Latest / Kvetch & Release / AM800CKLW Monday Roundtable with Dan MacDonald, Tracey Ramsey, Rob Shepley, & Jon Liedtke

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AM800CKLW Monday Roundtable with Dan MacDonald, Tracey Ramsey, Rob Shepley, & Jon Liedtke · Kvetch & Release

0:15
Well, hey, good morning and welcome Happy Monday everybody. Happy Earth Day
0:19
as well. It's Dan McDonald. Thank you so much for tuning in.
0:22
You're listening to the Dan McDonald Show right here on AM eight hundred. Got
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a packed lineup for you two. Coming up at eleven thirty, gonna be
0:29
talking with one of my favorite people to talk with, music publicist and commentator,
0:33
Eric Alper, because the class of twenty twenty four Rock and Roll Hall
0:36
of Fame inductees were announced today. A lot that I thought, Wow,
0:40
they weren't inducted yet, and then there were some I know Cher is getting
0:44
inducted, and I recall an interview with Share a couple of years ago.
0:47
They were talking to her and said, why haven't you been inducted yet.
0:50
You kind of changed music with that song. Believe she was the first one
0:54
to use auto tune back in nineteen ninety nine, so she did change music.
0:58
And she said, yeah, I changed music, and I you know
1:00
what, they can go bleep themselves. So she's being inducted, So I'm
1:04
really cure. I'm just curious to kind of nerd out music with it with
1:07
Eric Alpert eleven thirty, and I'm excited to chat with our roundtable today.
1:11
Joining us in studio Uniform Women's Director Tracy Ramsey, Tracy good Morning, Good
1:15
morning, Happy Monday, Happy Monday. Indeed, Deputy Mayor of Essex,
1:19
Rob Shapley, Rob, good morning, glad to be back, great to
1:22
have yet and last, but certainly not least, host of Rose City Politics
1:25
and also here on AM eight hundred c KLW John Lydkey John more morning.
1:29
Now. I saw you had like a plate of treats when you walk in,
1:32
but I don't see the treats anymore. Were they treats? They were
1:36
treats, yes, were So they're gone. I take it. Well,
1:38
I very smartly gave them straight to the boss. Oh okay. I was
1:44
asked are these treats? And I was like, they are, but like,
1:46
don't get too attached to them. Oh chocolate covered matza though, I
1:49
mean, oh nice, wow, No kidding. Well. Today's newsport today
1:55
is Earth Day, which is fantastic. Lots of Earth Day activities went on
1:57
over the weekend too, some uh events going out the mall at Maulden Park
2:00
all over the city. Today's Earth Day in the Newspool. Do you make
2:04
a conscious effort to reduce your use of plastics, and I'll start really quick.
2:07
Do I make a conscious effort? Yes? Could I do more?
2:10
Absolutely? And I don't out of I don't know what laziness. What I
2:15
do is I've been very good with the bags, the reasonable bags. I'm
2:17
great with those. I've trained myself. I will always anytime I'm at a
2:22
bar or a restaurant, I will always say yes, I'll have a whatever,
2:24
no straw. I don't know how big a difference that makes, but
2:28
it's one little thing I can do. And I've tried to make a really
2:31
conscientious effort of stop using plastic disposable water bottles, and I use a reusable
2:38
cup all the time. That is the biggest one I think that really blows
2:40
my mind is And I'm going to say, back in my day, everyone
2:44
drank water from the tap and we were fine with it. And now water
2:49
is in a plastic, plastic bottle, and you pay how much money for
2:53
a bottle of water? The bottle is worth more than the water is and
2:57
it ends up in a landfill. And I don't fully understand the water bottle
3:00
craze that we have, like seven dollars for a bottle of water blows my
3:02
mind. So give me a fountain in a plastic cup and I'm good to
3:06
go. That's about it, though I could do a lot more, but
3:07
I don't and I should, and I'm trying. We'll go around the table,
3:12
John, Do you make a conscious effort to reduce your use of plastic?
3:15
You know? I mean the obvious answer is yes. But I think
3:17
I'm probably gonna say something here that a lot of people who listen to me
3:21
would be surprised to hear. I'm so over this. How is it that
3:25
we're supposed to be the ones who have to make meaningful decisions when we have
3:30
oil producers that are actually putting out huge amounts of carbon into our atmosphere.
3:35
I read a story last year with all the wildfires that with every wildfire that
3:38
had happened up to like halfway through the year, it put out more CO
3:43
two into our atmosphere than all of the efforts that we had taken for that
3:46
year in cutting back. So, you know, I mean, listen,
3:49
we can all choose not to use plastic straws, and that's great. And
3:52
I don't know, does it make things better? Sure? Is it a
3:55
small amount compared to some of the actual things that we could go after.
3:59
That's what issue I have with it right now. So every time you try
4:02
to either tax the consumer away from using these things, and we're seeing that
4:09
through you know, five dollars for a reusable bag or something, when quite
4:12
frankly, didn't paper bags work and weren't they recyclable and they got rid of
4:16
them at the LCBO, and the talking point was, oh, it's going
4:19
to divert two hundred thousand tons from landfills. What happened to recycling paper now?
