Latest / Kvetch & Release / AM800 CKLW Roundtable with Jon Liedtke, Kieran McKenzie, Greg Lemay, & Dan MacDonald - April 29, 2024

Transcript

AM800 CKLW Roundtable with Jon Liedtke, Kieran McKenzie, Greg Lemay, & Dan MacDonald - April 29, 2024 · Kvetch & Release

0:03
Well, hey, good morning and happy Monday everybody. Welcome back. It's
0:06
Dan McDonald. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Dan McDonald show
0:09
on AM eight hundred c KLW. Want to welcome back our round table to
0:14
the studio this morning, the OG roundtable too. We got community advocate Greg
0:18
LeMay in studio and host of Rose City Politics and a host here on AM
0:22
eight hundred CLW, mister John Lydd Key. Guys are the original two?
0:25
I believe the original two And of course we were on the phone though,
0:29
yeah, it was on the phone back in the days of COVID. Yes,
0:33
the phone round table much better in person. Last, but certainly not
0:36
least counselor a City Windsor counselor for Ward nine Kien Mackenzie counsel, Good morning,
0:40
Thanks for having always love having you on the big top story. The
0:43
news poll today is Ontario to ban the use of cell phones in school classrooms
0:48
starting in September. Agree or disagree on this one. I have lots of
0:53
thoughts on this one, but but your thoughts. Is it going to make
0:56
any difference this big announcement or is it going to be Is anything really good
1:00
to change? Curious? To know what your thoughts are. You know,
1:03
I I found it really interesting every time that this conversation comes up that cell
1:07
phone use is not only as ubiquitous as it is in schools, but also
1:11
encouraged in many cases allowed. You know, even reading through what this proposed
1:15
change is going to be, it says request students in kindergarten to grade seven
1:22
to put your phones on mute. And I'm just thinking, like, what
1:25
do you mean request a kindergarten kid? Like like request a kid like they
1:30
are drawing on the walls sometimes, like what do you mean? But listen,
1:36
Politically speaking, this is a really smart move for the Ford government because
1:40
I don't think you could really easily defend cell phone use the way that we've
1:42
seen the problems with. I mean, heck, we've got four of the
1:45
largest school boards right now suing because of the problems that come from social media,
1:51
and the same with you know, banning vaping. Hard for someone to
1:53
walk out and actually be the I'm going to defend kids vaping in school's angle.
1:57
But what this really does is it's it's a channel change right at a
2:00
time when we have the NDP Caucus coming forward with a full where they're all
2:07
going to wear their cathias one day, and they're encouraging all of the community
2:09
and the labor unions to come out and do so outside of the legislature.
2:15
This is a great channel change because it allows for the government to say,
2:17
look, we're focused on kids, We're focused on schools. Let them pick
2:22
political fights. We're going to focus on your children right now. So listen.
2:25
Is that a good thing that it's being done right now and in such
2:28
a political fashion? I mean, like, maybe I'm offside with my interpretation
2:31
of it, but I mean this is still politics at the end of the
2:34
day. M h yeah, you know, I accept the political analysis.
2:40
I think the Ford government has been running bad pretty for fairly extended period of
2:45
time. A number of issues have piled up where they look like they're offside,
2:47
don't understand what's going on. But to me, it's it's almost shocking
2:53
that this ban isn't already in place. I know there was legislation that was
2:58
previously passed to try to some of this, and perhaps the pandemic sort of
3:01
changed the landscape with to a certain extent and in terms of like the use
3:05
of online tools, but no, there's there to John's point, there is
3:08
no rationale that could defend the fact that people, that young people in particular,
3:15
and very very young people should have access to a digital device that is
3:19
completely and totally within the scope of their own control. You can only play
3:23
so much, and maybe I'm dating myself. There's so much candy crush while
3:25
the math, the math, the math lesson is happening to be able to
3:30
absorb some of that information. And and if the only the only defense that
3:32
I could think of when I was gonna so who's the what's the other side
3:37
of this as well? I want my child to have access to their phone
3:39
in case there's an emergency. Well, I guarantee you if there's an emergency
3:45
and you call the office, your child will be notified immediately. And probably
3:47
in some instances, if they're doing the right thing and their phone is off
3:51
and perhaps not accessible or turn turned around or whatnot, they they'll find out
3:58
sooner if you notified the administration of the school before you message them directly if
4:02
they're if they're at school. So there's literally, in my mind, no
4:05
argument. Then if you want to talk about politically politically speaking, then you
4:11
know, if I really wanted to turn around. Why didn't you do something
4:14
about this sooner? This is this is something that should have been done a
4:15
long time ago. You've been in government now for your your second term.
4:19
So look, I'm glad you're dealing with it, but you know, if
4:24
we had a time machine, you probably could have done it, you know,
4:26
on day one, done and and sort of put all of our children,
4:30
all of these arguments that you're using in a better position to be able
4:32
to work. That's a good point. That's the one pushback we ever get
4:34
whenever you bring this topic up is someone says, what if I need to
4:38
contact my child immediately, Well, that's that's going to be all the option,
4:41
right, And that that's assuming that your child is coming on their phone.
