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Newstalk 1010: The Rundown with Jon Liedtke & Stephen Murdoch · Kvetch & Release

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News Talk Tonight is on with your host Jim Richards on the iHeartRadio Talk Network.
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Is it ever? And thank you very much for your time. I
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am Jim Richards, and this is a reasonable fac simile of a broadcast.
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We're all set and ready to go here on the iHeart Talk Radio Network.
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Thank you very much for your time. And we are joined right now on
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the big rundown by two of the finest our faves. Here on the rundown
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Stephen Murdoch, who is a News Talk Tonight contributor, and also right here
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Stephen Murdoch, news talk, crime specialist and commentator. That's what it says
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right here on my lineup, and well, way to go, Stephen.
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Didn't know that, and it's it is John Lidkey, Power Group Communications and
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host of the O Show. So congratulations on that. John. Hey,
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we're getting promoted, Stephen. Yeah, good stuff. Steven vice president of
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Enterprise which is PR firm. John Litkey is a podcaster and a host on
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our sister station in Windsor. Guys, thank you very much for your time.
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I really appreciate it. Thank you, And do we have Stephen?
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All right? Stephen, you may be on mute. John interesting that forty
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percent of New Canadians say they're considering leaving their province or Canada. I think
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we've seen other numbers that show that there are people leaving the cities. That's
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nothing new that I guess continues from COVID, but now it's not because people
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have realized that they can work from anywhere. Now people are realizing that living
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in like I don't know, Windsor or Halifax, or Toronto or Montreal or
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Ottawa or Vancouver, there are cheaper places and to live somewhere in a smaller
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town might be a nice, slower, easy way of life. But also
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the fact that New Canadians, I don't know how, like people who are
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well established in Canada might not be able to afford living in a city,
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never mind somebody who's new and trying to make it in a city in this
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country. You know, it's tough. I remember there was a story that
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came out not too long ago about a Ukrainian immigrant and his family. You
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know, I guess you could consider a refuge not but not through those direct
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channels. But you know, they fled because of the war, and they
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said, hey, we love Canada. It's a great country. Wish we
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could stay, but we're going to go back to Ukraine because it's just too
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expensive to live here. That says a lot when someone decides that after fleeing
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a war torn country they go back there during the war. Because of our
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housing crisis, the costs and the lack of affordability, it's really tough.
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It's not surprising though, because look, Windsor has been relatively affordable in this
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country for quite some time up until you know, a little bit before COVID.
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COVID exasperated it. And now we're looking at things, you know that
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are still really difficult. Houses that sold for seventy thousand dollars a decade ago,
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fifteen years ago, three story old houses in the West End near the
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bridge, but you know now they're selling for four hundred, five hundred thousand.
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The average home pedale price is six hundred and fifty thousand. It's trickling
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down. This is a tough thing, Jim. People need housing and it's
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expensive. Yeah, it's I don't know how any of that works, how
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we can work. It just seems like Netty and I guess people get painted
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as being bigots or anti immigrant by saying, hey, maybe you shouldn't come
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here right now, because I don't know how the heck you're going to do
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it. Stephen. Yeah, it's a tough go people that are coming here
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from other countries, with most of them with very few dollars in their pockets.
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I mean, it has to be a big, big surprise. My
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parents emigrated here to Canada from England in seventy two, but different times,
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right it didn't come with a lot of money in their pocket, a couple
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hundred dollars, but were able to make a go of it. I think
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it's so much more difficult for people today, the economics of that. And
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you know, a lot of people are going to make I've said this before,
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are going to second the guests themselves coming to Canada, and a lot
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of them are going to leave that have recently emigrated here in ten fifteen years
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down the road, another generation when they're talking to their family members and say
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hey, I'm thinking about moving to Canada, they'll be like, no,
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I did that fifteen years ago. I lasted a couple of months, I
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turned around and I came back. So we're unsteady economic times for sure.
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You know, there's also a problem right now. I think in a lot
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of big cities in this country, or you know, cities of any size
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where it turned. Cities are turning into San Francisco, meaning the middle class
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is disappearing to a certain extent, where you can be middle class and own
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a house if you borrow your house twenty years ago, but if not,
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you're probably in a condo trying to figure out how you're going to have two
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kids in a condo because it's almost impossible to find any place to live in
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cities. So cities are going to become these kind of have not places.
