Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Steve Paikin: Toronto Mike'd #515

Episode Date: September 23, 2019

Mike chats with Steve Paikin about his start in radio at CHFI and CFTR, his stint on The Fan 590, his years at the CBC, hosting The Agenda on TVO, and why he loves the Boston Red Sox.

Welcome to episode 515 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Propertyinthe6.com, Palma Pasta, StickerU.com, Capadia LLP, CPAs, and Pumpkins After Dark. Cappadia LLP CPAs and pumpkins after dark. I'm Mike from torontomike.com and my guest this week is host of the agenda on TVO, Steve Pakin. Welcome Steve. Hello Mike. This is world headquarters, eh?

This is where it all happens. This is where the magic happens. Okay. You have no idea what you're in store for here, but I promise you'll enjoy it. I have a little bit of an idea what I'm in store for, because of course I have heard your podcast before. May I ask, let me

guess, you were cherry picking an episode, but may I ask which one you dove into? Well, I dove into a few of them, and I think the last one I listened to was you and Dana Levinson, and I apologize, I did not Dana Levinson. And I apologize. I did not bring bagels today. I'm so sorry.

You know, that caused great controversy. Peter Sherman was on later, speaking of provincial politics. I listened to that one too. I liked that one. That was like, we were talking about where you get the best bagels in Toronto. And I had all this feedback that they didn't think Dana got the bagels from the best place to get bagels. Like it was quite the topic of conversation in the Toronto Mike community.

Where do you get, where are the best bagels in Toronto? Well, see, I'm from Hamilton originally and I've lived in Toronto for 40 years. So you may not be surprised to hear me say I'm not a Montreal bagel guy. Right. So Greif's Bagels on Bathurst

is the place that I go to get mine. Well, I'm going to try it because I love a good bagel. They're nice and, like, they literally melt in your mouth. They're nice and mushy as opposed to Rock Hard, which the Montreal bagels are. You mentioned Hamilton. Mm-hmm. Now, I know you're Pake the Snake.

Also true. This is the Thai Cat Fight song. Right, and this is Pake the Snake. Also true. This is the Thai Cat Fight Song. Right, and this is from Jake the Snake, okay? Okay. So, hi, Jake. When Jake heard you were coming on, I got this tweet from him, and it just said, Hammer time, because Jake loves it when I have, like, Hamilton people on the podcast. He loves it.

Because it's Oski-wee-wee and Oski-wa-wa and holy Mackinac. We love those cats. Our tiger cats. The team with the spirit and fun. He actually sent me a... Reminded me of my childhood here. Well, that's the job. That's the idea here.

Now, he sent me a picture, Jake the Snake, sent me a picture of Jake the Snake with yourself, and you've got a button on that says Argo Suck. It sounds right, yeah. Yeah. And what did he write there? He said he wanted to know if your son, and you have multiple sons, so I don't know which one he's talking about, but has your son ever seen the picture of you wearing the Argo Suck button, and what was his reaction?

Well, I don't think he's seen the picture of it, but he's certainly seen me wear it in the past. Yeah, you're right. I have one son who insists on being an Argonaut fan, despite the fact that he knows his father loves the Tiger Cats. And I have a second son who's a Tiger Cat fan, because he wants to stay in the will. And I have a third son who doesn't care about sports at all, so it doesn't phase him one way or the other.

Gotcha, gotcha. And my daughter's a Ticat fan too. Well, that's pretty good. They're born in, they're Toronto people. They're not Hamiltonian. All born in Toronto. So well done, well done. Now, I was at the Wolfpack rugby match yesterday, and there was like 9,300 of us

there, and it was fantastic at Lamport Stadium, and I noticed on Friday the Argos terrible team, they only drew 9,800 or something. The Argos did? Yeah, at BMO Field. Yikes, for the Calgary game. Right, that's right.

Oh boy. And I just wondered, I know you're a big CFL booster, and do you have any ideas how to help the Argos put butts in the seats? Winning always helps, Mike. You know, winning always helps. What have they won, two games so far this year? You know, helps, Mike. Winning always helps. What have they won? Two games so far this year? You know, that's another, I don't know.

I think they're 2-10, 2-9, 2-10, something like that. But if you go to the other end of the standings in the penthouse of the Eastern Division, you will find

the Hamilton Tiger Cats. Well, I got notes about that too. So I got, let me see, who should I pick on? Wes Chase on says, this is the year for the Tiger Cats, but there's a question mark on the end of that statement. cats well i got notes about that too so i got let me see who should i pick on west chase on says uh this is the year for the tiger cats but there's a question mark on the end of that statement so he's not 100 sure but uh he doesn't have a crystal ball i suppose but he says looking

good with a backup quarterback so so things are looking good in ty cats uh land well you know yes and no the the um jeremiah masoli was the starting quarterback and he went down with a knee injury and young evans has been the quarterback ever since and they're doing pretty well under him but the cats have not won a great cup in 20 years which is difficult to do in an eight team league it's not great it's not great and in the 20th century they won they won a great cup in every single decade of the 20th century except the first when they technically didn't exist so yeah which makes it difficult yeah but uh so you know we got accustomed to it we got accustomed to never going longer than 10 years without a great cup victory and

now it's been 20 years so hopefully this will be the year they're they're having a good year so my not my uh two guests ago i suppose two episodes, Sunil Joshi was my guest. Oh yeah, good sports guy. Yeah, and we were talking about the 83 Grey Cup. So the Argos won. And I was very young, but I remember it being a big deal. And apparently, 50 years or something, there was some ridiculous drought that ended for the 83. And I was thinking, in a league this size,

it's almost like a mathematical anomaly. Like it's almost, yeah, to have a drought that long. Well, I seem to remember a coach for the Argonauts named Leo Cahill. That's right. We talked about him. In the 1970s, who said something along the lines of it would take an act of God for us not to win the Grey Cup this year. And I don't think it was an act of God. I think it was just a rainy field.

Well, that could be considered an act of God. I think it was just a rainy field. That's all. Well, that could be considered an act of God. Yeah, I guess right. Leon McQuay fumbled the ball right near the goal line and Calgary took over and they won that 71 Grey Cup. I've heard of this. I've heard of this. While we're talking Ticats, I want to say hi to Greg, sorry, Mike Gregotsky, who says, he says you're a nice get.

I like it when people say nice get, like you're some commodity I purchased on a market or something. Can you please ask him what his favorite Thai cats moment is? He says, thank you, hashtag Oskiwiwi. You know what Oskiwiwi means, don't you? I don't know what it means. I know you Thai cats guys like to sing it and chant it and stuff. Tell me what it means.

It's part of the cheer. It goes, you know, Oskiwiwi. What was in that song? Yeah, Oskiwiwi, Oskiwawa, Holy Mackinac, Tigers, Eat Em Raw. And it goes back to before the Tiger Cats were even the Tiger Cats. That was the chant for the Hamilton Tigers, who merged with the Hamilton Flying Wildcats in, I think, 1950 and became the Hamilton Tiger Cats.

But my happiest moment is easy. 1972 Grey Cup, Ian Sunter lining up for a field goal with no time left on the clock, puts it through Hamilton, 13, Saskatchewan 10. I was 12 years old. It was sort of the greatest moment of my, the first 12 years of my life.

Well, that that's a big age for sports. Like the drive of 85 was everything to me. Cause I was 10 years old and I loved my blue Jays. And it's like when George Bell makes that catch, it felt like life can't get better. This is it, right? This is as good as life's going to get.

Can I tell you a story about that? Of course. I remember having Ken Dryden, the, of course, legendary goaltender for the Montreal Canadiens and former president of the Maple Leafs, on the agenda. This was many years ago.

And I remember asking him, what was the golden age of hockey in your view? And his answer was, whatever you were watching when you were 12 years ago. And I remember asking him, what was the golden age of hockey in your view? And his answer was, whatever you were watching when you were 12 years old. That's the golden age of hockey. You're right. And I often talk, we do a thing called kick out the jam. So let's say you have a great experience today.

At some point in the future, you return to kick out the jams. We play and discuss your 10 favorite songs of all time. That's what kicking out the jams is. And I've done it. It's been fantastic. Like we've done it, it's been fantastic. Like we've done like 70 of these or so. But I often remark when we start Kicking Out the Jams that your favorite music,

it's often the music you loved when you were a teenager. Like whatever you were into as a teenager, that's what ends up showing up on these Kicking Out the Jams. Stays with you. So were you, Bruce, I know Bruce Springsteen just had like a big birthday. What is he, 65 or 6 now or something like that? I thought it might be a milestone birthday, but I don't know.

I want to say, could he be 70 or no? Am I? I don't know. You're not a boss guy. That seems high. No, I'm not a boss guy. Okay. I recognize the talent, but he's never been one of my faves.

I hear you. Well, when you come back to Kick Out the Jams, we'll find out what Steve Paikin is into. By the way, I called the show The Agenda, but I've also seen it's called The Agenda of Steve Paikin. What's the official proper name of the program?

The official proper name is The Agenda with Steve Paikin, but I can't say that because that sounds just ridiculously. Well, I go, I was at Toronto Mike with your host, Toronto Mike. Yeah, it just, it sounds pretentious as hell to call the show by its full name when you're the guy whose name is on it. So I just call it the agenda.

But anyway, if it is officially called, and I think it might be called the agenda with Steve Paikin, good for you. Like, I think it's a big deal. You want to get your name in the show's title. So kudos as you did yeah well that was easy how did you how did you manage to convince the senior management here to put your name in the title of the show well done that's right i'm well very well connected at tmds here um west okay so i michael okay michael moniz uh michael moniz says awesome you gotta quiz him about the hammer roots and his family friendship with the local neighbors growing up the shorts whose son

grew up to be a modestly successful entertainer boy did he ever so tell me because i'm not familiar with the shorts this is not martin short martin short Martin Short. Martin Short, of course. Yeah, I've heard of him. Okay, well, the Shorts weren't my neighbors. I grew up on the West Mountain of Hamilton, but they were my dad's neighbors. And my dad's dad and Martin Short's dad

were buddies and business associates. And so our families go, you know, I guess way back. They go a long way back. Yeah. And Martin grew up in, Martin Short and my dad grew up in Westdale and, you know, the families have stayed in touch over the years. That's amazing. I still break into an Ed Grimley now and then. My kids think I've lost it, but maybe I have. Okay. So I understand the Ticats love because you grew up in Hamilton, although how long you've been away from Hamilton? Like a long time, right?

