安大略省长警告贸易战长期化，多伦多市长候选人交通愿景受质疑

Steve Paikin: Welcome everyone to the #OnPoli podcast. I'm Steve Paikin.

John Michael McGrath: And I'm John Michael McGrath.

Steve Paikin: Today on the pod, Premier Doug Ford says Canada needs to prepare for a long trade war as both federal and provincial politicians warn that everything is on the table when it comes to protecting steel jobs.

John Michael McGrath: Then we'll discuss this week's Toronto mayoral debate hosted by someone I know.

Steve Paikin: Now, who could that be? Well, we also have a special premier's grave site tour for you as we visit seven deceased premiers who are within a short drive or bike ride of this studio. And in your column, my column, I'll look again at what governments can do about Stelco's layoffs.

John Michael McGrath: And on this day, 2 days before the anniversary of former Ontario Premier John Robarts's death, I'm looking into why an important historic plaque to one of that premier's greatest achievements has disappeared and no one seems to know where it is, or if they do, they aren't saying. Also, stick with us after the show for a special interview on the future of transit in Ontario's capital city.

Steve Paikin: It's Friday, October 16th, 2026. So, let's get to it.

Steve Paikin: JMM, a special PCC...

John Michael McGrath: ...shirt today. Yes, this is PCC.

Steve Paikin: Now, traditional transit themed t-shirt. You should be so impressed that I know that. That's a PCC street car on your shirt.

John Michael McGrath: And do you know what PCC stands for?

Steve Paikin: Of course I don't. Is it that President's Commission thing?

John Michael McGrath: You're right. It is something like that. But it was... yes, it was a... I think it was basically like a bulk order of street cars like in the last generation when like lots of different cities had street car networks. Of course, Toronto really one of the last cities that has a really robust network of street cars. And we are talking transit later on the pod. So, I'm wearing my transit themed shirt.

Steve Paikin: I'm not sure, but I think there are no more of those left on the rails of Toronto. Is that right?

John Michael McGrath: I think for many years they had one that they kept around for like symbolic purposes. I don't know if we still have it.

Steve Paikin: They were the coolest things. You got to admit, they were kind of nice. All right, who am I wearing today? I'm standing up here to show you the chairman of the board. No, not Frank Sinatra. Not Whitey Ford, although they have the same moniker. No, that's John P. Robarts who was the 17th prime minister of Ontario as the job was called when he had it. Mr. Roberts has a truly Shakespearean story, so fantastic a story actually that I wrote a book about him 15 years ago or so. He had a wonderful premiership 1961 to '71. A lot of great stuff happened on his watch and his life ended in suicide. October 18th so this weekend becomes the 44th anniversary. 44 years ago on Sunday Mr. Roberts was lost to suicide. You and I are taking a premier's grave site tour later in the show during which time I'll have more to say about Mr. Roberts and particularly during the your column, my column when a big landlord downtown. You know what? I'm going to watch what I say now cuz I'm so tempted to just blurt out some profanity that they're messing around with the Robarts legacy and I don't like it at all. Anyway, come back if you want to hear me. No, I'm not going to swear, but I am going to get mad. But in the meantime, off to issue one.

John Michael McGrath: Premier Doug Ford spoke to the Empire Club of Canada this week. The kind of speech that premiers give as a kind of a state of the province address, talking about the highlights of the recent past and some of his priorities for the coming year. With the return of the legislature just weeks away, Ford had a warning for Ontario voters about the ongoing trade war with the United States. Premier Doug Ford.

Doug Ford: We can no longer depend on what has been the most durable, prosperous, and secure economic partnership the world has ever known. We need to be prepared for the long haul. We need to plan as if tariffs are here for good.

Steve Paikin: Nobody's said that out loud before, but what'd you make of the premier's warning?

John Michael McGrath: Well, you know, we've talked about this a lot on the podcast, understandably, and you know, this is the big question facing Canada-US relations, not just in days ahead, but weeks and even years ahead. You know, it's one thing to say that Trump won't be around forever, but he's had this huge impact on Republican politics overall. And even after Trump is gone, he is constitutionally barred from running for re-election, though he keeps talking about it.