4:28
And then we also know that there is already a whole you know,
4:30
sort of bait and switch about how recycling actually works right now that I'm just
4:38
frustrated, And I don't know if I answered your question no, but I
4:41
think I think that's the big problem A lot of people are because they are
4:43
hearing paper bags are bad, get rid of them, plastic is bad,
4:46
get rid of them. And there's kind of a loss of trust, I
4:47
think, And the recycling issue is dicey too, I think a little bit
4:51
for a lot of people. Yeah, your thoughts, Tracy, you responded
4:56
when John mentioned recycling. Yeah, I really agree with John, and I
4:59
feel like we are letting the hugest polluters off the hook constantly by trying to,
5:05
you know, put this down into all of us and our small efforts
5:10
as though that is something you know that is making a very significant change.
5:15
Now, is it a change that's important? Yes? Should we all be
5:17
using less plastic? Yes, And the health implications are really concerning to me.
5:20
We're all walking around with pieces of plastic in us, by the way,
5:24
microplastics that exist, and so you know, they're in the Great Lakes,
5:28
they're in everything that we're consuming. So I'm really worried about that and
5:31
what the future looks like for us when that is just part of our being
5:34
and our makeup, and what will happen to us down the road. But
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I do think John that you know, us passing it down to our children,
5:44
making them responsible. I pray that they turn around at those corporate levels,
5:49
become those people who are in those jobs and actually care and actually understand
5:55
that there's a responsibility to do something and that sometimes you know, yes,
5:59
you're going to lose money perhaps, but it's worth it because we have to
6:01
save our planet. So you know, I'm hopeful that this whole shift will
6:05
happen that isn't just about whether or not we put recycle things in our home
6:10
or what's happening with our own recycling. But that next generation coming up will
6:14
change the way that we do. What you just said there about the younger
6:16
generation turning around and being the heads of the big corporations and they might lose
6:20
a bit of money. That's the key right there. And it's sad how
6:24
you know, our planet, our healthcare, our housing is all suffering because
6:29
money. That's what it seems like to me. And I heard one slogan
6:32
that really resonated with me. It was years ago, decades ago, somebody
6:34
said this to say, compassion is not economy aggressive, and it maybe it
6:40
isn't, but I mean it's compassion. Can you put a price tag on
6:42
that? I feel like you can't, But I feel like we have,
6:45
you know, and that's a scary thing. Deputy Mayor Rob Sheffley, I
6:48
know, I was looking this morning at Sherry Bondi and she's I think she's
6:51
day sixty now, cleaning up incredible like great stuff that she's doing. Yeah,
6:56
and you know she always seems to be able to organize a group to
6:59
quote with her. Yeah, it doesn't really get up. She's doing a
7:00
fantastic job over there. I mean, she's a great representative for Earth Day
7:04
today. Yeah. As far as us reducing our use of plastics, I
7:09
mean, we have a restaurant so takeout heavy takeouts, so we had were
7:14
forced into a shift away from it last year and we were really worried about
7:17
how that was going to go. But those prices of the alternatives have really
7:20
they've dropped down so it's it's unnoticeable anymore. So it's made that transition so
7:25
much easier in that fear of those higher prices that was all worked out by
7:30
the amount of the larger amount of restaurants using it, so it made it
7:33
more affordable. So it's really helped us to look at reducing everywhere we can.
7:39
Right, do you think we're ready for I know in twenty twenty five
7:41
it's coming Ontario's mandatory organic waste diversion program, the green bins and everything that's
7:46
coming, And I think that's going to be an adjustment for a lot.
7:49
Even myself, I'm not overly educated on how to compost in the green bins,
7:56
Like that's going to be a learning thing. I'm sure it'll be easy
7:58
to pick up. But I know nothing about it all right now, because
8:00
that's something I've never dabbled in. Well, funny you mention it. I'm
8:03
on the board at a six wins or solid waste. Okay, we're just
8:07
digging deep into it now. There'll be a real uh educational piece that will
8:13
have to come up with to help everybody to understand it. The ash when
8:18
we switched to the organics. The part that really has bothersome, I mean
8:22
for a lot of people, and I hear it all the time is we're
8:24
not allowed to put our organics in the Solid Waste Authority, but we're still
8:28
taking in the Greenhouse Fine So, which is one of the largest producers of
8:31
the organics. And that's the part that's really kind of questionable, Like we're
8:35
being forced to not put it in through all of us, like all the
8:39
residents and everything else. But yet we're still allowing that the largest producer to
8:43
come in and saturate it with their wat. Yeah. Money talks, and
8:46
those corporations have a lot of it and they invest in all those communities.
8:50
So it's not really a surprise. No, oh, it's wild. Yet
8:54
we had to a really quick break. We're going to come back Earth day,
8:56
all floating question to you as well to everyone who is right now text
9:00
and do you make a conscious effort to reduce your use of plastics? More
9:03
on the way with our roundtable Tracy Ramsey, John Lydkey, Rob Shepley,
9:07
don't go away. Well, hey, good morning and welcome back. It's
9:11
Dan McDonald and welcome back to our roundtable as well. Deputy Mayor of Essex
9:16
Rob Shepley, host of the ROAs City Politics and here on AMI eight hundred
9:20
CLW John Lidkey and Unifor Women's Director Tracy Ramsey. And this is something we're
9:24
just just speaking about. The other day was Downtown Windsor the Magic Mushroom Dispenser.