Well, yeah, I moved to Toronto in 1978. And with the exception of one year, I have lived here ever since. But if I guess if you ask me where I'm from, I always say Hamilton. And I guess that's because, well, I still feel like a Hamiltonian and my parents live in Hamilton. I got a brother who lives in Burlington, which is pretty close to Hamilton. So yeah, I still feel like a Hamiltonian and my parents live in Hamilton. I got a brother who lives in Burlington, which is pretty close to Hamilton. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, I still feel like a Hamiltonian. Maybe it's because of these memories as a 12-year-old with the Ticats. Like it's sort of your formative years,

you are closely identifying with the hammer and that's never going to leave you. Yeah, but I got to tell you, we went to a lot of Leaf games when I was a kid as well. My parents, I think quite wisely, made a decision early in my brother's and my life that they preferred us to be at Maple Leaf Gardens on a Saturday night as opposed to hanging out with our ne'er-do-well friends and with no idea where we might be. So we went to a lot of hockey games back in the day. Not a bad deal. That sounds pretty good.

And you know what? I kept a lot of the tickets. Do you know how much it cost to go to a Leaf game hockey games back in the day. Not a bad deal. That sounds pretty good. And you know what? I kept a lot of the tickets. Do you know how much it cost to go to a Leaf game back when I was a kid? I'd guess something ridiculously low, like six bucks. Five. Oh, yeah. Five bucks. What section?

I remember every time I was lucky enough to get to the gardens, it was the grays. That's where I ended up, in the grays. What color section did you... They started, I think, as think as blue seats was section 56 we sat in blue seats and then i remember one year harold ballard the then owner decided he wanted to change the reds to golds so he could add an extra layer of more expensive seats right so they went from blues to reds one year and we thought oh wow we've got better seats we're in the reds now of course they were the same seats but just cost more that sounds like a ballard move right there uh once in a while i

the closest cemetery to here is it's called park lawn cemetery and once in a while i go for a bike ride there and uh yeah that's where harold ballard is uh is that where he is hey yeah that's where you'll find him i met him numerous times he was he was a fabulous character i mean he obviously had his problems he had had his issues as well. But in terms of sort of a wacky, you know, he owned both my favorite teams for a while, right? That's right. That's right.

Because he owned the Leafs, of course, and then he bought the Ticats and saved them, frankly. I mean, he put several million dollars into saving the team, which was in danger of going under at the time. Now, I'm with you in that I actually like characters. He's obviously got his flaws. I mean, Sunil Joshi and I talked about it, that some very good journalists witnessed racism from Harold Ballard with regards to Sunil.

And of course, the misogyny is legendary. Not good. I think I remember an interview he gave to Barbara Frum on As It Happens, where he said something like, you know, you women should just be on your backs and never mind all this other stuff. Right. And, yeah. But a character, I mean, I'll have Gord Stelic over here

and I'll be like, I'll press record and be like, okay, I want two and a half hours of Ballard stories. Oh, he could give it to you. But I think, now again, if I'm remembering the story right, I think he said that awful thing to Barbara Frum and then went out a week later and gave a big donation to a battered women's shelter. Yeah, he would do that kind of thing. Strange that way.

Yeah. Very interesting character, though. Always entertaining to hear the Ballard stories. Now, is it true, speaking of sports, we talked about Thai cats, which I understand, but can you explain the Red Sox love to me? I became a big baseball fan when I was 15 years old, which would have put it 1975. And the Red Sox went to the world series that year in what was at the time, I think probably the most memorable world series ever. This is the game six Carlton Fisk trying to push it fair home run and extra innings. And which might've been, you been, again, at that time, the greatest World

Series game ever. And I just got stuck on the Red Sox. I just fell in love with them. That's it. It's just two years too early. Yeah. The Blue Jays came along two years later. And while I like the Jays and certainly enjoyed their World Series wins, the Sox have just always been a bit of a deeper obsession for me. So I follow you on Twitter. And someone else who's actually a journalist, she was with 1010 for a long time, but she's doing a stint with CP24 right now.

But her name is Siobhan Morris. Her dad is the house, the Hits FM. Is that a White House? Is it the White House of Rock, they call this? Okay, in St. Catharines, which I figured, oh, you know. Anyway, that's her dad. But Siob which I figured out, oh, you know, you know, anyway, that's her dad,

but Siobhan Morris was raised a Red Sox fan. So I, the only two people sort of in my Twitter timeline, that'll be, you know, like this year it's been kind of show them Freudian, if that's a term, because you guys are not having a great year,

but last year it was quite painful. Like, cause I hate the Red Sox because I'm an AL East, you know, Jays fan. And to see tweets from yourself and siobhan like celebrating red socks socks success it's uh disheartening stuff well keep in mind the red socks went 86 years without winning a world series and i didn't go all 86 years but i went 30 of them before enjoying a world series and i stuck with my

original team and and mike this has been a pretty good century for the Red Sox, in case you hadn't noticed. I have noticed, unfortunately. They're the winningest World Series team in all of Major League Baseball this century, so that's okay. You're making up for lost time here. So good for you. And before we leave the sports segment

of the Steve Paikin episode of Toronto Mic'd, is it true your mom has never missed a Jays home opener? Yes. My mom just started to go you know as a matter of course to opening day or opening night and then as she got older she spends uh winters in florida and um you know my brother and i i guess we might have put a little pressure on her say mom the streak's still going you can't break the streak And she literally flies back from Florida. She's 83 now. She flies back from Florida,

goes to the game with us, and then flies back to Florida the next day. I'd be curious how many people can make this claim. It's got to be a handful. How many opening days have there been now? Well, since 70. Oh, we missed. So it's 43.

No, I know there was a late start one year, but they still eventually had an opening day. So it's 43. Right. They did have it. Right. They didn't have a closing day they still eventually had an opening day. So it's 43. Right. They did have it. Right. They didn't have a closing day, but they had an opening day. Right.

That's right. That's right. Got my leagues all mixed up. Yeah. The hockey canceled the whole season once. Okay. So that's, yeah, that's quite the impressive streak. And long may she keep that going.

Amen. That's amazing. And also, because it's, again, we're in the sports section here, your dad and granddad and yourself would go to every Super Bowl. Is that the... Close. Close. You've got that close. All right. Yeah. How that started was in 1979, a buddy of mine and I decided we wanted to drive to Miami to go to a Super Bowl. We'd never been before. And we thought it would be kind of a cool thing Super Bowl. We'd never been before, and we thought it would be kind of a cool thing to do. And literally, I think a few days before we were set

to go, he got sick. And we were all primed to go. We didn't have tickets. We were going to try and see what we could do about picking up tickets. And when I told my dad that, it was I guess my first year at U of T, so it's my first year living away from home. And when I told my dad that he said, well, why don't you and I go? And I thought, brilliant. So we did, we went down there and we managed to buy a couple of tickets from a Chicago bears football player who didn't, who had two extras and didn't need them. And I think he sold them to us for 50 bucks a piece. Wow. So not expensive. And we got in, we saw a fabulous game. Which one was the Super Bowl 13, which would have been Pittsburgh 35, Dallas 31, I think. And it was at the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida. And we enjoyed it so much, you know, just a great father-son time that we decided to go back

and back and back. And then we included my brother and then we included a buddy of my dad's. And back and back. And then we included my brother. And then we included a buddy of my dad's. And I guess, gosh, when did we stop? And we stopped a long time ago. But I think I went to 17 or 18 Super Bowls or something like that. It's a pretty good run. Not a bad run.

Yeah. Yeah. Not too shabby. Back to baseball, because I see Neil Jenkins chimed in to say he had a question for you about, he's a fellow baseball fan, and he visited 15 of the 30 ballparks. And he says, if you put aside Fenway Park and Wrigley Fields, we'll put them aside

because they're notable outliers. What ballpark is your favorite? That's tough. Because of course, you know, Fenway is just a cathedral and I love going there and I'm going there this weekend,

actually. You know, Pittsburgh's home field is terrific. Is that PNC Park? Okay, that's his answer. PNC Park in Pittsburgh is Neil's favorite. That's a good one. I think Progressive Field in Cleveland is a beautiful ballpark as well.

I've been to Chavez Ravine, Dodger Stadium. That was nice. I think that's next to Fenway and Wrigley. I think that's the third oldest park now. I think you're right. I think so. Okay, I think that'll be it. It's funny howley. I think that's the third oldest park now. I think you're right. Yeah, I think so. Okay. I think that'd be it.

It's funny how you both had the same answer. That's cool. Now, I'm going to give you some gifts for making the trip here. But first, on TVO, they're doing this logo vote, which is very interesting, except I don't think there's any way the 1976 TVO logo can lose. I agree. It's beautiful, isn't it? Yeah.

That is so, I mean, it's beautifully nostalgic. Yes, yes. That's the orange one where it's all, yeah, yeah. I think it's beautiful. I can almost hear, in fact, later in the program we'll hear it, but I can hear Elwee's voice when I look at that logo, right? For sure, for sure. So I don't think it's going to be close.

I don't know when it ends or whatever, but it's going to be a blowout. You heard it here first. All right. So where do I begin? Okay. First, I want to thank everyone listening who came out to the Toronto Mike listener experience on Thursday.

So we had TMLX4 and we recorded live from the patio of Great Lakes Brewery and it was like a perfect night and so many great people came out and we had so many fun conversations. So thank you, Great Lakes Brewery, for hosting. Thank you to everyone who came.

Can't wait for TMLX5. But Steve, here is a six-pack of local fresh craft beer from Great Lakes Brewery. That is outstanding. Thank you, Great Lakes. That's great. And I see what's brand new. You're the first guest this season to get the pumpkin ale. It's funny.

I mentioned I was at this Wolfpack match on Sunday, yesterday. And I was there. My guest was David Schultz. Oh, yeah. He's actually just retired. And he cannot stand pumpkin ale. It's a passionate hate. I'll give it a try.

Hey, they make this really close to here, don't they? This is super close to here. There's a Costco in this neck of the woods and it's down the street from the Costco, but it's near like rural York and Queensway.

So thank you, Great Lakes, for hosting. Thanks for giving the six pack to Steve Paikin and yeah, take that home and enjoy. Thank you. Now, that's an empty box,

but in the freezer upstairs, I have a large lasagna for you, but Steve, you know what I forgot to ask you? Meat or cheese? Meat or veggie? Or meat or veggie, yeah. Or did I ask you?

