heads up on that? And his answer was, I knew I'd never get it through cabinet. The Tory core of the province and the party never would have gone for it. So I just said, I'm going to do it and I'll beg for forgiveness rather than permission and I won't tell the Premier and if he feels he needs to fire me as a result, he can have the plausible deniability of not knowing ahead of time what I was going to do. I think he pretty much knew that Bill Davis was not going to fire fire him but he definitely put their friendship to the test with that one and his policy of Bilingualism in the courts exists to this day. So that was a real nation-building move

Wow and to go back to the the previous story you told they were known as the three amigos of the Constitution And you did have you did have them all together in 2012 That was the 30th anniversary of that achievement and you got did have them all together in 2012. That was the 30th anniversary of that achievement, and you got to interview them all together at that point, right? That was a lovely, lovely night. What was interesting about that trio, those three amigos, McMurtry was a progressive conservative, Romano was a New Democrat, Kretchen was a liberal.

Kretchen came to Ottawa in the early 1960s as a unilingual francophone. McMurtry and Romano didn't speak any French. These guys came from extremely different backgrounds. Like McMurtry, as I said, came up in kind of landed gentry, you know, Toronto, Upper Canada College, all that kind of stuff. Sean Cratchan from rural Quebec, Roy McMurtry, come up from a Ukrainian farming community in Saskatchewan. These guys had nothing in common except a love of Canada and except a deep desire not to have these talks fail and to get the job done.

They established, I mean they're a great template for what's possible when you put the BS of party stripe and other stuff aside and just do the people's business. It's one of the great examples in Canadian history of that very philosophy and principle. Wow. Again, we sadly lost Roy McMurtry at the age of 91, just a couple of days ago. He was Ontario's Attorney General from 1975 to 1985. But as you know, because you listened, I had Peter Kent on the program very recently to talk about the late Brian Mulrooney after his passing.

And one of the topics we discussed was Mulrooney's role in, you know, his influence with Margaret Thatcher, British Prime Minister, on the issue of ending apartheid in South Africa. And as I'm reading your piece about Roy McMurtry, it's interesting that I learned that Brian Mulrooney appointed Mr. McMurtry, High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and he played a role in all that, am I right? Absolutely. Mr. Mulroney, High Commissioner in the UK is basically our ambassador, it's the same thing. And after Mr. McMurtry ran in the leadership convention to replace Bill Davis in 1985 and

actually came last on the first ballot, he just didn't have the support, Mr. Mulroney came in and said, I'm giving you a mission, because they've been longtime friends, I'm giving you a mission, I'm sending you over to represent Canada in the United Kingdom. And yes, Mr. McMurtry was Mr. Mulroney's point man in England to work on ending apartheid in South Africa. And Mr. McMurtry has over the years told me numerous stories about how he and Margaret Thatcher tangled at the time over this issue.

They had some nice moments, but they had some very tough tense moments on this as well. Interestingly enough, Mike, one of the things that Mr. Mulroney thought he had from Mr. McMurtry was an undertaking after his term in Britain was over, to run for him in the 1988 election. And Mr. McMurtry never thought he gave that undertaking. There was some kind of really bad miscommunication between the two of them on that issue. And when Mr. McMurtry's time in England was over and he came back to Canada, Mr. Mulroney called him and said, �Okay, so I guess per our agreement, you'll now stand for me in this

88 election in Toronto.� Mr. McMurtry said, �Well, no, I'm going to go practice law. I don't know what you're talking about.� I don't know who's right, I don't know who's wrong. Obviously, a terrible case of broken telephone, but Mr. Mulroney was so upset with him that he didn't speak to him for the next two and a half years, and their friendship really went through a bad patch there. The good news is that through the intervention of some people like Bob Ray, who had become Premier of Ontario by 1990, Bob Ray kind of some entreaties with Brian Mulroney to say, �Hey,

come on, you've got to bury the hatchet here. Roy McMurtry wants to be a judge. He'd be a fantastic judge. You should appoint him.� And Mr. Mulroney did. I remember Mr. McMurtry telling me this story. Prime Minister calls him up one day, and it's like the two and a half years never happened. He just picks up right from where he left off, the Irish charm comes forward, �Roy,

how are you? How's Raya, your wife? How are the kids doing?� And he appoints him to the Superior Court of Ontario, and eventually Mr. McMurtry becomes the Chief Justice of the highest court in Ontario, the Court of Appeal, and remains to this day one of only highest court in Ontario, the Court of Appeal, and remains to this day one of only two people in Ontario history to be both Attorney General and Chief Justice of the High Court. So he's in pretty select company.