9:28
It was raided for the fourth time. One person was arrested. I
9:33
recall back when it opened. It's got to be close to a year now,
9:35
right around there. I had a few. I had one of the
9:37
owners of Fun Guys on the show and I said, so you get rated,
9:41
what happens how do you reopen after you were rated? And he said,
9:45
well, here's the thing. It costs tax beyers a lot more money
9:48
to do the paperwork to raid me than it does for me. To pay
9:50
the fine and reopen again. And that's what he said, and I said
9:52
okay, and I said, there it is. So it's still open to
9:56
this day. And I still get baffled when I'm downtown and I see a
9:58
store selling magic mushrooms, which are illegal. And I don't even disagree with
10:05
decriminalizing or legalizing drugs. That's a different conversation. I don't know if this
10:09
is the way to go about doing it, and I think it now is
10:11
not the time either. But I don't know what can be done about this.
10:15
Does it bother you that it's downtown windsor or should police just say okay,
10:18
forget it, you do you and leave it alone. I don't see
10:22
it that way. But John, you were talking to Ronaldo Augustino, councilor
10:24
Augustina about this last week. Your thoughts on the magic mushrooms dispensary. You
10:28
know, as someone who used to own a cannabis lounge where people who had
10:31
medical licenses could go and consume their medication that was shut down by this government,
10:37
this is absolutely infuriating to see. We're very very quick on creating regulations
10:43
for the legalization cannabis that are still in effect. Right now, And I
10:46
don't understand why they're not just simply taking a page out of that book to
10:50
deal with this, and we can have a conversation about therapeutic treatment using psilocybal
10:56
absolutely magic mushrooms, and I think that that's a good conversation, but that
11:00
ain't this now, this is no regulation. Sixteen year olds can walk in.
11:05
They're not just selling mushrooms. I'm looking here at a list of some
11:07
of the things that we're seized. Okay, hot chocolate and gummies and chocolate
11:11
bars. One of the ones that really like catches my eye is they were
11:15
selling DMT vaporizers, a different type of drug. They're selling mushrooms in vaporize.
11:22
Is this from the fun Guy's website or this is from the CBC artist
11:24
Okay, gotcha po lease release gotchach? And so like, I don't even
11:28
know how a magic mushroom vaporizer could hit you. And like with mushrooms,
11:33
it's like you go low and go slow and you build up a little bit.
11:35
With a vaporizer, it's gonna give you the highest amount right away.
11:39
And the concern that I have is again, sixteen year olds walking into this
11:43
place getting one of these vapes and sitting in the toilets at the high schools
11:48
just hitting a vape like this and going into a magic mushroom five minute escape.
11:52
And again, this is not about therapeutic uses. And I don't understand
11:58
why the police aren't simple at this point issuing direct notices to the landlord of
12:03
the building, saying, hey, you're allowing this to happen. We're giving
12:07
you seventy two hours. If this place isn't empty within the next three days,
12:11
we're coming in and we're gonna, you know, come after you as
12:13
the landlord. We're going to try to seize this building. There are a
12:16
lot of tools that are available in their toolkit, but they're not utilizing them
12:20
right now. We're at the fourth rad. We'll see how things continue to
12:24
progress. And again I'm not against having conversations about decriminalization for therapeutic purposes,
12:28
but this ain't that. Yeah, yeah, your thoughts on on the fun
12:33
Guy's dispensary. It's frightening. It's very dangerous that there are unregulated substances that
12:39
are being sold. You know, we're in a battle fighting that around opioids
12:41
and fentanyl and everything that's happening with the deaths that we're seeing in our region.
12:46
So how is it that here is another unregulated source that people can just
12:50
walk in and purchase. Now, look, people can go online and do
12:52
a lot of research and psilocybnment and maybe perhaps they feel for them this would
12:56
be a good alternative. But unlike cannabis, we aren't at the same stage
13:01
as we were when we saw cannabis stores that were popping up and kind of
13:05
getting smacked down like whack mole when we're on the verge of legalizing, so
13:09
psilocybin is nowhere near that you need a ministerial exemption to be able to access
13:15
it legally. And you know, doctors aren't being trained on it, and
13:18
I'm not saying that they aren't necessarily on cannabis either certainly in the way that
13:22
they need to be or anything else that is required. And people do take
13:26
this for mental health, they take this for pain, they take it for
13:28
all different kinds of reasons. So you know, here we have someone who
13:33
is trying to profit off of the backs of people who are looking for some
13:37
type of a solution to help them in their lives. And you know,
13:41
first of all, the government needs to do better you know, the only
13:45
way to access it is through a clinical trial right now, which doesn't leave
13:48
people a lot of options. So if you're thinking, this is the option
13:50
for me, and you know, fun guys is open, where are you
13:54
going? You're heading down there. But I'm more worried about people who are
13:56
just general recreational users who are thinking, oh, I want to try something
14:01
different. You know, I've dabbled a bit in cannabis, or I understand
14:03
that, well, I think this is the same. It's not different.
14:07
It's not. And again, cannabis is not regulated, and I'm thankful for
14:09
that because that means when you walk in to a cannabis store, you know
14:13
exactly what you're getting and you know. Unlike I think John's situation with the
14:18
lounge, where people did have a license and they were going in and at
14:20
least they had been seen by a doctor, they had been provided that ability
14:24
to be able to purchase it under that license, it's not the same for
14:28
this. Yeah, it's very dangerous, and I'm really worried that people are
14:33
going to be using this unregulated product and perhaps overdosing, perhaps you know,
14:37
having issues that are going to end up They're going to end up in our
14:41
medical system, in the hospitals because they've taken something and they absolutely don't know
14:46
what it is. And can you imagine you're a doctor or you're a nurse
14:48
and you're working in the er and a patient presents with these symptoms and all
14:52
they can tell you is that they've taken this. Well, what's in it?