4:44
How did your parents get a hold of you? Right, Yeah,
4:46
exactly. And that's only if your child is non stop on their phone at
4:50
school, like they're not supposed to be on their phone. That's the only
4:54
way you can directly get a hold of them through on their phone, like
4:56
all the time checking for messages. Well, I mean, if you're an
4:58
APT parent, you slide them to the d M S righte. I was
5:03
literally talking to my daughter when I was looking at the topics. I was
5:06
driving her home yesterday and then I'm like, look at the look at the
5:09
one topic. She read the article and she goes like, are you kidding
5:12
me? This sucks. She wasn't happy, and I'm like, what do
5:16
you need Snapchat for? She goes, but here's the thing, Dad,
5:18
At my board, at the French board, I guess they they don't allow
5:23
Like, for example, at my board, I can connect and go on
5:26
certain things right through their Wi Fi. At the at the French board,
5:30
they don't. They don't allow you to do anything. You have to log
5:31
in as a as the student email, and basically all of those sites are
5:35
already gone. So she can't even use your phone. You can't access she
5:40
can't even get on the Wi Fi. So I'm like, what does it
5:42
matter? Why do you need your phone at school? It makes no sense
5:44
anyway. The phone should be at home. If I need to get a
5:46
hold, they would call the office. But I guess the other part of
5:48
the political thing is, isn't this government, the ones who brought in the
5:53
electronics and all of this stuff, they can put these tools in these kids'
5:57
hands. I know it was during COVID, but you know what I mean,
6:00
I feel like we missed the curve a little bit with integrating technology into
6:03
the curriculum properly in the first when it first started being introduced, Like it
6:08
is going to be a part of life, you do have to know how
6:09
to use it. You can't get behind on that. But I don't think
6:12
we did it the right way, and now here we are it's kind of
6:14
the wild wild West. But I'm really curious Greg, your daughter, like
6:16
when she said it sucks, she was, yeah, side because she goes
6:19
after school. My go just for school. She goes, Oh, thank
6:23
god, I can still use Snapchat? Was that her biggest That was her
6:28
biggest concern? That was so right there. I mean, you shouldn't be
6:30
using Snapchat in the school, you know what I mean, that's not what
6:32
the school is for. But that's what we do. We take pictures and
6:35
we communicate. I'm like, talk to your friends. Yeah, you don't
6:39
need to. They wouldn't let us pass notes, that's true. Yeah,
6:45
what well, I know for a fact, like had I been allowed.
6:48
There was one caller he called in the morning drive this morning with Mike and
6:50
Lisa, and he was a teacher, Joe, And I was really interested
6:54
to hear his perspective. He teaches grade nine and eleven. I think his
6:56
classrooms, and he said he is a bit of a He puts the hammer
7:00
down. He says, no phones unless I say, okay, it's phone
7:04
time. You can almost like lead your time. Your teachers would do that
7:06
now and then catch up on whatever it's it's social time. And then he
7:11
said, or if it's work time, you can pull your phone out.
7:13
But I thought, okay, I don't think any A lot of students aren't
7:16
using their phones for work. I know I wouldn't be like I remember this.
7:20
I was an okay student, but I know for a fact I was
7:24
a note passer. If I had my phone and I was allowed to use
7:26
it, I would be texting all my friends and we'd be giggling like I
7:29
wouldn't be doing my work. So I don't get how it's not a distraction.
7:31
I have a phone in front of me right now and two screens that
7:34
I'm logged into. Think that I'm like not taking full advantage. Three screen
7:41
experience is madness. You can't run your only fans for me? And one
7:44
hundred n ye, look Dan, now your dad saying see you don't always
7:48
have a calculator. I bring that up to my dad all the time.
7:50
Yes I did that, I have my phone now, but yeah, I
7:53
don't know. I stand by it. I'm curious to know how it's going
7:56
to be enforced too well. That therein lies the issue, and I think
7:59
part of the issue, part of the reason why the government typically would come
8:01
in on almost any issue and decide to pass the legislation banning a certain thing
8:05
or whatever it is that they might do, is to create a uniform playing
8:09
field across the entire jurisdiction. So in this case, the province. I
8:13
think part of the problem with some with the legislation that was previously passed was
8:16
the fact that there was a sort of a directive that was passed by the
8:20
province and then it was left to be implemented by the schools. And I
8:22
get it that there's going to be an implementation. Every school is going to
8:24
do it to a certain degree, is certain different way, but there was
8:28
too much wiggle room in terms of when you can when you can allow it,
8:31
when you can allow it. The province saying everybody, it's that you
8:35
know, however you get there, it's a zero tolerance. You're in the
8:37
classroom, you can't use these devices your personal devices. And to your other
8:43
point about like that hasn't been introduced correctly, absolutely and that but that means
8:46
if you want to teach kids about technology, actually teach them about technology,
8:50
have devices that they can use, and I know there's a cost associated with
8:54
that in the classroom. That are school that are that are set up by
8:58
the schools, and they can know if this is how you navigate to website
9:01
X, Y or z, this is how you do these other things,
9:03
and it's all in a controlled and curriculum developed learning environment, not haphazard.
