Latest / Kvetch & Release / KVETCHING on Housing Rhetoric, Ontario's Budget, anti-Israel propaganda, & MPs' pensions

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KVETCHING on Housing Rhetoric, Ontario's Budget, anti-Israel propaganda, & MPs' pensions · Kvetch & Release

• 0:15
  News Talk Tonight is on with your host Jim Richards on the iHeartRadio Talk Network.
• 0:22
  Well done, everyone, thank you very much for your time time to
• 0:26
  take a look at the big news stories of the day. We're joined by
• 0:29
  John Lidke, who is a radio and podcast host in Windsor. John,
• 0:33
  thank you very much for your time. Thank you for having me. And
• 0:37
  also Calvin Reid is director of PR at Enterprise Canada, also a former journalist.
• 0:44
  John, thank you very much for your time as well. Thanks good
• 0:48
  to be here. I'm not sure if there's much to say about this story
• 0:52
  out of Baltimore, which is very sad, but this audio is pretty heartbreaking.
• 1:00
  On the south side. One of you guys on the north side,
• 1:02
  hold all traffic on the key Bridge. There's a ship approaching has just lost
• 1:07
  their steering, so they get that under control. We got stop all traffic,
• 1:11
  take thro take this back. The whole bridge just found down. Start
• 1:15
  starts whoever, everybody, the whole bridge just elapsed. Well, this match
• 1:19
  is direct, that's correct. First time, do you know wall traffic south?
• 1:26
  I can't get to the other side where the bridge is down. There
• 1:30
  is still a search and I don't know if it's so much of a rescue.
• 1:34
  And now, to be honest with you, we'll talk to a navy
• 1:37
  sealed diver a little bit later on the show who has done some diving on
• 1:42
  tragic stories like this. Heartbreaking that six people are still missing. And I'm
• 1:51
  not sure what to what to say about this, Calvin, other than it
• 1:55
  is a tragedy. But also when you look at the financial aspects of it,
• 1:59
  that is a very very important port which now has its access in and
• 2:05
  out, uh you know, uh tied up. Yeah, and you use
• 2:09
  the word that I put this is an absolute tragedy. I mean, I
• 2:14
  don't think we can take so almost in the fact that this was truly an
• 2:16
  accident and not some some active aggression, but a tragedy none the less.
• 2:22
  I don't know if you've seen a video, but it is just terrifying to
• 2:24
  see and and yeah, I mean the loss of human life and then there's
• 2:29
  going to be long term impacts from this as well. As you mentioned,
• 2:31
  it's a it's a main access point, if I'm not mistaken, an interstate.
• 2:35
  That bridge carried an interstate over the river. That's a that's a main
• 2:39
  artery of commerce. It's a main artery of people getting to and from work
• 2:43
  of I'm sure visitors to Baltimore and Maryland. It's going to take a long
• 2:47
  long time, I think to get over this one. What about you,
• 2:51
  John, This was a horrific I woke up this morning and you know,
• 2:54
  try to put together the stories for the day. You think it's going to
• 2:58
  be about the budget, and you don't expect to see something this horrific.
• 3:00
  And you know, it seems that everything that could have went wrong did go
• 3:06
  wrong, but also everything that could have went right did go right. This
• 3:10
  happened at you know, in the middle of the night, there was the
• 3:14
  ability for the may day to go out and for the bridge to be shut
• 3:16
  down. So you know, it was it was a terrible situation, but
• 3:21
  it could have been so much worse. Yeah, I mean, there's so
• 3:23
  much about this story that is you know, tragic, tragic, but yet
• 3:28
  interesting. I mean, they say it takes a mile to stop one of
• 3:30
  those things, so you're almost damned from the beginning as soon as they had
• 3:36
  some problems. But we'll continue to follow that. And we've got a structural
• 3:39
  engineer and a former Navy seal who's done diving on all sorts of tragedies on
• 3:46
  how it would have played out in the immediate hours afterwards that in an hour
• 3:50
  here on News Talk Tonight for CTV News, Thomas Mulcair wrights just give it
• 3:55
  time and Pierre Pauliev's stances can turn on a dime. I don't know a
• 4:00
  lot of people think that that kind of stuff is a gotcha moment, But
• 4:04
  I always think that if there is new information, I think most Canadians would
• 4:10
  expect and appreciate that political leaders can change stances on certain things. And certainly
• 4:17
  it's interesting, though Calvin, that we have not seen this conservative leader win
• 4:24
  the nomination and then move to the middle as many have in the past.
• 4:28
  And whether or not they like him for that or they just like that he's
• 4:32
  not just in Trudeau. He's doing a lot that people like. Yeah,
• 4:36
  that's for sure. I mean these comments from mister maulcare, I mean that's
• 4:42
  part in politics that it's finest right and it's all spinning. It's coming from
• 4:45
  the left hand the right. To be honest, I don't put too much
• 4:47
  credence in what mister Maulcair was criticizing. Form sure, there's a lot that
• 4:53
  can criticize mister Paulyff for I honestly don't think this is one of them.
• 4:56
  As you said, there are changing circumstances and situationation's going to change. His
• 5:00
  time evolves, and hopefully people's stances do change on issues is they may become
• 5:04
  more informers, they learn more as the information services. But that comment you
• 5:11
  made about moving over to the Center is very very interesting. It'd be very
• 5:15
  interested to see where where mister Poff campaigns from when an election actually is underway.
• 5:21
  The Center has been vacant in Canada for a long long time. Mister
• 5:27
  O'Toole when he was leader of the Conservative Party is probably the closest we've had
• 5:30
  to somebody who was trying to occupy that space and it didn't quite work out
• 5:33
  for him. Paulv's going to be up against a master campaigner in Justin Trudeau,
• 5:39
  so it will be very very interesting to see how Paul Hav's pre election
• 5:43
  stances play in an actual writ period when more people are paying attention. I
• 5:46
  think that's very interesting that the center has been vacated and I'm not sure that
• 5:50
  anybody is in a rush to take it over. John, Yeah, I
• 5:55
  got to agree with that, and that's what's leaving a lot of people,
• 5:58
  I think, upset, feeling like that their parties have run away from them,
• 6:02
  or that they can't find a space where they feel welcome into right now.
• 6:06
  But Pauliev, let's be honest, like we're looking at him if it
• 6:11
  was held what today or tomorrow, having either a ten to thirty five seat
• 6:15
  majority, which is unbelievable, and I think that it is representing a feeling
• 6:23
  that a lot of people have that you know, quite frankly, people are
• 6:27
  angry, and he mirrors that back towards them. But he also harkens back
• 6:31
  to a memory of Hey, Canada, wasn't that bad ago a couple years
• 6:36
  ago? What's changed? And you know, I don't go putting everything at
• 6:41
  the Prime Minister's feet. That's not fair. We've had global situations that have
• 6:46
  been unbelievable. But he's going to, unfortunately wear it and that's just how
• 6:51
  things are. And it is useful for this conservative leader to be able to
• 6:57
  differentiate himself by that. It's interesting that leaders from Greece are angry with our
• 7:02
  prime minister and maybe rightfully so, maybe Canada should be angry with them as
• 7:08
  well. For well, for this specifically, folks. Greece would of course
• 7:13
  be interested in purchasing Canada's liquified natural gas. If the resource could be made
• 7:19
  available to the Mediterranean countries, it would be a huge success. But this
• 7:25
  Prime Minister is not interested because he doesn't want to contribute to a carbon footprint
• 7:31
  that he doesn't see as the way forward for us and being a green country.
• 7:36
  I don't know, I think that's pretty disappointing, Calvin. I would
• 7:43
  tend to agree with you in lique financial gas does happen to be a fossil
• 7:46
  fuel, Maybe not as dirty as some of the other ones that we've used
• 7:49
  in the past, but a fossil fuel nonetheless. Obviously, this Prime Minister
• 7:54
  and this Liberal Party in particular would put themselves in a pretty precarious situation if
• 7:58
  they wholeheartedly agree to what Greece would would want to see happen. But even
• 8:03
  just beyond the energy aspects of it, I mean, I think Canada's got
• 8:07
  a responsibility here to to do something, and to do something rather significant.
• 8:11
  I mean, we are literally talking about our allies in Europe, a lot
• 8:16
  of allies in Europe, people who have stood by acid, who we have
• 8:18
  stood by in the past, and they're facing a power crisis, they've got
• 8:22
  an energy crisis, and you know, because of the war in Ukraine has
• 8:24
  disrupted a lot of electricity creation and generation, Russia has been hoarding a lot
• 8:30
  of resources as you know, part of their role in this. I think
• 8:33
  we have a role on the global stage to play, but we also know
• 8:37
  that that you know, international affairs haven't necessarily been the strongest suit of this
• 8:39
  government. It is heartbreaking to see that. I get it, I get
• 8:43
  the reason why he doesn't want to go down that road. But when you
• 8:48
  see all of the different checkmates along here, that would be very helpful in
• 8:52
  Europe right now, John, it's hard to get your head around. Yeah,
• 8:56
  this is this is a tough one. I mean it's the same situation
• 9:00
  as a carbon tax domestically here. The easy answer is, you know,
• 9:05
  take it off while people are in a tough situation right now. But he's
• 9:09
  looking at how does it work electorally and this is the same situation playing out,
• 9:13
  and of course it's about energy politics. I personally take the viewpoint that
• 9:20
  if we're looking at an ally, if we're looking at allies who quite frankly
• 9:24
  need access to you know, cheaper energy, and we know that we have
• 9:30
  an aggressor who is able to take advantage of this situation through multiple different ways,
• 9:33
  multiple aggressors. Quite frankly, I think a suspension of domestic politics is
• 9:39
  something that should be considered and looked at, maybe discussed by government publicly.