14:56
Right, we don't even know if it's unregular. You don't know.
14:58
The black market cannabis, the cannabis black market it was the same, still
15:03
is the same. I know it's decreasing, but the it's unregulated. The
15:07
edibles you can buy there are off the wall ridiculous. You can buy a
15:09
thousand milligram edible, which here the most you can sell it in package is
15:13
ten at a time. Ten You can get a thousand. I couldn't.
15:16
I'd have to go to a hospital faite a thousand milligrams of cannabis. I
15:18
mean, I'd be fine, but I would have a panic attack. It'd
15:20
be panic attack city for me personally. Also, think about cannabis pedibles before
15:24
legalization happened. It's been like your friend somehow made some brownies or cookies and
15:30
probably did it wrong. Yeah, and you don't end up actually getting it.
15:33
You don't know what it says. You're walking into a store and you're
15:35
buying a package that's professionally made, that's sealed, and it's filled with an
15:39
immense amount of psilocyburn. I'm sorry, didn't mean to stuff over. Yeah,
15:43
no, I hear you. Absolutely. The huge concern your thoughts on
15:45
this, Rob, Well, you know, the only thing I can equate
15:48
it to was back when we had the marijuana stores popping up everywhere, and
15:50
they were I think in Toronto they even put a big boulder in front or
15:54
something to try and block them, and they had it moved the next day.
15:58
So I thought there was something in place where they were able to go
16:00
after the building owners themselves. And I think that you're absolutely correct. That's
16:04
that's the that's the answer. You go after the building owner and if he
16:07
if he stands to lose his business, he's he's not going to be renting
16:11
out to uh these illegal places. And I I really worry again because you
16:17
go in and you see it packed. Because now we do have the marijuana
16:18
stor so you can go to cannabis storage and buy in its package and you
16:22
feel like it's regulated and somewhat. You know, it's safe. Where you
16:26
go into this door, you see the same packaging or what you what appears
16:27
to be the same packaging, and you think this has been regulated. It's
16:30
not right, And really that's that's very concerning. Yeah, it's like the
16:33
l CBO at that's like someone said, what is regulation? It's you you
16:37
buy a bottle of vodka, the LCBO you're not getting you know, Antille's
16:40
bathtub gin that could be make you go blood. You're getting this this percent
16:44
proved vodka and you know exactly what it is, as the label says.
16:45
And at one point aiety now you'll get that right. At one point in
16:49
Essex County, every farm had a still they made whiskey. Right, we
16:52
don't do that anymore because it's regulated. Right, this is what happens.
16:56
But you know, I am really concerned learned about people not being educated about
17:02
this, Yeah, not understanding it, thinking it's the same as cannabis.
17:04
I think there needs to be some sort of a public safety campaign because even
17:11
when I read the article on what happened at fun Guys, it doesn't really
17:14
talk about psilocybin. It doesn't really talk about what the reality is in Canada
17:18
or anything else that would educate people about the fact that it may look like
17:22
this, which looks just like this in a cannabis store, but it's not
17:26
regulated and it's not safe. Right, Yeah, absolutely, I can take
17:29
a really quick greag, really good point right there, Tracy Ramsey, Rob
17:32
Shepley, John Liddkey, don't go away. It's the Dan McDonald show on
17:33
AM eight hundred. Well, hey, good morning and welcome back. It's
17:38
Dan McDonald. Thank you so much for tuning in. You're listening to the
17:41
Dan McDonald Show on AMATE hundred SKLW. I want to welcome back a roundtable
17:45
this morning. We have Unifor Women's Director Tracy Ramsey, Deputy Mayor of Essex,
17:51
Rob Shepley, and host of ROAs City Politics and AMATE hundred skl W
17:55
John Liddkey in the studio and we were just having a conversation about about the
18:00
fun Guy's location and it being raided and whatnot, and the importance of regulated,
18:06
regulated things like alcohol, like cannabis and psilocybin, which is something that
18:10
is interesting. Actually had a doctor on our CTV Medical Expert, doctor Mitchelman,
18:15
was on a couple of years ago to ask him about psilocybin on a
18:18
medical from a medical perspective, and he said, it's very very interesting.
18:22
Research is limited, but it is something that doctors are looking into what it
18:25
does with the chemistry of your brain, which I think is a fantastic conversation
18:29
to have. But unregulated substances being sold is a very dangerous thing, I
18:33
think too. And speaking of danger with unregulated substances something we're hearing more and
18:38
more of. I had a woman on the show who lost her son about
18:41
a year ago. Christy Soulier was on. She lost her son Austin,
18:45
just about a year ago to fentanyl poisoning, and she said, the reason
18:49
I'm not using the word overdose is because what he thought he did struggle with
18:53
addiction, and he thought he was using cocaine and it was laced with fentanyl
18:57
and he died. He lost his life right there. So she said that
19:00
was not an overdose. He didn't take what he thought was a lethal dose.
