Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - The Toronto Star's Edward Keenan: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1726

Episode Date: July 8, 2025

In this 1726th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Toronto Star city columnist Ed Keenan about Ontario Place, Tory vs. Chow, bubble zones, sixplexes, the Eglinton Crosstown LRT, bike lanes, graffiti and more. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball, the Waterfront BIA, Nick Ainis and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail].

Hi, this is Steve Pakin and you're listening to one of the absolute best. Here's Toronto Mike. Would you record one for me Ed Keenan? Oh, I love that you got the local media personality promos. I'll get you to cut one before we say goodbye to it. Look at you to cut one before we say goodbye to it. Welcome to episode 1726 of Toronto Mic'd, proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma Pasta! Enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta

in Mississauga and Oakville. Toronto's Waterfront BIA! Check out what's happening on Toronto's waterfront this summer. Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball. Get your butts to Christie Pits this summer for the best baseball in the city outside the dome. RecycleMyElectronics.ca. Committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past. Building Toronto Skyline. A podcast and book from Nick Aynes, sponsored by Fusion Corp Construction Management Inc. and Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921.

Today joining me for his quarterly appearance. Ladies and gentlemen. From the Toronto Star. Boys and girls. And parts unknown. It's Ed Keenan. Hey. How you doing?

How you doing? I have a guy coming over later this week. His name is Scott MacArthur. Are you familiar with the name Scott MacArthur? He did afternoon drive on 1010, the Rush. And he was on TSN and he was on 590. But he- And I think he did some TV for a while too.

I think I was on a TV panel with at some time in the even then maybe in the global context Well, that's possible. But what he's uh, no one for he lives now in Halifax, but he's in town He's gonna drop by later this week. He's no one for his macho man. Randy Savage and bright. There you go world-renowned Macho man impersonator, but I feel like that is excellent That's the next best though. Well, I don't I make up in What I lack in like accuracy I make up in volume and enthusiasm. That's the oh Yeah, baby, would you cut a Toronto Mike promo? You gotta get Scott MacArthur to do that. That's actually

I will, but you can have dueling promos like Ed Keenan as Macho Man. Toronto Mike coming at ya. Do you want another run at that Mr. Keenan? No, no, I just want to move on. How are you doing? I'm doing pretty good. I'm doing pretty good. I just I've spent a lot of time in the sun the last few days Too much time at softball tournaments watching and coaching my daughter and so that's a good way to spend time, but if I'm if my brain takes Temporary vacations, that's why it's because it's been baked all welcome to my world and nobody will notice. Okay, that's how my brain It's my day

Excellent. Okay, excellent. Now you're normally the first Thursday of every quarter That's and you were unavailable last Thursday. So we pushed it all the way to Tuesday I'm telling you if you saw the hundreds of angry emails I got saying where is Kenan people who have it in their own calendars? Cuz that's that's how it comes up for us right is just a calendar notification and typically no other communication except that last week I had to send an email and say hey look I'm gonna be out of town right but so so

to those who waited around thank you I appreciate your sacrifice and we have a good turnout on the live stream some some good eggs there I was chatting up J ho and 12 36. I have a frame rate issue on my live stream So it sort of looks like max headroom, but I think it's a cool adjust your set. That's just the way I look it's something I need to figure out now a Bit mapping is kind of like my my look these days Well the thing that it it seems like we figured out that the live streams fine until I start recording because I'm recording this episode as well and once I start recording the frame rate goes to to shit so these are this is the joy is I don't have a robust

team like you have behind you at the Toronto Star. That's right that's right but you make up an enthusiasm and volume what you know. Yeah. Yeah. Off the top. Sorry about the frame rate and sorry about the delay but here I am you know in freeze frame. Well we have a lot to cover and I'm gonna try to do it in two hours. So all right. But I do want to remind people they should if they haven't already they should subscribe to the Toronto Star because that helps keep great journalism going and you write for the Toronto Star is that correct Ed Keenan? I do I do so the subscribers help you know pay my bills which is much

appreciated and all of that but I mean I like to think we present really good value I'm partly reluctant to make subscription appeals on the basis of like you have to support journalism. Although it is true that without subscribers at this point, I mean we still get advertising revenue but it's nowhere near what it used to be and it's so it's like the kind of there's no other publication or media outlet with more than one person at City Hall today and there's no other print media outlet with more than one person at City Hall today. And there's no other print media outlet with any people permanently at City Hall.

And the Toronto Star has five, five full timers at City Hall, right? We have investigative teams who have, you know, uncovered scandal after scandal and they do long, hard, difficult work. And then of course we have wise asses like me but but all of that like it's not going to survive without subscriptions but I do like to think that there's a value proposition for the people reading it too is that if if you get in the habit there's all the stuff you need to know about Toronto and much of the stuff you need to know the rest of the world right

there in the package so there you go and it's super cheap right now like to get it introductory subscription I think it's super cheap right now, like to get an introductory subscription. I think it's like a dollar for six months or something like that. You can't get a coffee for that. And unlike in the old days, you don't have to call and argue with somebody to cancel your subscription. If you don't like it, you can just do it online. And so, so, you know, people should give it a try.

Absolutely. May I ask before we dive right in, I got some hot topics for you here. Yeah. What is the current state of the the podcasts at Toronto Star? Is that anything you can speak to? Yeah, the difficulty in speaking to it right now is that I don't know a lot. I mean, I think as the last couple times I came here, things were in flux and then I went back to sort of like the old usual for a while where a couple times a week I was doing this matters podcast but but the podcast team is not as big as we would like it to be and so you know the producers and the executives and the

techs there there were a few projects they really wanted to get rolling with and get underway and get a lot of steam behind that are really good and so I'm kind of on hold like when when a really great interview subject or topic comes up for me I do a sort of a spot one right now and the plan is that over the next few months we'll develop something a little more regular for me but it's it's kind of on pause. What if we combine forces like Tor Star and TMDS and became this dynamic podcasting institution?

I am not the obstacle to that. I will tell you, I would be all in favor of that, but it's way above my pay grade to start making any plans on it. Your substantial pay grade. But I will be an enthusiastic supporter of that if we can like wonder twin powers activate Oh, I loved that super friend. Oh star mike

Toronto miked star if I may though the the guy always had to be the toronto squared The guy had always had to be water-based right? Like so like she'd be like a I don't know I'm like a hawk a horse or he'd be like a glass of water. He'd be like ice cubes in a bucket Yeah, or something. Like he had a raw deal. It really is one of the strangest superpowers. And I mean, occasionally he could be like, form of a tidal wave! And you're like, wow, that's a powerful thing! But more often, he was trying to take a convenient form of water that could easily be transported by whatever animal she was. So if she was a hawk, he would be a bucket of, well, he would be the water and Glick, their little monkey would

come over with a bucket. His superpower was procuring buckets and props to hold the water dude. What do you think Ed Keenan is the age cut off to know what the hell we're talking about? Like, one year 20 pounds. Because, I'm serious. Like, what if 40, my wife's 43. I should go grab her. Almost. Yeah, 43.

But do you think a 45 year old knows what the hell we're talking about when we say wonder twin powers activate? I think a 45 year old would. Like, my wife is 46. And her and her brother grew up doing some wonder to empowers like okay I joke because but is that an older brother? Cuz he's no no he's younger than her so I think it was still in reruns there But I mean I think maybe when you get to 35 it might be a bit more

puzzling to them, and I think that say my children Only know about it because I tell them about it That's how I educate my kids. Am I not a lot of like does a lot of reading and watching of YouTube's about comic book history and stuff. So he can explain to you a lot about the development of those characters and what actual comic books they appeared in and what TV series and all of that. This is Peter Potter.

He hasn't watched a lot of it on his own. Right. Right. Well, listen, it's always interesting conversation. TV series and all of that. This is Peter Porter. He hasn't watched a lot of it on his own, right? Like, right? Well, listen, it's always interesting conversation. We drop these references We're both similar vintage Gen Xers and then we're like wonder twin powers activate I'm not sure a millennial knows what the hell we're talking about. But okay, so they'll just think it's our own cool tagline Did you now I'm gonna put you on the spot and we're getting right now But do you have you listened at all to any Toronto Miked episodes, specifically the recent debut of Josh Matlow? Have you listened at all to any Toronto Miked episodes?

Do you even listen to this program, Ed? I sometimes do, but I admit that your pace of episode creation is so high that I miss a I miss a lot but you and I did not listen to the Matt Josh Matlow okay cuz I would think I would that's where we're driving towards so I would think you would cherry pick and you might see Josh Matlow and you might considering your line of work you might be interested in how does Josh vibe with Toronto Mike in the basement for an hour or so anyway there was an episode of Josh Matlow I'm just gonna quote Josh on something I saw in blue sky today okay he wrote on blue sky Josh Matlow. I'm just going to quote Josh on something I saw in Blue Sky today, okay? He wrote on Blue Sky, Josh Matlow, city councilor FOTM, he wrote, the latest Ontario place,

is it Terme? Have we decided what it is? Terme? Not therm? Is it therm? Is it? I don't know. Okay, well I'm going to say Therme until someone corrects me. That's what I assumed it was. Okay, see there are words like with Thomas, for example, right? Thomas is T.H. So what do I know? But it's got to be like the same root word as thermal, like, oh, my God. Right. Or something, right? Like you're making some sense here. OK, the latest Ontario place, Thermay Spa, rendering are an admission

that the private company, along with the Ford government, are scrambling to figure out how to put more lipstick on this massive tax dollar sucking island hogging pig so those words belong to Josh Matlow yeah but have you seen the renderings that kind of were released this week well man now I'm really on the spot because I thought you were gonna ask me about the parking lot and all of that talk about what you know Doug Ford renderings that we got you know a week or two ago and and I do think the five-story parking garage is like compounding like injury on injury but but I haven't seen the latest renderings that he's commenting

on what do they have you seen them yeah there's something like it's a new replacement for I guess the Budweiser stage right okay yeah there so it's just fancy new drawings of what yeah Ontario Place will look like apparently so I mean I think I have seen these and they don't look a lot different. They have nothing about them changes my mind, right? About about how things are gonna go here. But the bigger Budweiser stage we knew about and there's more advanced drawings of the sort of like revamped science center that's gonna be you know the the the old Sinisphere and the old pods that were part of Ontario Place back in the day