9:09
A childless their own device, different device across all across the board, and
9:13
they're doing whatever they want whenever they want on it. It's they're not going
9:16
to teach anyway. I think the the other thing is is that are the
9:20
teachers going to be backed up in this because I just got a message from
9:24
a teacher saying the cell phone band will just cause more teacher student conflict.
9:28
So a lot of these teachers they don't even want to address these kids with
9:31
certain because you could just say, look has nothing to do with me,
9:35
this is your this is the right, right The other thing I wanted to
9:41
touch on is the is the vaping. Yeah, obviously, me working in
9:45
the in the school board system as well, a lot of these kids are
9:46
going to the bathrooms to vape. How are you going to police that they're
9:50
shoving everything? This is this is the enforcement angle that makes me look at
9:54
it as an inherent dead cat on the table to distract from other issues that
9:58
are going on right now and legislature, whether it's actual phrase politics. I
10:07
didn't I didn't coin that, but I think there has been a reluctance to
10:11
go and pursue these matters for the reason that Greg just said is, you
10:13
know, washrooms. There are a lot of sensitivities right now when it comes
10:18
to LGBT issues and bathrooms and which choice do you want? And this government
10:22
does not really want to wait into anything like that. But when we look
10:26
at you know, what's going on here, this is inherently now a conversation
10:30
that's going to be coming up. How do you stop phones and bathrooms?
10:33
How do you stop vaping in bathrooms? There's gonna have to devices vape detecting,
10:39
turn off the cell phone when you walk into cell phones. But they
10:43
do have that but again it's a it's a it's a it's now there's a
10:46
cost association with the interesting case, every time the government says it wants to
10:50
do something, you're going to do it. Great, you have to do
10:52
it, but you also need to make sure that you have the tools.
10:54
You make the tools available to the institutions that are going to need to carry
10:58
out your directives. So you know, it's one thing to say we're going
11:01
to ban it, where's the money? Hey, how about this government funds
11:05
our mental health problems and our addiction problems instead of instead of this, there
11:11
might be a huge corela into somebody did see the ban of cell phones springs
11:15
equality back. Not all kids can have the latest and greatest cell phone,
11:18
if techno, if technology is needed in school, the school should provide it.
11:22
And I think that might be the that might be the case. That's
11:24
a good point right there. Who yes, thank you Texter for that.
11:26
We had to take a really quick break. We will come back with our
11:28
roundtable this morning. John Lidkey Counselor, Karen mackenzie, Greg Lamay, keep
11:33
it here. It's the Dan McDonald show. Don't go away. Well,
11:35
hey, good morning, and welcome back. It's Dan McDonald. Thank you
11:39
so much for tuning in. You're listening to the Dan McDonald Show. Welcome
11:41
back to our roundtable as well, Counselor Kieran McKenzie, community advocate Greg Lamay
11:45
and host of Rose City Politics and here on AM eight hundred, John Lidkey.
11:48
Uh, did anyone go downtown Detroit or Windsor for the big NFL Draft
11:54
party? I was there Saturday night in Windsor, uh and saw some of
11:56
the performers. It was awesome. It was packed, it was beautiful weather.
12:01
I loved it. It was It reminded me of like back in the
12:03
day when I'd be downtown with all the bars getting out and stuff. It
12:07
was phenomenal. Nobody acting fool either. Everybody was good, everybody was safe.
12:11
It was wonderful. Your thoughts and my question here, rather than asking
12:16
what is keeping people away from downtown? I always frame the question like that.
12:18
I want to start asking what do you think will bring people? And
12:22
open it up? Whoever? Anyone down there on Saturday? Well, I
12:26
wasn't okay, yep, I was. I was out of town and personal
12:31
reasons. But where I was, I was in the I was in Montreal,
12:33
I was with a lot of my family, and I was proud to
12:37
show my family, look at my home, look at where this is where
12:41
I'm from. And there's three hundred thousand people that are you know, and
12:45
it's on national television or international television. Uh, the NFL setting attendance records,
12:50
and you know, we're so we're center stage in you know, in
12:56
front of the world last weekend or the weekend that just passed. And so
13:00
I said, there's a tremendous amount of pride. If I was here in
13:01
Windsor, I would have been in Detroit on at least on one of the
13:03
days. Uh. And certainly downtown Counselor Agostino did an amazing job organizing that
13:11
event. There's been a lot of people that he very graciously has given credit
13:15
to for making this happen. There is no way the event happens if there's
13:20
no Counselor Ronaldo Agostino. That's a full stop. Once Ronaldo sort of put
13:24
many things in motion, it there's a lot of folks that jumped on and
13:28
that's a credit to his leadership. But it's him, it's him and him
13:31
alone that made it happen. I really want to congratulate him for that,
13:35
but once again, just a tremendous amount of pride seeing my home region thrive
13:41
and on display when you know, thinking about Windsor is windsor Detroit. Yeah,
13:45
I was wonderful. Down were you downtown? I went down Saturday night,
13:50
I think probably just after you, because I was looking around for you.