• 9:46
  But we're not seeing anything like that. It seems they're intractable and that makes
• 9:50
  for a very difficult situation. I would agree, let's come back more of
• 9:56
  the rundown, and before we get out of here this hour, our economist
• 10:01
  friend mosh Lander will be here to talk about a difficult situation Canada finds itself
• 10:07
  in with productivity and building our way out of this economic crisis, the affordability
• 10:15
  crisis. That's next on the Iheartalk Radio Network. Welcome back to news Talk
• 10:26
  Tonight with Jim Richards on the iHeartRadio Talk Network. What was that, Tony?
• 10:33
  Tony just made a remark about people punching each other in a face?
• 10:37
  Can you not let that go? I once interviewed a guy that Tony worked
• 10:41
  really hard to get and I said to him, how many of your fellow
• 10:46
  pundits who are in the same line of work as you do you want to
• 10:48
  punch in the face, because at the time I thought one person was really
• 10:54
  annoying, but now I don't, and that guest has never come on since
• 11:00
  I asked him what other people in in his industry did you want to punch
• 11:07
  in the face? And now Tony will not let it go. Okay,
• 11:11
  let's get back to the rundown, which is our conversation about the big news
• 11:15
  stories of the day. Calvin Reid any other PR directors you would like to
• 11:20
  punch in the face? Calvin is from The Enterprise. No, No,
• 11:28
  I was gonna getta kind of tug and cheek with somebody else you've had on
• 11:31
  who's really Oh? Why Murdoch? You want to punch Murdoch in the face?
• 11:37
  Stephen Murdoch? Is that what you're saying? Will relay that to him.
• 11:43
  John Lidkey is a radio host and podcast from Windsor, Ontario. Who
• 11:46
  do you want to punch in the face? And Windsor, Ontario? Yeah,
• 11:50
  John, Ricky, what what radio show host would you like to punch
• 11:52
  in the face? All right, Jim, if it's gonna be me,
• 11:56
  uh, we're just gonna We're gonna glide right over. That's all right,
• 12:01
  We'll do that a little bit later on. Okay, let's get back into
• 12:03
  it here. There has been a case. In February of last year,
• 12:09
  a Montreal law firm filed the class action lawsuit application against a gentleman by the
• 12:15
  name of Robert Miller, who is a Montreal billionaire, alleging that he paid
• 12:22
  dozens of underage girls cash and gifts in exchange for sex. But a judge
• 12:28
  said, by leaving the office of this individual with fifty thousand dollars, a
• 12:33
  woman implicitly agreed to a settlement and her case against the billionaire is essentially tossed
• 12:43
  out. Would one. I don't know why, you know, why you
• 12:48
  wouldn't agree with that. I'm not saying you, guys, but it sounds
• 12:52
  like by doing that, she then, you know, went and tried to
• 12:56
  file a class action lawsuit, which maybe was probably believe the smart thing to
• 13:00
  do, but maybe taking the money you should have known that that might exclude
• 13:05
  you from moving forward in the future. Calvin thoughts, Yeah, I also
• 13:09
  understand that she did have a document with her as well that basically outlined that
• 13:13
  it was unsigned. She was supposed to have a review by her lawyer,
• 13:16
  but a document nonetheless it's so hard on such a situations like this in this
• 13:24
  respect, and that quite frankly, she got fifty thousand dollars. That must
• 13:26
  be more than you would get in a class action lawsuit to be honest with
• 13:28
  you, however, for what this guy is has alleged to have done,
• 13:33
  it'd be more interested in criminal modalis against him. And what are they doing
• 13:37
  to pursue this on the criminal side as opposed to the civil side, because
• 13:41
  it's from you know, all of the media reports. It's pretty disgusting,
• 13:43
  unbelievable. Yeah, I don't know what has been done there. Maybe something
• 13:48
  has been done, but yeah, why are we not doing that? John
• 13:52
  thoughts. Yeah, this is such a tough one. I mean she left
• 13:56
  the office without with the money, excuse me, but without having signed this
• 14:00
  document, and it was agreed that she'd be running this by a lawyer that
• 14:03
  was referred to her by the one who was Receptors representing them. This is
• 14:07
  just you know, do your two diligence, I suppose, Like this is
• 14:13
  why I do my very best to not have to sign contracts these days.
• 14:16
  It's much easier, quite frankly, and it's just like they I don't know,
• 14:20
  I don't know what to say about it beyond that I was struck by
• 14:24
  this story out of Florida where they have and I don't know how they're going
• 14:28
  to enforce it, but I do think it is a good place to start.
• 14:33
  Apparently, the terms of agreement for most social media says that you have
• 14:37
  to be over fourteen, but Rohn DeSantis has signed a bill saying that you
• 14:43
  have to be under or over the age of fourteen in order to have social
• 14:46
  media on your smartphone. Being buried in those devices all day is not the
• 14:52
  best way to grow up. It's not the best way to get a good
• 14:54
  education. During the governor's bill signing, what was not mentioned how law would
• 15:00
  be enforced, but the social media platforms themselves would be held responsible. There's
• 15:05
  no bill powerful enough to keep these kids from social media. It's not possible.
• 15:11
  That is probably true, Calvin, But I like the idea of this
• 15:15
  being a starting point for a conversation and maybe a red flag that is raised
• 15:18
  when parents probably would want to rethink. And I'm taking a look at some
• 15:22
  numbers in like twenty ten to now, suicide among young people have skyrocketed,
• 15:28
  self harm, depression, all of these things now do we know that it's
• 15:33
  from social media? No, but it seems to coincide with the boom,
• 15:37
  so thoughts there. Yeah, I do think that this is a role where
• 15:43
  parents should be playing a bigger part. It is up to them to have
• 15:48
  a better awareness of their children's behavior, what they're doing. What I've read
• 15:52
  about this action from Florida. I'm to be honest, I'm waiting for the
• 15:56
  follow up media reports for people are going to start using This is a get
• 16:00
  rich quick scheme, is the from what I understand and making to this bill.
• 16:03
  If a social media site allows somebody under fourteen to join and they don't
• 16:10
  remove the profile, then the family or that child is up or eligible to
• 16:15
  get ten thousand dollars in damages like that, I'm going to start signing my
• 16:19
  kids up for social accounts and hope they don't get noticed, right like bring
• 16:22
  the money in. I think kids are smart enough to use some sort of
• 16:26
  you know, cartoon character or some other kind of picture, some avatar to
• 16:33
  start their profile if they want to badly enough, and they know how to
• 16:37
  hide these apps on their phones where their parents aren't going to find it.
• 16:40
  John Miley point, is that, Yes, I think it's time to have
• 16:44
  that conversation. And I don't know, just as we argue about, you
• 16:48
  know, kids and sex education, there needs to be some serious education on
• 16:55
  how we have discourse when we're young on social media. Yeah, it's terrifying
• 17:02
  that these conversations are quite frankly still ongoing. I was a kid when social
• 17:07
  media came out. It was two thousand and seven, I think when I
• 17:10
  ended up getting onto a Facebook account or excuse me, twenty twelve to get
• 17:15
  on a Facebook account earlier than that with a MySpace account. And the point
• 17:18
  being is like, you know, my generation grew up with the concerns,
• 17:22
  the issues, we've seen, it evolved and we do know better, but
• 17:26
  we haven't gotten better as a society. Our governments haven't gotten better in dealing
• 17:32
  with this. So, you know, kudos for coming out with legislation,
• 17:36
  albeit I think legislation that's unenforceable, that has a lot of problems as Calvin
• 17:41
  has just identified there, but it's clear that we need to have some regulations.
• 17:47
  I have a concern that this will be highly politicized, maybe to attack
• 17:49
  the social media companies themselves, but you know, there has to be a
• 17:53
  start of a conversation somewhere the whole algorithm is built to keep not just young
• 17:59
  people and their eyeballs on the thing for as long as possible, but every
• 18:03
  single person, and reminds me of that senate here in a couple of weeks
• 18:07
  ago, when I forget the senator forced Mark Zuckerberg to turn around and to
• 18:12
  apologize to parents who had lost their kid to any number of different things.