will be the new Science Center and there'll be a new building affiliated with that. And then there's this new five story parking garage. And so if people are just catching up, and I think if they're regular listeners of yours, they're on there already likely to already know some of this but like The original proposal part of the scandal of it It's like there are people who think this giant glass box spa slash water park Right there on the lake is a good idea and okay more power to them But there's a lot of us who think I have no

objection to this kind of facility in the city it actually seems like it might be kind of cool but why would you take one of the few large acreage waterfront parks we have and and just enclose it and for a private water park like what you've got water actual water water right there, right? Like why would you do that? Why not put this up near Legoland in Vaughan, right? Or why not put it like somewhere with easy access to the highways? There's probably sites along the Don Valley or whatever where, where you have got lots

of parking space. You've got, you know, people can come from all over the region to go to it. Like, why take the one bit of waterfront parkland that Ontario owns, which used to be kind of an amusement park, and enclose it? So like nothing about these newly revamped drawings and the beach space they're planning and all of that, you know, that should be open to the public but will be more difficult to access and all of that changes my mind about the project. But part of the scandal of the original proposal was not just like, oh, this is what they're

going to do. And this is potentially the sweetheart deal that this company was given on a 99-year lease to do it. But that the province had guaranteed they'd build like an outrageous amount of parking spaces and it was good, the plan was there would be an underground parking garage and because Ontario Face is built entirely on fill, like, like a hundred years ago that was part of the lake and we, we put dirt and construction fill and whatnot there to create this

island or this little peninsula off off the lakefront building anything underground there is incredibly difficult because as soon as you get a few feet underground you're like you're dealing with mud and water and you have to build a waterproof structure like five stories underground to get all that parking and so it was going to be like a billion dollar parking lot right and and the province was going to have to build it and so then Olivia Chow had said like well what about our exhibition place is right across the street you could put a parking lot there we've it's already a giant parking lot for most of the year

sure and also she was saying maybe some of the older I mean if 1236 is listening I know he would he is on the live stream part part of him would would be hurt to hear that better living better living center which has a special place in his heart if I'm remembering internet history career are remembering but but was like potentially be developable partly as a parking lot that could be underground and above ground or whatever right but but they've walked away from that and so a big part of the Ontario Place site is gonna be a giant concrete five-story box again blocking views of the lake blocking

views of whatever new architectural stuff is there taking up a huge ton of space now it's gonna go on top of where there's already parking lots now but again it's it's kind of an eyesore on what they're pitching as a as a new jewel of the waterfront right so I mean I I don't think Josh I could look closer at the specific renderings he's talking about but I actually don't think Josh Matlow is wrong in what he's saying. I'm not surprised by it. Somebody, like somebody who bills themselves as, I'm trying to remember the acronym this person uses because it's like they don't call themselves a VIP, they call themselves like a a UIP, like used to be an important person. So a semi-retired person who used to be a big figure in

Ontario and Toronto You know Civic Affairs Had called me and and the reason I'm not identifying them is because they specifically said they They weren't trying to publicly weigh in on this say but they were just trying to ask me like why isn't this more controversial? Why is this kind of gone away how come how come only Josh Matlow is talking about it and you know partly it's to deal with Olivia Chow but I think partly a lot of the people who are even like supportive of the activists on this but it feels like like there's nothing you could do to change the

previous mind like that they're just marching ahead and and nothing's going to make any difference. Well, you mentioned so I'm going to read another quote from Matlow on I pulled from Blue Sky, but this is back when they were talking about the parking spaces, he wrote, Ford is proposing sixteen hundred Ontario place parking spaces, assuming a full lot every day of the year, a generous assumption, he puts in parentheses, and even granting some turnover, in parentheses, let's say 2,000 entrants a day,

the province would still have to charge $82 per entrant to total $60 million a year. Which is what they say they're gonna make on it. Yeah, and the math just does not math. The math does not math up. There's no way that they're gonna get the kind of revenue out of that parking lot. Like, and unless you're charging like 80 or 100 bucks a day,

but unless we forget. Unless we forget. Like there is a giant parking lot, like 12 months a year directly across the street, right? That if I'm remembering right, costs about $15 $15 flat rate you talking about like if you were going to be a little bit yeah yeah you're going to see a soccer match or like there's a few thousand parking spaces in exhibition place most of the time right there's a underground one under the under the convention center

there there's the surface parking lots right by the cause and BMO field and way over near the Dufferin gates as well There's more of them where the children's Midway goes during the X and right and then there's like some some parking lots up in Liberty Village To Green Peas and whatnot, so I mean Then it's not so It's not like be and how expensive is a visit to the new Science Center gonna be if it's 80 bucks a day to park That's I don't know Plus we're gonna have a subway line coming right there

Yeah, but the people who go to the spa don't take the subway at Keenan They're not gonna go and take it as you get your bathing suit and your towel and you hop on the red rocket I think that's in the Venn diagram. These are two circles. Can I Yeah, so you want me to run up and get you a colder one? Hop hop. Yeah. Do you want me to get you a colder one? Sure. So I'm going to do you want me to? Yeah, I'm going to set you up a question.

No, I'm going to set you up because I do want to hear your thoughts on Adam Vaughn and Ontario Place. So tell the listenership how Adam Vaughn is now tied to Ontario Place. And I want to know your thoughts on that. I'll be back in like two shakes of a lamb's tail.

All right. So Adam Vaughan, many people will remember was a city councillor. Before that he was a city TV reporter slash personality slash anchor. He covered City Hall for years. His father, Colin Vaughn, also was a politician and then a reporter, columnist, TV personality who commented on Civic Fair. So he and his family have been involved in it for a long time. He represented the ward that has Ontario Place and the exhibition in it, Spadina Fort York, as a city coun. And there, he was one of the loudest, most direct critics of Doug Ford's kind of waterfront plans, his Ferris wheel on the portlands, and all of that. And after he left, he went to Ottawa.

He was trying to work on housing portfolios as a liberal in Justin Trudeau's government for a few terms and then he kind of retired into working for Navigator which is like a crisis communications strategic communications consultancy they're like really secretive about who their who their client list is they're the kind of people who if you get charged with sexual assault or you kill somebody in your car, you get arrested for drunk driving and you're famous or rich, you call them and they help you try to make it look like you were the good guy, you know, among other basic like communication stuff, right? So it seemed like at that point to me that when he retired from politics and went to work for Navigator he was like it like it's

time that he gets his right like I if you go out to be a hired gun mm-hmm you're you're now hired gun right um And it seems like he's been hired by Thurme to be the the public relations representative, the spokesperson for the new spa. And the shocking thing about that to a lot of people is that is that he was such a critic of the kind of like bells and whistles on the

waterfront kind of stuff such a guy who would lecture you at length very earnestly and and not always respectfully about like what good city building looks like and what good use of public land looks like and and you know how they did it you know in this when they're developing the Saint Lawrence neighborhood you know in his dad's generation I you know smart city planning in and not just like big stunts right I'm and now he's the spokesperson for the big stunt I'm and the private grab now I've talked to a couple people who've talked to him

like and he he seems to be a believer like like maybe he doesn't feel like he's compromising anything he maybe he does think this is good idea but it was a bit of surprising that that to some people who you know his name used to get bandied around as a potential mayor of Toronto and all of that and and to see him now you know sort of be the hired gun spokesperson for the company that a lot of the people who would have voted for him thinks is the boogeyman is kind of a surprise.

Wouldn't you love to know how much remuneration he's receiving, what compensation he's receiving for this role? I imagine it's a fair number. renumeration he's receiving what compensation he's receiving for this role i have a nice means a fair number i can't expect i can only speculate it would be substantial enough because i feel like this is an reputation uh... destroying certainly among a lot of his constituency right like that

this is the thing is there are people who could take this job mark saunders or whatever, right? Nobody who liked them to begin with is going to care, right? Like nobody who liked them to begin with is going to think this is a bad thing. Whereas Adam Vaughan, a lot of the people who would be his most enthusiastic supporters in most contexts, who think he's the spokesperson for us, they think, now think he's gone to the dark side. And he's like, I mean, one thing, assuming Adam Vaughan says, and taking him at his word for a moment, that he actually thinks this is a good idea, you know, and

give Doug Ford credit when credit is due, the plan to revitalize Ontario Place, it's been a dead space. This, this thermos spa is gonna bring people down there as part of the plan. They're gonna build some like revamp beachfront, do some environmental cleanup on the lake. There's gonna be the Science Centre there and all of that. Like taking him at his word that the reason he took this job is because he believes in the project. The inconvenient thing for him, like what makes it doubly kind of hard to explain or feel credible is that it's like every high-profile person who's spoken out in favor of this spa, there was a big report that Richard Florida's

organization did that was commissioned by Thermae, right? There was the Lake Ontario Waterkeeper started really speaking out in favor of the cleanup that was being done and all of that. And then it turns out there's some big financial arrangement there, right? It's like everybody who comes out to speak in favor of it, turns out is getting paid. And all the people speaking out against it are just legitimately concerned, right? Like they're not paid lobbyists opposing it.

They don't have some alternative money making use that they're in favor of, right? Like so Ed Keenan has cracked open his hop pop from Great Lakes Blurry. There we go. Joy. It's fresh. Summer day. By the way, I like to remind the good people at Thermie that there are sponsorship opportunities on Toronto Mic'd and perhaps the next episode is me singing the praises of our wonderful new and I'll do a day at the spa. What an amazing thing we have here. I can bike to this wonderful spa. Here's what I'll say. Like. I think there's a fair chance that in 40 years or whatever,

maybe not you and I, but maybe like we'll be dead. Our kids in Toronto will look back and say, the new Ontario place is great. Right. There's the water slides and stuff they got in there, the big concert venue, the Science Centre is like where, you know, I go with my grandchildren and all of that. It's like, what a treasure. And this is kind of what I think about our co-hosting the World Cup too,

is that like, I think there's a fair chance it's a hell of a party and that it's fondly remembered. And I still think it won't be worth the money we're putting in, right? And I think there's a good chance that this spa and everything else around it is gonna turn out to be a decent tourist attraction in the neighborhood. It's gonna become a decent tourist attraction in the neighborhood. It's gonna be come a

place that people in Toronto and Ontario like like and create good memories there and all of that which still doesn't mean it's the best thing we could do with well we less we still doesn't mean it's a good deal for us. The taxpayer money. How much money are taxpayers putting into this private spa? well, I Mean they gave up the land on a lease that's not gonna return Much revenue and then there we're building this parking lot. So whatever the cost of that parking lot is Minus the revenue and then whatever opportunity cost for what we could do right like So like I don't think we're not paying thermate to build do, right? Like, so like I don't think we're not paying Thurman to build it, right? They are paying to construct it and they are also

paying for other things around it. But you've got this land at, you know, what could we sell it for? What could we lease it for? And their long-term lease deal, I don't have the numbers in front of me. I have looked them up. I wrote at some point. It wasn't the whole point of the column, but I discussed in the column the revenue it was expected to return back. And I think like over the term of the lease, it works out to... I could be wrong, but I think it was like in the ballpark of like twenty million dollars a year or something that they would wind up getting back from it.