Oh yeah, you probably heard me ask Dana. There you go. Veggie would be great. All right, so don't leave here until I go to the freezer upstairs and grab you a veggie lasagna. So thank you, Palma Pasta. It was great to have Anthony on that TMLX4 recording on Thursday. Again, go to palmapasta.com

to find out where they are in Mississauga and Oakville. And check out Palma's Kitchen, which just celebrated its first anniversary. Thank you, Palma Pasta. And stickers! Okay, so this is going home with you as well. Are you at all a fan of Lowest of the low,

the band? That's okay. I stopped following music after Frank Sinatra hung them up. So that'll answer your question. When, but when did he hang it up? Cause he went a long time, right?

Well into his eighties. Died in 98. So I guess, you know, and he sang almost right to the end. Well, okay. Lowest of the low probably had their heyday in the early

nineties, but these stickers are going home with you as well, but I'm most excited to give you the Toronto Mike sticker. Thank you, Mike. Does Premier Ford know you're in the sticker business? I was thinking like if those stickers at the gas stations were made by Sticker U, they would have worked. You know what I mean?

There would be no peeling going on there. I'm going to ask you about that guy later. Don't worry. I got a question about him too. Uh-oh. There's a contest. So Laura from Sticker you was on tmlx for that episode and she said there's a new contest if you tweet an iconic photo that you've taken of toronto so if you've taken a photo of toronto that you think is iconic and you tweet it with the hashtag sticker you to

so sticker y-o-u-t-o and tag me it too, just so I can make sure I don't miss it, Toronto Mike, and maybe even sticker you. And what we're going to do is we're going to give a $100 gift card to our favorite, and we're going to produce that. So we're going to take that image that you took and produce like stickers out of it for you. So this is a cool new contest for listeners of Toronto Mike. So iconic photo with the hashtag sticker U-T-O. Okay. So this is a cool new contest for listeners of Toronto Mike. So iconic photo with the hashtag sticker you, uh, T O. Okay. So you got stickers, you got, you got lasagna, you got beer. So this is, uh, one more exciting thing for you. I'd say this is a better day already.

I'm telling you, you're going to, it's worth the drive. I always say, forget Acton, you got to come here. Okay. Speaking of Acton, which I think is near this location, but Pumpkins After Dark, it's happening in Milton, Ontario. It's 5,000 hand-carved pumpkins that illuminate the skies of its country heritage park in Milton. Wow. So this is going to run from September 26th to November 3rd. You got not just these pumpkins, but you got sculptures and sound.

So I've got two tickets. I can email you these PDFs. These are- I definitely want to go to that. Yeah, I'm going to. Let me know when you're going and we can go together. But yeah, I got two free tickets for you. And anyone listening who wants to save 10% right now,

here's how you do that. You just go to pumpkinsafterdark.com and you use the promo code pumpkinmike. So pumpkinmike So pumpkin Mike, you know, I realized I've done the sports section, but there's actually a question from Brian Gerstein that's sports related. And I'm interested to hear your, your answer here.

So here's Brian. Hi, Steve, Brian Gerstein here, a sales representative with PSRkerage and proud sponsor of Toronto Night. Remember that one bedroom condo I just listed in King West? It sold over list price and my clients are able to get the clothes they wanted having bought a larger condo townhouse to live in. I can help you out as well to buy and sell. Plus I met a new Galleria condos buyer this

morning for the next building, Galleria 2, having already got one in Galleria 1 for another client. You can call or text me at 416-873-0292 for any real estate needs you have. Steve, I played against you once when you played for Beth David in the Inter-Synagogue Baseball League, and I'm happy to report that yesterday my team, Temple Harzion, beat Beth Tikva to win our first championship in our first visit to the finals. Have you ever won a team championship playing softball or hockey? And can you tell us about it? And do you still play sports yourself? Oh gosh, that's hilarious. That is hilarious. Well, I'll tell you, I'm on one of those teams

and we have not, I only joined that league about four years ago. We have not won a game, let alone a championship in the whole, in all of the games that I've played. I don't play every game all year long, but we've never won a single game. Wow. Did he get the right team name? Because he wasn't sure which team name it was. Yeah, it wouldn't matter. I'm too traumatized by the whole thing. No, it's good fun. And as I always tell my teammates, I don't come out for the baseball. I come out for the comedy. We're a funny team, but we don't play particularly well. When I was a kid, I played in a Sunday morning baseball league in which my dad and my brother

were teammates. And it was one of these lovely things. And I drove in from Toronto for it. I enjoyed it so much. Game started at nine o'clock in Hamilton. So I had to get up early on a Sunday morning, but we really loved it. And I think we won,

I think our team won two or three of those league championships. That's my recollection. And yeah, I still do, you know, I play, I play hockey every Tuesday night with the same, well,

I was going to say with the same group of losers, but of course they're not. I've been playing in that same game for, I was going to say with the same group of losers, but they're not. I've been playing in that same game for, I think, about 37 years. Right. And a lot of the guys that we played with over the years have moved on. I was once upon a time the youngest guy in that game, and now I'm pretty sure the third oldest guy. You're the salty vet.

Yeah. I'm a stay-at-home defenseman, and I do love to get on the ice. I broke my finger in the last game of the year back in April and missed most of the baseball season while I waited for this finger to get better, which it really hasn't. I broke my pinky in a bike crash about 13, 14 months ago, and it's still not really normal. No, I know. It doesn't. I agree.

But the doctor, they do the x-ray. Oh, they called it a chip, okay? They said, it's chipped. We don't do anything for that. They just said, you know, splint it up when you sleep. But it's, in fact, for the longest time,

handshakes really hurt for a long time. Well, look at that. I don't know if you can see that, but look at my two baby fingers. Look at my broken one. It's still fat and misshapen. And, you know,

it's six months ago and it should have been better already. Yeah, it'll never be the same, man. Nope, never will. And you take these pinkies for granted. But there was a time when I'd size guys up. I have a lot of people come over to do this podcast and business people

and everybody wants to do a handshake and I'm sizing people up. I'm looking, that guy looks really strong. It's really going to hurt and I would be bracing myself for the handshake and I'd be like, no, can we just do a fist bump fist bumps or high fives mike for a while i did easiest way around that problem for a while i did exactly that okay you said you went to u of t yes this is where it all begins for you right because you're doing like play by play of the

varsity blues yes yes so take me back to like this is back when U of T radio was like a closed circuit. Yeah, it was only available on campus. Now it didn't have an FM license. Right. Now, of course it does and you can hear it anywhere. But yeah, I think it was the last week of August in 1978, my first week at U of T. Classes haven't started yet, so I guess this is orientation week. And I walk into Hart House, and I say, you know, which is this old, you know, for those who don't know it, it's a beautiful old Gothic building.

It really is beautiful. Yeah, spectacular. Lots of gargoyles. Yeah. And I walk in, and there's the table for the debate club and the photography club and the archery club and the chess club. And there's a table that says U of T radio.

And Mike, I kid you not, it's as if a light bulb went on over my head. I walked up to the guy behind the table and I said, do you have anybody who does varsity blues, hockey or football play by play on the radio? And they said, no. And I said, well, could I do it? And they said, yeah. And I said, you mean I could be the Foster Hewitt of U of T? Right.

Which is a reference that will be lost on many of your listeners, unfortunately. You'd be surprised how old my listeners are. Well, okay, then they'll remember. Foster Hewitt was the voice of the Leafs back in the day. And that's how it started. And I did the Blues football and hockey play-by-play from Varsity Stadium and Varsity Arena. And you know who the color commentator was on those broadcasts? I don't know, but can I take a wild guess?

Shoot. Martin Short. I don't know. I have no idea. Mike Keenan. How's that? Mike would have been one of the coaches. Actually, he was coaching just before I got there.

Okay. Who was it? Michael Landsberg. Oh, wow. Michael Landsberg. Day winner at the TSN. Yep, Michael Landsberg and I did the games together, and then he left U of T, got a job at CHFI,

and I think, gosh, I can't remember how many, it might have been three months later or six months later, I joined him there. That was my first job too. Yeah, CHFI. So did he help you get the interview? I sure hope so. I don't know. I don't know get the interview? I sure hope so. I don't know.

I don't know for sure, but I sure hope so. I was chatting with Michael's son, Corey, because father and son are coming. We have to book the date and time, but they're going to come on Toronto Mic'd and talk. It'll be nice to talk to Michael Landsberg because he was on day one, or like I said, in

84. Absolutely. There's not many left. Off the record. How many years did he get off the record? Oh, in 84. Absolutely. There's not many left. Off the record. Well, and then off the record. How many years did he get of off the record? Oh, many, many years. He had to be 25. Yeah, he did well. He had a great run.

Great run on the show. And then I think they started leaning too heavily on the wrestlers. I don't know if you watched off the record. Well, you know why? I remember asking him that. I said, I like watching your show, but frankly, I know nothing about wrestling. I don't follow it. I don't watch those shows.

And he said they always get the best ratings. People love when we have wrestlers come in. I'm not surprised because the wrestling, they're rabid fans, right? They would be really tuned in, I think, if you had a wrestler on. And I heard this whole, you probably heard about this female wrestler

who went at the cop in Edmonton. Have you seen this? Okay, this went viral in the last 48 hours. So if you blink, you miss it. But apparently that was all staged. Anyways, this is all the stuff that kind of flies around social media. So you parlay,

you're covering hockey and football at U of T and you've managed to turn that essentially into what I would say is a great career. But just tell me about how you got to CHFI and what you were doing there in the early 80s. Well, let me think. Boy, we're going back now, aren't we? We go back on this show.

Yeah, I know you do. Okay, so started at U of T Radio, then also wanted a newspapering job as well. So I got a job as the sports editor of The Newspaper. This is not The Varsity, which was the competition, but The Newspaper, which was the competition but the newspaper which was an independent paper on the u of t campus because it was gone when i got there in the uh early 90s that one must have been gone oh no it's still there still there it's still there

yeah it's moved locations but it's still there okay yeah and it was and we sort of prided ourself on the fact that we didn't get a stipend from the students to keep the paper alive right you know we had people went out and sold ads and so on and so forth. So I did that. I did, you know, U of T radio, the newspaper. I got a part-time job at a radio station in Hamilton over the summer called CJJD. I covered the Ticats and, you know, everything else was great. Enjoyed that. Then got a job at the Hamilton Spectator for three summers. This is while I'm going to U of T. Right. So got a job covering everything but sports for the Spectator, my hometown newspaper. And I said to them, of course, I wanted to cover sports. And Rob Austin, may he rest in peace, gave me the best advice maybe ever, which was, we know you know how to cover sports. Can you do anything else?