Who's the other person? The other guy's a guy by the name of Dana Porter, who did both jobs in the 40s and 50s, and his son Julian Porter is still around in Toronto in his late 80s, practicing law, and actually ran in that 1985 election for the Progressive Conservatives, and did not win, but is a great Canadian. When was the last time you had the pleasure of speaking with your friend Roy McMurtry? I called him about a week and a half ago, and I wanted to talk to him about this issue of Premier Doug Ford saying that he wanted to appoint quote unquote, like-minded judges.

And I thought I'd see if I could get a comment from Mr. McMurtry about that and what he thought about that. So we were on the phone one day and he said, well, come on over. So I did. I think I just went over the next day. And we had a great visit and that was on March the 7th. Wow. I don't know.

What's the date today? 20th. March 20th. OK, so not less than two weeks ago. And I am just so grateful that through just sheer dumb luck, I managed to get that last visit in less than two weeks ago. We had a lovely visit. He was hurting.

He was 91, in failing health. He really had a hard time walking. He spent most of his days, he lived in a senior's residence now, he spent most of his days in bed because he really couldn't get up and move all that well. But he was still sharp, Mike. Gosh, I remember two visits ago, I remember going over with a group of two or three other people and they were lawyers and they were all reminiscing about a case that took place

in Windsor 40 years ago. And one of the guys could not remember the name of the lawyer that he was up against in that particular case that they were talking about. And 91 year old Roy McMurtry lying down in his bed, not seeming to be kind of all there, all of a sudden throws out the name of the other lawyer. He remembered and nobody else in the room could remember.

And he remembered the lawyer of a case in Windsor 40 plus years ago that he had no business remembering, but he was still absolutely sharp with a great memory of all of the stuff that he'd dealt with in his life. And that's one of the reasons I love to go visit him. He loved to tell the old stories and I love to hear them. So it was great. Steve, thank you for sharing those memories

of Roy McMurtry and for this conversation. I have an idea, can I pitch an idea to you? Fire away. Okay, so we've established the last couple of times you visited the basement here, you brought somebody and you're batting a thousand, okay? You're going into the Hall of Fame if you keep up these numbers. We haven't had a 400 since Ted Williams, so this is impressive stuff.

You're John Alleroot-esque in the way you're hitting. 1993 John Alleroot, but okay. What if you brought into my basement for a deep dive and a Toronto mic debut for somebody who I think is long overdue for him I'd love for you and Bob Rae to be in my basement Bob Rae should be here for a Toronto mic'd episode what do you think? That's a tough book Mike I mean the guy lives in New York City that's gonna be a tough book. But he must visit right? He must visit often. Yes I'm sure he comes back to town often look at I'll I will happily raise it with him

because I do speak to him from time to time. I will happily raise it with him and we'll see what we can do. Can't make any promises on that one. You know, the guy's a bit busy. He's our ambassador to the United Nations. Oh, I think he's a little bit of a part in this expression, but he's a bit easy on the, I feel like he does a lot of podcasts remotely. I'm just the guy holding out for the in-person Bob Rae, but I'm willing to wait on this one. But all I ask is, as always, all I can ask is that you do your best, Mr. Paken. That you shall have, I guarantee you. Thank you, and thank you for giving me the chance to talk about Roy McMurtry today, because we should know, we need to know more about the

people who helped build this country, and he's one of them. And that brings us to the end of our 1454th show. You can follow me on Twitter and BlueSky, I'm at Toronto Mike. Steve is on the app formerly known as Twitter as S Paken. You can follow him there. Have fun in Switzerland. That's amazing. That's coming soon. So Steve, can't wait to hear about that adventure and getting to see your grandkid and all that stuff. That's amazing. So enjoy that. Thank you, Mike. Much love to all who made this possible. That's Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, RecycleMyElectronics.ca, Raymond James Canada, the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team and Ridley Funeral Home.

See you all Friday when my in-person special guest is Rod Black. Looking forward to Rod. See you all then. There's a sucker for every day But I wonder who Yeah, I wonder who