It's just like, given the value of that land that's not a strong return on that investment. It may have been dramatically even lower than that now that I'm thinking about it but it was you know over a hundred years or something we're gonna get a couple hundred million dollars right and that's not you you could just charge admission to the old Ontario Place and make more than that I think right? So I'm gonna I'm gonna move us off Ontario Place because I did pledge to myself keep this two hours but before I move off from Josh Matlow who you should listen to on Toronto Mike he dropped by fairly recently it was in June but he's I told him about my fantasy where I bike

to the island okay I still have this I can see it like I close my eyes and I'm on the waterfront trail and I'm biking to the island and he's proposing this gondola. It's I kind of vision it like the midway. You have the the gondola that would like like like cable cars in the sky. Right. Like that hang down. They used to have that. They still have some version of it now at the CNE but there used to be those ones that you'd get in you could go all the way across on the mid the midway on these this yeah

when I used to work there I remember but he he makes a compelling argument like I'm starting to wrap my head around it but how viable is this like do you have any thoughts on Josh Matlow's proposal for this gondola to the island? Well, the city's gonna study like, bridges and or gondolas and or whatever. And I think like, whatever we wanna build is gonna be difficult, which doesn't mean we shouldn't build it. Right.

Because I do think the demand, the number of people who would like to get over to the Toronto Islands is like severely limited by the ferry service that we have and even even if the ferry service improves over the next decades and it's going to be decades before they get real significant improvements there in the terms of like you still kind of bottle neck off all in one place and so it's like if there was a pedestrian bridge or a tunnel or a gondola you know on the eastern gap near Cherry Beach and yet that that is a shipping channel right that's all the all the big shipping

boats that need to come in and out of the Toronto Harbor have to come in through that gap, right? So you would need a either a lift bridge or a gondola that's suspended high enough in the air that that and you know, like You know does the city own all enough land on that side? Do we have you know parking lot space? Do we have the you know, there there's a lot of complicated questions But for the so long the city was resistant to even discussing it, so their value here is that they're actually going to study this now. And I think like the idea of a gondola might be as promising as the idea of a bridge, although

the value of a bridge, as you point out, like especially a pedestrian slash cycling bridge, is that you could ride your bike over and And every time you're at the Toronto Islands without a bike, like you think, oh, this would be the perfect place. They do have Bike Share over there now, finally. And that's a real improvement. If you're a Bike Share member, like getting around on the island itself.

But, you know, so, you know, I think it's worth looking at, but I don't think it's gonna be soon, and I don't think it's gonna be quick or easy or cheap if we do do it, but that doesn't mean it's not worth doing. So, Ed, we started at Ontario Place, now I've got us taking a gondola to the island. I envision myself with my bike on that gondola, okay, when I close my eyes. So now you want to talk about Bluffers Park, or are we moving east on the waterfront? Well, before we leave the waterfront, I want to welcome a brand new sponsor, the Waterfront BIA, who is a new partner of Toronto

Mike. And what I've decided I'm going to do this summer is I'm going to shout out upcoming events that are happening on the waterfront. So I actually attended with my family a Filipino festival that was at the Harborfront Center there on the waterfront. I was there on Saturday and that was a great deal of fun. But I'm here to tell you July 12 to 13, so this weekend coming up, celebrate the Festival of India Chariot Fest at Center Island after they're gonna have a parade on Yonge Street and then the Chariot Fest Celebrations will move to Center Island for the rest of the weekend. The festival is open and free for all Offering something for everyone with its diverse mix of celebrations and fun. There's the waterfronts amazing right Ed? We love water. Yeah, what is the Chariot Fest? Oh, you you're asking tough questions here I don't actually I'd have to Google it but Maybe moose grumpy can put that in a live stream. Is there chariot races?

And if so, can you participate? Yeah, you ever heard of Ben Hur? Okay, so India chariot fest sounds amazing I'm gonna get more detail from correspondent moose grumpy later in the program But I wanted to give some love to the waterfront BIA. All right. And how's your hot pop? It is delicious and refreshing. I want to shout out the Island Cafe which is on the island which is reopened. They had a fire last year. They have reopened. Oh good. They have reopened and they serve Great Lakes beer there and there's a great episode of Between Two Fermenters which is hosted by Troy Burch from Great Lakes where where he talks to the owner of the Island Cafe. This is shortly after the fire. Yeah, brand new. They have a special beer that Great Lakes made to commemorate the reopening of

the Island Cafe on the island. Alright, I'm going to have to go over there and have lunch. You want to go together? You want to go together? Okay, can you get Toronto Star to expense like we go to the island and we eat and we drink? And do Wonder Twin Powers activate podcast from the islands. Maybe we'll kayak over there. Yeah. Okay.

We'll work on that. Okay. I know why you're here Ed. It's not just because it's your quarterly appearance and you're obligated to be here. I know you want a palma pasta lasagna. Yeah. That's what my kids will be happy. I've got one in the freezer for you. Because, yeah, they're always big on the podcast pasta and, and you know, I have

gone and bought Palma pasta lasagna as a result of enjoying it so much. See? From here. So I am not being, I guess, I was gonna say I'm not being compensated for this, but I guess you do give me free lasagna when I come by so you get free lasagna and but I know that honestly We enjoy it quite a lot and I'm um Like I love lasagna is one of my favorite foods is one of my kids favorite foods me, too And so I buy a wide variety of frozen lasagna's and some of them are not so great and some of them are not so great, and some of them are okay, and this one is legit good. But when I always say to people,

like, oh, you're being paid to talk about it, which is true, but before I ever got a penny from Palma Pasta for doing any kind of promotion, I hired them to cater my wedding in the distillery district, okay? So I always feel like, I chose Palma Pasta,

and again, this wasn't a free thing, because, oh, you know, let's make Toronto Mike happy. No, I got an invoice, a full invoice. I paid the full freaking invoice, okay? So I paid for catering from Palma Pasta and this wedding was about 12 years ago. And I feel like that's the greatest endorsement that I went to Palma Pasta and said,

cater my wedding in the distillery district. And it was amazing. Before they were your sponsor. before they were my sponsor. So that's true story right there. I want to give you one more gift here before I ask you. So enough Josh Matlow talk, you know, Brad Bradford is like, let's talk about me for a minute. Amber Morley.

Have you had Brad Bradford on the program? Yeah, several times. And he was here fairly recently. So since your last visit, he came back to chat me up about a number of issues, which we'll get to because I want to talk about the bubble zone and a lot of other stuff going on here, but I'm sure I've given you in this in the past if not Yes. Yeah, this is the history of Toronto Maple Leafs baseball and they play at Christie Pitts Yeah, you gave me one and I have it at home and I have flipped through it and then also My

brother-in-law's brother so so like my sister-in-law my wife's sister is married to a guy and his brother was a player on the Toronto Maple Leaf. See in the books? He is in the book and so I I took a second copy on a different visit that you gave me and I gave it to him and he was tickled to see it. It was also my grade 9 math teacher Larry Downs is in here while he was my teacher he played for the Toronto Maple Leafs. That's amazing. We went out in the summer and saw a couple of his games and so it's fun. It's fun to look at the statistics. I have a question for you though. Yes sir. About the Toronto

Maple Leafs this year. I was so excited to go on opening day and see the new Japanese pitcher. I got me Sato. I've seen her pitch a few times. And and then my own family had a baseball tournament that weekend that day. I could not go. So I wanted to know how's that going? And how's she doing? So I want to know how's that going and how she doing? Okay, so I've seen her pitch three times the first time She was lights out. It was six up six down She was unbelievable like just tremendous and she made a great fielding play and through to first and she was great the second time I saw her in a game, which was the day that snow threw out the first pitch So I was hanging with the snowman. Okay as one does by the way, you a fan of snow. I I only know the one song but it's still that's enough. It's a banger, right? Okay Well snow is the official ambassador of Toronto Maple Leafs baseball and he was at tm. Lx

19 at Great Lakes Brewery just last week. We missed you there it I know you're a busy busy man But I digress here. So I saw her get kind of lit up the fastball is Not particularly fast. so she doesn't have the movement on that pitch. These guys will just crank it you know hit the that other diamond you know hits the kids playing there so but then the third time I saw her she was great again so I think there's a little inconsistency but she's holding her own that's for sure. Yami Sato it's quite a story.

Alright yeah well I'm gonna get out there and see the rest of the team soon. Yeah. And you know, you can drink in the park legally. I hear that. Yeah. And you can grab yourself a hot dog. And they got the hot dogs there. Yeah. Let's do it. It's a best value in town and no ticket required. And tickets are free. That's I mean, you don't even need to. There's no tickets.

Yeah. You just show up. Yeah. Fill the hill as I say, it's great value and it's great fun here. So I talked a lot about some Josh Matlow stuff, because he's top of mind for visiting. I saw today Brad Bradford is posing with Doug Ford at the Calgary Stampede. So if you're looking for Brad Bradford, you'll find him at the Calgary Stampede.

Doing the people's business. Doing the people's business. He says he's, I think he's going to run for mayor. We'll talk about that later. The people of Beaches East York have a lot of business at the Stampede. So yeah. So there's where you'll find Brad Bradford.

But I want to ask you if you have any update at all there was big news before your last visit. I think I forgot to mention it last visit, but there's a lawsuit against Amber Morley who is a my city councillor for that where you are right now in New Toronto here. Over bike lanes on Bloor Street. How much do you know about this lawsuit? It seems strange to me that businesses have got together to sue a councillor over the fact that bike lanes were implemented on Bloor.