We're going to take you in as a summer replacement reporter, but you don't get to do any sports at all. Everything else, news, fires, crime, school board, city council, everything else. And it changed my life. It was a hugely important piece of advice. Because it forced you to leave your comfort zone? Absolutely. Yeah. He said, you're way too young to specialize in sports.

You need to know how to do everything. So, and as weird as this sounds, I'm not sure I ever read the front section of a newspaper before I was working at The Spectator. I read lots of, you know, I watched eight different sports casts every day and I, you know, read the lots of sports sections in the newspapers, subscribed to the sporting news. I read about baseball, tons of baseball every week, but I really wasn't much up on news. And that forced me to focus on that. And it made a huge difference in my life. Because when you eventually get to CHFI, you're not there as a sports guy. No, no, no. I'm a City Hall reporter at that point.

Yeah, yeah. 1982, got to CHFI. And yeah, the incoming, I guess that was Art Eccleton's second term as mayor, and all of the attention on that council was of this new NDP city councillor that everybody was talking about because he was a great communicator and he had a lot of popularity behind him. Can I guess this one? Go ahead. Jack Layden.

You got it. That was him. So finally I got one. I'm going to keep score over here. That's all right. This is good. I'm going to keep quizzing you. I like this. And remember, this is, of course, this is back when Toronto was much smaller

because it was pre-mega cities. So Toronto was just the old Toronto. So even now where we're talking would be Etobicoke, completely different council. Yep, yep. This was the old city of Toronto, Art Eggleton, the mayor. And then, yeah, certainly,

geez, I'm trying to remember how many city councillors there were back then. Probably as, you know, there might've been as many as there are today. 25. Yeah, given that council's been cut in half might've been as many as there are today. 25. Yeah, given that council's been cut in half from where it was a year ago. Yeah.

Interesting, good. Now, not just CHFI, right? But their sister station, 680. Yeah, well, we called it CFTR back then. But that's right. All hit CFTR, if I remember correctly. Yeah. Because that was my wake up station

because I like Tom Rivers. Oh yeah, there you go. Gosh, I haven't heard that name in a long time. The Rivers Air Force remember correctly. Yeah. Because that was my wake-up station, because I like Tom Rivers. Oh, yeah. There you go. Gosh, I haven't heard that name in a long time. The Rivers Air Force, yeah. Yep. And that's right. And I used to cover City Hall and sometimes get over to Queens Park.

And there was a guy named Bob Aikler, who was the Queens Park reporter, who sometimes got over to City Hall, and we would file for each other's stations, AM and FM. So, yeah, I was on CHFI and CFTR, and I was 22. That was my first full-time job, 22 years old. And you just applied for it, and maybe Landsberg helped you get an interview or something? Because that's a pretty good start.

I've never asked him that question. I presume he put in a good word for me. You ask him if he put in a good word for me. I don't know if he did or didn't but uh yeah they were the cftr had always had its own reporter and chfi in a in a you know a feat of independence decided it wanted its own reporter and so they hired me and i think my opening salary go ahead if you're as long as you're guessing, take a guess. Opening salary was... This is 1982. Okay.

It was $12,500. Not far off. I think it was $16,500. Okay. $16,500 was my opening salary. Wow. What also is mind-blowing to me is to hear you say, like, these two stations, they're both Rogers, I guess, at the time, each of their own.

But today, it's completely opposite, where guess at the time, want each of their own. But today it's completely opposite where one, you know, one city hall reporter would feed like 12 or 13 or 14 different outlets from the same conglomerate there. Yes. CHFI wanted to have a, you know, as distinctive a sound as it could. So it had its own newscasters and its own on-air announcers, obviously, and then they wanted their own reporter. Now, of course, it's all blending in together. Everybody files for everybody. Yeah, right.

Now, you mentioned we go back on this show, and I'm not meaning to put you on the spot here, but do you have any memories of any of the personalities that were a part of the station at the time? I think you've talked to lots of them. I certainly remember Evelyn Macko very well, and I know you've talked to her. I know that. We had a, well, the morning announcer was a guy named John Dolan. And Dolan wasn't his real name. It was short for

Podolanchuk. He was a Ukrainian guy from Alberta, but he had the most brilliant, deep voice. Oh my goodness, if I could do that. So John Dolan was a morning news guy and there was another deep beautiful like this is fm radio right so you're trying to sound as mellifluous this is why i

avoided radio because that's how i heard they sounded like that and i said oh i can't do that i'm out and ron grimster was the afternoon guy again i don't know whether these names mean anything but but i love uh even if they don't like i'll remember it next time it's sort of like i'm building this whole arsenal of paul de courcy was another guy who was on air, who was a news guy. Paul Cook. Paul Cook, you must know. He's still on 680. Yes, he is.

Yeah, Paul Cook. Mary Stephanie Smythe from CP24. We all worked together there. Michael Landsberg, of course. Arlene Bynum. Yeah, yeah. She was on the station. Yeah.

She's still maybe satellite. I don't want to say for sure. But she definitely. Canada Talks. Yep. Right maybe satellite. I don't want to say for sure. Canada Talks. Right? Yeah, 167. There you go. Liberty Village.

Okay, awesome. So you're on the radio there. And I guess I'm going to skip ahead. So obviously we have to get you to CBC. But I do have, because I got you on the radio right now, I do have questions about a show you did with, in fact, I'll read a question from him. Bruce Dobigan. So we've been going back and forth because bruce put out a book and he'd love to come on and chat about the book and apparently he's got a son i think who lives in this hood like not far from here so he's like i think he's so we're trying to work this out bruce dobigan to get him

on toronto mic but uh he wants me to ask you about the time you had a podiatrist. But he said, okay, he wrote on our Fan 960 show, but he means 590, right? Yes. Yes, of course. 590 the Fan. But this comes later in the story. Bruce and I did co-host a radio show from 9 to 11, mid-mornings, on the Fan 590. And I was the sort of cerebral, thoughtful one,

and he was the loud mouth, and nothing's changed. I think he got louder. Yes, yes. I've noticed a little tea change. Since he moved to Alberta, yes, I think he's got a little louder. And I don't even think, I know we're not on terrestrial radio here, but I'm not even sure I'm allowed to say this word, because he meant to say podiatrist,

and he said something else that sounds like podiatrist, but means something very, very different. He probably accidentally said pedophile or something like that. Something close to that, yes, yes indeed. And he was describing an upcoming guest, which was not a great thing to do. That's how, yeah. Well, as Lorne Honigman just told me,

you've got to stop right away and apologize and clarify the mistake before you end up with some defamation lawsuit. If I recall, he denied saying it. And I said, Bruce, my gosh, do you know what you just said? And he said, what? Podiatrist, podiatrist. I said, you didn't say that. Anyway.

Yeah, that's a significant mistake there. Now, this show was called double play because i couldn't because my friend i was another guy was at this wolfpack match with tyler told me it was called double play we were talking about it and i couldn't find any evidence of the name online but i'm glad to hear it was actually called double play it was 96 we like that for a couple reasons obviously we talked a lot of baseball so a a double play in baseball. And we were a duo, so a double play, if you like. And double starts with D for Dobegan and play starts with P for Payton.

Oh, look at this. It's almost too cool for school. Almost, almost, yeah. Very clever. Now, tell me, this is not your tip. You had a pretty interesting deal, if I understand correctly, for that show. Did you get the time and then sell your own ads?

Yeah, that's exactly how it worked. That's kind of unique for midday anyways. That's more common on weekends. Well, we both had other jobs. At that time, I was co-hosting a show called Studio 2 on TVO. And Bruce, I guess, was working for CBC Sports at the time. And we were really great friends. We're and are great friends

and really wanted to do something professionally together. So we pitched this show to the fan. Give us two hours in a time slot where you basically aren't making any money anyway. Right. And we'll go on the air and we'll have fun. And if we can sell the ads, you know, we'll be the, you know, we'll be the richer for it. And, um, and we did that and we only did it. I think we did it for a year.

I ended up having another kid. And as a result, needed my mornings back. You know, Studio 2 was live at 8 o'clock at night. So I sort of worked 11 to 9 over there. And I did 9 to 11 at the fan. Right. But I needed my mornings back to be with my third son at that point. So Bruce hosted it by himself after that.

And no concerns that Bruce has gone a little MAGA, as I say. He's a little bit, right? He's gone a little MAGA. He's gone... Full MAGA? Neck deep, full MAGA. Never go full MAGA.

Well, no, he has, and we have interesting conversations about that from time to time. But yeah, Bruce was from Montreal. He's from Montreal, where he was a socialist. He moved to Toronto, where he became a socialist. He moved to Toronto where he became much more pragmatic and moderate. And then he moved out west and he's now

a full-on MAGA. It's funny how that happens. It happened with I was going to get to this maybe when we talk about Between the Lines. I think it was Between the Lines. But when you had Michael Korn and Irshad Manji. But they flip as well

like right they flipped as well their political ideology there's been some change there yeah they were a segment uh they were a segment in studio two actually studio two yeah and they would come on once a week and michael was a much more conservative voice back then and ear shed ear shed you know his ear shed she hasn't changed all that much and uh oh boy you should see some of the outtakes from from the tapings of that segment i'd like to see oh they went at each other hammer and tong there are no love lost there but i think they're they they uh i think they're great pals now actually well i was gonna say those outtakes were probably ideal for if you had a a tvo holiday party or something like i've heard, I've seen some of them too, but the City TV holiday parties,

I guess they call them Christmas parties, but the City TV Christmas parties, all the outtakes that were kind of saved. Yeah, some editor would save everything and put them together on a so-called funny reel that they'd play at the Christmas parties and we would all be embarrassed and have a good laugh about it.