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And I think a lot of people john already look at maybe cities as where
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the elites live, but that's not because people aren't trying to live here.
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It's because it's just so unaffordable. Listen, I'm a big Blade Runner fan.
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It's my background on the desktop I'm looking at right now. And those
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are truly, you know, the two tiered cities where you have literally towering
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above us in the highest stories where people who can afford to lives, and
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then the people living in the slums on the street. And it's really really
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concerning to see that that disparity that existed in a dystopic vision of the future
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is actually coming to sort of be a reality that is having to be dealt
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with. I heard a fascinating podcast about how in San Francisco there's a shady,
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shadowy group of characters who have been buying up a lot of land in
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neighboring farming areas that have been owned by the same families for like one hundred
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years plus. And it turns out it's some of the richest people in the
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country, in the world, and they're building cities from scratch, beginning out.
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And look, I mean, that's not going to be the perfect answer,
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but it's happening. It's interesting because a lot of the problems that we're
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seeing happen to just be red tape. I mean, interest rates are a
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problem for development right now, Stephen, But you go to a place like
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Peterborough and they can kind of build on the spot. So places like Toronto
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or other cities, they don't have a problem with land. They just seem
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to have a problem with an inability to get things going. I mean,
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we need people governments to say, hey, you can't buy you can't build
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these shoe boxes any longer. You need to build something that people want to
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move into because now there's a glet of condos on the market and the affordability
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crisis, it just doesn't the price point just doesn't work. The smartest municipalities
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across this country are figuring out how to do just that, cut the red
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tape. And you look at some of these smaller regional markets you mentioned Peterborough
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and where I am in Niagara, they're desperately seeking ways to make things easier
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for developers to want to come into these regions and make it work. And
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the problem, and you hit it right there, is there are a lot
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of major cities who make it very difficult for people to want to put shovels
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into the ground. And it's a reality facing a lot of developers and a
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lot of them are figuring what It's a tough one. You want to be
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able to develop in some of these big cities where the people are and these
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smaller cities, although they're changing and their demographics are changing and populations continue to
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go up, for a lot of developers and numbers still aren't there. So
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it all comes down to red tape. Municipalities have to figure out a way
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to make it easier to develop projects. Did you get out of the city
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during COVID or have you always been in Niagara. I've always been in Niagara.
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It's funny. I just had a gentleman moving across the street from me
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who's retired from policing in the GTA, and he moved down here on a
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whim since his son got into a program at Agar College and he's he's loving
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it. And we saw that during the pandemic, a lot of people on
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my street from the GTA made the move down And listen, we were actually
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talking about that earlier today. My wife and I how the streets in Niagara
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are busier, and John's probably seeing it in Windsor too. These regional markets
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are are getting busier, but I often question where are these people living?
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You touched on the condos. There are a lot of people who would like
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to continue to rent, but they're not conducive to bringing up family. So
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it's a challenge across the board. What about you and Windsor, Johnny,
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you seeing a lot of people moving from I don't know places like whether it's
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you know, Toronto or Montreal or any of the big cities where people are
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heading to Windsor Now. Well, I mean, look, living in Canada.
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It's pretty great having a country with only two real major highways, the
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four oh one and the trans Canada. So yeah, we see a lot
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of people coming down the four to oh one and they're driving till they qualify
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for a mortgage, and they stop where they're able to get one, And
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once you get to Windsor, there's really nowhere else to get in a you
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know, major city fashion after us here quite frankly. So they're coming down
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here. They're taking advantage of a you know, lower home price than on
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average throughout the country. Their dollars are able to go a lot further here
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than they are in other places. But it's also a problem because it's starting
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to price windsor rights out of homes because of how quickly things have increased.
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It's a tough situation. Rents have increased, you know, it's like everywhere
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else in the country. But we're a bit more economically depressed down here,
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with a higher unemployment rate, and we're already bullied by major infrastructure projects.
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I worry what happens when we no longer have a bridge being built, a
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hospital being built, the new easy battery plant being built. What happens then
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when our artificially high unemployment rate gets higher. All right, back in a
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second with more of the rundown. I'm Jim Richards, who're with Stephen Murdoch
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and also John let Key. This is News Talk Tonight on the iHeart Talk
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Radio Network. Wow Black Jesus, Welcome back to News Talk Tonight with Jim
10:28
Richards on the iHeartRadio Talk Network. This is the iHeart Talk Radio Network.