Yeah, it's absurd and it's stupid, right? And I think it's basically a publicity stunt slash an intimidation stunt. I don't, I mean, I'm not a lawyer, but I can't see any. I've been covering city politics for a long time and I haven't seen city councillors successfully sued over like public policy decisions that they were part of making alongside the entire rest of the democratically elected city council. Like, this particular group of business owners

along the Kingsway there are particularly belligerent about those bike lanes. I am an enthusiastic supporter of bike lanes and especially those kind of protected bike lanes all across the city. I do think that one section of the Kingsway and that... Well, it's a Bloor Street, but it's from the Kings... Sorry, yeah. To Aberfoyle?

It's a stretch of Bloor Street that's called the Kingsway by the BIA and people who live there and all of that. So it's Bloor Street. So like you've got Parklawn Cemetery and then you're talking about what's like west of there. There's a boulevard in the middle of the road and then they've got you know their lane of or two of car traffic and then they've done this sort of like the bike lanes are on the inside and then there's a line of permanent parking traffic right and so part of what's been lost is that there used to be maybe no parking during rush hour and now there's always these parking spots and all of that. And I, I will say that like, I don't know if you've ridden up there and honestly,

I think I find myself on that stretch of the bluer bike lanes. I take it to rural York and then I had south and rural York. I'd say three or four times a week right now. I'm on a blur bike lanes. I will say that of all all the bike lane controversies that have come up in the city, that's one stretch where I don't see very many cyclists still a year after they've been in. It's not none, but they're not heavily used like the ones you know in blue or in the annex. They're not as heavily used. East of Jane it's more popular you're saying right? Yeah yeah, East of Jane, it's more popular, you're saying, right? Yeah, yeah. East of Jane Street. And I do think the city hasn't quite ironed it out

yet because like I don't think the traffic, the car traffic on Bloor Street West in that Etobicoke section was ever fast, but it does seem like a place where, where like over the last while, like there's a giant bottleneck at South Kingsway that happens, like where people are stuck for three, four light signals and the cars are stretched back blocks and blocks. And it does seem like something was broken here, whether it's the bike lanes themselves or whether it's how they adjusted the traffic signals or whatever, or the construction of a condo in where there used to be a movie theater there near just West of Jim. Yeah, Humber Odeon. Whatever the combination of factors,

traffic is particularly bad there and so I am typically very unsympathetic to the people bitching about bike lanes and in this case I don't necessarily know that I'm on their side, but I do think I Can see why they're pissed off more so than I can see why people in other parts of the city are pissed off, right? I still think their reaction to it is ridiculous like the steps. They're trying to take including this is absurd threatening and filing a lawsuit like like it's all just silly and stupid and like I am Like, it's all just silly and stupid. And like, I am privately boycotting several of the most prominent businesses in that,

over this. Because I think if you wanna make yourself the enemy of the people, then I'm not gonna give you my business. And there are places I used to go quite a lot actually. Well, that's interesting. Now, can you just remind me before I move off bike lanes? Because I mean, yeah, but like, can you remind me what is being

what is Doug Ford's government ripping out? Is it everything this west of Jane? It's not even a hundred percent settled yet, right? Like, but they're definitely ripping out everything west of Jane. But is that like, so Jane and East will remain? That's what isn't 100% settled. Right? Like they may do another phase where they remove those ones. I have heard, and this is not like an official announcement, but I've heard from people, you know, Queens Park reporters talking to sources where it seems like unlikely that they're going to take out the section through the annex and all of that because they realize that it's locally very popular there.

I feel like it used to be Shaw at some point to actually, to like Runnymede. And because I live there now, I know exactly where it ended. But the section that goes from Runnymede to Jane is like not really locally controversial in Blue or West Village. Like they were already coming past High Park and all of that. It's like, eh. But it is, I mean, the funny thing though about like, Doug Ford's like anti Blue or West

bike lane candidate in that provincial election lost, right? The, everybody who has run, like, and faced the voters of that neighborhood on this topic has lost, right? There were two or three mayoral candidates who were campaigning on taking those out. Well, Mark Saunders, right? Yeah, yeah, and like, so it doesn't seem like when you actually put it to a vote of the people of like Etobicoke

that they want them gone. It's just like some very particular people want them gone. Now I am a person who pays taxes in Etobicoke. And then they're planning to take the ones out on University, which is just absolute madness because those are so well used. And the traffic on University moves just fine. The worst part of it is the Ontario Line construction down near Queen Street. That's where the traffic on University like gets all jammed up. But the the section up towards Queen's Park

even in rush hour like there's no gridlock it flows you you have to stop at a red light every block but but like it's not like they're backed up for blocks and blocks it's like you drive and then there's two cars in front of you and you stop at the red light and Then you drive again and you get to stop at the next red light and there's two or three cars in front of you Like it's like there's lots of room there. It's fine Madness, okay. I was again. I was on Blue Sky and Sean McAleff is a guy I follow. Yeah. For the star. My friend Sean. FOTM and I think he lives in the junction or at least

he used to live in the junction. I don't know there's like a little Malta. There is a little Malta and he's Maltese and he has family there but I don't think he's ever actually lived there. I think he spent time there because of the multi-connection. Okay I do a walk of my son every Friday and we start at like Dundas and Runamede and then we walk like Dundas to where Dundas hits Bloor by the Dundas West subway station and then we take Bloor to Runamede and then walk Runamede back to Dundas like we do that route every single Friday. Because of like some places you're going or just

because that's your ritual? Yeah that's it's our ritual there's no destination there it's just that's our route. Like you go for a walk for the sake of doing a walk and this is where we like to walk. Yeah this is a walk and talk so my ex-wife lives in that neighborhood so okay so but my oldest and I have this walk and talk ritual and we do that route so shout out to Malta Park and Little Malta and the Pistizzi's Big shop there, but Sean was basically he was I don't know what you I always want to say tweeting I might just say tweeting even though it's like Skeetings Keating I like blue skeeting posting. Okay, so he was posting about John Tory is filling in for John Moore on 1010 this week at least yesterday morning man as the

morning show and talking about city issues and stuff John Tory and of course John Tory is mulling over another run for mayor and I'm wondering what your thoughts are on the inevitable John Tory versus Olivia Chow. Take your time. Well, okay. I'm torn here because part of me thinks, can't we get some new characters in this drama? Like we're in like season 20 and like this is the guy who initially lost to David Miller in 2003 and then I served two terms for mayor and and and Olivia Chow the current mayor

who you know I I think she's doing fine job I like I don't think it's time for her to retire or anything necessarily but it's it's like she's been around for a long time that between John Tory, Olivia Chow, Doug Ford, they were the characters who ran in 2014 when Rob Ford was on the way out, right? And it's like, it feels like an awfully long time where our city politics is just dominated by the same few people, and it does feel like maybe it's time for some fresh blood

At least to come in as like the the options um that said Like John Tory left in scandal, but he left of his own It was a decision. He made right like he he he had just won a landslide reelection If he had run in the by-election to replace himself, there's a very good chance he would have won. He remained popular. People thought, despite the improper behavior in this relationship he had while he was mayor, that that was something they could get over. I mean, they told pollsters that. And so, we never sort of got this showdown

and I think it would be a fascinating election between them. And in a way, like a ultimate sense of the people of Toronto getting to weigh in on the sort of like center-right austerity program that John Tory was running and maybe center-left you got to pay for what you want program that Olivia Chow is running right like there's there's a difference between these two people but they're both as far as I can tell, widely popular. And I think it would be a very interesting election. I think all the more interesting if either of them, like, broke out of their natural inclination to, like, hug the center and, like, actually put up differing visions for the city, right? I mean, I think part of the frustration that a lot of conservatives had with John Tory is that he prides himself on being a consensus

builder guy and a don't make drama guy and like, and so like he worked well with Joe Cressy, right? He would find compromises where like everybody left upset upset right like the hybrid Gardner where the Gardner still stays up but at tremendously greater expense you you root it so that you can do some of the redevelopment on the portlands there and all of that and and you know but he's looking for those compromises he he he's the guy who presided over all the installation of all these these controversial bike lanes right even though he was the drive time host of of a talk radio program who campaigned on like getting traffic moving right like he's

So so he's not like some hard-right populist conservative. No, he's not like Mark Saunders. I like rip up all the body was like Not making massive investments in the city guy. He was very incremental. He was very reluctant to raise property taxes. He was very reluctant to, and all of that. And then Olivia Chow who's been not shy about raising taxes. She did raise them up and talking a lot about like, making good investments and the things we can do together.

But then in practice, he's like, not really fighting on behalf of bike lanes, not introducing any new bike lanes herself, not putting up a fight over Ontario Place. The investments she's making, she'll say, well, we cut the state of good repair backlog at the TTC in half. And that is something right like that's big she's talking about her school nutrition programs that she's been she's introducing and again like potentially very very good but is is not like transformational it's not like this uh guy who won the democratic mayoral primary in new york who's like talking about like socially funded like government-owned grocery stores and like free rent like

and and and like like he's he's he's talking about transferring like bold stuff I think both Olivia Chow and John Tory in their way want they want to bring everybody along they want their opponents to respect them and like them. They want average people to be on board with what they're doing. Right. And that keeps them from rhetorically really embracing the differences in the two of them. But I mean I think it would be an interesting case. I do think like this very early now but there's been some polling about it. And it does look like they run one, too

All the polls I've seen so far have Olivia Chow ahead of John Tory like not way out ahead but ahead of him and I mean that could be a Problem for John Tory or part of his deliberations is that like if he's not starting as the obvious favorite he's got ground to make up and and It's it's hard to see where there's a lot of room to grow because people already know like it's not like It's not not like there's like undiscovered like well. He's gonna define himself It's like he's well defined so is Olivia

Chao right? Right. So somebody like you've mentioned Brad Bradford is thinking about running I think in some of these polls he's like third place right among a list of candidates and like it may be a okay third and I think he feels like that may be a decent place to start because if John Tory doesn't run then he's maybe the default right wing guy that's starting in that position but even if John Tory is running is one of those things where like he has room to grow right and if John Tory stalling out yes he's interesting he's got room to grow right and again I I respect Brad Bradford he listens to the program he comes to the events I

have him over often I like talking to Brad Bradford he's an avid cyclist like you and I Ed Keenan yeah yeah yeah but I think if John Tory decides to run I think I think that's the kiss of death for Brad Bradford's mayoral campaign you that that would be that would be the default assumption. I think Brad Bradford hopes he can, so like, okay, look at 2003, people would say why is David Miller running? Barbara Hall is the left candidate and she's starting

with a commanding lead over him, right? This is going to be a race between John Tunziata and Barbara Hall or John Tory and Barbara Hall, right? Right. And yet David Miller's path to victory was always going to be that Barbara Hall didn't capture people's imagination and if she looked like she was in a really tough race or you're gonna lose to one of those right-wing candidates that people would see the guy who's kind of growing the fresh new face and say you know what this is our anybody but John Tory candidate this is our our leftist champion because this is all one who

started with this big lead is old and busted she hasn't been able to build on that lead and all of that and I think that that would be Brad Bradford's hope is that if John Tory doesn't pick up steam against Olivia Chow he's kind of stalled out at her that you get like a hurting where like oh this fresher newer voice he's been a city counselor for a while he ran for mayor before but still like he's relatively youthful and he's somebody different. Like maybe maybe he is the guy we go to. But then you wonder too if there's other new faces we're not thinking about who would enter in. Completely shake up the dynamics of it. And of course this is not a by-election so you cannot run for city

you can't keep your city councillor job if you run for mayor in this next mayoral No, absolutely. That's a little bit. Absolutely losses. Do you Ed Keenan of the Toronto Star? Do you think John Tory is gonna run? Based purely on what I've heard from other people I haven't spoken to him. I think it's probably 50-50. I don't think he's going to run if he doesn't think he's going to win. But nobody's going to make any assurances. He did beat Olivia Chow before, but the circumstances were different there. I've been interested to see, I think Olivia Chow is doing a fine job as mayor so far. Yeah, that's my next question. I don't think she's setting the world on fire, right?