19:03
He took what he thought was a dose that he was used to taking
19:07
and it ended up being fatal. So she said, fentanyl poisoning. We're
19:10
seeing more and more of this. I saw really really chilling headlines on CTV
19:14
News that said young people are dying, and it cited lack of resources for
19:18
addiction, for mental health. A lot of people in mental health crisis self
19:22
medicating with substances and it works for a minute, but then it spirals into
19:26
a whole other issue as well. Thoughts on our lack of resources and why
19:30
we're not seeing more a word I'm seeing a lot of lately, and it's
19:33
a word I have a lot of issue with. But I wonder if we
19:36
could do it right. Is when they closed institutions, and I'm not saying
19:41
institutions, they had a lot of issues and a lot of problems, but
19:42
when they closed down, a lot of people got released and were left to
19:45
their own devices without any care at all. And I'm not saying reopen the
19:49
institutions and institutionalize everybody, but I just wonder if that was a huge I
19:52
don't know, I don't know my thoughts. What are your thoughts, Tracy,
19:56
Well, I don't think we can equate what was the institutional kind of
20:00
infrastructure to what is needed now. I think what people are saying is that,
20:03
look, we need public dollars to be going to beds. You know,
20:07
we see what's happening locally with organizations that are trying to fill these gaps
20:12
that they're just underwater trying to do that right now, and there really isn't
20:15
a way forward for them to be able to do it. It seems as
20:18
though, you know, we see big pockets of money that are being allocated
20:22
to this, but it's not reaching the ground in any real meaningful way.
20:26
We're not seeing a way that if you have someone in your life, or
20:29
you are someone who's struggling with addiction and you put your hand up for help,
20:32
that that help is there, Like that's the critical moment when you can
20:37
you know, perhaps have someone who's addicted change their life. But when the
20:41
resource isn't there, when we don't have a bed for them to go into
20:44
rehab, and we don't have a bed for them to go in afterwards,
20:45
when we don't have supports to put around them, how can they be successful
20:52
waiting lists? Yes, and you can't wait on something like that, Yeah,
20:55
So why is that? Why is there not the dollars to put to
20:57
them? Because the need is it's in our fits every day more than anything
21:00
else. I think it's baffling, to be honest, you know, even
21:06
something as simple as declaring it an epidemic. At the federal level is something
21:10
that the government has been resistant to because they know that once they do that,
21:12
there are funds that will flow. That's a really important, you know,
21:17
significant thing to do because it would back up the argument that we need
21:21
money to flow down. I mean, listen, provinces are failing us in
21:25
healthcare. It doesn't matter if we're talking about Ontario or we look across this
21:27
country. We're struggling right now. And so this conversation about federal and provincial
21:33
responsibility around healthcare lands squarely on how it's impacting people who love people or who
21:38
are people who are addicted and need that help. Because the solutions are there
21:42
if you talk to people, if you go over to Brentwood right now,
21:45
if you go over to House of Softwarezine, if you go and talk to
21:48
people that are doing this work in our community, the people that used to
21:52
work at the safe Point, they know what the answer is, they know
21:55
what is needed, and they're going to the government. They're asking for that
21:57
and they just continue to be refused. We need to build infrastructure, absolutely
22:03
in beds. We need more than ever unfortunately right now. But we need
22:07
a government that's committed to do that, and what do we see happening.
22:10
We don't see investment in healthcare, right, We don't see that happening.
22:14
So, you know, I think there's a lot of competing interests because the
22:15
healthcare is struggling, that the infrastructure is falling apart, that people can't even
22:22
get into a family doctor, and it's just such an in such a crisis
22:26
mode that people who are the most vulnerable, who really need that help immediately,
22:30
they are being put last in the equation right instead of first. As
22:33
much as housing is the big issue too, and it is absolutely an issue
22:37
its own, mental health is a huge part of that too. And I
22:40
work with a lot of people who do affordable housing for people, and they
22:42
say, you know, housing is one thing, but if you don't have
22:45
supports in place, it's repeat cycle and you're exactly back to where you started
22:48
and there's the empty house, and it's and then repeat process. So it's
22:52
mental health is a huge, huge thing that we're overlooking for whatever reason.
22:56
And I don't know what it is. And maybe that's what people think of
22:57
when they think of like what was the institutional infrastructure in our country? They
23:02
think of mental health. Now, was it any type of model that we'd
23:04
want to replicate, I would say no, not in any way, shape
23:07
or form. But it was a place that in society, when people felt
23:11
that people were struggling with mental health, that's where they went to. Right,
23:15
So that's what's missing, right, I agree. Yeah, we went
23:18
and we closed Mimico, or Asylum for the Insane as it was called.
23:22
We closed the other eight of them in the province, and we just decided
23:25
to wash our hands of the issue. And if there's no surprise that,
23:29
you know, other issues stemmed from that. And look, addiction is one
23:33
issue where people, you know, have the necessary repeat nature of it.
23:37
But I've lost two family members who were one was under eighteen and one was
23:42
between nineteen and twenty five. I've lost a business partner to opioid use,
23:48
and it's just they don't know what they're doing. It's the same story that
23:52
we've been talking about here, where someone thinks they're doing something that they can
23:55
get away with, but it's not the drug that they thought it was.