13:52
I saw that you had put up a post, but I wasn't able
13:54
to find you. Job I was. I was in and out of place,
13:56
but it was It was so cool to see downtown thriving again, as
14:03
you said, like sort of what it used to be like when the bars
14:05
would all empty out, but we don't have those opportunities as much anymore,
14:09
with a lack of those establishments. But everyone was out and they were having
14:13
fun. And how incredible is it that, you know, we saw Detroit
14:16
beat every record that was set quite frankly, the one day record, the
14:20
three day record, and just seeing the video footage from the NFL itself of
14:26
just just I got overwhelmed and almost panicky just seeing how many people were there.
14:33
I went good for Detroit, glad to see that. So glad I'm
14:37
not there right now. I'll check out the windsor event a bit later.
14:43
Yeah, yeah, but it was just it's so great. It's awesome.
14:45
It's been I'm the same way when it's a massive crowd like that, like
14:48
I'm like, oh, I'll go on the I don't like to be smacked
14:50
down in the middle. But I love seeing I love that energy, I
14:54
love that vibe. I think it's phenomenal. Greg, did you make it
14:56
down any festivities? I it was swelled up as a Tuesday night and I
15:01
was kind of better and until pretty much Saturday, so I missed most of
15:05
it. But yeah, I know I did see the photos. I did
15:07
see, you know, a lot of the live action and things obviously with
15:11
our downtown with the councilor Augustino and what went on there was amazing, pretty
15:15
sweet to see obviously, good good for good for us and good for definitely
15:18
good for Detroit. Well, it was really cool to a moment. I
15:22
got to introduce the Van Hutch and I've known them for years, and one
15:24
of the Dallas Cowboys came out and played with them, which was wild.
15:26
I thought that was the coolest thing. I didn't get a chance to talk
15:30
to me yet, but something that I was watching and I think of this.
15:33
When we have open streets or any kind of street closure, people get
15:37
very excited and come out. Isn't it interesting that you know, we have
15:41
this thing with parking and cars, but we what brings us downtown is when
15:45
okay that there's no there's not too many cars, there's no cars, the
15:48
streets closed, and everybody comes like there's there's something there. Kieran, you'd
15:52
probably be very articulate at bet than I do, but there is something there,
15:54
like, hey, everyone that the buzzy cool thing is there's gonna be
15:56
no cars on the three hundred block of Alete, and everyone swarms. I
16:00
always thought that's interesting. Well, okay, it's actually a really good point.
16:03
Dan, Thanks for raising that. We don't have a parking capacity issue
16:07
downtown. That's the real what we What we have for some people is a
16:14
they can't park directly in front of the place that is their main destination,
16:18
and because of that there's a parking problem. We have plenty of parking spaces.
16:22
It's not different than any other downtown, whether medium sized city, large
16:27
sized cities. You'll park your car and you're gonna have to find your way
16:30
to walk or whoever it is that you're individually or personally mobile, get to
16:34
wherever it is that you want to go. And you know how kids have
16:37
like object permanence problems, like you like Bikaboo, it's like, oh my
16:41
god, you're gone, I can't see you. Windsor has an object permanence
16:45
problem when it comes to elations. If you can see the location from where
16:49
you park, they're totally fine with that. But the second that you lose
16:52
the optics of seeing where you're going, it all falls apart. In its
16:56
wing to park at the mall and walk bometers to get to where they want
17:00
to go. The scene is a very good example. Here's me the opposite.
17:03
Like I go to red wing games all the time, right and my
17:07
daughter as she comes with me, and when we go through the tunnel,
17:10
there's a parking lot right right there. I always park there, and she
17:12
goes, why do you park so far? Because we're the first one's back
17:15
over. Yes, you don't have to wait. I will walk to fifteen
17:18
minutes, we'll get to Little Caesar's. We'll scoot back by the time everybody
17:22
else has left their little parking garage that's right up front. We've already walked
17:26
back and we're in the tunnel. It's so terfect. Yeah, we're gone.