Like and I don't I do think that there's like and maybe I'm misreading other people like maybe I have. She hasn't quite captured my imagination as mayor, right? Like she seems to be managing things and like rearranging the management. She was recently in to talk to the editorial board of the Star and I was in that meeting and part of, you know, she was talking about the change in leadership now, right? Like there's going to be a new head of the Parks Department, there's a new CFO, there's a new head of the Parks Department, there's a new CFO, there's a new, like so she's now getting new blood in place in the bureaucracy and she's got a few of her big projects on the go and underway, but there's no government

funded grocery stores, there's no like the rent is too damn high, like showpiece in the window where everybody can say, that's making making our life better or that's making our neighborhood better or like this is a transformational moment right she's not and And so maybe it's unfair to to say that cuz certainly like John Tory wasn't doing that kind of stuff either But it's like or you know no mayor really does that wrong, but it is like it does feel like, like it doesn't feel like there's a candidate right now that has a movement behind them. It's more like a couple broadly popular people, right? I feel, cause I know when, I think it was the 2014 election when it was Doug Ford, it was John Tory and Olivia Chow,

right? And Chow finished third. Yeah, she started that race in first place and finished in third, according to polls. Me and my circle who discuss such things, we feel Olivia suffered quite a bit from strategic voting in that particular election where many a chow supporter held their nose and voted for John Tory in an effort to keep Doug Ford yeah away from becoming mayor yeah and I do think she did and I and I think she didn't necessarily do herself any favors in the way she campaigned by trying to like emphasize a centrist to

her centrism like like she she didn't want to be seen as the scary NDP person but she did want to be seen by the as the anti-fort right and I think I think John Tory a lot of people who would otherwise or normally have voted for Olivia Chow voted for John Tory because they felt like we needed a boring manager to be all after Rob after Rob and that and that they needed we needed some kind of like healing of the left and right like some kind of bridging of the left and right that we didn't want to see saw now but not only that that we wouldn't be able to win that right like I think no that's important that you're talking about is

was a big factor and I think also who's the most boring of these options was also a big factor. Mr. Dithers. Yeah. Now did you see the Netflix trainwreck episode about Rob Ford? I didn't. It's not very good actually like I found it it let me you'd probably get nothing from it of course but even the anyone who's been kind of dialed in to what was happening in this city like with Rob Ford I don't think there's a single thing you learn it's pretty surfaced and I think it's for big it's for Americans who kind of heard about a crack mayor but weren't aware of the specifics yeah and I mean it may seem strange that I didn't watch it but I was

going to watch it and write something about it then I realized David Ryder David Ryder stars who was the star's bureau chief for much of that time, and is in the documentary. He was gonna write about it. And we had a couple other columnists who were planning already to write about it. And so when I understood the approach they were taking,

which was basically like, hey, if you, if you vaguely remember this because you don't even live in Canada and you heard about the crack mayor, here's the back story. Right. Or if you're, you know, like just catching up, like, or whatever, like it didn't seem like something I would watch in my spare time. Right. And so when it became clear that a column from me would be just piling on like another thing. And I recently wrote about like the 10 years since Rob's death and I've reflected on that era of Toronto politics enough that I didn't feel like I was going to get anything new. I probably will watch it at some point.

Like I only watched it so I could talk about it on this podcast. And I'm no Ed Keenan of the Toronto Star but but I felt like, oh, I should see this thing to know what's going on. And there are like, you know, David Ryder's in it and Josh Matlow's in it and Robin Doolittle's in it. And there are some people, but you don't learn a damn thing if you were paying attention. I did watch recently on, it's available on Crave,

but there's a documentary about broken social scene, which is, it's called, It's All Gonna Break. And it's basically like a guy who was a friend of Kevin Drew and Brennan Canning back in like the early 2000s, back at the very formation of the band and the host parties where they had jam sessions that led to the band. He was already hanging out and he was like a shy guy who just filmed everything and that does his

hobby like and he was just filming these jam sessions, he's filming conversations they're having and maybe with the vague idea that one day it would become something and then he eventually like while they are on their upswing in Toronto and then international success and then headline not headlining but but One of the headliners of Lollapalooza in Chicago He's there right? And so it's it's about that era and I was like working at I weekly at the time and my friends to call co-worker Stuart Berman was like

one of the earliest and most frequent chroniclers of the band and he wrote a book about them. But I was never like a big broken social scene fan. It wasn't like my jam entirely. Like I liked them as a live band. You probably like cause equals time. I didn't spend a lot of time. But I just bring that up because I was going to watch both of those documentaries and then write about a nostalgia, like a column about these two glimpses into the Toronto that was and all of that.

But it was partly because watching that documentary that's set in 2002, 2003, 2004 Toronto. And the musicians in the band, like Leslie Feist and stuff, just say like, rent in Toronto was cheap enough at the time that we could just hang out and not really make much money from music, but just make enough and we would just jam all the time and we'd like hang out in these bars and we'd throw these parties and it was like... And even as somebody who wasn't part of that scene I was part of Toronto at the time and I remember the bars and live music venues and and art galleries and stuff of Queen West West and the this sort of movable feast of a like

Art scene that was happening at the time and I yeah, I hope that for for younger people today they have some energy in an art scene that I may be just partially oblivious to but it doesn't seem like, and really just because the rent is so high. Trust fund babies only. We don't have as much of that vibe going around like a city where you can just have this kind of slacker culture that creates magic, right? Like creates a scene.

So you know it's all gonna break. And, you know, that's why I was thinking it was like, oh, the title of the song, it's all gonna break. Maybe it was always gonna break, but Rob Ford broke it, like, and we see it in train wreck. But then I just like, ah, I'm not gonna watch that. Well, I'm gonna recommend another Toronto Mic'd episode since your last visit, which is Brendan Canning. So he dropped by and it's you know, you because I knew him from head Yeah with Noah mince, right? because I had the

1993 ongoing what was called the the new music search from CF and why and Head won that contest but it was the lower in there and Hayden had a song called take which I was obsessed with You know, which I learned I learned was not actually sung by Hayden Desser but it was sung by Noah mince like this is a little like Thor and Lee collective or whatever but Brendan Canning was doing stuff with Len he was yeah and then like he was so he had tasted a hit like brushes with success like right with the twice before he founded Boric and Social Seeds. But yeah. So there's a lot of good talk about coming out of Len because you know you can talk to him like he doesn't feel he was fairly he

got some money but wasn't fairly compensated for what he brought to Steal My Sunshine. And if you listen to the album version of that single, not the radio edit, but you can hear Brendan Talking like there's talking on the song sort of like the sweater undone the sweater song by these are or drinking in LA by brand van 3000 or popular by not a surf or people are talking over the song which is kind of A thing we did in the 90s, but you can hear Brendan talking here So, okay. So listen to that episode also Also go to recyclemyelectronics.ca. You know this, Ed, if you have any old cables, old devices, you don't throw it in the garbage,

those chemicals end up in our landfill. You go to recyclemyelectronics.ca and you've put in your postal code and find out where to drop things off. The VP of No Sales says, "'Cheriot Fest' used to be known as the Festival of India and it's been taking place in Toronto for over a half century. It's a rich history actually stems from thousands of years of tradition and heritage. It begins with

a parade down Yonge Street with three giant floats that are hand-pulled by thousands of attendees and spectators amidst melodious singing, chanting, drumming and dancing. Like, it sounds bananas and then they're going to move it to the island, which is what we were talking about earlier, but that's what Chariot Fest is all about. I want to let everybody know we're going to record two new episodes of Building Toronto Skyline and Building Success with Nick Ienis. That's recording this Friday morning.