Steve Paikin: Trolling about it. Anyway,

John Michael McGrath: Indeed, I think this new sort of, I don't know what you want to call it, isolationist or autarkic or anti-free trade strain in American politics is not going to go away just because Trump is gone. I liked the words of, there was one French cabinet minister who said that the security of Europe can't depend on the whims of voters in Wisconsin every four years. And I think the basic problem confronts us here in Canada as well. That said, there is a more immediate threshold that we are about to cross and that is the US midterm elections. It looks increasingly likely that the Democrats will take back both houses of Congress. And the question of what Trump's immediate political powers will be after that is something that the premier also spoke about a bit more after his main speech at the Empire Club. He then spoke with former Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Andrew Furey and we have a clip of that as well.

Doug Ford: If he loses the Senate and the House, the Republicans are just going to pull the carpet out from underneath him. I got to pick my words here, but he'll...

Andrew Furey: Sorry.

Doug Ford: You'll change another lake on me if I say anything else.

Andrew Furey: No, fair enough.

Doug Ford: But...

Andrew Furey: Don't mention Newfoundland. Whatever you do, don't mention Newfoundland.

Steve Paikin: You know, given that the Milwaukee Brewers are going to the World Series for the first time in 44 years, I'd be inclined to leave our future into the hands of the good people of Wisconsin right now, cuz they're in a great mood. They're in a great mood these days. Anyway, let's back on the path as they say. Let's remind our viewers if Trump imposed these tariffs on Canada and the rest of the world, which he did unilaterally and singularly and not with the permission of either of the houses of Congress. Why do the congressional elections matter so much? Because tariffs are a tax. They are a tax paid by Americans for imported goods. Again, no matter what the president says. And taxes are a power of Congress. It happens to be that with in some cases decades old legislation, Congress has delegated these powers to the president, but it can also take those powers back. And Democrats have promised to do just that if they hold both houses in January.

John Michael McGrath: Well, and to the premier's point, if Trump leads the Republicans off a cliff in a few weeks, and we should stress, there are still a few weeks to go, and things can change at the last minute.

Steve Paikin: There's always been every couple of years a so-called October surprise in politics, so you never know.

John Michael McGrath: Yeah. Um, might the Democrats find some allies on the other side of the aisle?

Steve Paikin: I mean, you know, stranger things have happened. One of those stranger things I would offer is Donald Trump winning elections in the first place. Um, but yeah, it is possible.

John Michael McGrath: Well, until the election results are known, we are still in a trade war. And it is still causing casualties, namely the workers, the workers rather at what we used to call the steel company of Canada in Hamilton, Stelco Steel, the mill in Hamilton, where the US owner Cleveland Cliffs has announced that it is idling the plant because of a decline in exports to the US. That decline is due at least in part to the tariffs, which Cleveland Cliff's own CEO lobbied for.

Steve Paikin: Yes,

John Michael McGrath: Strange way to make friends and influence people in Canada, but okay. Canadian governments are unsurprisingly not too pleased with the foreign owners of this historic company and we got some indication this week of the kinds of retaliation that they are considering. Take it away.

Steve Paikin: Right. So we have the federal industry minister Melanie Joly who said this week that quote "everything is on the...

Speaker A: ...table in this matter up to and including forcing Cleveland-Cliffs to sell its ownership of Stelco. The threat here specifically is to sue the company for breach of commitments that it made under the Canada Investment Act when the US firm bought Stelco. That process would have to go through the courts. And Cleveland-Cliffs could theoretically avail itself of appeals, I guess in theory, all the way up to the Supreme Court of Canada. So this would not be a speedy resolution of the question.

Speaker B: No. And Mélanie Joly is not the only one talking about Stelco this week. The federal NDP leader Avi Lewis and the Ontario NDP leader Marit Stiles both issued challenges to the prime minister and to the premier respectively. Both asking for the same thing. Here is the official opposition leader at Queen's Park this week, Marit Stiles.

Marit Stiles: I'm writing today to the premier calling on him to make good on his earlier remarks about buying Stelco. It's time to turn that conversation into a serious plan. Today, I'm calling on the premier to work with the federal government to push Cleveland-Cliffs to give up their ownership interest in Stelco and establish public ownership and Canadian management.

Speaker B: Well, that's a call that you haven't heard at Queen's Park in decades. The call by a leader of the opposition, in this case, the NDP, to nationalize a significant industry in the province of Ontario. What do you make of it?