• 18:18
  And we're not just talking about scams here, which young people are very vulnerable
• 18:22
  to being bribed because of any number of different things or what have you,
• 18:29
  but we're talking about the damage that it can do overall. I guess my
• 18:33
  point is that I'm just happy that the discussion is going to get out there
• 18:37
  and perhaps people will finally do something about it, or try to make sure
• 18:41
  that your kids aren't on it, but that might be an impossible task.
• 18:48
  Yale Psychologists, as we all follow the Yale psychologists guys, they feel that
• 18:52
  being too busy can damage your brain health. They give three suggestions on how
• 18:59
  you can work around that. It involves something called limit time blocking, celebrate
• 19:08
  your wins if you can get your things done on time. And also they
• 19:14
  encourage us if you have the money to get somebody else to do something to
• 19:18
  free up time, then go for that. Any thoughts on that. Do
• 19:22
  you guys feel overwhelmed by all the different things you have to do at work?
• 19:27
  Calvin, Yeah, I was filing this one under the category of no
• 19:33
  kidding. There was a time during COVID in particular, when all of a
• 19:37
  sudden, every meeting had to happen in zoom, so we had to have
• 19:41
  a calendar block and there had to be an invite in there. Given look
• 19:44
  at your calendar for the weekend, it's just, you know, these big
• 19:45
  blocks of color with very little free time. And that's kind of thing,
• 19:48
  man, I'm getting, like calendar anxiety. We're looking at this and I
• 19:51
  have no time to get anything else done. I think absolutely, you've got
• 19:56
  to find strategies to deal with that and find that time. And when you
• 20:00
  when you get some time to yourself or some free time, yes, to
• 20:03
  celebrate it. Put it to good use. You use it to relax,
• 20:07
  use it to decompress and get away from the tasks. And remember that,
• 20:11
  I mean for most of us, you know, we're not doing brain surgery.
• 20:15
  For those those who are brain surgeons, we're not doing rocket science.
• 20:17
  Yea. There are things that we can put off until tomorrow for another hour
• 20:21
  and take that time that you need to make sure that your brain did a
• 20:23
  good spot. And I always say no, don't worry about it. Yeah,
• 20:26
  say no to people if you feel like, oh, this person's been
• 20:30
  nice to me in the past. If you can't do it, or you're
• 20:32
  a feel overwhelmed, just say no. I'm glad you guys didn't do that
• 20:36
  tonight. John lid Key is a radio host and podcaster out of Windsor Thanks
• 20:41
  John, and Calvin Reid is the director of pr at Enterprise Canada. When
• 20:47
  we come back, when it comes to our economy, what should we break
• 20:52
  behind the glass, because apparently we have an emergency. Next, I have
• 21:15
  joining me right now, author and columnist at the Toronto Sun and National Post
• 21:18
  Warren Kinsella, who has a new column that is out. It's entitled Israel
• 21:22
  Haters have Truth in their crosshairs after the October seven Hamas attack. Warren,
• 21:29
  how are you good, my friend? Thanks for having me on. Thank
• 21:32
  you so much for joining me here. So I'll let you speak just right
• 21:34
  off the bat here. What's this column all about? Well, basically,
• 21:38
  he released my political experiences. You know, I was a special assessiant to
• 21:42
  Jean Critcia, and I've helped run lots of campaigns over many years. And
• 21:48
  you know, when you're in politics for a long time, whether you're a
• 21:49
  Liberal or a Tory or a new Democrat, you get pretty good at spotting
• 21:52
  money in organization. Whether it's at a rally or a protest or a campaign
• 21:59
  office, you can tell who's got it together and who's got money and who
• 22:02
  doesn't. And what I noticed almost immediately after the tragedy the atrocities of October
• 22:07
  seventh, was the anti Israel group, who used to be pretty small and
• 22:14
  ragtag and pretty disorganized, turn into this global propaganda machine with professional looking graphics
• 22:22
  and what looked like tested messages and organizers and just an obvious ton of money.
• 22:27
  And they were doing this on a coordinated global basis. And that's kind
• 22:32
  of stuff I can tell you in politics and business. Who does not happen
• 22:37
  just organically, It doesn't happen spontaneously. So I've been writing about that for
• 22:41
  months for Post media, and the anti Israel folks they don't like it.
• 22:48
  And you know, if they object to anything, you know, I could
• 22:51
  say that they're Prohamas. They don't say boo. I could say that they
• 22:53
  hate Israel, the Jewish state, they don't say anything as soon as you
• 22:57
  say that. And Qatar and other outlaw nations are funding this type of activity
• 23:06
  on a global scale. These guys, they go bananas, they lose their
• 23:10
  mind and they object to that. And so we've been subjected to an astro
• 23:12
  turf campaign at post Media because of what I've been writing, and it tells
• 23:18
  us we're getting pretty close to our target. You know, I love how
• 23:21
  you start off the column, and I guess I'm also just a little bit
• 23:23
  jealous of it as well, because you're able to really paint a nice narrative.
• 23:26
  What's the old military saying. You say, you know you're over target
• 23:30
  when you're taking flak, when you're taking flax, So you know, as
• 23:33
  you're close to your target, you know, that's when they're really trying to
• 23:37
  take you out. And that goes back to World War Two when we the
• 23:41
  Allies were fighting to defeat you know, Nazism and you know those who were
• 23:48
  promoting anti Semitism again on a massive scale, and the same thing happened here.
• 23:52
  John is not just for me, but for my colleagues too. As
• 23:56
  soon as you kind of start trying to figure out who the wizard are of
• 24:00
  OZ is, you know, who's behind the curtain running this show and paying
• 24:03
  for it. Because it is a professional propaganda campaign the likes of which I've
• 24:08
  never seen in my lifetime. As soon as we start writing about that,
• 24:11
  that's the thing they get most upset about. And that tells us that,
• 24:15
  you know, we're getting close to our target. And you know, it
• 24:18
  did start pretty well. The next day on October the eighth, we saw
• 24:22
  this very organized, you know, as you said, global campaign. But
• 24:30
  you know, as you mentioned, in politics, the things cost money.
• 24:33
  Things cost money to actually print placards and signs, for example. And when
• 24:37
  you see, you know a lot of people all carrying the same signs in
• 24:41
  a lot of cases, with the same messaging that have been designed and printed,
• 24:45
  it shows that there is some kind of an organization there, because how
• 24:49
  do you have that all ready to go so quickly? Well, let me
• 24:52
  tell you a story about one group, just one group that I've written about
• 24:56
  called the Plenty Collective in Victoria, BC. You know, it's a typical
• 25:00
  kind of far left organization, and they made a mistake. They slipped and
• 25:04
  they left their website portal open, and they were advertising that they were prepared
• 25:11
  to pay people to come and protest against Israel, up to twenty thousand dollars
• 25:15
  a month they were spending on protesters and organizers, and then became implicated other
• 25:21
  groups on Vancouver Island, and you know, and then I discovered the same
• 25:26
  things happening in New York City and around New York City. It's happening in
• 25:29
  Montreal. It's happening all around the planet. And I'm not saying that every
• 25:33
  protester isn't out there on their own. You know, some are, many
• 25:37
  are maybe, but many of them are being paid to be there, so
• 25:41
  in affect, they're actors. And it calls into question, you know,
• 25:44
  the whole operation, how sincere these people are. And I think, you
• 25:48
  know, that's the thing that whoever the Wizard of Oz is behind the curtain,
• 25:52
  that's the thing that they want to cover up. So you're taking all
• 25:56
  this flak here at post Media. It's an organized campaign. Well that at
• 26:00
  all deter your writing and reporting, No, not a chance. I've been
• 26:04
  writing with this stuff, as you know, for more than thirty years.
• 26:07
  I've had rifles gems in my chest and multiple bomb threats and death threats and
• 26:11
  the whole bit, and they haven't gotten me yet. And it's important this
• 26:15
  story get told, and because you know, clearly there's some terrible things going
• 26:21
  on, shooting up the schools, Jewish schools in Montreal, firebombing of Jewish
• 26:26
  delicatessens in Toronto, Jewish homes being shot up in Winnipeg. Like, there's
• 26:33
  terrible things happening across the country, and it's really important that not only journalists
• 26:38
  write about it and document it and find out what's really going on, but
• 26:42
  also the citizens speak up and say that we oppose this, we're against this,
• 26:47
  and hopefully more people do that. You know, what's really concerning about
• 26:51
  it is, you know, of course, what's happening right now in Gaza
• 26:53
  that we're seeing, as you know, it's awful, it's tragic. Nobody
• 26:57
  wants to see the amount of death that's occurring. But this is happening here
• 27:03
  on our streets. This is happening in Canada. And you know, we
• 27:07
  talked about this a little bit the last time that you were on here.