Thank you Nick Ienies and Fusion Corp. Nick Ienies actually did a recent episode on affordable housing with special guest Brad Bradford. So it all comes together here. Mr. Keenan speaking of such Olivia Chow, uh, actually this is a tweet, but somebody screen kept it cause I can't even go to X anymore. I'm like done, but I got a screen cap today City Council debated the staff report on

citywide permissions for six plex plexes that's a hard word to say actually six plexes it is oh she has a typo in her tweet but it was clear council would not support the proposal citywide so together with housing chair Gord Perks we found a path forward to allow more missing middle housing through sixplexes in nine wards across the city with the option for remaining wards to opt in. I am confident that as more people see the benefits of missing middle housing, where average rent is $830 cheaper than condos and 65% of units are family size, more Councillors

will also opt in to building more housing. Please speak to this sixplexes decision. Yeah, I wrote a column about this that was just published over the weekend. And it's like, just particularly enraging to me. The thing is sixplexes. So, you know, a du is like got two apartments in it purpose-built right and a triplex is three six plex would be six units there

right and you know a few on the street by the way closer to Lake Shore yeah and the thing is that recently not that recently but recently like it was a John Tory proposal and then I think it got passed very early in Olivia Chow's term. So within the last couple years, fourplexes were made legal by, as a right, citywide. So you could already build four units on any lot in the city to a maximum, I think, of four storeys. And now they're just saying two more, right? And there's nothing to fear with these things. You can go to, as you said, here in New Toronto

in Etobicoke, you can go and find them in Rosedale, you can find them, lots of them, in Forest Hill, in High Park, you can find them in- Yeah, they're on Bloor Street near High Park. Yeah, yeah, and on Palmerston's not just Sips Flexes there's like little low-rise apartment buildings like lots of them with like 18 units in them and they're like a charming little part of a residential neighborhood a very desirable one a very like expensive one right and so so they don't bring a lot of problems. They don't actually, you

don't even barely notice them, right? If you're walking around High Park, there's actually quite a lot of like four and six unit, like semi-detached type things. So sixplexes, and you don't even notice they're there. They just look like single family homes, right? Or like semi-detached homes. Right. And it is just like outright cowardice by many of the councillors around the rest of the city,

where like in a housing crisis, where they talk a lot about like needing to increase the supply and not making all of them like micro condos in glass towers right the gentle density they talk about they they they just are still going to cater to old people who bought houses in the nineties and whose philosophy of the city is I got mine right like my house my neighborhood is perfectly affordable

because I afforded a house in it. Yeah. Right. Right. There's nothing unaffordable about that. So what are you talking about? Bringing in skid row people here with your six plexes? Where are they all gonna park? How are they all gonna, it's like, it's just ridiculous. And so like there is,

there is a opposition between the people who want housing to be more affordable and the people who don't want to lose the value they already have invested in their house. There's a genuine tension there, right? If housing prices in general come down, that means, you know, existing homeowners lose theoretical equity that they have in their house right now, right? So so there's that genuine tension, but I also do think that like that tension exists in all politics, right? But Toronto City politics is like so biased towards existing homeowners

homeowners specifically Because we're all property taxpayers, but homeowners pay the bill directly they also They tend to have like longer tenure there like a city councilor looks and says a homeowner is going to be here in 20 years like in the next election the next some Rental tenants might move to a different area of the city if they get rent evicted or something, right? They might they might move to a different city because they can't afford to live in Toronto anymore. And so it's like everything's biased to existing homeowners. And I think the existing homeowners who are like really objectioning to a sixplex possibly being on their block are like chicken little panicking over absolutely nothing.

Jeez. over absolutely nothing, but they still do panic because as a rule, homeowners in this city, especially the ones who live in Etobicoke, some of the more established regions of Scarborough and North York, as a rule, their general approach to everything was, like, nothing in my neighborhood should change at all. Right. Right? I was the cherry on the sundae that completed this neighborhood and made it perfect. When I moved in, that was the last change this neighborhood needed.

No further change is allowed. No more joiners. Yeah. And, um, and so it's just kind of silly. And I mean, the thing is, is that in the scheme of the housing problem in Toronto and all of that, the change from four plexes to six plexes is not gonna like solve all the problems. It's gonna be a drop in the bucket, but it should be a relatively easy bucket to put a drop in and the fact that that our city council like makes it so hard and that basically the majority of the city is going to be

excluded from this it shows like it's such an uphill battle and the people we have there are just unwilling to fight unwilling to even put their Dukes up right so so that was the problem with that vote more than I mean it would help like six flexes would help for sure but they're not gonna solve things it's not like oh suddenly there's gonna be like great rental apartments at half the price it's gonna be like oh incrementally there be more and the new ones that are built are almost always by definition because an investor is spending the money to build them

could be at at the higher end of the market but this is a place where like things do trickle down right like like the people who go and rent a new build condo that's very expensive don't rent the second floor of uh... of a converted house that you know and so a student can move in there or whatever right it's like if i move out of the house I'm renting somebody else can move in there and so it's like like it will help that supply of different kinds of units different kinds of apartments different sizes in different kinds of

neighborhoods so like you want to live in a family neighborhood with a good school at the end of the block but you're a tenant like with two kids like maybe there's a two-bedroom apartment that takes up an entire floor of a house that's an option for you in a neighborhood where previously you had to buy a four-bedroom house or nothing right? So that's good. As you know much like yourself I bike a lot and I've noticed lately signs on it, particularly in Long Branch. I've been noticing this, but I have been doing a lot of riding kind of West, but fight the height. I think it says something to that effect. This is fight the

height and there's a sign that people are putting and these are big homes too. But it and I feel like I remember you see something similar with like no lot splitting was a big one. Like, so this was a popular sign I would see. Fight the height. I guess that's against these six units. These six plexes. I believe that's related. Anyway, stay tuned. Like we could spend forever, but I'm committed to a two hour episode.

And and we got we got more to cover. Well, I got more to cover. Are you OK? How you doing in there? I got to check in on you. I'm doing all right. I do feel like I need to do. Yeah. You got promos to do, then we. Well, I've done them all, but I could do to cover. Are you okay? How you doing in there? I got check in on you. I'm doing all right I do feel like you need to do it. Yeah. Yeah, if you got promos to do then we well i've done them all but I can do them again you know, I I always have things to talk about then i'm okay to keep going. Okay. Yeah, because I

I think I got three more things I need to cover here in the last half hour here But I definitely want to talk to you about bubble zones man Like I had a good chat with josh mallow. So josh mallow voted against about bubble zones. Man. Like I had a good chat with Josh Malo. So Josh Malo voted against the bubble zones. Yeah. And he was basically talking. He had a, I asked him specifically like, you know, cause Olivia chow voted in favor of it as did a several, I guess it passed, but my counselor, Amber Morley also voted against it. And then I got notes from listeners who were like voting against bubble zones. They were equating that with anti-Semitism.

And I got very angry because I said, that's like, I consider that bullshit equation. And I'm going to talk to you, Ed Keenan from the Toronto Star. What's your opinion on the bubble zone bylaw? I I think I think that in the form it was passed it's unlikely to provide any kind of valuable new tool for actual policing of of the problems that were emerging right the kind of vandalism or violence or people actually being blocked from doing what they need to do by, you know, these protests and all of that. There was not a problem of church services being like shouted down and surrounded by protests right now, right? Like, there was not a problem of people not being able to get to school because of the protests and and were there such a problem

existing laws Cover them it is actually illegal for a protester to block access to a site right right like I access to a site, right? Right. I do think that the obvious precedent that existed for, I don't even know if it was called bubble zones at the time, but for banning certain protests from certain types of places is abortion clinics, right? Right. And the context for that was that in the 1990s,

at the time when that was being discussed, abortion providers were being murdered across North America was that in the 1990s at the time when that was being discussed, abortion providers were being murdered across North America and there were daily protests that physically blocked the entrances to abortion clinics, like on their property blocked or across the front and harassed, like actively harassed people who were going in there to try and get abortions, right? Right.

And it was a every day, all day phenomenon across the city, across and in other cities in North America. And so the idea that you have to have your protest over there across the street, you can't come in front, was responding to an actual problem that had been identified. I don't feel like that criteria was met in this case. And so I don't feel like it's actually going to provide any really new effective tools to police the type of protests that have become occasionally problems or the affiliated like movement adjacent kind of vandalism that hasn't been happening as a result of protests but you could see as

resulted right like if people are graffitiing things and and breaking windows and and firebombing or whatever right um that's not happening at protests but and so I don't think the bubble zone law solves any of those problems either, right? And I do think it's like just a particularly loaded debate because I think someone like Josh Matlow, who is Jewish, also represents a lot of Jewish constituents, is in a place where a lot of those people feel like they are being targeted and harassed by the anti-war movement, the anti-Israel, anti-Israeli government, like anti-Zionist movement that is

yeah the actions of Israel, protests now right, like they feel particularly targeted by it, they feel particularly vulnerable. There is a lot of people who are participating in this protest or who are supportive of these protests who act, who believe a genocide is taking place and that not standing up and saying something as loudly as you can in as disruptive a way as you possibly can is is just acquiescing to that is just becoming a an idle you know participant by omission in that and and so I think like it's a very loaded topic and I think the reason it's loaded is a good one I think there are good reasons why people feel the way they feel about it. But

I do feel like these debates at City Hall become a proxy of like, well, we have to do something. This is something. So we'll make this like an indicator of whether you're a good person or not. Like based on whether you're a good person or not. Well, that's called virtue signaling, right? And you know, Olivia Chow and the other counselors who got it through were trying to thread a needle because they kept being told like oh this would be unconstitutional or that will be whatever and so you try to make it as ineffective as you possibly can so that

it accomplishes nothing except except the appearance of having done something right right and it's a good recipe for pissing everybody off I do think I would have if I was a city councilor or whatever I would have voted against it on the principle that I think like limits placed on the right to assemble and protest and exercise both your freedom of assembly and freedom of speech should there should be a high test for those limits and I don't think the test is met here and and so that that's what I think well to surmise your thoughts there and correct me if I state anything inaccurately here but you're suggesting this bylaw is likely not constitutional, right?

Well, is- Only because I read your piece in it. I felt that's what you were saying. Yeah, I think likely not constitutional or it may have been made technically constitutional in ways, but I think it violates the spirit of those constitutional protections anyway. Okay, and you mean-