17:29
Everyone else is in line. I've never understood that either the circling and
17:32
I got to park right in front. It's and yeah, we don't have
17:34
this proud it. We don't have a parking problem in downtown Windsor. We
17:37
really don't. There was the comments, Yeah, me too. We'll take
17:41
a quick break. We'll come back and do that. Keep it here,
17:44
it's the Roundtable. John Lidkey, counsel Karen mackenzie and Greg LeMay. Don't
17:47
go away. Well, Hey, good morning, and welcome back. It's
17:51
Dan McDonald. Thanks so much for tuning in. You're listening to the Dan
17:53
McDonald show on AM eight hundred SKLW. Welcome back to our round table as
17:59
well. We have counselor for Ward nine, Kieran McKenzie, host of Roast
18:02
City Politics, John Lidkey, community advocate, Greg LeMay and Kieran, you're
18:06
you're actually in the news today reading here talking about investment and electrical vehicle battery
18:11
manufacturing and Windsor. And then it's important to look at charging capacity on public
18:15
lands, possibly looking at ways to incentivize private sector to add the capacity that
18:21
seems to be that in cost, but infrastructure charging. What are we looking
18:26
at here and why is this so important to look at? Well, I
18:29
think it's it's obvious why it's so important, particularly for the city of Windsor.
18:32
We are going to be the epicenter in North America and likely the entire
18:36
world of building lithium based car batteries for literally almost you know, across all
18:42
a variety of different manufacturers. So if we're going to be building these these
18:48
devices and critical to building these devices in that in that whole supply chain,
18:52
we need to as a community be walking that walk, so to speak,
18:56
and making sure that we are a place where that technology is the easiest for
19:00
it to be deployed in the automobility sector. So, I think one of
19:04
the biggest concerns that I've heard people raises is around charging capacity in terms of
19:08
the choice that they may make, the consumer choice that they may make,
19:11
so whether or not they are or aren't going to consider an electric vehicle for
19:15
the next vehicle purchase. So we certainly, I think, as a community,
19:18
have the opportunity to look at the different ways that we can make sure
19:22
that that choice isn't a choice or is not a fact a negative factor ms
19:26
of making that choice that that capacity is in all the places. It's as
19:30
easy as it possibly could be for someone to make that choice in terms of
19:33
am I going to be able to make sure that when the vehicle is idle
19:36
that I have a place to charge it? So, you know, and
19:38
that's going to be through a combination of factors. That needs to be available
19:41
in public and in private spaces while people are at work or perhaps shopping or
19:48
doing whatever it is that they might be doing, and certainly at home.
19:51
That capacity needs to be in place. And it's not as easy as just
19:53
saying we'll just have them everywhere. A there's an expense, and sometimes it's
19:56
pretty significant expense. That that technology might be become more financially accessible over time,
20:02
but we are where we are currently, then there's you know, this
20:04
is again to counselor. At Gastino's credit, he had a see He had
20:07
a c Q earlier this year asking about how we what we would do to
20:12
include charging capacity and residential areas for places where there aren't driveways, So where
20:18
does that charger go if you don't have the ability to park your car on
20:22
your own private lot. So are we going to be having chargers, you
20:26
know, all dotted along any any city street in the public right away to
20:32
maybe on the boulevard or whatever where the parking meters are. Well, that's
20:34
but that's that's one thing. Sure on on main thoroughfares where there is on
20:40
street parking, But think about just regular residential area that's my street. There's
20:45
no driveways. If you haven't if you have an EV do you where do
20:48
you charge that? And it's not just yeah, but that's again, Now
20:51
we get back to parking and how close am I to my destination? Am
20:53
I comfortable parking my car block away? Charging it there and being being at
20:59
home and leaving it and leaving it there overnight or however long it's got to
21:03
be just let's get that question the full discussion. Turn the smart people at
21:07
the city windsor their minds to this, all right, because there's there's not
21:11
only just incentive programs, there's also bylaws we can look at. As we're
21:15
developing and looking at building multi reds with big, big parking lots, maybe
21:18
the city might require a developer to include charging capacity. Right now, there's
21:23
parking minimums that they have to follow. They have to include active transportation,
21:29
so bike bike not lockers necessarily, although we might move to that, but
21:32
certain bike parking capacity has to be included as a part of it. Why
21:37
not charging capacity as a requirement for any development to go forward? I almost
21:41
think we have to, Like, if we want everyone to be driving these
21:44
like, we need to have the system and place to support the facilities downtown
21:48
public parking lots, the airport, roseland golf course. Yeah, thinking about
21:53
it. And then then on top of it, if we're developing publicly that
21:56
capacity, what are the synergies the city has a massive fleet complement? Who
22:03
also who also in the city, windsor universe requires electric charging capacity transit windsor
22:10
so let's get all of those discussions going. And so it's a big CQ.
22:14
I think there's a lot that needs to be unpacked there. But I
22:17
think it's a really really important question for us to address when you're asking about
22:22
new builds. Let's say, for example, and developers, is there a
22:25
grant out there are their grants available for them to include this into new builds?