All right, tell me how you got to CBC. So we've got you at, we're going back a little bit here, but CFTR and CHFI and you're covering city hall, but then you end up on television. And actually, before we find out how you got there, let me just play a little clip just to bring us back a little taste of what

you sounded like back then. Oh, hi, I'm Steve Paken. One of the most talented collections of rock and rollers ever assembled is coming to the Sky Dome this weekend. And most appropriately, the show is called The Legends of Rock and Roll. More than 30,000 tickets have already been sold for what promises to be the musical event

of the Sky Dome's Young Life. Six of rock and roll's greatest are set to arrive in Toronto on Sunday for five and a half hours of concert. The stars include Jerry Lee Lewis, whose life story is currently playing in movie theaters. I'll bring her down now, but just a little taste. I guess that

we know that the Dome opened in 89, so I'm guessing this is either like 89 or 90. It's the Young Life. I don't remember that at all. You know, I did a thousand news pieces for CBC, and bless me if I can remember 10% of them. I don't know. But it's interesting that we know you, of course,

we know you as a political guy who follows politics and covers politics, and we know you have this, at the very, very beginning, you had that sports interest, but here you are doing music, so you're a well-rounded journalist. Well, remember, I left CHFI in 1985 and came over to CBLT, as it was then called, Channel 5 Cable 6 in Toronto. And I was supposed to, I came over on a, I left a full-time job to come over on, I think, a four or five-month fill-in replacement contract at CBC. I would sort of cover off the summer for the people who wanted to get away okay and you did everything again it was like being at the spectator you know

you covered absolutely everything was no beat you did everything so yeah music sports uh you know weather politics education and i mean you've covered everything and uh it was it was an absolutely fantastic way to get to know the city and the business, because I'd had no TV experience before getting that job, but managed to convince a guy named Howard Bernstein, who was the executive producer of the newscast, managed to convince him that he ought to take a chance on a guy with no TV experience, but, you know, three years at City Hall and a burning desire to learn how to do the job. And he said, you have a face for radio, but, uh, you know, three years at city hall and, uh, a burning desire to learn how to do the job. And he said, uh, you have a face for radio, but no, well, the thing I remember, I

remember he, so he did hire me and the first piece I ever did, didn't air. It got dropped at the last second. So my big debut never really happened. So that's, that's disappointing. Uh, disappointing for a day, disappointing for a day. Disappointing for a day. And then I hear several pieces did air since then. So you're at CBLT, the CBC Toronto affiliate, and you're covering everything. Do you have any, like before we get you to TVO, although I remember you from CBC,

but I think a lot of our listeners know you best from TV Ontario. Do you have any any stories or memories from your cbc years you want to share with the listeners well mike the great thing about working there then i think i was there from 85 to 92 and the great thing about it was that you just what i say you you got to do you had to do everything. And, and not only that, but when the real people who had the real jobs left, often you got a chance to fill in for them. So, you know, I got to report for CBC. I got to do long form reporting for CBC. I got to anchor for CBC. I got to do sports anchoring, entertainment anchoring. I got to fill in for Joe Cote on the radio on Metro Morning. I got to fill in for Ralph Ben-Murgy on Midday. I got to fill in for Knowlton Nash

doing the National News. Wow. So just like a great school, a great journalism school, if you like. Are you friends with Ben-Murgy? Oh, yeah. Because you're Hamilton guys. Absolutely.

But he, yeah, I'm trying to remember, he only recently became a Hamilton guy. Yeah, he just moved to Hamilton a few years ago. Yeah. Oh, no, but Ralph and I, gosh, when did we meet? Well, we played in the same hockey. We played in the same Tuesday night hockey game. That's when I first met him, I think.

So we're going way back here. So there's an example of a guest who came back a second time to kick out the gems, Ralph Ben-Murgy. So if you ever want to know what his 10 favorite songs of all time are, cue up that episode. I will. I'll go look for that. Ben-Murgy's sequel, though.

But yeah, he's a great guy. He's working. Yeah, I guess he's doing some work with the Green Party, at least provincially. Got an MPP elected in Guelph, right? Yes, they did. Mike Schreiner, the leader. Right. There you go.

So we're going to get you to, you're at CBC. Things seem like they're going well, but why do you leave CBC for TV Ontario? Well, here's the crazy thing. The job I always wanted at CBC was to anchor the 6 o'clock news because my mentor, and if I can put it this way, kind of my journalistic hero was a guy named Fraser Kelly, who was the 6 o'clock news anchor that I admired so much. And eventually I got that job to anchor the six o'clock news. And the great revelation about doing that job is it's not all that interesting. Now it was different when Fraser did it, but by the time I got there, they didn't really let you do any reporting. They didn't let you do any writing. Right. Um, you know, what you did was

you read other people's copy in front of, off a teleprompter. You're kind of a talking head. That's really all it was. And it just, it didn't, it was such a, it was such a surprise to me that the job just didn't have that much to it. Now, the great part about the job is when there were special events, leadership conventions, elections, you got to anchor those. And that I loved. But you know, for every one of those kinds of shows, you'd have to do four or 500 newscasts that were not all that interesting.

So Howard Bernstein, who I was telling you about earlier, had left CBC. He had gone to TVO. He looked me up and he said, we're going to create a new daily show at TVO. I want you to help us create that. In the meantime, there is a weekly show called Between the Lines, which you also referenced. Come and host that.

And while you're there, we're going to create a new weekly Queen's Park show. And you and I will create that, which we did over a round of golf one day. We figured out the format of that weekly Queen's Park show, which was called Fourth Reading. Right. You know, every bill before it becomes law gets first, second, and third reading. We were fourth reading. Gotcha. It was a football show.

We'd have called it the fifth quarter. Right. It was that kind of thing. Right. So I did that. I left and went to TVO. Ninety-five percent of the people that I talked to about it thought it was the stupidest career move I could make.

How can you leave the CBC? It's, you know, you got a great job and so on. And it was a great job, but it just wasn't what I wanted to do. Right. And, um, went to TVO and that was Mike 27, 27, 27 years ago. Yeah. I have some, uh, audio from your introduction to TV Ontario, which I'll play in a moment. Uh, I can't wait to play that actually. But this is, for those, it can be a bit confusing. Like, what is TVO?

Because we all know, okay, so you've got the CBC, which is our national broadcast in Canada. That's for the national network when a public broadcaster. Yep. And then, of course, in the States, we know about PBS, right? Yes.

So tell us, dumb it down for us, what exactly is TVO? Okay, TVO, CBC is owned by the government of Canada, I guess by the people through the government of Canada. Right. And TVO is owned by the people of Ontario. And the shareholder, if you like, is the government of Ontario. And they fund about two-thirds of the budget, and TVO raises the other third ourselves

and um and you know the members of the board of directors of TVO and the CEO of TVO and the chair of TVO are all government appointees so we are we we work for the people of Ontario we don't we the model is very much like PBS you know we don't have, we don't interrupt our programs with commercials. We have some corporate underwriting to help keep the lights on. And, and it's both on air and online. And when I started there, obviously it was just on air, but now it's, it's television. Sure. It's internet, it's podcasting, you know, it's a multimedia now. I think I was raised on TVO. We all were. It's 50 years old this year. We all were. That's right. That's right. Now, okay. So now before I play this fantastic piece of audio,

there's one more partner I want to give a shout out to, Kapadia LLP CPAs. And I was talking to Rupesh Kapadia and he's got this idea where instead of him giving these fun facts, because he's the rockstar accountant, Steve, he's beyond the numbers idea where instead of him giving these fun facts because he's the rock star accountant Steve he sees beyond the numbers but instead of him giving fun facts on these episodes he's curious for us for you the listener to submit any questions you have that you'd like him to answer as a uh as an accountant so if you either email me or tweet at me a question for Kapadia LLP I'll make sure Rupesh gets the question. But here's Rupesh, and he'll say it in his own words. Hey, hey, hey, Toronto Mike listeners. This is Rupesh from Kapadia LLP CPAs, the rock star accountant who sees beyond numbers. And this time, I want to

get you in the conversation. I've been saying things on the topics that may or may not affect you or your situation so this time around i want you the listeners to ask a question and the best question will feature on the next podcast with my best answer looking forward to hearing from you till then keep rocking thank you so hit me up if you have a question from rupesh and then i'll get rupesh to record the answer and then we'll play it on a podcast. Beautiful. Yeah. And if anybody wants a free consultation with Rupesh,

hit me up and I'll arrange that for you as well. Okay, here is a great piece of audio I found. This is you, Steve. And a new face here on TV Ontario, but certainly no stranger to television viewers in Ontario, and in fact to viewers across Canada who know him for his energetic and informative role on CBC and CBC News World. I'm delighted, completely delighted to welcome Steve Paikin to his first appearance on TVO. Welcome, Steve.

Thank you very much. Welcome. It's been worth waiting for. We wish you many, many happy decades ahead. Thanks very much, Elway. And it has been a terrific day here at TVO for our first broadcast. We've had a wonderful

open house. I don't know if you can see around us here, but there are lots of people in the background who are joining us today for this open house. You've got a wonderful spirit here, led by you. You won't remember this, but I interviewed you when I was at News World once. You told me some of the great movies that you'd enjoyed watching that year. Good grief. How long was that? How long ago? A few years ago.

40 years ago, eh? Wow. It wasn't 40 years ago, but it was long enough ago. It's great to be here. I've always admired the programming that you folks do here at TV Ontario. I'm thrilled that I'm going to be able to join you and do some of it, starting tonight. Bravo, my friend. Bravo. I love that. Mike, you're going to make me cry. I're gonna make me cry i remember that so well i remember that so well it would have been i guess september 1992 and elwy elwy elwy was this elwy host of course host of saturday night at the movies and he was just like that all the time he was a jovial happy wonderful guy uh who could not have been more welcoming to um i guess how old was i at that time a 32 year old kid who just um you know was quite nervous about joining this new place

after having been in cbc for seven years and it was uh oh gosh that's a lovely memory thank you for playing that well i mean i i grew up with uh elvie and he because there was yeah the saturday night at the movies magic shadows yes like and the songs are tattooed on my head i was actually quickly trying to dig one up because i know that when i did an episode recently retro ontario we played these theme songs but just like you hear them now and it's like just the nostalgia trip is uh pretty intense and the interviews he used to do between the movies they'd show an early movie in a late movie and they'd have the conversations in the middle. And he, you know, it's funny. They did get big stars to interview for those segments, but he'd also

do, like he'd interview the production designer on some Hitchcock movie and you'd get all these wonderful anecdotes that you otherwise wouldn't know. Boy, that was good. Yeah, I enjoyed that stuff. You know, with Elwie on TVO and then Brian Linehan on City TV, you know, you got your... Another Hamiltonian. Really? I didn't know that. Yeah, Brian's from Hamilton.

I need to know all the Hamiltonians. There's an album back here, Tom Wilson. Oh, love him. Love him. I love him too. We have the same birthday. Do you? Yeah, we do.