10:33
I'm Jim Richards. Yes, the Kammen has fully been clear. They are
10:37
no longer any tense inside King's College Circle. All of the demonstrators who have
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been there for more than two months have also cleared, but the protest,
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as you mentioned, continued. All of the demonstrators they made their way.
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Are your sense of disappointment that the court upheld the university's request for an injunction,
10:54
and I share your sense of anger and disappointment of the university's hypocrisy.
10:58
We're here because we are outraged the ongoing genocide and Palestine. We refuse to
11:05
stand idly by. Well. Our tuition money is invested in weapons manufacturing companies
11:11
that will children men. So I'm not sure if that's not the best thing
11:16
that happened to them in that they only seem to get media attention when the
11:20
courts are involved or when something goes sideways. They've been there for the most
11:24
part. I don't think in the news cycle at all people are like,
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oh yeah, that's still going on. So I'm not sure how successful this
11:33
kind of stuff was. And I am fully in support of people's right to
11:37
protest, but at the same time, I mean, it's not your property.
11:41
It is the University of Toronto. There are still some outstanding encampments in
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Montreal at McGill University of There are plenty still going on. But the judge
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said yesterday guys that okay, we recognize that we haven't been able to prove
11:58
any antisemitism here, but at the same time, you can continue to protest,
12:03
but give back King's Circle to the University of Toronto. I'm actually surprised
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John that this went textbook style, and I usually think that any protest that
12:16
one oh one is that you need to get more cameras and more of the
12:20
news cycle by being dragged away, by making the police look like the bad
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guy. Yeah, and you know they came out and they said today,
12:28
according to a statement, that they were leaving on their own terms, to
12:31
protect the community from violence because they didn't want to give the police an opportunity
12:35
to brutalize them, was how they characterized it. But I mean, this
12:39
is also a group who has unconventionally been covering their faces in many cases at
12:46
a public protest, and the question has raised as to why you would do
12:48
that when you're trying to garner attention towards a cause that you're seeking a political
12:52
outcome from. But look, at the end of the day, we knew
12:56
that this had evolved beyond protest and that had become an occupation. They called
13:01
it that themselves, and as the judge said, look, I mean,
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if this is how things work and you can just take over private property,
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what's to stop a stronger group from coming and kicking them off and setting up
13:13
their own camp. And the judge said that would lead to chaos. So
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we live in a society. I feel like George Costanza is still as a
13:20
society people, and there are rules and laws that govern us. And I'm
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glad to see that this has now been cleared out and they left on their
13:28
own accord. There wasn't any violence. They say they're going to keep protesting
13:31
and like, have at it. That's great. We've got freedom of expression,
13:33
but you also can't push that freedom of expression beyond the line where it
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stops impacting other people's freedoms. So they pulled up stakes and they wandered around.
13:43
I'm not sure where they are now, but they were. When I
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say wandering, they're protesting. They took to the streets and they were walking
13:48
up and down the streets and downtown Toronto. I'm not sure. I'm sure
13:52
we needed more construction or more traffic. So one thing that we needed definitely.
13:58
During afternoon drive, somebody was like, Hey, what would be a
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good idea right now? Is a protest because we don't have construction on some
14:05
of these roads. Just get some people walking. Steven, Yeah, I
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never understood this. I mean, you're correct, they do have the right
14:13
to protest, but at the end of the day, they were getting no
14:16
media coverage. Today was the only day when the injunction came down and the
14:22
decision was made that this was talked about. But they've been there since.