22:30
The short answers, I don't know. I don't know either but again,
22:33
like if there are, then because you think there would be right,
22:36
this would this would this would this would detail with that to to explore what
22:40
is potentially out there. But look, you know this is what happens with
22:42
every development. If there's a developer that has there's a there's a fee that's
22:45
associated some kind of input cost input that they need to address in the in
22:52
their development. They don't. They're out of pocket for a minute, they're
22:56
not out of pocket once. It's just the HS well, I mean cost
23:00
of the development. You look at a level three charger that you could put
23:04
like on the side of your house kind of thing. Those those costs like
23:07
nine hundred bucks to fifteen hundred dollars. You put that in as part of
23:11
what's required. It's just the cost of doing business for putting up a new
23:15
build. What the real question is is in terms of the public right,
23:18
when you know someone's going shopping at the mall, for example, and they're
23:22
going to be there for a couple hours, you don't necessarily need to go
23:23
and spend the most money on the fastest chargers because they're going to be there
23:26
for a while, which means the charging can be over a longer period of
23:30
time, whereas if someone's like, you know, trying to let's say,
23:33
fill up like they would at a gas station, you're going to want to
23:37
have the fastest charger possible so they can be out within five minutes. But
23:40
these capacity issues are very real right now, and they come with not only
23:44
the infrastructure of getting the electricity to the cars, then there are conversations about
23:48
the actual electrical generation and if we have enough right now currently, which we
23:53
do not, how much coppers in these charges, and then well then we
23:56
have conversations as well about like we're going to be going towards, you know,
24:00
utilizing gas based electricity, Are we going to be trying to use renewables.
24:04
There's so much that's wrapped up in it. But evs aren't going anywhere.
24:08
The adoption might be longer than what some had hoped for at the outset.
24:12
But then on the flip side, China is producing. I mean,
24:15
we tried to get BYD a decade ago to do electric buses with us.
24:19
They're now the largest electric vehicle company in the world. They overtook Tesla and
24:25
they sell a pretty nice consumer four door Sedan for eight thousand dollars Chinese and
24:30
once those things start hitting our shores here, you're going to see the opportunity
24:36
cost drop immensely to getting it actually v as our traditional automakers realize they've got
24:41
to compete, which then will make these types of situations far more pressing.
24:45
Because as it is right now, we're doing good when it comes to electric
24:48
vehicles because there's like probably a couple hundred in the area. Yeah, the
24:53
biggest complaint I always hear and see is that we don't have the infrastructure to
24:56
charge all these cards. Yeah, right, and you look even at California
25:00
what they have there was experiencing brown outs. I don't know if you guys
25:03
are they're plugging their cars back in to put the you know, charge your
25:07
car, but put it back in, you know what I mean, but
25:10
put it back into the system. Right. So, I don't know,
25:11
it's going to be an interesting Uh, I'm seeing more of them lately,
25:15
But yeah, I mean my perception, I don't know how many we have.
25:18
That's part of this whole thing. But I feel like we don't have
25:21
enough right now, Like we really need to make some big headway to keep
25:25
up and make up. I think people are just worried too about like the
25:27
battery, right, but again remember Alga's got over twenty thousand patents on batteries.
25:32
They know what they're doing. These batteries are going to evolve. Right.
25:34
What we have right now are people who have evs because they have the
25:37
luxury of having evs, right, And that's the fact of the matter.
25:41
And when we get to the point, like what Kieran's saying, if you
25:44
don't have a driveway, I know of actually one how sort of in midtown
25:48
here where you'll see an electric charger running across the street. I've seen to
25:53
work across the street to the car. It's like it's all funny to laugh
25:59
at, but it's all also like these are pretty serious issues when it comes
26:03
to infrastructure because you could have it getting ruptured, a fire starting. You
26:06
don't want to have like it's just you don't know your charging and that that
26:11
that's that scenario is a phone call away from ending. Somebody makes a call
26:17
Bylon'll be down there and if it'll just eventually they will put a stop to
26:22
it. It's just it's going that will happen. So but again, that
26:25
person is just trying to charge their vehicle, and they don't have any options,
26:27
so they're doing what it whatever it is that they need to do.
26:30
So look, it's a conversation that needs to happen. We're not a critical
26:34
point yet, but we have to, as I said, turn our minds
26:37
to it and start get ahead of you know, plan to have a plan
26:41
and start implementing all of those different things. Now is absolutely the time.
26:45
Good question. Somebody somebody else just mentioned said, hello, apartment buildings,
26:49
and that there's another Absolutely, they've got to be able to party. That's
26:55
the thing. If you if you look at the four buildings that they put
26:56
up next to w f CU, they only have a couple of charges there.
27:00
That's it. In the parking lot, yeah right, the parking lot's
27:03
not even big enough to host the cars that are there. They're using w
27:04
s u's parking lot. Yeah, so what's going to happen there at some
27:07
point? Yeah, it all comes back to parking. That's a weird way
27:11
it kind of does. Yeah. Yeah, you charge your charger at home,
27:18
in your house while you're away, and at night, the charger goes
27:21
into the vehicle and you figure out how to charge it from you know,
27:23
internally somehow there's anyway that's I think that's a huge part of the solution.