Tom and I. I think he's a year older than I am, but we have the same birthday do you yeah we do tom and i i think he's a year older than i am but but we have the same birthday well he's i mean uh he's you think you have a deep voice and a good voice uh tom has got the best voice i've ever heard tom is yes he's got pipes and and you'll never confuse the two of us right because he is a bear of a man, massive beard and cowboy hat and the whole nine yards. Yeah, no, and a great musician and great, just great orator and a great guy, actually. Did you talk about his, when he came on, did you talk about his book? Yeah, we talked about his book. Oh my gosh, what a life he said.

The way he said it was this. He says, I won't even do the imitation, okay? Because I just can't. You can't get that low. It doesn't work. No, I cannot get that low. I'd have to do some work in the back end here. But he said, you know, he thought he was this big old sweaty Irishman.

And then he learned he was this big old sweaty Mohawk man. So, yeah, fascinating story. What's incredible to me is that despite all the things we have in common, you know, from the same city, same birthday, grew up in the same city at the same time, our lives were completely different. I had this sort of very blessed middle-class ordinary existence on the West mountain of Hamilton. And he went through this absolutely shocking, traumatic life altering situation in his life where he thought he was one thing and discovered he was another. Um a great guy he is though i believe the book is beautiful scars yeah i believe is the

name of that book yeah no he's fantastic and now then just my mind's running trying to think because we mentioned ben murighi who's like a new hamilton guy but uh stephen brunt stephen brunt of course lived in hamilton maybe still does he still does i think is does, I think. Yeah, I think he's on... Obviously, in the summer, he takes off to Newfoundland. He's got a home in Newfoundland. I think he's on Barclay Street in Hamilton. How about Brian Williams, the sports guy? Is he a Hamilton guy? Because he's been here.

Westdale collegiate. By the way, you're episode 515 or something. But Brian, he'd phone me on a Tuesday. Hi, Mike mike it's brian i'll do a little brian i can do a bit of brian he doesn't get up too deep but he's like uh just making sure we're all set for our episode next week and then he was like just checking in and whatever i go oh brian i'm all set can't wait and then like you know the day before you know hi mike it's

204 brian williams i feel like i was in the Olympics. And he's like, I'm looking forward to seeing you tomorrow. And so, and then just the most like a diligent guy when it comes to checking in and following up. And a fun personality. And you know what, again, another one of those guys who, you know,

I'm a little bit younger than he is. And when I came, when I worked at CBC, he was kind of the, he was the big sports guy at CBC. For sure. When I would see him, he's the kind of guy who would say, Hey, I saw that piece you did on the news last night about x y and z and good

for you and you know just you know i've got because like you know i have broadcasters on and i get there's so many stories of how they get a phone call or a letter or usually it's a phone call from brian williams to say i saw this piece you did and i just want you to know it was really good like just words of encouragement that way amazing yeah gosh this is funny I remember Brian Brian once told you know he got an offer to go to WCBS I think in New York City to do the sports there and they were going to offer him a lot of money like they're probably going to quadruple or quintuple his salary from what he was making at CBC and and I said to him uh okay brian like but you didn't take the job right why not well he said i went and talked to my wife about it and she said

to me darling by all means take the job the girls and i will miss you so he made the right decision to stay here and he's like really tight with uh dave, for example. They've worked together for ages. Right. And I think Hodge is like Niagara-on-the-Lake. I get confused. I know it's not Hamilton, but I feel like when I'm driving out there, I'm close. Does that make sense? But he's out there somewhere too.

Yeah. And I think Dave Hodge told me, he said he saw that Brian Williams was on this show. And then Dave Hodge, I guess he phoned up his buddy Brian and just said, hey, should I do this Toronto Mike thing? And then Brian said, he basically said, Dave, do it. Like, you're going to love it. Just do it. And like, that made me feel real good. Like, I was getting good, positive references

from the Brian Williams of the world. You have a good rep out there, Mike. Come on. You have a good rep. You do. You did your homework then. do deep dive you know long form interviews there there and you get stuff out of people and um oh you almost cried i'm gonna play the l we again that might get me do it you know now that you mentioned dave hodge i do remember he came to u of t to heart house when i was a student there and, I think, the play-by-play voice of the

Toronto Argonauts at the time on 1010. And I think he was a sportscaster in the morning as well. And he was Hockey Night in Canada. Anyway, he was a big sport. He was sort of like, if not the number one right up there sports guy. And it's funny what sticks in your mind all these years later. But he came and spoke to a bunch of us. And I remember asking him, how do you do the, like, are you an Argo fan? When you do the play-by-play for the Argos, do you care if they win? And he said, absolutely not. I'm there just to be a neutral reporter on the thing. And I don't care if they win, lose, or draw.

And I remember thinking, that's not, like, how can you be that objective about something? Because I never could be. When I covered the Ticats, I hope it didn't get into my reporting. But I sure wanted them to win every game. And even today, I'm just stupid crazy for the Maple Leafs. And I have a... But when you cover, let's say there's a provincial election. Well, that's different.

So that's different. That's not sports. Sports is the candy store of life. It's entertainment. Yes, yes. It's different.. Sports is the candy store of life. It's entertainment. Yes, yes, it's different. Right. It doesn't really matter, although it does. Correct.

Okay, so Between the Lines, Fourth Reading, and then where does Studio 2 come into play? Two years later. So I did Between the Lines and Fourth Reading for two years, from 92 to 94, and then Studio 2 is created. And it is going to be a daily live show at 8 p.m. basically with regular recurring guests and panels. So every Monday we would have a sports discussion.

Every Tuesday was business. Every Wednesday was foreign affairs. Every Thursday was Ottawa. Every Friday was Queens Park. And, you Ottawa. Every Friday was Queen's Park. And, you know, some field pieces in there as well. Alan Gregg worked on the program as well with his Gregg & Company conversations. My first co-host was Mary Hines

for the first two years on Studio 2, who, of course, does tapestry on CBC Radio now. And then for the next 10 years, it was Paula Todd, who came over from the Toronto Star. And that was it. We had 12 years on the show. And then what birthed the agenda?

Like, is there just a change things up? Well, new management is what birthed the agenda. Yeah, we got a new CEO who is the current CEO, Lisa DeWild, who came in. And I remember she took me out to lunch. And she had been obviously watching our programming and she said, seemed to remember the, like this is, gosh, when is this? 2005, I think, fall of 2005. And she said something like, Studio 2 was really distinctive when it first went on the air in 1994, but it's, I guess it couldn't have been, must have been, anyway, I won't get bogged down with the dates, must have been later than that.

But she said, it's not as distinctive as it once was. And we need, you know, if we're going to ask taxpayers to support what we do, we need to be just that much more distinctive than anything else on the dial. So eventually the decision was made to cancel Studio 2 to create a new program as yet unnamed, still airing at eight o'clock at night live. And that became the agenda. And was it always the agenda with Steve Pagan or this was? It was, yeah. From day one it was. Yeah. yeah pretty cool so that's uh now maybe i'll jump into a few uh a few questions from uh from listeners so chris drew says okay i'll read his words here he's hosted lots of leaders debates during provincial and federal elections would be

interesting content what would interesting content be created if all the party leaders agreed to a debate between elections? He says there's a big assumption here that they'd agree. He's curious on your thoughts as to how a leaders' debate can produce different stories, moments, content from a regular question period.

It's kind of an open question about leaders' debates. I don't think they'd ever do it. I don't think they'd ever do it. I mean, they do it at Queen's Park because they have to. And there are very strict rules there, though, of course, about how many questions you're allowed to ask and how long the answers can be and so on and so forth.

But, you know, leaders' debates are incredibly nerve-wracking events. And, you know, I've had the pleasure, or I guess pleasure is not the right word. I've had the responsibility of moderating, I think, seven of them, federally and provincially. And they are terrifying for everybody who's involved. For the leaders, of course. For the moderator, because you don't want to do anything to screw up that might adversely affect one candidate over another. And, you know, they are, in some respects, things to be survived, not necessarily things that leaders enjoy doing and would want to do more of.

So I'm sorry to say to your question, to Chris, Chris, I don't think it's on. You're going to like this, how this opens here. Andrew says, it's been said more than once, but after witnessing various federal leadership debates, the prize for most impressive performer always goes not to any of the politicians, but to the moderator, Mr. Pakin. Called you mister. That's always a sign of respect right there. Just means you're old.

That's all it means. How much time goes into preparing for these and while maintaining his journalistic objectivity? I guess he wants to know basically, how much time do you put into this? And then he says, has Steve ever wondered about throwing his hat in the ring as a candidate?

In fact, I'll give you the scoop, Mike. I am here to announce tonight. I got music for that. Breaking news. No, never. On the last question, that one's easy. No, never, never have considered it, never would consider it.

It's just, I don't think that's what I'm meant to do. But your son has. Oh yeah, my oldest son has, for sure, for sure. He dipped his toe in for a little while and then did a great thing for Canadian politics by moving to England. Is that right? But in terms of preparation for a leaders debate, it's really simple. You read absolutely everything you can get your hands on. You go to as many, you know, when the leaders come through town, I still do all this, even though I'm not moderating any debates, but as a matter of course, you read everything you can when the leaders come through Toronto or, you know, points beyond, uh, you try to get out to their events and see how they're doing.

And, um, you know, I, I still go door to door with candidates during the election time and see what they're hearing at the door and that kind of thing. And you'll be, you know, you can get a great education knowing, finding out what people are interested in by doing that. So it sounds like anything else, do your homework. Do your homework, of course, of course.

Be prepared. As with everything in life, do your homework. I learned that with the Boy Scouts. Okay, so Neil says, I've watched Studio 2 slash the agenda for years. I would love it if you could ask him how he manages to refrain from revealing his personal politics as he covers such a wide range of topics. He brings passion to the topics discussed

and yet maintains a dispassionate approach to the interview. In my estimation, it makes him one of the very best interviews on television. We're lucky to have him on our airwaves in Ontario. Neil, I very much appreciate the fact that you think I am playing it straight up. I try very hard not to reveal any bias in any of the programs that I do. I think for two reasons.