Speaker A: Well, I'm going to have more to say about this in your column, my column, but for now, I think it's a measure of just how much anger there is among both opposition politicians and also, you know, going back to Mélanie Joly, within Mark Carney's cabinet as well. On the specific question of seizing Stelco's Canadian assets, it is worth saying that this is entirely within the power of the federal parliament or the Ontario legislature. Both of them could in theory do it. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms does not protect private property rights. That was not something that the premiers and Prime Minister Trudeau put into the charter when it was ratified. So in theory, a government does not even need to compensate property owners for taking their assets. And you know, the last major case where this was actually done, where a province seized a corporation's assets, was in Newfoundland in 2008. So it has been done.

I mentioned that 2008 case because the last time this happened, the company in question was able to avail itself of rights under NAFTA to get compensation. Eventually the federal government had to settle for, I think it was $130 million. Who demanded that we revise NAFTA? Why, it was Donald Trump. What was one of the only really substantial revisions that they made? They removed the specific section that at that time had forced the Canadian government to issue compensation in that Newfoundland case. So it is a little bit ironic here that Cleveland-Cliffs would not be able to avail itself of those rights because of the president that they have supported so assiduously. Now, as I was listening to Marit Stiles talk a moment ago, it suddenly ran through my mind: who was the last politician of significance in the province of Ontario to urge a nationalization of a significant company here? And I think you got to go back 50 years or more.

Speaker B: And I'm thinking it was Floyd Laughren who was the MPP from Nickel Belt, you know, just outside Sudbury. And he always wanted Inco nationalized.

Speaker A: So much so that his nickname became Pink Floyd,

Speaker B: right?

Speaker A: Then he became the treasurer of Ontario, the minister of finance when Bob Rae formed government in 1990. And did he go nationalize Inco then? No, he did not.

Speaker B: No.

Speaker A: But it does go to show you how infuriating...

Speaker B: ...some companies' conduct can be here. So much so that politicians will go to the point of saying, you know, "We should either buy you or put you out of business because you're not a good corporate citizen anymore."

Speaker A: Yeah. And as I say, I think, as I say, I will have more to say about this, but the owners of Cleveland-Cliffs, the shareholders, I think should be paying attention to Canadian headlines right now because there is just a lot of anger simmering about this issue and I don't think that the corporation is going to come out unscathed.

Speaker B: And with that, let's move on to issue two. Well, it's been quite the time lately for mayoral debates in the capital city with the departure of former conservative cabinet minister Chris Alexander from the race. It's now mano-a-mano between the current mayor Olivia Chow and her challenger from Beaches-East York, Councillor Bradford. Last night, TVO hosted a mayoral debate. And I should ask, did you happen to catch the debate last night?

Speaker A: I did not watch it live. I watched it this morning. I [laughter]

Speaker B: Is that right?

Speaker A: I did. Yes.

Speaker B: Were you out cycling last night or something?

Speaker A: Uh, no. Oh, no. Just taking care of family stuff. [laughter]

Speaker B: Got it. Okay. So, you watched the debate. Impressions, please.

Speaker A: You know, I think a few different things. One thing you can tell, I think at this point, is that this is not the first debate. This is not even the third debate. This is something like the seventh or eighth debate between these two. Previous debates have also included Chris Alexander. Everybody knows the game, if I could just put it this way. And so, on the one hand, for journalists that can be challenging because it's actually like not a ton new happens. But also, I think you have a relatively clear perspective on what the differences between the candidates are or in some cases are not.

Speaker B: How do you think the moderator did? No, no, no. I'm not going [laughter] to.

Speaker A: That guy sucks.

Speaker B: I, in case you don't know, I had the misfortune of moderating the debate last night and what do I say? One of the things I mentioned—two things—one of the things I mentioned to the audience at the beginning was this is not a football game, this is a mayor's debate, and we really would appreciate a little decorum from the audience. And did they respect that admonition? Absolutely not.

Speaker A: It did not seem that way.

Speaker B: No. And I think it's fair to say that Mayor Chow bussed in more of her supporters than Brad Bradford did of his, and as a result almost every time the mayor gave an answer, her claque started to cheer, and on numerous occasions I had to turn around and say, "Hey, cut that out. Cut that out. This is not a football game. We're trying to actually have a discussion here." The second thing was, and I found this fascinating, and you would not have seen this had you watched the debate last night: I had two minutes with the two of them backstage before we came out onto the stage to do the debate.

Speaker A: And the two of them were actually talking like two normal people would backstage.