27:30
Maybe almost, I don't know, but this is a bigger conversation too.
27:32
Maybe almost a vehicle should come with that the way iPhones come with a charge
27:36
you can bring anywhere. Maybe a car should, an EV should have a
27:40
charge. It's in the trunk. It comes out and you plug it into
27:42
your house and you put in the trunk for your travels. Not even sure
27:45
where we are with respect to that technology. I don't either, but it
27:47
sounds like that makes the most sense so far. I'll just say, Chevy
27:51
Volts have that? Do they? Is that what they do? Portable charger?
27:55
I think that makes that makes the most sensetive. And I didn't mean
27:56
like, think of that and if it exists or not, I don't know,
27:59
but if it, if it does, that's the way to go.
28:00
Oh yeah, I could just bring it right into the room and into the
28:03
wall, plug it in, charge over and you're good to go. I
28:04
love that idea. Sorry, you're used to drive around and with with when
28:10
I you know, one of the old giloppies that I used to you're showing
28:15
your ag. That's all I used to is I used to have a port
28:18
old charger in my car because I knew any given moment I might need to
28:22
jump in and I didn't want to go through the sea. If so,
28:23
it wouldn't be And I think more than a few people have done that in
28:26
their lives at some point or another. So having a charger in your vehicle
28:30
is maybe not the most newest thing or thing unprecedented thing as some folks might
28:37
think. Still coming to the studio, Grandpa put the old We're gonna take
28:42
a quick break and come back. Keeping here around table. John Lidkey,
28:47
counselor Hearan McKenzie and Greg Leamy, don't go away cool. Hey, good
28:52
morning, and welcome back. It's Dan McDonald. Thank you so much for
28:56
tuning in listening to the Dan McDonald Show on Amate hundred c k w Hey,
29:00
we're gonna have counselor Ronaldo Agustino. He's going to be in studio ten
29:03
o five. Just given a bit of a weekend recap of that big party
29:04
that went down in Detroit and in Windsor. We were talking about it earlier
29:08
on the show. You know, he was a big part of all the
29:11
festivities that went down. It was great seeing downtown Windsor so busy, so
29:15
packed, so alive, with some fantastic energy, and I think we should
29:18
do stuff like that more often. Get people together, shut down the streets
29:22
and have a big old block party. It's a fun way to bring people
29:23
together and bring everybody up to I just kind of rediscover our Detroit, our
29:29
downtown. I should say welcome back to our roundtable. Greg Lamay, City
29:33
of Windsor Counselor, Kieren McKenzie and John Lydkey in studio. We always end
29:37
the segment with a segment we call plugged in and you can plug anything you
29:40
like, anything you have on the go. Anybody you want to give a
29:41
shout out to Greg, you always have things on the go. You're one
29:45
of the busiest guys out there that I know what would like to plug in
29:48
this morning. That's why I'd give a shout out to one of the committees
29:49
they sit on, Friends of Fountain Blue Good grassroots community. You know they've
29:55
been doing good work for a lot of years. They recently had their it
30:00
was supposed to be one of our topics today about picking up garbage. You
30:03
can touch on that that we have. We have some time, we have
30:04
some Day. Yes, yeah, every year. Basically we we partner up
30:10
with some of the schools in the neighborhood, which they did with Davis School,
30:12
and I think another one's coming up with Langways just off Rvard there in
30:15
Ward eight. They got together, they host a nice barbecue and anyone that's
30:19
coming out willing to pick up garbage for Earth Day or during the week,
30:23
and it turned out very well. And the other one is something I see
30:26
every single day on social media is Mayor Bondie. Yeah, she's done constantly
30:32
out picking up garbage. It's crazy. Sixty seven, sixty nine. I'm
30:34
not sure what day she's had, but she's been doing it for a long
30:37
time now. One of my clients is a crew winery and on the way
30:40
back I seem to happen to run into her while she's picking up garbage.
30:44
And yeah, no, it's good to see it is. And I think
30:45
it's as easy as that is, you know, especially if you have a
30:48
following or your neighbors. Get some neighbors together here, let's clean up the
30:51
alley this week, let's clean up this block, let's do the I'd love
30:53
that. IT'SO did it a million times downtown? Yeah, it works,
30:56
It really does. Yeah, and it's it's as easy as putting is,
31:00
knocking your neighbor's door and saying want to want to just take a quick minute,
31:03
and everyone picked something up. I love seeing that great stuff. As
31:04
always accounts McKenzie, always like to plug in. So yeah, two things
31:08
are gonna slide, two things and I'll try to be quick. No.
31:11
Similar similar to what Greg just had to say. We organized in the Devonshire
31:15
Heights neighborhood cleanup of dem Wood Conservation Area. But the best thing about this
31:22
neighborhood cleanup initiative it was driven and led by children. Oh wow, so
31:26
it was the driven like they drove there. Yeah, seventy nine Sparks and
31:32
Members units as well as the sixty third Beavers and Cub Troops. These kids
31:37
got together and they decided they wanted to do something positive for Earth Day.