23:57
Yeah, we dealt with this when we leaded alcohol way back when, and
24:02
people were going blind and they were dying, and I'm not saying wholesale legalization
24:07
of opioids to cocaine is the strategy out of this one of them, but
24:11
it is definitely probably a better starting point than the one that we're in right
24:15
now, which is where criminal elements are profiting immensely. We have national security
24:21
threats in other countries that are taking advantage of this and flooding it, as
24:23
well as criminal elements that are bringing it in. And we have, you
24:27
know, right now, I just saw even in British Columbia, where they
24:30
have decriminalized their police chiefs just gave a state testimony to our House of Commons
24:37
last week where they said half of the amount of drugs that they've been seizing
24:41
have been from safe supply programs where people were given legal less than opioids,
24:47
hydromorphone that they went and then sold to other people so they could then go
24:52
and buy higher stuff. I asked winds Or police about this, if that's
24:56
occurring here, and they said, to date, we don't have any information
24:59
about whether any thing is coming from safe supply and being diverted. But like
25:03
all I can say is this status quo isn't working. Yes, people keep
25:07
dying, and we got to get our heads around this, because it's our
25:10
friends, it's our family, it's our neighbors, it's our community, it's
25:14
us. Yeah, it's everyone. It's indiscriminate. It doesn't matter, you
25:18
know, what type of house you live in, if you even have a
25:19
home, None of that matters. It doesn't you know, it doesn't pick
25:23
and choose who who you know becomes addicted. And I just think that we
25:27
are failing. We are failing families, and we are failing our own community.
25:33
Right, we see it every day. Yeah, for me, like
25:36
I was looking at I always used to point to Portugal, like, oh,
25:37
they decriminalized it, and they they really focused on the addiction side of
25:41
thing. But I actually was looking into it last night and they they are
25:45
now starting to recriminalize certain aspects of their So it's really even that solution that
25:52
we thought was working so well, it's proving that now they're going back towards
25:56
increasing the criminalization once you're over a certain amount. So it's everybody struggling.
26:00
It's globally. I mean it's I don't know, honestly. I mean,
26:06
alcohols criminalize at a certain point, right, Yeah, that's right, it
26:08
is to a certain degree. It is. Yeah. I've heard this from
26:11
everybody, former people who are or who struggle with addiction, to addiction workers
26:17
saying that drugs are changing differently, and I feel every generation had something.
26:22
There was hair, when there was crack cocaine was big in the eighties and
26:23
that was the big one that came out, methamphetamine, and now we're seeing
26:26
variations fentanyl. It's it's evolving and changing the impact that has on people's health
26:32
is changing and getting more severe as well. Like problems that we're seeing today
26:34
we didn't see even five years ago and we're seeing today. So it's it's
26:40
it's terrifying when you when you look at it and you talk to people who
26:41
do outreach and whatnot. Well, what's really scary is that even coming in
26:45
contact with fentanyl or you know, yeah that can be, that can be
26:48
it just being in contact with it. I remember when when we grew up
26:52
same time, the crack cocaine was bidding, but you didn't you didn't diago
26:56
to the hospital if you came in contact with it. Right, That's that's
26:59
a that's a Changer's that's very scary when you got kids growing like I've got
27:03
kids growing up today. And we use this as a cautionary tale. I'm
27:06
hoping that it's not falling on deaf ears because it's very scary as a parent
27:10
to think that if they just come in contact with it, that could be
27:12
the end that one shot deals. That's what Christy Sillier and she can then
27:17
the show to share what her son losing her son, that was what it
27:18
was with her was he was poisoned just really quickly. I mean there's a
27:22
great show Dope Sick with Michael Keating. Yeah, I mean it talks about
27:26
the oxy cotone epidemic that broke out. But this is, you know,
27:30
an evolution of that conversation that we're having right now. And the thing that
27:33
I found most interesting is you had all of these little sunset communities across the
27:38
United States, we're very quiet, low rates of crime, and then you
27:44
just saw break and enters going up, assaults going up, and you saw
27:48
the societal impacts. And that's what we're dealing with now, is the societal
27:52
impacts. And maybe that'll be what changes people's attitudes and makes them more progressive
27:56
about needing to find a solution to this. But let me tell you,
27:59
when I'm walking downtown Windsor, and I go for a lot of walks in
28:02
this city and I have to step over three broken crack pipes that are just
28:06
on sidewalks near schools. I start questioning, what are we doing and when
28:11
are we going to start taking things seriously? And the answer is not just
28:15
through policing. You can't put the way out of a mental health situation,
28:19
out of an addiction situation. But you know, going and losing our safe
28:25
consumption site was not the best thing I think that could have happened for us.
28:30
And quite frankly, we haven't seen enough advocacy from our elected leadership and
28:34
from our unelected leadership to get it back. I agree we need to have
28:38
it refunded. Yeah, there has to be a way, and we didn't.
28:41
We haven't heard that cry no, And I hear from elected officials going,
28:45
well, we can't fund it ourselves, because then that gets into a
28:48
position of cities funding healthcare, and that's a perfect It's like, I don't
28:52
want your jurisdictional arguments when people are dying on our streets. We're push on
28:56
the province like do better. And the other thing we're not talking about here
28:59
is big pharma where they at, Like Purdue was sued in the States.
29:03
I believe there's a case in BC. Why have we not sued them?
29:07
Why have we not held them responsible for them? And you know, listen,
29:11
OxyContin was the gateway to where we are right now. There is you
29:15
cannot disconnect that from this conversation. So why is it that we refuse to
29:18
hold the corporations that are responsible for flooding this all of the reps that went
29:23
out. We've seen multiple movies and documentaries about how they pushed this and told
29:27
doctors that it was safe when it wasn't. How many people now that are
29:32
addicted, that are you know, on housed, that are that we see
29:34
every day started with OxyContin in a doctor's office or a dentist's office because they
29:40
were overprescribed it. And that over prescription is still happening, is still happening.
29:45
So let's go back and look at other ways that we can fund this
29:48
as well. And we can't just give corporations a free pass. Yeah.