But possibly and likely not constitutional, yeah. And the counselors and Olivia Chow, who voted for this, were well aware of that. Oh yeah, I mean they had the legal advice from the city, right? Yeah. And possibly that the main purpose of voting in favor of these bubble zone bylaw would be to score political points, which some people refer to as virtue signaling. Yes, I think that that's the case. Okay, which is why when I get a

note, and I respect all listeners and this particular listener comes out to events and I like him very very very very much, but to suggest that a councillor like Amber Morley is anti-semitic because she votes against bubble zone bylaw is not only unfair to Amber Morley, I think it's a ludicrous equation to make, and that you need to ask for the reasons why, and then, and like Josh Mallow, who is a proud Jewish man, he explained to me on Toronto Mic'd why he voted against it, and it makes sense, and you wrote about this in the Toronto Star, because you write about lots of things in this city in the Toronto Star. Yeah, I mean, I

think beyond that, right? Like, this is not a bubble zone law that deals specifically with the protection of synagogues and Jewish day schools or whatever. This is not a bubble zone law that's that applies specifically to anti-Zionist or pro-Palestinian protests. This applies to all protests everywhere, all houses of worship, all places of education, right? It is not content specific. And I mean, and that's part of what would make it more constitutional, like more, not absurd, but it's also part of what makes it all the more dangerous. It's not like we have had a problem in this location and we're solving this problem. We are applying a new principle to protesting in Toronto that will apply to everything including say Israel

support rallies, right? Like or like or whatever whatever it is that you're in favor of Mike, whatever it is that your listener is in favor of, if they're ever to go to the wall to try and protest that, this law will apply to them too, right? Right, and it is sad though that living in 2025 that we have, and I had this conversation recently with Steve Simmons actually, it was I think on Friday, but that people who disagree, you know, with policies from Israel and Netanyahu and have very fair criticism, you use the G word, genocide. Some people believe it is that there was a fair criticism of this particular country's policies, but to take that, you know, protest of Israel and their

policies in the Middle East and somehow apply that to people who are proud Jewish people in Toronto. Another false equation. I mean, it's like not fair to anybody of the Jewish faith in this city. Yeah. So it is it is shitty that my Jewish friends are my good friend Avi who told me he was spit on for example. Like this is shitty because as Ralph Ben-Murgy and I have talked many, many times, you can

be a proud Jewish person and vehemently disagree with policies of Netanyahu in Israel. I would hope so. Let's stop making so much sense here Ed Keenan. Oh my goodness. Okay, I'm gonna read, oh no, before I read this, we won't spend too much time because every time you come over we talk about Eglinton Crosstown. Okay, but this hasn't been published yet, so here's a preview for some people. It's coming up. I think this coming weekend, but sometime soon. I'm excited. Couple weeks. No, no, I'm sorry. Not the opening of the egg lintel RT. No, because it's opening in September. No, I walked Across the entire city, the length of Eglinton Avenue and then Eglinton Avenue in Scarborough ends at Kingston Road a few kilometers from the lake So I I actually started at Rouge Beach. I started at the pickering border at the easternmost point in Toronto

Yeah on Rouge Beach. I walked to Eglinton Avenue and then across Eglinton all the way to the Etobicoke Creek at Centennial Park. That's a long walk, which is the westernmost point in Toronto I did not do it all in one day. It would be like a marathon. I could do it in one day. Yeah, it was Sean McAlef style, but I didn't marathon it. Like the plan originally was I was going to do it all in one day and write about it. And then I thought the stunt of that would be fun.

But you actually can't. I would be trying to make time, right? Like I could physically walk that distance. But I would be like trying to rush along and I wanted to be able to like ponder the city and look at the city as I walk through it. And so, but I did have a lot of time to look at the Eglinton Crosstown LRT, which is, as we're told, like appears to be finished. They were not running any test trains on it while I was there. It was like the day that it was announced

that the TTC had been taken over, I was there. But I got a good hard look at the infrastructure of it and supposed to open in September. And yet my colleagues at the Star reporting that there may be some further delays Although I don't shocking. I mean like don't count your streetcars until you see them in service That's that's really the the rule in Toronto. It was when we were getting the new Bombardier streetcars It is now with the Eglin across town and like let's not even think about the French West LRT

Which also appears to be completed but Who knows what's going on there? So okay, so This September opening date which is a new development even have a September opening date that happened since your last visit because you're here Yeah, for those who don't know a quarter is every three months right every three months. That's right Some people aren't confused by that. Okay, and that's the lead time We were gonna be told like that when when Metrolinx would announce the opening date and then they didn't really announce it they just

kind of like there was like some leaks that said it looks like September and then the Premier himself is like well yeah that's what I'm told and then and then Metrolinx has said that but the TTC hasn't taken it over yet like they're they're in the process of doing their own testing and training and like, so it should be September, but I don't, unless I miss something, and I have, part of the reason you're asking me some questions of things that I feel like I should know

and I haven't seen that yet is that I've been like, a lot of vacation days recently. Like I've been in and out because it's that summer time of year, but unless I've missed a very recent announcement, like TTC doesn't have a date yet for when they are gonna put it into service and people can ride it, but September is vaguely when it's been confirmed by all around is the target now. Well, Ed Keenan, your next visit to the basement here is the first Thursday of October when It's not a very convenient route for me to take the Eglinton Crosstown LRT to get here

but I Let's say you and I may well have been able to ride it already by then. Well, predict make a prediction. I like When you return here in the early October will the Eglinton? Crosstown LRT have opened This is like one of those over under bets where I think actually first week of October I'm gonna say it will not be open yet, but it will likely like we'll have a more firm date and Everybody's gonna be disappointed

that it's not open yet but it is gonna open soon at that point after 15 years of waiting or whatever it becomes like one month is not a is a relatively minor delay so well yeah my money will be on not open yet so you just earned yourself another Ridley funeral home Home measuring tape, Ed Keenan, courtesy of Ridley Funeral Home. And Brad Jones has an excellent podcast, Life's Undertaking, and people should subscribe and enjoy Life's Undertaking. How many of those do you have now, Ed? Two or three, I think.

I feel like it's like six or seven. I may have... Well, maybe you've been leading them? Give me one almost every time. You know, I mean, the thing is, like, I got one in the junk drawer in the backyard. I got one in thing is, like I got one in the junk drawer in the backyard. I got one in the back porch. I got one in the junk drawer in the kitchen.

I say junk drawer because it's just like random stuff. Sure. I got one in my toolbox. I got one like- You got glove compartment? Yeah, yeah. Like everywhere where you would need to measure something and a full on tape measure is not the tool.

Yeah, it's nice and light and small there. Okay. Robert Zikowski wrote me a note. Okay. Hello to Robert. And I'm going to read it to you. It's a little long here, but I we're still going to hit our two hour deadline. I can assure you Toronto hasn't held an open streets program since 2022 with active to being scrapped in June 2022 and Open Streets TO only having one event instead of two on August 21st. Current count, am I getting this right? Okay, I gotta keep this a long one. 2022. The 2022 municipal election and 2023 mayoral by-election saw

Mayor Olivia Chow and 14 current councillors support Open Streets, but nothing had been done since then and the media has been largely silent. Given this, I feel the need to break the silence and he's calling for an Open Streets campaign from he wrote a post on his blog in April 2025. He says a petition has been launched which has been signed by over 500 people in 20 organizations including Cycle Toronto, Walk Toronto, 880 cities and the Toronto Public Space. The Open Streets campaign has gotten some media coverage in CBC and Toronto today while Matt Elliott gave a

shout out in his recent Toronto Star column. So shout out to the Toronto Star. But can you speak to Open Street's CEO Robert Sikorski's email? Sure, I mean, at the risk of like, because I suppose I've been part of this media conspiracy of silence. Largely silent. Largely silent. Can you just tell me, what's he talking about?

Like what does Open Streets mean? Does that mean no cars? we had with Actifto? So does he mean with Actifto like on Sunday afternoons we shut down the street? Yeah, I think that's what he means. Walk in the street and all of that. Do you remember when we go walk on Lakeshore? Yeah. Like to like with Stadium to Windermere I want to say. I remember biking it and no cars were allowed.

Yeah, I mean I like I we used to have even like Mel Lastman a few times did like where they shut down most of the sections of Yonge but like kept the cross streets open but like you could go out on Yonge Street on Sunday afternoons in the summer and you exercise or dance in the street and all of that. I mean we do have a lot of street festivals in Toronto where the streets are closed. Yeah, like Taste of Little Italy and Taste of Kingsway. Yeah, Pride, Carabana.

Absolutely. But, you know, the Polish festival, the... Ukrainian? ...on the Armanzesvalles, the salsa on St. Clair, the Dewest Fest, the Taste of Lawrence. Like... Grilled cheese challenge every weekend of the summer there is a pedestrianized street somewhere in the city yeah there's having a festival I understand that's not the same as being able to like romp on wide open Lakeshore Boulevard or whatever or like go out and do yoga in

the middle of the road or whatever I'm in favor of the more of that. I just don't like um I Don't have really strong opinions about Yeah, I especially like I sympathize I Don't write a lot of columns, and I don't spend a lot of time defending Like car drivers in the city and their desire to get places faster I am one of them I do like to get places faster, but I also think

Grinding traffic is part of life in the big city. There may be some things we could do better but I don't think things like getting rid of bike lanes or like Prioritizing cars over other forms of travel is gonna help? Because that's just not how car traffic works. But I do think like, like so I do think that if we're like gonna have some kind of open streets like looking for the off hours where like, like Sunday mornings before noon or something or like whatever it is, like that's there's a useful compromise there because there is something great and liberating about about going out onto those streets and almost reclaiming that space as a cyclist or a pedestrian or just a human being who can stand in the middle of the road.

But it's not a huge priority for me. I don't know. Like I hear. Well, that's fair. Yeah, we've addressed I think we I read that was one of the longer emails I've ever read by For Robert Zajkowski who wrote me and he's not the only one not the only one who wrote me an email knowing you were Dropping by I get it. I like I don't I don't mean to be dismissive either. I know like um, Gil Penalosa Has has he really just talked about how like it can galvanize the city if it's a wide open thing where you have like all these big major streets are all closed at the same time on Sunday afternoons or Sunday mornings or whatever and it's like you've

got hours where people will go out and run like this is going to the the like bring your headphones dance ball party and this is going to be where it's going to be like we're going to play road hockey on this stretch and this is going to be the stretch where we're gonna like you know have a memorial ride for somebody or like whatever the the whole city is turned into a giant street park for on some regular basis for a period of hours and it becomes a civic event. I can see that working but I don't see that being widely proposed

right now and maybe that's what he's talking about is some some kind of bigger scale open streets movement and I could see that catching on but I didn't know frankly I like when when the all these members of council and Olivia Chow signed on to it I'm assuming that means that they they agreed with a group or something who was proposing open streets They said yeah, yeah

I'm in favor of that But I don't remember it being a big part of the debate right like so I don't as far as I know it's not on the council agenda right now and so Maybe it will be because it's become such a hot topic on Toronto Mike now. On Saturday, I spent hours in Kensington market. And I was thinking, cause it's just so busy, such a great vibe, you know,

walking into those like vintage stores, it's like going back to the nineties, right? Like you just walk in and you're in the, everything's the nineties. Like I was looking for public enemy t-shirts. It's bananas. Yeah, I was thinking oh This is the kind of street. This would be a cool street I was thinking if they closed it to vehicular traffic

Like it was so many people on both sides of the sidewalk checking out Kensington Market I just thought I mean these are not busy streets. These are like the side streets or whatever. It's not Spadina or college I'm saying you should or Dundas because it's kind of in the middle there. But I was thinking to myself as I was strolling, oh, this would be a cool street to shut down to cars. Yeah, and there have been discussions about that. Of course, there was PS Kensington Sundays for a long time, and this year they've got suspended

at the request of the local merchants and stuff, because I think a lot of the pedestrian Sundays have been taken over by outside merchants, some of whom were unlicensed, some of whom were... The question with a place like Kensington Market is that I'm not sure what problem pedestrianizing it solves. It's not a neighborhood where pedestrians are are like under threat right now you could stroll down the middle of Augusta Avenue and the cars will just slowly like creak along beside you right like like so there are people who who can get in

there and make deliveries to the fish markets or whatever and other people who who like can go find a parking spot there and then enjoy the market. But I do feel like it's already a pedestrian dominant zone. And so, whereas like I do think like having visited cities like in Montreal recently has like in the summer St. Catherine Street now. Right. St. Rue St. Catherine is like widely pedestrianized and they've done other versions of it and I do think you can see how transformative that can be and you can see Toronto tried it on Yonge Street in the 70s I don't I don't know that it would be a bad idea to try it again now like pedestrianizing Yonge Street on summer

weekends or just for the entire summer it's not already not a great driving street but I think more so than like a summer. It's already not a great driving street. But I think more so than like a little place that's already sort of like, I'm not trying to cut down your suggestion at Kensington Market. Just a random thought. I'm sorry, Ed, about my random thought.