31:41
One of the mothers of a child that she's got three kids, one in
31:48
the I think in the Sparks group and two in the Beavers all decided they
31:52
wanted to clean up this space. And this is the second annual of this
31:56
event. And in fact, Jade Hitchins is the mother I'm talking about.
31:59
We had thirty five people last year. This year we had over sixty people
32:02
participated in the set up. And you know, thank you also to Windsor
32:07
Police, the City of Windsor, as well as who was the third organization
32:13
that was that was involved, excuse you of course QP Local Lady too provided
32:16
garbage bags, gloves, refreshments, coffee to begin, pizza at the end.
32:22
Amazing day, Amazing way to spend Earth Day in the morning. And
32:25
we did I think a really good job cleaning up that space at the especially
32:29
the outer perimeter, which is where we were primarily needed to be cleaned up.
32:32
And please people just stop littering. Just just stop stop throwing garbage out
32:37
out of your car door or whatever it is. Just bring it to a
32:39
garbage can. There's plenty of receptacles. The other thing I wanted to pay
32:42
Wait a minute, I was going to say, if they drove there,
32:44
where did they park? Well, well, no, sorry, there's something
32:45
there, I know, but there is the parking lot. Of course,
32:47
I know, I know what you're saying, Like, you know, not
32:51
everybody who had had the ability to bight there, but anyway with that,
32:53
but they brought and they brought several people in the vehicles when they when they
32:57
arrived. The other thing the Jackson Park Banshell survey. So I want to
33:04
thank Dan you've covered this story. Amid Hunter's done a great job covering this
33:07
story as well. But last week was the public information center that was at
33:10
Optimist Park. There's an Optimist Community Center excuse me there. But now there's
33:16
an online survey that people can still participate. It's open until June twenty third.
33:22
It'll take you maybe all of five minutes to fill out this survey.
33:25
And if you care about this space and you want to want to see it
33:29
restored to some kind of for some kind of public use, which is what
33:31
I'm hoping we're able to do, is this survey will be a really important
33:37
part of the discussion that's going to go forward when council's making the decision is
33:40
what to do with it, because right now it's historic. We all know
33:44
that it is a outdoor storage space or a junkyard. It's shameful in my
33:51
opinion, what we've allowed to have happened in that space. Something different can
33:55
and needs to happen. Here's your opportunity as a public to participate in that
34:00
process. So if you just the simplest way, without me rattling off a
34:04
website web address, just google City Windsor Jackson Park sur Banshell, Jackson Park
34:09
Survey. I think that's easy. Yep, Jackson Park Banshell Survey, Windsor.
34:15
It will take you. You'll be a click or two away from the
34:16
from the survey. Please fill it out. It actually is very a very
34:20
important part of the process. It is be part of that conversation. I
34:25
love that absolutely, Last, but certainly not least, mister John Leakey always
34:30
like to plug in this morning listen to ROAs City Politics. I've got a
34:32
podcast Caveetch with John Lidkey. Check that out. And I had something that
34:37
I was going to do, but you know what, I sort of want
34:39
to go a different route with it. Dan. I know you're going to
34:42
be talking about it later on on the show here, but I really got
34:45
angry when I saw your post about what had happened at the University of Windsor
34:49
with the homophobic content that was scrawled into the LGBT office the Bride Center.
34:54
Just you know, it's awful, the bigotry that we're seeing, the hatred
34:59
that we're seeing. It seems like it is manifesting itself in unexpected ways that
35:05
I think, quite frankly, a lot of us thought were maybe more in
35:07
the rear view mirror than in the place that we're at or ahead of us.
35:10
So you know, we can all do a little bit better. That's
35:14
not to suggest that any of us are taking part or doing these specific acts
35:17
whatsoever. But you know, you see something, you can call it out,
35:22
you can remove it yourself, you can tell someone to act smarter,
35:25
and you can just reach out to people that are you know, hurt right
35:29
now when you're seeing something like that. And I know that I posted on
35:31
your page and I just I wanted to share it because there was a pretty
35:35
nice quote that I thought about, and it's just everything will usually get worse
35:37
before it gets better. But when it does get better, remember all who
35:42
put you down and all who helped you up. Yes, very very important.
35:46
I thank you for that quote too. Yeah, we will be talking
35:47
about the vandalism at the University of Windsor Pride Center at eleven thirty today.
35:52
We'll hear from Wendy Nicholson, who's president of Windsor Pride Fest as well.
35:55
But yeah, I appreciate you bringing up John. Thank you and thank you
35:58
to our entire roundtable. John Lecky, ouncer, Kerin Mackenzie, greg Leamay
36:01
more conversation on the way. Keep it here. It's the Dan McDonald's show
36:04
on AM eight hundred