• 27:10
  But again it feels like as if the police have just decided to say we
• 27:15
  give up. This is what it's going to be. The streets are going
• 27:18
  to just be taken over. And you know, sometimes people are just not
• 27:22
  going to be able to leave a synagogue or a community center because there are
• 27:26
  hundreds of people outside that have effectively decided to blockade them inside. I mean,
• 27:30
  at what point do we collectively decide here as a country to do something
• 27:37
  yesterday? I mean, this long ago. We've passed the point where the
• 27:41
  authorities need to do more. But you know, for people aren't Jewish who
• 27:44
  are listening to us right now, just you know, imagine your grandmother being
• 27:48
  a church, a Catholic church or a Protestant church or whatever, and coming
• 27:52
  out and there's a mob outside on the sidewalk screaming at her that she's a
• 27:56
  murderer and that she you know, is involved and genocide, and that her
• 28:03
  religion isn't a real religion. Just imagine if that happened to a member of
• 28:07
  your family, you'd be pretty upset. And you know, that's why I
• 28:11
  think people need to understand what's happening to our brothers and sisters in the Jewish
• 28:15
  community. They feel isolated, they feel angry, they feel depressed, and
• 28:18
  it's just critically important that people say, no, we're with you, We're
• 28:22
  against all of this stuff. And you know, you don't have to love
• 28:26
  Benjamin netane Who. You don't have to love the government of Israel. I
• 28:30
  am a big critic of net Who myself, but you know, it's important
• 28:33
  that we stand with the Jewish community because they're Canadians like us. Yeah,
• 28:38
  I mean who we are. We're just here trying to exist as well.
• 28:44
  You know, I spoke with the Prime Minister last week or the week before
• 28:48
  last week when he was in town in Windsor, and I asked him what
• 28:52
  the government, what he thinks the government's role is in combating anti Semitism.
• 28:56
  And I got to say, I was pretty dismayed by the response that I
• 28:57
  got because he didn't really say anything other than listing what it is that's already
• 29:03
  been done. And you know, the premise of the question here is setting
• 29:06
  up that, like, you know, things are bad right now. I
• 29:07
  don't want to hear about what you've done. I want to hear about what
• 29:08
  you're going to be doing. I've spoken with other Jews in the country who
• 29:14
  have said I can't vote for the Liberals, I can't vote for the NDP.
• 29:18
  I don't want to vote for the Conservatives, but that seems to be
• 29:21
  the only place that I can go right now. This is reverberating through our
• 29:25
  politics, it is. And there's good people though in all the parties,
• 29:29
  and there a lot of people in all of the parties you know, have
• 29:33
  attained the air on this thing. But all three levels of government, whether
• 29:37
  they're Liberal, Tory or New Democrat, have a role to play here.
• 29:41
  The federal government is the level of government that creates the criminal law. We
• 29:45
  need to create a criminal law so that we can lay hate charges against somebody
• 29:49
  who's targeting a synagogue, for example, without getting the permission of the provincial
• 29:53
  attorney general, which is the case right now. We need at the provincial
• 29:57
  level. We need special problem secures and special courts and the way that they
• 30:02
  do in the United States, who are experts in dealing with this type of
• 30:06
  criminal activity to stamp it out. That's what other jurisdictions around the world are
• 30:11
  doing, but we are not. And at the municipal level, we need
• 30:14
  to make sure that the municipal leaders, whether it's in Toronto, Olivia Chaw
• 30:18
  or Valerie Plant from Montreal, they have the two biggest problems are saying to
• 30:22
  the police, we've got your back. You know, we're not going to
• 30:23
  tell you what to do, but if you go ahead and lay charges against
• 30:27
  the people who are doing these things, we're not going to complain. We're
• 30:30
  not going to say defund the police. We're going to stand with the police.
• 30:33
  All three levels of government can and should be doing more because we've got
• 30:38
  the laws, you know, and in some cases we've got the resources to
• 30:41
  deal with it, but we too often lack these days since October seventh.
• 30:45
  Is the leadership to deal with it? Yeah, Political conviction that seems to
• 30:49
  be lacking. And again with this Liberal party right now, they seem that
• 30:52
  they want to try to be everything everywhere, all at once, and they're
• 30:56
  really just upsetting everyone everywhere all at once. It's a tough situation, but
• 31:00
  it's especially tough to be living through this time. Hey, Warren, I
• 31:03
  want to thank you again for your time and for all the work that you
• 31:06
  do in writing about this subject. Just personally, thank you, thanks,
• 31:10
  y friend, thanks for having me. Have a great day. Warren Kinsella
• 31:12
  is an author and is a columnist with the post media companies The National Post,
• 31:18
  as well as Toronto's Sun Canada's Housing Minister that have Minister of Housing,
• 31:41
  Infrastructure and Communities actually get the title absolutely correct. Sean Frasier put out a
• 31:45
  tweet a couple of days ago of three four plexes. One looks like it
• 31:49
  was built probably in maybe the forties or thirties, and then two relatively newer
• 31:55
  looking ones. One could be a retrofit, one is definitely looks to be
• 32:00
  a new build, and the minister said warning the following images of four plexus
• 32:05
  may frighten some politicians. They want to make sure these family homes remain illegal
• 32:10
  to build. Maybe my elder millennial is showing, but these homes in great
• 32:15
  look locations look like good options to me. This prompted a response from Windsor's
• 32:21
  Mayor Drew Dilkins, who said illegal to build is a totally false narrative.
• 32:25
  None of these are illegal. Why can't you guys just be honest in your
• 32:30
  approach and stop playing politics with housing, including a hashtag respect local decision making
• 32:36
  as well as hashtag ambitious housing plan. Mayor Dilkins, thank you for joining
• 32:42
  me. Are you frightened? Am I frightened? Not at all, not
• 32:46
  frightened at all. I just you know, Sean Brage is a good man.
• 32:50
  I think if he put that out, that's one thing. If Stafford
• 32:52
  did it, I mean it needed to be called out because there's so much
• 32:57
  rhetoric over this housing Accelerator Fund and the Building Faster Fund than the federal government's
• 33:00
  bypassing the provinces to try and get cities to change their planning rules. The
• 33:06
  premier has come out and said, you know, I respect communities. I
• 33:09
  don't think fourplexes should be everywhere, and we respect local council decision making.
• 33:15
  And that was the position we took as a city council is let's respect local
• 33:20
  decision making. And so that tweet where it talked about you know, those
• 33:23
  units being illegal, They are not illegal. Anyone in the City of Windsor
• 33:29
  can come forward today and say I would like to build a fourplex and identify
• 33:32
  the parcel of land, and if it meets the zoning requirements, it would
• 33:37
  be allowed to happen. If it doesn't meet the rezoning the current zoning requirements,
• 33:42
  as it wouldn't for most established neighborhoods today, they would have to go
• 33:45
  through a rezoning process that would then trigger public consultation and administrative review, looking
• 33:52
  at the underground and the above ground infrastructure to make sure that it could support
• 33:57
  the type of development being proposed, and then it would go to a committee
• 34:00
  of council for public consultation. It would then go out back to city Council
• 34:04
  as a whole to make the ultimate decision. And so to say that it's
• 34:07
  illegal is absolutely false. It's not illegal, but there is an established process
• 34:13
  in place that respects local council decision making and public consultation. You know,
• 34:19
  I look at some of the comments that are posted underneath your response, and
• 34:22
  you know, it's sort of all over the place with it a lot more
• 34:24
  negative towards you all, admittedly that I'm seeing. But people are saying it
• 34:29
  is illegal because I have to go through a zoning, a rezoning to be
• 34:32
  able to build four plexes here. Again, from what you just said,
• 34:37
  you take on bridge even with that comment, because there is a process that
• 34:39
  does exist it, well, the comment saying it's illegal is just factually untrue.
• 34:44
  I mean, and we can have a debate about our opinions on four
• 34:46
  plexes everywhere as of right, but we can't debate that it's not illegal to
• 34:51
  build one, you have to go through a process to get there, and
• 34:55
  that is what I think residents in our city expect that if you're going to
• 34:59
  signify prequently alter the characteristic of neighborhoods, that there's a process in place that's
• 35:04
  well established, in long standing, that allows that conversation to happen. So
• 35:08
  what I you know, my tweet is really simple. Let's just talk facts
• 35:13
  about the procedure and the process. And not every community is going to accept
• 35:17
  four units or appreciate four units as of right. And that's what this federal
• 35:22
  government was proposing to do, is to remove all of the public consultation and
• 35:27
  the process set up at city council to review these things and say, you
• 35:30
  know what, we're going to dangle a few dollars over your head, City
• 35:34
  of Windsor and other cities, and if you take the money, as they
• 35:37
  said to us, the minimum ticket to entry is allowing four plexes as of
• 35:42
  right, with no consultation anywhere along the process. So anywhere where there is
• 35:45
  a residential home in the City of Windsor, they were proposing to allow us
• 35:49
  to put four plexes there without any check and balance in the system. Well,
• 35:53
  and we're seeing a little bit of drama right now unfolding as well,
• 35:57
  and to come see on this issue and it'll be coming back to counsel to
• 36:00
  discuss. Deputy Mayor but Chetty is looking to have a fullsome conversation about that
• 36:05
  public input. I guess you know a question for you, how would you
• 36:07
  respond to people that might say this is, you know, pretty hypocritical from
• 36:13
  our mayor because he is the chair of the Housing Supply Action Plan Implementation Team
• 36:19
  and it looks on face value that he's not fully committed to as many homes
• 36:22
  as possible. What would you responsible for? Well, I think it's pretty
• 36:27
  simple. Our committee has the terms of reference. I chair the committee.