14:24
What may second, and this is we've heard weeks and weeks of nothingness of
14:28
this, and you know, you have to think if you're part of that
14:31
group. At what point do you say we're wasting time. I just don't
14:37
understand it. The whole idea of doing these things is to create conversation in
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the media, and there wasn't and there wasn't a lot of social media chatter,
14:45
to be honest, unless you know, I think a couple of days
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throughout the throughout the protest. But that being said, at the end of
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the day, I'm just glad nobody was harmed. You. We don't want
14:56
to see anybody getting hurt, and hopefully, hoefully this will lead other groups
15:01
to peacefully decide to shutter and protest in other ways. I thought it was
15:07
interesting that basically Scott Reid saying this justin Trudeau, listen, if you're not
15:13
going to go out there and fight, if you're not going to be at
15:15
the Calgary Stampede, you're twenty two in the polls. You got to take
15:18
some chances. If you want to say I'm a strong leader, then demonstrate
15:22
your strong enough to acknowledge you've gotten the party off the path, You're strong
15:26
enough to make changes, You're strong enough to now when he's facing some I
15:31
mean, this is what it's going to be like for a year and a
15:33
half until I guess there's no turning point and he can't ditch an election and
15:37
get a new leader. But the media is going to be grilling him every
15:41
time he puts his face out in public. Why are you refusing to meet
15:46
with the national Caucus. Your MPs are calling for an urgent in person meeting
15:52
of all MPs. Why are you refusing? And do we interpret from that
15:54
that you don't care what they have to say. Listen, let's let's be
16:00
very clear. Last week's by election loss not to sugarcoat it was challenging,
16:06
was something we need to take seriously. So not answering the question, and
16:08
then the whole bunch of other questions that he answered in French that were along
16:12
the same line, I'm not sure if that was because they were all asked
16:15
in French. I don't think they were. But this is just this is
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going to be a long period, Steven. If it's like this, if
16:22
he doesn't step aside. But then again, you know what, if you're
16:26
the party if he does step aside, what are you going to do?
16:29
Like just another sacrificial lamb is going to be fed into the meat grinder.
16:33
Yeah, I don't think regardless of who you put in power. Should Trudeau
16:37
step down, we're all going to see the same end result. I think
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a lot of people are clamoring to want to keep their jobs and that's why
16:45
they're upset, is they see their potential pension going down down the tube proverbial
16:49
tube. But the problem is, it doesn't matter who you put in that
16:53
position, it's still going to be the same kind of outcome. So I
16:56
think it'll be at the end of the day, it'll be very difficult.
17:00
And as you said, we're going to be a year, year and a
17:02
half of seeing this Trudeau campaign make its way across the country, where media
17:07
and people are constantly heckling him. My guess is the last time Trudeau was
17:12
in Calgary Real you really heard it from a lot of people. So my
17:15
guess is he's not up for a warm reception. But at the end of
17:19
the day, he needs to figure out things in the house because what we're
17:22
going to continue to see is MPs going to the media and talking, and
17:27
let's face it, you don't want that when you're a leader. Yeah,
17:30
it's interesting that they care about their jobs, but they didn't seem to care
17:34
about any of this mess until they were twenty points down in the polls,
17:38
which is the real like, hey, things were bad, yeah, but
17:41
we're still you know, leading, And then when they're tiny twenty points down
17:45
in the polls, they're trying to find a solution for everything. John,
17:48
Yeah, it's a tough situation for them. MPs are trying to decide can
17:52
we ourselves get re elected with the Prime minister being the leader of the party,
17:57
And they're going to try to spin it however they can. But blood
18:00
is in the water here and people can smell it, and this is how
18:03
it's going to be for the next while. And I know that there's a
18:04
bit of spin that's coming out to try to say, Look, Trudeau is
18:08
going to be actually going on a trip to Washington for NATO, and that's
18:11
why he's not going to be showing up at Stampede. But last time I
18:15
checked, it's a four day trip for NATO. Stampede runs for what nine
18:19
days or something. I'd imagine that the Prime Minister's airplane could still fly out
18:22
there. They've made a conscious choice here, They've decided, it seems,
18:26
at least from our perspective and the media that speculating class that they realized that
18:32
this probably would yield more negative headlines than positive headlines. But that says a
18:37
lot because for his brand to not go out to Stampede, to allow for
18:41
conservative sources to say his father hated the West, and look at him,
18:47
he now obviously hates the West as well. He refuses to show up.
18:49
His contempt is on display. It's going to be good fodder for them to
18:53
use and listen, he's not going. So it's true, guys. Thank
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you very much for time. Always in joy and very grateful for your time.
19:02
Steven Murdock, Vice President Enterprise Canada. John Letkey is radio and podcast
19:07
host in Windsor. You can check out his podcast called cavech Thank you very
19:11
much, have yourself a great week, guys. Thank you. All right,
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it is seven forty five and in a moment we will talk to lawyer
19:22
Lauren Honickman. Even though it looks like everything has wrapped up swimmingly at one
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encampment in this country, at a university with no real altercation between authorities and
19:34
the protesters. What happened? How did we get here? We'll break things
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down with Lauren Honikman. That's straight ahead. I'm Jim Richards, This is
19:42
News Talk Tonight on the Iheartalk radio network.