No, no, no, but I think the reason why it seems so obvious in Kensington Market is because it's already basically a pedestrian zone with some slow moving, crawling car traffic. And I think it could potentially be more transformative on like a big street like Yonge where pedestrians could just flood out there into the middle of the road. And then potentially you could put like a ongoing street festival there, right? Like you could license vendors in the middle of the road and all of that and have like, you know, taste a young street for the whole summer going on, right?

But obviously that that's a bigger imposition too, but it does feel like more transformative power. Mike wrote me. There's a lot of mics. I don't know if you know that. Yeah, yeah. A lot of mics out there. don't know if you know that. Yeah, yeah. A lot of Mikes out there. I have a bunch in my family. Yeah, it's just, it's very confusing, but that's why I'm Toronto Mike. There's only one Toronto Mike.

Okay, remember that. Mike wrote me to say, the next time you're talking with Edward Keenan. So that's respect, right? He says, you're an Edward. I think of you as an Ed, to be quite honest, but you're an Edward and Mike knows it. Okay. Next time you're talking with Edward Keenan, ask him about, and this is Mike's words,

ask him about all the God awful graffiti polluting the city and what if anything can be done about it? And why do you never actually see someone painting the graffiti? Someone literally scaled one of the pillars on the span bridge over the DVP to write hero and I'm like how? Yeah well I mean I think not just in Toronto but in cities around the world there are like whole documentaries and and investigations and subcultural

phenomena written about the daredevil taggers and graffiti artists. There's some distinction between somebody who scribbles like a picture of a dick or like their initials and somebody who creates like what they consider to be a mural with like a lot of detail in the art and stuff. But like, I mean, they're very good at getting away with it and when they do go like up on those high points the the difficulty is part of what gives them bragging rights right and and doing it in ways that allow them like to the property owner doesn't see them do it the police don't see them do it the neighbors don't see them do it

how did it get there I mean that's part of the appeal for them. And as far as I can tell, the only way to stop it is to just paint over it immediately. Like it has to be so, like if you own a business and somebody graffiti's the front door, uh, and you paint it every morning, I mean, that sucks that you should have to do that. Right. But if it then, then at a certain point they go, it's not worth my while to do this anymore, right? Because nobody ever sees it. That's what used to be a big problem on the New York subway system, right?

And it was in the 90s because people thought it was an unsolvable problem. The outside of subway cars was just covered in graffiti. And so they actually literally implemented a system where those cars are cleaned at the end of every run. It's like imagine on the Toronto subway system a car is power washed at Kennedy every time it arrives there before it goes back the other direction, right? And and that's what finally broke out that habit, right? Because because otherwise people will just keep coming and doing it.

So I mean, I wish for this letter writer's sake that there was an easier answer about it's already against a lot of vandalize with spray paint like that. Right. It's already, you know, but I don't know anyone in any city that's like really solved the problem. I guess you could try to have harsher penalties like Singapore or something, but I don't know that that actually works, and I don't know that there's a lot of public outcry for that. But it is something that makes you wonder when you look around at especially how did he get up there to do that?

How did some dude even get that there? So yeah, no doubt like so so personally speaking, to me it depends where the graffiti is. A lot of the graffiti in the city I simply don't mind. Like I feel like yeah this is a big city thing. It's kind of like part of hip-hop culture and I'm kind of down with it or whatever. But my passion is I hate it if I see anyone graffiti like rocks. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like nothing's worse than like you're out in nature and somebody's like graffiti

like a cliff face like the escarpment And somebody's like graffiti like a cliff face, like the escarpment. It was like, come on. That to me is like, then I get, and then I think about the naked gun, right? Which by the way, there's like a reboot coming out this summer. I don't even, I don't know, I saw like the trailer for it,

like Liam Neeson takes over the Leslie Nielsen role, naked gun. I don't know if you saw these trailers or whatever. But I think it's nakedaked Gun where they had a, they had a anti-graffiti wall, like where graffiti artists would spray paint the wall and the wall would spray paint them back. Was that Naked Gun?

Like I think that's Naked Gun, I don't know. I don't remember it from Naked Gun, so I, Why do I remember it from Naked Gun? But I feel like maybe, Maybe it is a Naked Gun and Why do I remember it from Naked Gun? But I feel like maybe- Maybe it is a Naked Gun and I've just forgotten it. Kennedy or- I missed it. It's possible I just missed the joke.

Did you know that Mel Brooks is teasing a- Ah, Spaceballs. Spaceballs. Sequel. Sequel? It's about time. Isn't that amazing? Yeah, it's gonna be all CGI, I guess.

Mel Brooks is gonna direct it himself, right? This is not like a... He's involved, he's 99 years old. Disney taking over. So, no I won't. Because I mean, I was thinking of the cast, like they're all in, I mean, obviously, John Candy's gone. John Candy is rest in peace.

And Jane Fonda, wasn't she like the C-3PO? Right, right. She's no longer with. But it is interesting, these movies like Naked Gun that we grew up with, like Naked Gun and Spaceballs, these were a couple of like 80s comedy staples they're all kind of being rebooted it is it'll be interesting to see what they do with these with these movies it's funny that the like total like recycling culture of movies has come for the like the spoof movies right right because it was like

there's no more original IP left. And now even the ones that made fun of the old school IP are being repurposed. So. Well, I still think all the time about that space ball scene when they were watching the VHS copy of the movie they were making and then they fast forward. And then they said, now we're at the part where.

That's right. Yeah. I don't know. It blew my mind back then and it blows my mind today and I kind of reference it all the time. But Ed, is there anything you wanted to talk, I hit the target by the way,

I think I have a couple of minutes to spare. Was there anything you wanted to talk about and I didn't even ask you about it? Because we don't talk before these episodes. Yeah, no, I don't think so. And if so, I'll make it a top of the agenda thing next time. If I'm on the driving home and Think oh I meant to mention that but I think I think we ran through all that more should we talk

I mean I I kind of prefer you come in cold and then I have things that I want to talk about but if there Was ever anything you wanted to talk about you could seed it with me. Yeah. Yeah, but not only that like I Wanted to ask you about the new picture on the Toronto Maple Leafs. Yeah, Yomini, who's a lovely woman. And I did. So I don't even need to cede it to you. I just brought it up. Right. Yeah, you can always do that. Because I always think, it's just like, the magic of it is just like a conversation, and people get to listen in. It's like, if people know, it's not already obvious. There's no like,

pre-interview. There's no agenda we have. This is just a random... But I do have a- You have an agenda. You just don't share it with me. I have a Google- I don't share it with you. But I have a Google document and literally I'll go on a bike ride and I'll have a thought like-

Well, I had a couple of emails from listeners, but I'll have a thought. Oh, I got to ask Ed. I was going to ask- I didn't even bother. I was going to ask you, TTC has a new CEO. But then even I felt bored by the whole thing. I felt bored by that. And there's a quote I pulled from Edward Keenan of the Toronto Star.

And the quote was, cycling to work is an absolute joy. Did you write those words, an absolute joy? I did. Yeah, yeah. I love cycling to work. I try to find that balance. I don't do it every day, but the days I do it, I arrive at work in a good mood. And you have a pedal, I'm curious about your bike.

It's pedal powered only. Yeah. Not that it matters. I, I, most often when I cycle to work, I use a bike share bike. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's a Cam Gordon style. So my wife who works near York and Queens Key and you know where we live, she recently bought an e-bike because, uh, she gets help getting there and back.

I, she loves it. And it's become this like, she's like, she's talking to me. Like I didn't know how much fun it was to ride the waterfront to York and Queens County. And I'm like, I've been talking about this for 12 years, but now she's doing it with her e-bike. Yeah, but those pedal assisted e-bikes, like you still get exercise and yet you don't have to sweat

your way up a hill. So I'm all in favor. It's up to the rider how much pedal power they want to employ or whatever. But we went to see the best TFC game of the season at BMO Field and I rode my bike and my nine-year-old rode her bike and my 11-year-old rode his bike and Monica had the e-bike and she's like, this is the way to go. Beautiful summer ride on the waterfront. What a great city we live in Ed.

Some days I think so. And that under two hours with Ed Keenan. Holy smokes. The things that we consider achievements. That brings us to the end of our 1726th show. Go to torontomike.com for all your Toronto Mike needs. Much love to all who made this possible. That's Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Toronto's Waterfront BIA, watch your head Ed Keenan. Toronto Maple Leafs baseball,

RecycleMyElectronics.ca, Building Toronto Skyline, and Redlee Funeral Home. Thanks to everybody who joined us on the live stream. Don't look up Ayami Sato's ERA, because I mentioned she got lit up in the second outing and the ERA is not flattering but she had a great first start. I witnessed it. See you all tomorrow when my special guest is Scotty Mac. It's actually not

Scotty Mac. It's Jill Deacon. Scotty Mac is Thursday. Jill Deacon returns. We're going to find out how she's doing. She's no longer hosting here and now, and this will be fantastic. So I can't wait to catch up with Jill Deacon tomorrow, 2 p.m. live.torontomike.com. We'll see if I have the frame rate issue resolved by then. See you all then.