• 36:30
  There's some really smart housing people who are on that committee, and ultimately it's
• 36:35
  the decision of the Province of Ontario to decide how to move forward on housing.
• 36:39
  And I know that this housing minister, Minister Calandra is super sharp,
• 36:44
  the Premier is sharp in terms of what the residents want, and I think
• 36:46
  that they're very committed to seeing housing move forward, but they want to see
• 36:51
  densification happen as we do in sensible areas, which is why in our Housing
• 36:55
  Accelerator Fund we put forward densifications along forty seven kilometers of transit routes in the
• 37:02
  city of Windsor where it makes sense. We also put forward over a thousand
• 37:07
  acres of land and mixed use nodes and commercial centers where we think densification makes
• 37:12
  sense, and I think the public agrees. And so, knowing the folks
• 37:15
  at the province and knowing how hard they're working trying to move the needle on
• 37:19
  housing, I know that they're going to make smart choices. They're going to
• 37:22
  see densification happen, but they're going to do it with the respect in mind
• 37:25
  of the people who own homes today that want to have their voices heard if
• 37:30
  there are going to be changes in their existing neighborhoods. So Premier Ford said
• 37:37
  just a couple of days ago that the province will not introduce legislation that would
• 37:40
  automatically allow four plex homes across the province by overriding municipal prohibitions. Responding looked
• 37:49
  like to Bonnie Crombie and what she was discussing. But you know what I
• 37:53
  noticed, Mayor Dilkins, is the language that was deployed by Premier Ford sounded
• 38:00
  a lot like what you've been saying here, you know, months before this
• 38:06
  had occurred at the provincial level, and I guess I'm just wondering, did
• 38:09
  you know that maybe something like this would be coming down the pipeline or is
• 38:13
  this just you happen to like, you know, the share the same views.
• 38:15
  Listen, the premieer is a smart guy, so he reads media and
• 38:19
  he talks to a lot more people on a daily basis than I do.
• 38:22
  But he reads the clippings and he understands what the perspectives are in different communities
• 38:27
  throughout the province and how they're perceiving some of the changes that are being made.
• 38:31
  And I think it's pretty much fair to say that the premiere in this
• 38:35
  case, he got it right. He certainly echoed the majority of voices in
• 38:38
  the City of Windsor saying, you know what, we're not going to allow
• 38:42
  four story and six story and four units as of right to come into existing
• 38:46
  neighborhoods and disrupt the existing process that's in place. But I also know he
• 38:51
  was pretty clear and saying that they are coming forward with really sweeping legislation that
• 38:55
  talks about densification that is sensible. In sensible area is that the vast majority
• 39:00
  of the public would say, you know what, that makes a lot of
• 39:02
  sense to me to have a multi story development in that particular location. And
• 39:07
  so I look forward. I have no insight on what this bill is going
• 39:10
  to contain, but I look forward to seeing the bill and how they're going
• 39:14
  to move the needle. We have a collective goal to they've set the province
• 39:17
  is set one and a half million homes by twenty thirty one as the goal.
• 39:22
  We have this collective goal as communities to try and meet that target.
• 39:24
  And so the help and support on the infrastructure side, which they've sort of
• 39:29
  dropped, is going to be part of this budget, I think is a
• 39:30
  really positive move forward. And I think anything they can do to add densification
• 39:36
  in sensible areas is also going to help move the needle while respecting the rights
• 39:39
  of existing homeowners. Well, we look at the issue right now as it's
• 39:44
  unfolding with roseland golf and the condominium and just you know, the public is
• 39:47
  you know, they're speaking their somen that are speaking out about it, and
• 39:52
  that's sort of the process that's designed to exist that way, to have people
• 39:57
  be able to come out and comment on the things that affect their neighbor You're
• 40:00
  absolutely right. So we had a public open house where we put up draft
• 40:05
  renderings to show the public what we're talking about and high end condos in that
• 40:08
  location. But in order to move forward, there will still be a statutory
• 40:13
  rezoning required, which again involves public consultation, going to a committee of council,
• 40:19
  going to city council. We're all along the way. There can be
• 40:22
  tweaks to the design and improvements made so that at the end of the day,
• 40:25
  whatever's built there meets the public's expectation for that neighborhood. And I would
• 40:30
  say that that is sensible planning and that is fair planning for existing neighborhoods.
• 40:35
  When we say we want to make sure that we're respectful to people who own
• 40:37
  homes and live in existing neighborhoods and rent in existing neighborhoods who do so because
• 40:43
  they like the characteristics and the qualities of those neighborhoods, why shouldn't we respect
• 40:46
  them. They pay taxes and they vote as well. They're not Nimbi's people
• 40:51
  like to say, all those are Nimbi comments. It's not a nimby to
• 40:53
  care what goes on in your neighborhood and how development happens in your neighborhood.
• 40:57
  It's quite appropriate and so on the roseland site. I've never shied away.
• 41:00
  I was at that public open house for every minute of the entire event,
• 41:04
  and I will be at you know, all of the other city led initiatives
• 41:07
  that talk about how we can make sure we get it right at that location
• 41:09
  and the other locations that were approved by council as well. Well. As
• 41:15
  we're increasingly seeing people tying their you know, retirement income to their home equity.
• 41:20
  There's not a surprise that people are very vocal about what the quality of
• 41:23
  their neighborhood is, what the characteristics would be if that can be maintained,
• 41:27
  because in a lot of cases, I said, you know, people's retirements
• 41:30
  are directly linked to their housing itself. So yeah, it's a tough situation.
• 41:35
  Mary Dilkins, I know that you've been busy in meetings all day today.
• 41:37
  Thank you so much for making the time with me today. Thanks John,
• 41:38
  have a good afternoon you as well. Mayor Dilkins Windsor Mayor on this
• 41:44
  little bit of a conversation between the housing minister federally and himself putting out the
• 41:50
  claim illegal to build is a totally false narrative regarding four plexus Budget Day,
• 42:12
  Budget Day, Budget Day twenty twenty four. You know, you can go
• 42:15
  download it right now and you can go control f find type in Windsor shows
• 42:23
  up nineteen times in this budget. First mention is about the battery plant.
• 42:30
  The next mention is about the battery supply chain and jobs and companies in Windsor.
• 42:35
  Then it mentions the overpass on Banwell Lows on EA Highway three expansion,
• 42:39
  a whole leading paragraph on highways, talks about the hospital and how the procurement
• 42:44
  process is going to beginning in twenty twenty five, and there's a lot more.
• 42:45
  I'm not going to just list it all off right now because that's just
• 42:50
  a list and we don't need that. We're going to have a conversation,
• 42:52
  get some reactions right off the bat from the Member of Provincial Parliament for Windsor
• 42:55
  to come see Andrew Dowie who joins me right now. Andrew, I don't
• 42:59
  think think I have seen a budget that has nineteen references to Windsor Essex in
• 43:06
  it. You know what, it's a rare thing. As a fellow political
• 43:12
  enthusiast, especially prior to my election, that this was what I did on
• 43:15
  budget day. I looked at a pdf, did a search what was local,
• 43:20
  and we came up empty many many years. And so to see successive
• 43:24
  budgets now speaking to our region and the actual investments being made in our region,
• 43:31
  it's just phenomenal to see and delighted to see this budget because some key
• 43:37
  investments, you know, I think a lot of them have already been announced
• 43:40
  for our area. For exampable b announcements supporting the deck Start it's a supplier
• 43:46
  that will be off of Wheelton Drive, but also the Banwell ec Row Interchange.
• 43:53
  We made an announcement a couple of weeks ago, but it is funded
• 43:57
  in this budget. So that was a brand new announcement. We've been needing
• 44:01
  it for decades, and so I was very happy to champion this project the
• 44:07
  last almost two years, you know, make the case for this investment,
• 44:12
  and to see it in print that this is a reality is just an incredible
• 44:16
  feeling. But it's one of dozens of investments for our local area that that
• 44:22
  are here today. You know, I'll tee you up right now to gush
• 44:24
  about it a little bit more because again, like I do find it staggering
• 44:28
  just to see this many references specifically to Windsor and it's you know, it's
• 44:32
  not just lip service, like this is actual money that has been invested,
• 44:36
  and people can take umbrage with the government and their priorities. Everybody has different
• 44:38
  opinions about it. But Andrew, just seeing this record investment here, or
• 44:44
  at least these record mentionings here, and we know, you know, we've
• 44:46
  got the multi billion dollar investment in you know, battery and electric vehicles here,
• 44:53
  You've got to be pretty proud to be in this government. Well one
• 44:57
  hundred percent. I mean this government stepped up for the batter replant, kicked
• 45:00
  in five hundred million dollars to keep it here after the project was put at
• 45:05
  risk, and then five billion tax credits. So that was not just federal
• 45:09
  government. The provincial government was there to make sure this project was successful.