29:51
Agree. Another great you mentioned dope sic which is phenomenal. Another one I
29:53
want to recommend is called painkiller, and it's more or less the same story,
29:56
but from a it focuses more on how much was pushed from the sales
30:00
perspective and the money they were making, and even some of the wording they
30:03
used to approve the drug and the person who I think he was the gatekeeper
30:07
basically to approve it, and he said, I refuse to do this as
30:10
an ethical reason. It's it's addictive, and I think he ended up getting
30:12
paid off and bought and sold kind of thing, and he switched the wording
30:15
a fancy way to make it kind of work through a loophole, and that's
30:18
what did it. And it's it's really eye opening and really deflating when you
30:22
when you see how it all went down and the impact it has today when
30:25
I looked it up, just see like, no, that can't be a
30:26
real thing in the movie. Like the plushies, the plushy oxy cotton,
30:32
Yeah, the oxy cotton slush animal plushies that they're given away at their trade
30:34
conferences. The fact that they had street names for their drugs that they themselves
30:40
were using internally, Like it's listen, you can't We've talked about this before.
30:44
You can't make greed illegal. You could, I don't know how you
30:48
would enforce it, but we can go making other things illegal. Yeah.
30:51
Yeah, I feel like I'm just yelling today. Well, it's very frustrating,
30:55
and you know we all are touched by it, and you know you
30:56
should. Thanks for sharing, John, how you have been like we all
31:00
have been right, All of us know people and family members who are suffering
31:04
right now and feel hopeless. Yeah. Agree, we have to take a
31:07
really quick break. We will come back. John Lyddkey, Tracy Ramsey,
31:11
Rob Shepley, don't go away. Hey, Hey, good morning, and
31:15
welcome back. It's Dan McDonald, Thank you so much. Welcome back to
31:18
our roundtable as well Uniform Women's Director Tracy Ramsey, host of Roastdy Politics and
31:22
also a host right here on AM eight hundred CKLW. John Liddkey and Deputy
31:26
Mayor of Essex Rob Shepley. And you know, we had that little uptick
31:32
in gas more than an uptick. It went up I think by average fourteen
31:34
since overnight last week. The change to summer gas being cited as a factor
31:40
in the sudden gas price. Like ahead of gas analyst on the show,
31:44
does that do you think that'll have a huge impact on how much people drive?
31:48
I've when it jumps that much it does with me. I kind of
31:51
think, you know what, let's walk now, especially not the nicer weather
31:53
is here. That makes it a lot easier. So there's that, But
31:56
it is something I've been considering a lot more, Like, you know,
32:00
I can save gas if I walk to work or walk here, do it
32:01
or take my scooter out. I've been using my scooter a lot more.
32:05
Has it impacted you at all, John, You're driving and whatnot? Yeah,
32:07
I mean, of course I don't want to spend more money than I
32:09
have to, so you make choices. Can I do a bunch of things
32:13
that I was going to do on one trip rather than sporadically going out throughout
32:15
the day? This? You know, listen, economic pricing works. This
32:21
is an example of it. You can't attribute this all to the carbon tax
32:23
going up, although it did go up on April the first. But I
32:27
saw someone on social media conservative commentator who said, look, I have bought
32:31
beef in a year because of how expensive beef is. He says, sometimes
32:36
when it's one of cheap ground beef, I'll buy something. But for the
32:37
most part, I've cut out beef and I've switched to alternatives. And it's
32:40
like, well, that's the argument for the carbon tax. Like, that's
32:44
literally the argument. So listen, summer gas, this whole thing's going to
32:50
be political and politicized, and it's going to only be focused on the carbon
32:53
tax side of things because that's the dominant narrative that we have right now.
32:57
But listen, gas goes up in the summer, and I love this art
33:00
because it says it's the highest that it's been since August of twenty two.
33:02
So there we go. Oh so before the carbon tax went up, it
33:07
was already at this level far before. Gas is a fluctuating commodity, and
33:13
we've got like one of the lowest fuel taxes in the world. You look
33:16
to like the United Kingdom, it's like a dollar ninety five a leader is
33:21
their fuel tax. So like we're still getting it pretty easy. Well,
33:23
a lot of the issues we're blaming on the carbon tax two are happening everywhere
33:27
else in the world as well that doesn't have a carbon tax, So you
33:29
didn't you just have to look at it to get that. How's the gas?
33:31
How are you with gas? Are you conscious of it? Of course?
33:34
You know, I live in the county, so I'm driving all over
33:36
the place It's like my parents live out in Colchester, and from Puce to
33:38
Colchester it's, you know, a long way. So absolutely I'm paying attention
33:43
to it, and I hear my kids talking about it as well. But
33:45
again, I feel like I'm on the corporate green theme today. But I
33:49
do feel like, you know, yeah, we're focused on you know,
33:52
how much of that is the increase on the carbon tax or you know what
33:55
is happening there. There's two things. Number one, how much is going
34:00
to corporate agree because they're making record profits. So explain to me why they
34:02
just couldn't eat it the summer gas switchover, you know for their consumers.
34:07
You know, again, because they are more concerned about their bottom dollar than
34:10
they are about making life easier for all of us and a little more affordable.
34:14
They could easily eat that increase that happens every year, that little blip
34:17
as they're doing the transition right, but they refuse to do it and still
34:22
make billions of dollars in profits, but they refuse to do it. The
34:25
other thing that I think, oh now it's going right out in my head.