Number one, that's part of the job. The reality of the job is you don't have the same free speech rights as anybody else in the country. You have to hold your cards close to the vest. That's required. And I like the job and I want to keep the job. And so it's, you know, given that those are the conditions under which I get to keep it, I'm very happy to keep any opinions I might have to myself. But the other half of that answer is, you know, by the time John Robarts was the Premier of Ontario in the 1960s, and he used to have an expression which was, by the time an issue

gets to my desk, I could flip a coin to know what to do. Most of the stuff we debate on the agenda, they're not issues where the facts line up 90% one way and 10% the other way. They're 51-49 issues. up 90% one way and 10% the other way. They're 51-49 issues. And I remember Dalton McGinty once telling me that the issues might get to him and require a decision by him. And it'd be 51-49 one way. And so he'd make the decision that way. And two weeks later, the facts might change and it might be 51-49 the other way. So all these things are not black and white issues and so the notion that i have these burning opinions on things that are so controversial and debatable burning up inside me just waiting to get out is not true i i think one of the nice things i bring to the job is an understanding that life is complex and that um you know no one side of the debate has all the answers for everything.

Do you find it weird that your salary is put in public? Or you've adapted? Can I say the exact opposite? I find it weird that not everybody's salary who works for the taxpayer is not made public. Frankly, in the province of Ontario, we've had salary disclosure for people making north of a hundred thousand dollars a year since 1996. I think, uh, I want to know why people who work in the federal public service don't have to have salary disclosure. Why all the people at CBC aren't revealing their salaries.

That's a good point. I think, I think more disclosure, the better people, you know the better. People who pay my salary are entitled to know how much I make, and I've always taken that view. No, that's actually a good point. And they call this the sunshine list, right? This is the term. So if you wonder what Steve makes, go Google the sunshine list. Go to the Ministry of Finance website. It's all there.

Right, right. What lessons do you hope we've learned as a city from the G20? Like you were pretty, you were at the forefront, I guess you could say, of exposing some of the nuttiness at the G20. Like what do you hope, you know, what lessons do you hope we've learned from that? Well, just this goes back nine years, so I should just say parenthetically for those who don't remember all the details, and that's probably a lot of people because time marches on. The 20 most, I guess, significant nations in the world came to Toronto for a G20 conference. And it was a logistical nightmare trying to put up delegations from all of these countries in one city where meetings were going to be happening

basically at one location was incredibly difficult. And you won't be surprised to hear that with all of these important world leaders coming to Toronto, people who had ideas about how they would like these leaders to deal with issues came out and protested. And the thing that happened on a particular night

during the G20 experience was that there were people protesting peacefully in the streets whose democratic civil rights were badly abused. They were arrested for doing nothing more than trying to protest peacefully. They spent, I think there were 1,500 people arrested under such conditions and held overnight in prison cells in not very comfortable circumstances. They were kettled by police. And if you want to know what that means, go on, go fire up your Mr. Google and see what kettling means and see what that does.

I have very strong memories that night of rubber bullets flying and one missing me by not very much. memories that night of rubber bullets flying and one missing me by not very much. I have very strong memories that night of a journalist for The Guardian being beaten up by police officers who ended up before an inquiry, a public inquiry. That was not a good night for democracy in Toronto. We have, and as a former City Hall reporter, I can tell you because I covered hundreds of them, And as a former City Hall reporter, I can tell you, because I covered hundreds of them, we have a long, honorable history in this capital city of Ontario of people being allowed to peacefully protest whatever the hell they want. And the fact that the G20 comes to town doesn't mean people give up those civil rights. But they did that weekend, and it was wrong.

That's what I'll say about that. Andrew chimes in to say, and it was wrong. That's what I'll say about that. Andrew chimes in to say, Steve's interviewing and panel skills are unparalleled on the agenda. Rather than ask for a top three or memorable moment, what interview subjects were the most difficult?

Is there any, did you have anything go south on you in terms of an interview? You know, it's funny. I still am haunted by an interview I did with Mordecai Richler probably in 1995 or six. I can't remember now. It was early in the studio, two days. And he was on a book tour and I think it was a book he was not all that fond of.

And I think he came in during a day when he might, I don't know, maybe he wanted to be doing something else. But I was very excited about it. Here's one of the greatest Canadian authors ever. And I even went into the green room ahead of time, as I always do, to chat him up, just to sort of introduce myself. Get a rapport going. Exactly. Of course. Because we didn't know each other at all.

That's why we talk sports off the top. Well played, Mike. Well played. And I did the thing that I think any father would love to hear, which was I complimented his son, Daniel, who I knew a little bit and who did a show at TVO called Imprint. And I remember before going to TVO from CBC, I called Daniel and I said, you know, what's it like to work there?

Because I've been made this offer and, you know, your opinion would be important to me. And he told me, you know, great place to work and really enjoy it and et cetera. And I told Mordecai Richler how instrumental his son's advice had been in my deciding to come there. And I thought all of this might help ingratiate myself to him. Mike, it didn't. It didn't.

I got three word answers to most of the questions. Oh, that's the worst. He just didn't want to be there. And it was, it was, and I could feel the flop sweat on the back of my neck. And I just, you know, the format of studio two back in the day was to do the interview. And then after the interview was over,

the director would cut to a wide shot. He'd kill the mics and we'd sit there and you'd see lip flap for five or six seconds before they faded to black. And on that occasion, what you would have seen when we went to the wide shot was Mordecai rip his mic off and walk off the set. He wouldn't even wait the additional five seconds to get the hell out of there. And as you can tell, I'm not over it yet. No, I mean, I can tell.

And it sounds like this would be a classic. It's not you, Steve. It was him. Well, I thought it was me. I thought, you know, whenever an interview goes south, I think it's my fault. Well, I thought it was me. I thought, you know, whenever an interview goes south, I think it's my fault. I think there's something, there's some secret that I should be able to find so that it works out. Because that's your job. Your job is to create compelling content from this interaction. Yeah, of course. To find the way in.

Right. And I couldn't find it that day. Because, yeah, he wasn't giving you anything. Nope. You can't get blood from a stone, I was told oh man okay and uh okay and let's see here uh documentaries okay can you maybe spend a little time telling me about uh documentaries you produced sure um one of the things i've loved about working at tvo is that i get to do all sorts of different things i get to host a tv program i get to write columns. I get to go out and report and make documentaries was another one. There's a room for me there. This sounds

really fun. I'd like to join you. It's a good place. Who knows how long I'll be there, Mike. You know, leave me your resume. I'll pass it on to the appropriate people. And so I've had a chance to do some really, for me anyway, interesting documentaries. I think my, what year was that? I think maybe the first or second year I was there, they sent me to the former Yugoslavia to make a documentary along with Howard Bernstein on how, I think it was called Balkan Madness,

on how Yugoslavia was falling apart. I did one on the life and times of John Robarts, who again, many of your younger listeners won't know, was the premier in the 60s and who had a great premiership and whose life ended in suicide. And I mean, most people only know the library. The ugly sinking library that I used to think. That's the one. That's the one. It's named after him. Bill Davis ensured that it would be named after him. But he had a great public life and a tragic private life. I did a documentary on him. There were 120,000 teachers in the streets protesting Mike Harris's education reforms.

Did a documentary called Teachers, Tories, and Turmoil, which I enjoyed doing. A good alliteration there. Yeah. I like that. Sure. Did another one, I think, on the 1985 Ontario election, which brought an end to 42 straight years of Tory rule in the province. So anyway, a bunch of docs over the years.

I did one on the Warsaw Ghetto. They sent me to Poland to do a documentary following three Ontario families, the parents of whom were survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto, and the children of whom were being sort of introduced to some of their parents' past as never before. Who produced the Igor Kink? He hit the TV. You can't get me on the spot again.

You know who this is? Igor Kink is the, he was the guy who was busted for selling stolen bikes in the city. And then he went to your, anyway, this is a TVO doc I watched recently on your station. And I'm here to tell people it's fantastic. Maybe it's because I'm a fervent cyclist, but it's fantastic.

We run great docs to this day. I haven't made any in a long time. I'm not saying that to be self-interested. But the documentaries on TVO, I mean, that's one of the, I think, three great things that we're known for right now. Kids, current affairs, and docs. No, I would concur.

Absolutely, absolutely. Now, this is an interesting fun fact i'll share and you i'm not sure what you'll say about it but just say be proud of it i suppose but in 2012 you were named the queens park journalist with the most twitter influence in a study conducted by a pr agency uh hill nolten strategies so that's good for you. I'd say that you, uh, you got some integrity and, uh, and, uh, your tweets are, uh, carry weight. If you say so, Mike, I don't know. I'm just, I'm doing it because I enjoy it. He'll open a strategy says so, except for those Red Sox tweets. I think it's all good. Okay. Let me talk podcasting real briefly. Um, so you, you had a,

your podcast, like, uh, do you have a current active podcast right now? Yeah, yeah, yeah. John Michael McGrath, who co-hosts it with me, we do something called the On Polly podcast. On Polly being, of course, the hashtag for Ontario politics. And we do two basically different kinds of shows. John Michael is a serious policy nerd. He's a guy who's up till two in the morning reading the planning act every

night. Right. So he does shows that are very much focused on policy. I, on the other hand have been, I don't know why, but somehow fascinated for years about the motivations of people who go into politics.

So I do the kind of long form deep dive interviews, not dissimilar to what we're doing right here, with politicians at Queen's Park. Sure. And between the two of them together, that's the On Polly podcast. And you won't be surprised to know that all of our podcasts, sort of from September on,

are going to be federal election focused through our traditional Ontario lens. Absolutely. You got to keep up with the man's bridge. He's got one too. The bridge. Yes. The bridge. Yes, indeed. The bridge. Absolutely. You got to keep up with the man's bridge. He's got one too. The bridge. Yes. The bridge.

Yes, indeed. The bridge. Absolutely. Now, another Mike, not me, but a different Mike wanted me to ask you, ask Steve Paikin if he misses diplomatic immunity. That show was the most intellectual discussion on world events. Isn't that amazing? You know, maybe twice a year, somebody will come up to me

at a ball game or the subway, or while I'm walking down the street or something, and they will say, boy, I sure miss diplomatic immunity. And that's funny that that show emerged because I was telling you earlier that on studio two, every Wednesday, we covered foreign affairs and we had a foreign affairs panel of Janice Stein from the U of T Richard Gwynn from the Toronto star and Eric Margulies from the Toronto Star, and Eric Margulies from the Toronto Sun. And every Wednesday, we would talk about whatever was hot in foreign affairs. And people really responded well to that trio. And so we decided to branch out and create a sequel, if you like, for just them, a spinoff. And so the show was called Diplomatic Immunity,

and it was on every week. And we would have the three of them, and then in latter years, Patrick Martin as well from The Globe and Mail, and a special guest. And that became a weekly show. And I think it lasted for seven years or something like that. And loved it, you know, just really enjoyed it. Well, Mike misses it, so. Thank you, Mike. You're one of the two this year who are going to approach me on that and give me a fuzzy

warm feeling about it. Now, you only mentioned his name once so far. I'm a little disappointed, but I want to ask you about the goat. Do you know who the goat is? It's Mr. Bill Davis. So I heard you mention him with regards to the Robards. Now, you call him the goat because he's the greatest of all time. Is that what you mean?