• 45:15
  But there's also so much more is so forget the control less and the PDF.
• 45:19
  Their infrastructure is really the name of the game with this strict their budget.
• 45:22
  I think the Southwestern Integrated Fiber Technology or SWIFT high Speed Wireless project,
• 45:29
  this is bringing high speed internet, fiber optic into rural communities. So Essex
• 45:35
  County has been blessed with certain grants in different areas under the Swift program.
• 45:42
  We need to get broadband out to our rural areas and this is something that
• 45:46
  the government's been working on for a number of years. It doesn't get as
• 45:50
  much attention, but you know what, when you don't have broadband, you
• 45:52
  know that you're at a disadvantage versus your competitors, especially in commerce. But
• 45:59
  hey, who wouldn't want to have Netflix or some sort of streaming service when
• 46:04
  it's pouring wayne outside to watch? But also it's important here too is the
• 46:10
  investment in schools. East View Horizon that it's a big project was funded over
• 46:15
  multiple years. So there's funding in this budget for east View Horizon as well
• 46:20
  as the new Vegan Heights School in Saint Clair Beach and the new Kingsville School.
• 46:25
  The Erie Migration Academy was mentioned here obviously, the Winter Essex Regional Q
• 46:30
  Care Hospital. We definitely want the acurement to begin as quickly as possible and
• 46:38
  we want to make sure that we are well covered. So the BANWELLI Sero
• 46:43
  Interchange, the new lows On Parkway Interchange, which is going to be in
• 46:46
  the planning, but also close to us for anyone who you know, I
• 46:51
  think a lot of us go to Pinalty once in a while to different provincial
• 46:53
  parks. Well, the southwest, you know, I think it's got a
• 46:57
  shortage. I know we have a shortage of campsite. McGregor Point is one
• 47:00
  place where we're going to be adding new camp sites to reflect the demand.
• 47:05
  So that's up near Port Elgin, so a bit further of a drive.
• 47:07
  But we know that people do care about the outdoors and want those outdoors opportunities,
• 47:14
  and so here's a reasonable investment that helps expand the capacity for on heres
• 47:19
  to enjoy the outdoors. And I do want to put a shout out to
• 47:22
  a couple of brand new programs here. One is the two hundred million dollars
• 47:28
  Recreational Fund, So this will provide opportunities for municipalities and partners to seek out
• 47:37
  some great investments that that support local sport and helping our local residents be active.
• 47:45
  And also over a billion dollars in the Municipal Housing Infrastructure program. So
• 47:51
  that that that's a new fund. It's something that the province decided to go
• 47:55
  alone in the past that the federal governments participated. By this time, the
• 48:00
  province is going alone to to fund municipal infrastructures that we can grow our housing
• 48:07
  supply and and help with economic development. And one thing also many residents may
• 48:14
  remember from early twenty twenty two, there were six long term care beds that
• 48:19
  were signaled for demolition and rebuilding with expanded beds in windsor predominantly in downtown winter.
• 48:24
  So we've had inflation, and so it's that some of those projects haven't
• 48:31
  that haven't seen a shovel in the ground yet, and so really the reality
• 48:36
  is of those projects became a bit more expensive then we then we had enough
• 48:40
  that we had the funding for. So there's another one hundred and fifty five
• 48:45
  million dollars going into these long term care upgrades so that we will see those
• 48:50
  beds come to fruition as soon as possible. That's important for our community.
• 48:54
  It's one of the largest or most extensive asks that I get in my office
• 49:00
  is to make sure that that long term care ABED supply is updated and is
• 49:07
  available for those who need it. Well, yeah, I mean, that's
• 49:09
  obviously such an ongoing issue that has been dealt with. It's good to see
• 49:14
  this investment in it again. This is the biggest budget that the province has
• 49:17
  ever seen, a record two hundred and fourteen and a half a billion dollars,
• 49:22
  and we're seeing some of it trickle down here to our parts as well,
• 49:24
  which is always appreciated, as is your time and consideration in joining me.
• 49:30
  Andrew. Thank you so much for taking some time. I know how
• 49:31
  busy today is. Okay, Thank you, John. I appreciate the appy
• 49:35
  to be here. The twenty twenty four Ontario budget has dropped two hundred and
• 49:38
  fourteen and a half billion dollars in overall spending for twenty four and twenty five
• 49:43
  twenty twenty four to twenty five a billion in new municipal housing, infrastructure program
• 49:47
  six hundred and twenty five million, to repair and expand water infrastructure hundreds of
• 49:52
  million. There's lots of spending. It's the biggest budget that we've ever had.
• 49:54
  We found out that we're not going to be balancing the budget until at
• 49:59
  least before the election. There were up to there were nineteen mentions for Windsor
• 50:05
  in the document, the first mention being the battery plant, but it's already
• 50:09
  being panned a little bit no. Not surprisingly, out of the Toronto Star,
• 50:15
  We've got a headline here that says Doug Ford's budget ensures Ontario won't thrive.
• 50:22
  It is written by columnist Martin Regg Cohen, who says the bloom is
• 50:25
  off Ontario. The economy is wilting, revenues are drying up, and the
• 50:29
  deficit is taking root, digging in deeper than Ford ever fathomed. Joining me
• 50:35
  right now to discuss is Windsor West MPP Lisa Gretzky to get the reaction right
• 50:40
  here to the budget, Lisa, anything you liked in it, not particularly,
• 50:47
  No. This is a budget that if you were someone who was looking
• 50:52
  for a change, as life is very difficult for many people in this province,
• 50:57
  if you were looking for some sort of positive change, this was clearly
• 51:00
  not a budget for you. This is a government who you know you mentioned
• 51:05
  Windsor was mentioned nineteen times all the announcements at things they've already previously announced.
• 51:13
  There's areas where it's just status quo. And as the cost of everything is
• 51:16
  going up, the government really needed to be investing the money wisely. And
• 51:22
  what we've seen over the course of the last year or more is this government
• 51:28
  is not spending the money where it needs to be spent. Okay, so
• 51:31
  right off the bat, nothing that you saw really in it that you liked.
• 51:36
  Was there anything that really stood out where you went, this is what
• 51:38
  they're spending their money on when we have other priorities. Well, well,
• 51:43
  I'm glad you asked that question, because just before you brought me live on
• 51:46
  air, there was one of the government ads that ran one of their self
• 51:51
  congratulatory ads, part of the ads that we actually just debated yesterday, Emotion
• 51:57
  that we had tabled to put an end of those ads. Something the Conservative
• 52:00
  government actually brought emotions forward to transtep the Liberals from doing when they were in
• 52:04
  government. They have spent tens of millions of dollars on the self congratulatory ads
• 52:12
  that bring nothing to the table to the people of the province. It is
• 52:15
  not addressing the cost of living crisis. It is not addressing the wait times
• 52:21
  for people to be able to access healthcare. It's not addressing the shortage of
• 52:24
  primary care physicians. It's not addressing the shortage and childcare. It's not addressing
• 52:30
  the housing crisis that we are currently in and the cost of living crisis.
• 52:36
  So I would say one of the things that the government could have done immediately
• 52:39
  was stop spending money on those partisan congratulatory task payer money and do a real
• 52:46
  reality check and spend some of that money in the healthcare sector, the education
• 52:52
  sector, the housing sector, you name it, in order to be able
• 52:55
  to provide better supports and services for people in our community and across the province.
• 53:00
  So one thing that does stand out to me is that they're continuing to
• 53:05
  spend seven point three billion dollars in annual energy subsidies, all from the pockets
• 53:08
  of you know, taxpayers to all rate keeper all rate payers to keep hydro
• 53:14
  rates artificially low. Martin red Cohen is saying, you know, that's not
• 53:16
  investing, that's diverting money that's best used elsewhere. What's your thoughts. Yeah,
• 53:22
  this is a government to when they were the official opposition and their liberal
• 53:27
  government for fifteen years supported in fact started a previous conservative government started the privatization
• 53:32
  of hydro, which is why we're continuing to see the costs to go up.
• 53:37
  They just approved for natural gas to They overrode an the OEB decision to
• 53:45
  allow the natural gas providers to UH to charge above the LOMO increase to people
• 53:52
  that rely on natural gas. So this is a government who wants to say,
• 53:57
  on one end, look at how we're making life easier for you by
• 54:00
  providing these tax period subsidies, but on the other side brings forward policies that
• 54:07
  are actually inflating the cost on frontend to people. So that's why we're seeing
• 54:12
  that people aren't really finding a lot of relief from the average costs of living
• 54:19
  because the government is basically, you know, taking from one hand and passing
• 54:24
  it out through the other, and that's not good policy. Again, it's
• 54:29
  about investing the money wisely. Well, I will just say that the government
• 54:36
  has said they're investing two billion over three years in home care services, and
• 54:38
  nearly a billion more for hospitals, and hundreds of millions more to expand primary
• 54:43
  care coverage. But you know, judging us from what you're saying right now,
• 54:45
  what they're doing isn't enough and it's not allocated in the right places.