34:30
That's horrible. It always has the metopausal moment, I pod. But
34:32
you know that is a thing though, that's the optics. Everyone is seeing
34:36
record prices, record prices at the supermarket, at the gas pumps, and
34:39
then you see record profits and tell me there's not a correlation between that.
34:43
It's costing me a lot more and they're making record profits. Like price has
34:45
never been this eye, neither have the profits. What's the common denominator here?
34:50
Absolutely so yeah, oh, I know what I was going to say.
34:52
So, why is it they could just switch it overnight, right like
34:54
we do have you know, there's regulatory changes that could be made that they
34:59
have to provide notice to the public. Why don't we do that? Yeah,
35:00
you know, why don't we force the corporations to do that that,
35:04
Hey, you can't just jump overnight unbeknownst to everyone that you have to give
35:07
a few days notice. So then that way people could fill their tanks up
35:10
a little bit, yeah, you know. And then why this wildly fluctuating
35:14
thing where it's going down four cents by the end of the week. Then
35:16
why did it have to go up for sex or like long weekend? Yeah,
35:20
like, oh, did you guys switch the gas that's in the tanks
35:22
underneath the place right now? Why is it fourteen cents more a leader because
35:27
it's July first, exactly. It's the same with dynamic. Not to be
35:30
all concerting rough, but same with dynamic ticket pricing with concerts. Yeah,
35:32
at the prices go up. I went to see Madonna front where I paid
35:36
three hundred and forty bucks. The guy next me for the same ticket paid
35:38
twenty three hundred dollars per ticket. Wow, And I thought I didn't even
35:43
tell him. He said I paid twenty three hundred. I'm like, I'm
35:45
not going to tell this dude that I paid three hundred and forty bucks.
35:47
Like, you could double both of our tickets and we still didn't pay what
35:50
he paid for One got to get ticket Master out of the oil and gas
35:53
business. But it's very similar though. It's just demand and Okay, if
35:57
people want to go to the show, jacket up as high as you can,
35:59
and then when the tickets when no one wants to pay that, okay,
36:00
we'll lower it a little bit, and they juicy you for as much
36:04
as they can rob you. Have you changed your driving at all with the
36:06
eptick in gas? Well, you know, running a business, we don't
36:08
have a choice. We have to We have to drive and so on the
36:12
weekend. So no, I try not to go too far on the weekends
36:15
when I don't have to. But coming up it's it's summer weather, so
36:17
I'll be out to Colchester probably every five days a week. We're not going
36:22
to travel back and forth out so we have a shop out there. And
36:24
yeah, it really it hits us in the pocket. But you wonder sometimes
36:29
this time we're told it's summer gas and the winter will because it's winter gas.
36:32
We always seem to have a reason why it's we've had this big jumps.
36:35
I mean, desel will jump in the winter because the people use it
36:38
for home heating instead of heating their trucks. We all pay for that as
36:42
well. It's just enough with the increase the dynamic killing. Yeah, we
36:45
always on the round table with a segment I call plugged in. You can
36:49
plug anything like we'll go back around starring with you at Deputy Mayor Shepley would
36:52
like to plug in this morning, Well, our harbor opens in Colchester May
36:55
first, so I just want to encourage everybody to get out and have a
36:58
visit to our harbor and our beach. There a lot we had a lot
37:00
of people out for the solar eclips I hope they discovered our hidden gem out
37:06
there and I encourage everybody to drop in our two centers in Essex and Heroin
37:09
do some shopping good stuff. Excellent. Thank you so much for joining us
37:13
this morning, Tracy, it would like to plug this morning. Well.
37:15
I grew up in Kingsville and there are a lot of birders that head to
37:19
Kingsville. My parents had a B and B there for many years. People
37:22
would come from all over the globe to be able to come into Windsor,
37:24
Essex and in particular Point Peely for the birding. So Tourism Windsor Essex has
37:29
just launched this new Windsor Essex bird Birding Trail Digital pass and it's free and
37:34
it can give you the top birding spots in the region. And I think,
37:37
you know, lots of people wonder what it is that brings all the
37:39
folks here from all around the world. This is a nice way, I
37:42
think for yourself or for the family to learn a little bit more about why
37:45
they come here. I love that and I've reese, I'm not a birder,
37:46
I'm not a full on bird yet it's something that kind of like poked
37:50
at the maybe the birder inside of me. I went to a Jibway park
37:52
last spring and I could not believe it. When you hold like your hand
37:55
out with seeds, they'll come and like land on your hand and eat it
37:58
to your hand. I thought that was the coolest thing. And I want
38:00
to bring my little nephew and like, look, how magical am the birds
38:02
land in my hand? But Disney kind of yeah. I felt like snow
38:07
white for a minute up in there. But really really cool stuff. And
38:09
I really need to John, what would you like to plug in this morning?
38:13
Um, you know what, let's just but we don't have to make
38:15
it political. You should listen to Roast City Polugs. Hey, that's what
38:20
plugged in is a bellow part at the end of the sentence. That's great.
38:22
I've also got a podcast of my own called Covetch with John Lidkey,
38:28
And you know, I'm gonna follow through with the theme that I feel like
38:30
I've been doing often on the roundtable. Just be kind, Just be kind
38:36
to each other please. That should take care of everything. Absolutely. Thank
38:38
you so much, John, Tracy and Rob appreciate your time. Great roundtable
38:43
this morning, really important, huge conversations as well more on the way,
38:46
keep it here. It's the Dan McDonald Show on AM eight hundred