Would you concur? Would you agree? He's the greatest of all time. The greatest what? Go ahead, Mike. What did you mean? Would you concur? Would you agree? He's the greatest of all time. The greatest what? Go ahead, Mike. What did you mean? Well, you have to be careful, of course. But you are the official.

You are the go-to Bill Davis authority. Well, if by that you mean I wrote a book about him, yes, I did. I had the pleasure of covering his last government, which was 1981 to 85, and wrote a 600-page book about him, which came out a year or two ago. Well, let me just put it this way. Bill Davis won four straight elections. No one's won four elections in 100 years. Right.

Every premier since Bill Davis, who left office in 1985, has either lost an election or quit before they would have lost the next election. Bill Davis actually left a fifth, in my opinion, supported by many others, including Bob Ray. Bill Davis left a fifth election victory on the cutting room floor. Bill Davis left a fifth election victory on the cutting room floor. Had he decided to go to the polls instead of retire in 1985, I'm convinced he would have won a fifth victory. So this man was not only a highly successful politician in terms of wins and losses, and he never lost ever. He never lost anything ever.

And he never lost ever. He never lost anything ever. He won a personal election in his seat in Brampton in 59, 63, 67, 71, 75, 77, and 81. And he won the PC Leadership Convention in 1971 to take over from Robarts to become Premier of Ontario. So he never lost. Okay, so that's one side of the coin. And the other side of the coin is look around the province of Ontario today. And there's a lot that we have right now because of what I would suggest are the wise decisions that his government made. And he didn't get them all

right, but he got enough of them right that, you know, I think he can hold his head high. I think he can hold his head high. I feel the goat is appropriate here. So you have relationships with, first of all, how old is Bill Davis now? He just turned 90 in July. Oh, good for him. Yeah.

Wow. Now you have relationships with all the premiers, right? I guess what I'm curious about, though, is can you tell me about what's your relationship like with Doug Ford? Well, when you say relationships, I mean, I've known them all since Bill Davis. You know, I don't pal around with them. You're not meeting them at the bar for a drink? No, no, we don't hang out or anything like that together.

But if we're at a political event and I see one, I'm certainly comfortable enough to go up and strike up a conversation with some of them. I have a perfectly good relationship, I think, with Premier Ford. We have not managed to get him to come on the agenda yet since he's become Premier. He's been on the show, I think, three times before he became Premier. Three or four, I can't recall right now. But I look forward to having that one-on-one interview with him at some point. But i know that every time he's been on in the past and he's told me this he says the reaction he gets is just terrific he's a very high level of awareness of when he comes on the show so i hope he will come on sometime i think your buddy bruce dobegan said you you seemed a little too tight with uh kathleen win for example

too tight like what does that mean what does that mean no he wants you to let her know um kathleen win i'll tell you what okay bruce if you're listening i want you to know that um i had a meeting with kathleen win after she was no longer premier so after the election was over i went to her constituency office and we had just a private conversation uh the details of which i'm not going to go into here because it was a private conversation. But she did allow, I think she wouldn't mind my saying this, she did allow, oh, because she said this publicly as well, that most times she came on the agenda for an interview, I used to put up the poll that showed that she was the least popular premier in the whole country, right? She was 10th out of 10. And it really used to bug her.

And I used to ask her, you know, stupid question like, well, what do you think of this? And she'd say, well, you know, what am I supposed to think of it? I love it. I think it's fantastic that I'm the least popular premier around. So Bruce, you may not have liked the interviews, but you wouldn't be alone because I think Ms. Wynn didn't like some aspects of them either. That'll make them feel better, I think. One more question. Two more questions here. One of the best interviews about the state of politics and hockey was done by yourself, Steve,

and Toronto Mike veteran David Schultz. I like how he called him. While almost all of Steve Paikin's books are about politics and politicians, another of his golden nuggets was the fine, the new game, how hockey saved itself. Oh my gosh. Today, the TV ratings in the US are still in the toilet

and the league is still lacking the success of baseball and football. What is hockey doing wrong? Or interestingly, what is hockey doing right? I guess this is a whole 90 minute episode in itself here. You gotta fix the hockey. Well, the person is referring to a book I wrote after the lockout season was over.

So basically, hockey changed a lot after that. What year was that? 2004, I think? 2004. Right. When the Stanley Cup was not awarded because they... No, wait. No, 2005 is when there was no cup.

There was no cup in 2005. Okay. Because the last Maple Leaf playoff victory was in the spring of 2004 when we lost to the... Well, we beat the Senators in seven games and then we lost to the Flyers in six, I think. Okay, so this is the... 2005 was no Stanley Cup. No Stanley Cup in 2005. So I think the following year, I decided to do a book on all the changes hockey was making to become more successful if and when the game

came back. Right. And you remember Brendan Shanahan had a whole summit where he got people together and he said. Of course, yeah. Went to my high school, by the way. Oh, is that right? Yeah, he's a little older than me, but went to my high school. Mimico? Yeah. Well, Michael Power, when it was at like Dundas. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Islington. Yeah. So he had a whole summit and people thought hockey was getting, was like boring because it was too much clutch and grab and there wasn't enough scoring and the talented players weren't allowed to show their stuff. Right. Anyway, so I basically went to a bunch of hockey arenas all over North America and talked to a bunch of people about some of the stories associated with hockey. I think the book was called The New Game, How Hockey Saved Itself.

So these were the changes that were brought in. And we see the results of those changes today i mean hockey is unbelievable today like this if you watch games mike from when we were kids yeah they look like they're in slow motion compared to the game today right the clutching and grabbing oh and this i mean the guys today they're in better shape the shots are harder the skating is faster the hitting hitting is harder. I mean, it's just, it's almost no comparison. You did it, Steve. You saved hockey. Perfect. Go Leafs go.

Last question. Actually, before this last question, December 2013, you were made an officer of the Order of Canada and invested into the Order of Ontario. What did that mean to you personally? Well, it was unbelievable. It was just unbelievable. You know, as far as I'm concerned,

I've just kind of gone to work every day for 37 years and tried to make a living, you know, creating stuff that might be of interest to people. And the notion that that would lead to that is just, I'm still kind of befuddled at how to react to all of that. I remember being in Rideau Hall. They call your name. You walk forward. You're standing there in front of the governor general, David Johnston in this case. And as they're reading out this list of stuff about why you got the thing, I look at him and I mouth the words, I have no idea why I'm here.

And he looks back at me and he says, I do. And that really calmed me down and put me at rest. But Mike, you're standing there with people who are working for the cure. Do you feel like a fraud? Totally. Totally. I mean, you're with people who have, who are, who are finding the cure for cancer. You are with people who have, you know, run huge companies and donated millions to charity. You are with people. Sheldon Kennedy got it the same year, same day I did. Sheldon Kennedy, who's done such fantastic work to try to bring out of the shadows, the sexual abuse of, of kids. Um, you know, they were just, I looked around and I just thought, my God, what the hell am I doing here?

And it's, you know, it's just a very, it's a very special thing. But I noticed you still accepted it. So if they're dumb enough to give it to me, I'm dumb enough to take it. But I will tell you one thing. Yeah. And I got in trouble with the GG over this. I never wear them on the air. I never wear the pins on the air.

I know you're supposed to and i know other journalists do and good for them but i never do and i think it's just because it feels a little too pretentious peacocky for me i don't know i want the attention to be on my guests and i just worry that if i'm wearing some bling that the attention is going to be on my guests, and I just worry that if I'm wearing some bling that the attention is going to be on that, and I don't want that. No, I get that. I get that. Yeah, it's a bit too boastful almost,

like you're showing off. You can peacock, like you said. And when David Johnston, the Governor General, was a guest on the agenda, he gave me H-E double hockey sticks for not wearing them, as he should have. That's right. There we go. Well, congrats for that. them, as he should have, but there we go. Well, congrats for that.

Your final question here, I want to close with this. So Carlo, first I want to see if I can pronounce his name, okay? Carlo de Girolamo. Man, my mouth does not like to make these. Carlo de Girolamo. Any details related to overtures from the private dark side in Canada or the U.S.? And what he's trying to say there is, have you ever tried to be lured into the private sector or to the U.S. for a TV gig there?

Well, let me just put it this way. Yes, there have been other overtures, but I'm really very bloody happy where I am. I like where I work. I like where I work. I like the people I work with. I like the culture of the place I work at. I like the mission of public broadcasting. I like our mandate,

which speaks to people as citizens, not as eyeballs to deliver to advertisers. So, you know. You're a happy guy. Correct. And it seems like you're still passionate about the work you're doing. And probably because you're still, you do so many different creative things. Like I totally, totally dig it.

The job has changed 180 degrees from when I started there 27 years ago. And, uh, come on, I go to work every day and I, it's like going to school. I get to learn something new every day and talk to people who are the most fascinating people in the country. So, yeah, I like it. And you do a great job at TVO. Appreciate that, Mike. You do a great job at this. I appreciate that. And now you can listen to Ben Mergey kick out the jams on your drive home.

But seriously, thanks for doing this, taking time out of your busy schedule to hang out with me in my basement. It was an absolute pleasure. I really enjoyed it. Thanks for the invitation. And that brings us to the end of our 515th episode. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at TorontoMikeSteve. What's your Twitter handle? At SPakin. That's S-P-A-I-K-I-N. Follow him and learn why he's the most respected, uh,

Queen's Park journalist on Twitter, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Our friends at Great Lakes brewery or at Great Lakes beer property in the six.com is at Raptors devotee. Congrats,

Brian, on winning that, uh, softball championship. Palma pasta is at Palma pasta. Sticker you is at sticker. You Capadilla LLP is at Capadia LLP. And Pumpkins After Dark are at PumpkinsAfterDark.com.

See you all later this week when my guest is Roger Mooking. It's my UI check, I ask this command Ah, where you been? Because everything is kind of rosy and gray Yeah, the wind is cold, but the snow wants me today And your smile is fine, and it's just like mine And it won't go away Because everything is rosy and gray And your smile is fine and it's just like mine and it won't go away. Cause everything is rosy and green.