• 54:50
  Well, we're seeing a wait times, emergency room wait times continuing to be
• 54:57
  very very high for people needing to access emergency care. We're seeing still a
• 55:02
  shortage of positions and interdisciplinary clinics, so having nurse practitioners and social workers and
• 55:12
  you name it. We're not seeing the investments in mental health and addictions care.
• 55:15
  I will point to Safepoint and how we're still waiting, still waiting to
• 55:20
  find out about funding for that, and the recent stories that have been running
• 55:23
  about people parents with children who can't access the mental health care supports that they
• 55:30
  need and are now feeling like they're forced to surrender their kids to the CAAs
• 55:35
  there's nothing in this budget that is going to address that. And really the
• 55:39
  government hasn't even taken into account the remedy for Bill one twenty four where they
• 55:44
  attack the healthcare workers and suppress their wages, and now the court found that
• 55:47
  unconstitutional as they knew they would, and the government hasn't taken into account or
• 55:53
  is he being upfront with the public about the fact that that's going to cost
• 55:58
  about a billion dollars, so that remedy to those healthcare workers. In the
• 56:01
  meantime, we have hemorrhaged healthcare workers from the factor and it's been very very
• 56:08
  hard to recover from that billions and billions and billions of dollars. It doesn't
• 56:13
  mean it's going to solve all our problems. Sometimes you know, people say
• 56:15
  you keep throwing money at it without figuring out what you're going to do with
• 56:19
  it. You're just throwing money at it. Of course you're in opposition,
• 56:22
  your jobs to oppose. We appreciate the perspective that you provided right now with
• 56:27
  us, Lisa really appreciate it. Yeah, I appreciate the time. Thank
• 56:30
  you, Johns. It is budget day. We are less than a couple
• 56:35
  hours until we get to all publicly see what is in the twenty twenty four
• 56:40
  Ontario budget, what the PC government under Premier Ford has set as its priorities.
• 56:47
  We've heard a little bit that's been teased already that I'll be getting into
• 56:52
  in just a little bit with my guest who joins me right now. We're
• 56:57
  getting our first local This is this is a pre action to the budget.
• 57:00
  Joining me is the Member of Provincial Parliament for Essex, Anthony Lee Ardi.
• 57:06
  How are you doing today? Great? John, Thank you for having me
• 57:08
  on. Thank you for joining me so absent. You know, you knowing
• 57:13
  a bunch of things about the budget that haven't been shared publicly yet, and
• 57:15
  I know that stuff like that can't be discussed. We can talk about what
• 57:20
  we've already heard, which is that our Minister of Finance and the Premier have
• 57:24
  already announced that affordability measure yesterday, the day before the budget was announced,
• 57:30
  with a five point seven cent per leader cut to the provincial gas tax being
• 57:35
  extended until the end of this year. It was set to expire on the
• 57:39
  thirty first of June. So Happy Canada Day, I suppose from the Province
• 57:45
  of Ontario, what's your thoughts on that one. Well, that's a great
• 57:49
  place to start, John, because I can tell you everywhere in the writing
• 57:52
  of Essex that I go, whether it's in Amersburg or Kingsville, or Lasal
• 57:57
  or Bell River, people are telling me the same thing every where. The
• 58:00
  carbon tax is just killing them. It's taking money out of their pockets and
• 58:06
  they can't afford the carbon tax, especially when it comes to home heating.
• 58:10
  If you take a look at your home heating bill, you'll see that twenty
• 58:14
  eight or twenty nine percent of your bill is carbon tax and that's just hurting
• 58:17
  people. So we have, of course as a caucus, we've asked the
• 58:22
  Premiere, We've asked the Finance minister, we need tax relief in the Province
• 58:27
  of Ontario, and of course they've delivered. We are cutting the gas tax,
• 58:32
  not just by that five percent that you Mesicin mentioned, but by the
• 58:36
  total ten cents per leader. We're extending that tax cut and that's going to
• 58:40
  be a huge help to people who have to drive. And of course,
• 58:44
  as you know, John, most people in our area have to drive to
• 58:46
  get to work, to get to the soccer field, to get to the
• 58:50
  arena, and so that's going to be a big help for people. And
• 58:53
  we can expect that with the new interchange as well, we're going to be
• 58:58
  seeing more people on the roads the next coming years. Well that's you know,
• 59:01
  that's just a fact of life in our area, right. We don't
• 59:05
  have rapid transit, public transit, we don't have the go train, we
• 59:09
  don't have that kind of thing in our area. We rely on our cars,
• 59:13
  we rely on our trucks, and so when we have a gas tax
• 59:16
  cut, that helps us in our area. And that's a big help at
• 59:22
  the end of the day to families in Essex County. Now we also know
• 59:28
  that there has been an announced one point six billion dollars more to help municipalities
• 59:32
  build key infrastructure to help support new home construction. This could go towards roads
• 59:37
  and water lines and infrastructure of the like. This government has obviously been signaling
• 59:44
  the intention of building a lot more homes. However, at this point,
• 59:49
  you know, not quite at the targets that would allow them to have met
• 59:51
  from what the federal government was going to be providing in some relief. So
• 59:54
  I wonder about you know that disparody, But you're also broadly like what the
• 59:58
  government is working towards. Well, we're working towards providing some funding for infrastructure
• 1:00:04
  so that our home builders can actually build the homes that people want. The
• 1:00:07
  problem is we don't have enough supply. The lack of supply is driving up
• 1:00:12
  prices. And the reason why we don't have enough supply, or part of
• 1:00:15
  the reason at least, is because we don't have enough infrastructure like water treatment
• 1:00:20
  plants, water lines, sewer lines and the like. Now, you know
• 1:00:23
  what our goal is not to build hundreds of homes. Our goal is to
• 1:00:28
  build one point five million homes over the next ten years. That's a big
• 1:00:32
  goal and we want to help our home builders get there. Want to restore
• 1:00:37
  the dream of home ownership to all of the young people in the province of
• 1:00:40
  Ontario, and part of the reason I think we need to get this infrastructure
• 1:00:45
  in the ground is so that we can get homes built, because that's another
• 1:00:50
  thing that's very important, and what I've heard in my riding certainly almost every
• 1:00:53
  single day, is the fodibility of homes and whether we're going to have enough
• 1:00:59
  homes for the people who want them. So we need to build those homes.
• 1:01:01
  And for homes, we need infrastructure, and keeping with this theme of
• 1:01:06
  you know, the infrastructure of roads specifically, it seems like there's a theme
• 1:01:09
  in this budget. Quite frankly, we've also heard of some changes to auto
• 1:01:15
  insurance announced, and the proposals that we're hearing are that it's going to allow
• 1:01:22
  for customers consumers to increase what the industry calls optionality for their plans, allowing
• 1:01:30
  drivers more leeway to pick and choose their coverage plan, according to one source
• 1:01:34
  here in a CBC story. So clearly it seems like this affordability theme,
• 1:01:39
  especially as it relates to you know, being in a vehicle and driving around,
• 1:01:44
  is a big theme here. Yeah. Yeah, I mean absolutely,
• 1:01:46
  you've hit the nail right on the head again. In our region, in
• 1:01:50
  our area, we rely on our cars, We rely on our trucks and
• 1:01:54
  in driving is not optional for us. Driving is a necessity. Anything we
• 1:02:00
  can do to increase options for drivers is a good thing. I'll be looking
• 1:02:04
  at the budget to see if that does include some what you called optionality,
• 1:02:08
  which will help people choose the plan that's right for them. If that's in
• 1:02:14
  the budget, that'll be a good thing. And there's one more thing I
• 1:02:17
  want to mention before before we get away. One of the great things of
• 1:02:22
  this country this government is our investment in infrastructure. I was mentioning water infrastructure
• 1:02:28
  a moment ago, but we have to talk about road infrastructure as well.
• 1:02:32
  Don't forget that we're already widening Highway three from two lanes to four lanes all
• 1:02:37
  the way from the town of Kingsville to the town of Essex. That's going
• 1:02:40
  to increase the safety of that road. But as well, you got to
• 1:02:45
  remember there's at least one thousand, five hundred trucks that leave the Kingsville Leamington
• 1:02:49
  area every single day. They're bringing products across Essex County and to the border
• 1:02:55
  to markets in the United States. We all know in our region how important
• 1:03:00
  relationship is our economic relationship with the United States. And so this is also
• 1:03:05
  going to help bolster our region as a continuing economic powerhouse. I'm so happy
• 1:03:10
  that we're actually delivering on the expansion of Highway three from two to four lanes.
• 1:03:15
  It's very important. Absolutely. And one last thing as well that I
• 1:03:21
  should know. We also heard yesterday from hospital President and CEO David Muji that
• 1:03:25
  construction is set to begin for the new mega hospital in twenty twenty six.
• 1:03:30
  Your reaction on that more great news. Again, We'll all remember that another
• 1:03:36
  government made that promise and never delivered. But doug Ford said he went in
• 1:03:39
  there like an eight hundred pound gorilla and was going to get that done,
• 1:03:44
  and he did it for us, and we're so grateful. Well, I
• 1:03:47
  want to thank you so much for your time. Thank you for joining me.
• 1:03:50
  I know that it's a really hectic day, especially being budget day,
• 1:03:52
  so I'll let you get back to it all all right, Thanks John,
• 1:03:55
  have a great day you as well. Thank you so much. That is
• 1:03:58
  the Member of Prevention Parliament for Essex, Anthony Leardi, providing us our first
• 1:04:03
  pre action to the twenty twenty four Ontario budget. A tweak to the Elections
• 1:04:26
  Act that the Liberals introduced last week could allow for about eighty members of Parliament
• 1:04:30
  to qualify for a House of Commons pension. The Minister unveiled changes to the
• 1:04:38
  Election Act last Wednesday, including expanded days for advanced voting and an easier process
• 1:04:43
  for mail in ballots, but it would also move the current proposed fix election
• 1:04:47
  day from October twentieth to October twenty seventh, which would, through that one
• 1:04:55
  week delay, have significant impact on MP's pensions because any p elected in twenty
• 1:05:00
  nineteen would need to have reached that six year mark if the election was held
• 1:05:03
  on October twentieth of twenty twenty five. But we'll have to reach that cutoff,
• 1:05:09
  but we'll have reached that cut off on October twenty seventh, the new
• 1:05:12
  proposed date. Joining me right now to discuss this change is the head of
• 1:05:16
  political Science at the University of Windsor, and full disclosure, my former professor,
• 1:05:21
  Lydia Milgin. How you doing today? We're all saying here are you?
• 1:05:25
  John? Hey? I'm doing well. You know, I think this
• 1:05:28
  is why people feel cynical about politics. And you know, there's a whole
• 1:05:33
  list of reasons that we could go into about why people feel cynical. I
• 1:05:36
  know, I'm feeling pretty cynical about this. I look at this change here,
• 1:05:41
  and you know, typically what we see at you know, the municipal
• 1:05:43
  level, when councilors end up voting to raise salaries, it usually comes in
• 1:05:46
  effect for the next term. This is this is different for that, and
• 1:05:53
  you're going to end up with you know, conservatives are in first place.
• 1:05:56
  They'd be receiving the most amount of pensions with this, but the Liberals are
• 1:05:58
  in a reasonably a close second place. This is voting to benefit yourselves.
• 1:06:04
  It certainly feels that way. It seems awfully strange that they are using I
• 1:06:10
  think they're saying that it's because it falls on a high holiday for a particular
• 1:06:15
  religious group. But my recollection is that that didn't prevent them from changing the
• 1:06:18
  election date last time around, because it fell around a Jewish holiday. So
• 1:06:24
  it seems awfully convenient, and it also seems odd that they didn't move the
• 1:06:28
  date, I don't know, a week earlier. If they're concerned about a
• 1:06:31
  religious holiday, yes, you could go a week after, but you could
• 1:06:35
  also go a week prior, equally legitimate I would think. So, yeah,
• 1:06:41
  it does smack a little bit of self service. How the Liberals are.
• 1:06:45
  They're down in the polls right now. I think that the current polling
• 1:06:48
  shows that if an election were held today, conservative leader player a polliev opposition
• 1:06:54
  leader would end up winning a huge majority, something like thirty to forty seats.
• 1:07:00
  But what we're looking at here with it beat with the Liberals being so
• 1:07:05
  you know, low in the polling, this would be a way to secure
• 1:07:10
  the pensions for any Liberals who lose the election, well right, and it
• 1:07:15
  also secures that the pension for any Liberals choosing not to run against And that's
• 1:07:21
  another component of it, you know, just because you you know, there's
• 1:07:25
  potentials you losing. But a lot I suspect that you know a lot of
• 1:07:28
  them will see the writing on the wall and not seek reelection and it would
• 1:07:31
  still secure their pensions. I mean again, a lot can happen between now
• 1:07:35
  and then. The NDP could figure out that this coalition isn't working for them
• 1:07:41
  and they could trigger an earlier election. But the way it stands, it
• 1:07:45
  does seem like they're going to hold on as long as they can. And
• 1:07:46
  then the optics are terrible because it just opens the door for the for the
• 1:07:51
  Conservatives say, well, this is your pension election. You guys don't really
• 1:07:56
  care about what's good for Canadians. You only care about what's good for your
• 1:08:00
  So it's a very cynical move. But it's almost like they want to lose
• 1:08:04
  when they make these kinds of mistakes. Well, the Liberals better be hoping
• 1:08:08
  that nobody's listening to you right now, because the pension election has a pretty
• 1:08:12
  good ring to it. Quite frankly, you know this also smacks as I
• 1:08:15
  don't know, not hypocritical. But Prime Minister Trudeau wanted electoral reform in twenty
• 1:08:21
  fifteen. I interviewed him and he made his preference that he wanted ranked ballots,
• 1:08:26
  and you know, they couldn't get a Parliamentary committee consensus on it,
• 1:08:29
  so they dropped the whole electoral reform. The minister LeBlanc here is saying that
• 1:08:33
  this is about strengthening democracy. This really has the feeling like it's going to
• 1:08:39
  upset absolutely everyone. People who go, this is an electoral reform, and
• 1:08:42
  then people who are going, you're just benefiting yourselves. Absolutely. I know
• 1:08:45
  this is in no respects anything like electoral reform. And if people are reminded
• 1:08:51
  of the twenty fifteen election, he did say that was going to be the
• 1:08:55
  last election under first past the post, and we've had two cents there then
• 1:08:58
  that have continued first past the post. He was a little bit disingenuous with
• 1:09:01
  that because when he said electoral reform, people heard proportional representation, where in
• 1:09:08
  fact, as you rightly point out, he was only interested in rank ballot,
• 1:09:12
  and so when nobody agreed with him that rank ballot was good for anybody
• 1:09:15
  other than the liberals, he then said, there's no appetite for change.
• 1:09:18
  This is not electoral reform. This is just tinkering around the margins, which
• 1:09:21
  we've done at nauseam. We're always messing around with, you know, or
• 1:09:27
  advanced voting, making it easier to vote, change in the hours, things
• 1:09:30
  like that. But that's really got nothing to do with changing the electoral system
• 1:09:34
  per se. Last question, not a curveball. It's still in the same
• 1:09:38
  vein of things. When you look at this federal government right now and the
• 1:09:42
  positioning of the opposition leader, what's your read of just the landscape? You
• 1:09:47
  know, it's you know, I look at the polls, I just I
• 1:09:49
  look at conversations. I'm actually shocked when I'm talking just to regular people who
• 1:09:55
  say they're not even considering voting liberal, and these are people who obviously we're
• 1:10:00
  longtime liberal supporters. The appetite for change is palpable, and I think the
• 1:10:05
  polls reflect that. And I think, you know, there is a sense
• 1:10:10
  that the governments tend to have an expiry date, and I think we're I
• 1:10:14
  think we're passed the best buy date for this government. And the longer they
• 1:10:17
  stay on, the longer they sort of class to this power, the worse
• 1:10:21
  it's going to be for them, quite frankly, and especially for mister Trudeau.
• 1:10:25
  So it's not looking good. He's just not you know's if you think
• 1:10:29
  about twenty fifteen, how good he was at connecting with Canadians, how there
• 1:10:32
  was this huge, long, extended honeymoon. His popularity was just unfathomable,
• 1:10:38
  and he is just crashed so far back. I can't imagine how he can
• 1:10:44
  pull his party back from that without actually resigning. That might be the best
• 1:10:48
  thing for him, because at least you give somebody else a chance to rehabilitate.
• 1:10:51
  Put it, put a new message, new policy in the in the
• 1:10:57
  in the window to help forestall Peter Pauli Evan. So the question isn't you
• 1:11:02
  know whether or not Paulia is going to form the next government, but just
• 1:11:05
  how strong of a majority he's actually going to have. Will it be a
• 1:11:10
  ten seat majority or a forty seat majority. That's what it's about. Yeah,
• 1:11:14
  okay, hey, you know, thank you so much for your time
• 1:11:15
  Lydia. It's always a pleasure, and I'm sure we'll get to talk more
• 1:11:18
  about this government at some point soon. Yes, well, thanks John,
• 1:11:23
  I was talking to you. Thank you so much. Lady Milgin is a
• 1:11:26
  professor at the University of Windsor as well as the head of the Political Science
• 1:11:30
  department and my former professor as well. Um mumble umbo bumbos, bunk in
• 1:12:13
  bump engines, bump bump bum as the mess book