Speaker B: Yes. And I sort of watched this unfold and said, "I would have thought you two couldn't stand each other by now the way you have been going at each other over these last few debates. I'm surprised to see you standing here talking so civilly to one another." And they both said, "Oh, no, no, no, no. We like each other fine and you know, we've worked together in the past and you know, yada yada yada." So, I found that intriguing because I have not seen them off camera relating to each other that nicely, frankly. And yet on camera, holy cow, that was one of the hardest debates I've ever moderated in my life. They were going at each other hammer and tongs. Yes,

Speaker A: it got nasty in spots. The mayor in particular, although I have to... Yeah. No, I think it's fair to say the mayor in particular does not pay much heed to when the moderator says, "Time's up. We've got to move along." She just keeps barreling forward.

Speaker B: I know Brad Bradford in the very first answer he gave was to time to the second, and I think he made an effort going forward to follow those time principles, but all in all, you know, you have no sense when you're doing it of who...

Speaker A: ...won, but I'd be curious, do you have a view on if there was a winner?

Speaker B: I tend not to opine too much on the winner of a debate. You mentioned their sort of relationship with each other, and I came away—it's always dangerous to try and put myself in the shoes of a normal person, [laughter] somebody who's not a giant political nerd, right? Because like, Brad Bradford is my counselor. Olivia Chow obviously has a long history. Like, I know much more about these people and their record than the average Toronto voter.

Um, but if this debate were the only thing you had ever seen these people in, I think you could be forgiven for maybe not understanding where the actual differences, or at least how substantial the differences in their policies would actually be. As much as it definitely did get heated and there are definite disagreements between them, there are also a lot of times that Brad Bradford said, "Well, yes, and that is a good policy that I would continue," or Olivia Chow would acknowledge that there were some policies that she inherited from John Tory that she had continued and built on.

And that's not to say that the election is not consequential. Of course, it is. But I would say more important, or at least as important as the differences that these individuals would make, is the different coalitions on Toronto City Council itself that they would empower. Right. Olivia Chow has relied much more on some of the more progressive, more left-wing members of council. Brad Bradford, by nature of where he is trying to get elected and which constituencies he is trying to motivate and mobilize to win this election, would put different people in places of influence, in things like chairing important committees, and staff or putting people on the very important executive committee at Toronto City Council. So, as much as this is an election about two individuals and only one of them will hold the mayor's office, it is also a choice about which coalition at Toronto City Council will be ascendant.

Speaker A: I have to say I liked my last question last night, and if you haven't seen the debate yet, you should go to the TVO Today Live website or on YouTube, look for TVO Today Live. I always like, you know, after they are sort of hammering away at each other for 55 and a half straight minutes, I always like to say, could you please say something nice about your opponent? What characteristic of your opponent do you admire? To their credit, they both did it. Brad Bradford said that he admired the commitment that Olivia Chow has made to the LGBTQ community. And Olivia Chow said tenacious—he has been tenacious in the way that he's advocated during the course of the campaign. So, it's a wonderful reminder that sometimes a lot of what we see during the course of a debate is sort of professional obligatory boom boom boom.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Uh, and away from the cameras, they actually can be somewhat civil with each other, which is a good thing.

Speaker A: Now, in other municipal election watch developments, we put out a call for people to tell us about the races that they are watching. So, let's do that now.

Speaker B: Right. So, we got an email this week from Doug Gay, a former resident of Haldimand County. Uh he writes, "Hi #onpoli, Haldimand is an interesting election. Deeply divided council voting blocks on council. Polarization over a MZO allowing a huge development next to Stelco Lake Erie. Big influence by the retired MPP Toby Barrett. A censure of a current mayor over firing of a CAO who she was in conflict with and a civil lawsuit outstanding. Just saying. Doug, former Haldimand resident."

Speaker A: Yikes. Back to Stelco here again,

Speaker B: right?

Speaker A: Do we know anything about this one?

Speaker B: So, he mentioned the MZO. These, of course, are ministerial zoning orders. They've become more prominent under this government, but this is where the government steps in and overrules a local municipality's zoning decisions and puts a provincial decision in its place.

So this goes back at least to 2022 when Norfolk County had requested a municipal zoning order, and then of course in 2022 there was a municipal election and a new council sort of asked government to hit a pause button. And then our listeners may recall the government itself got into some hot water about, let's say broadly speaking, land use policymaking decisions, including its use of ministerial zoning orders. In response to some of those scandals, Queens Park changed its rules around MZOs, and so everything that was outstanding was sort of—that whole process got reset.

So, this ministerial zoning order has now been resubmitted to the provincial government. It was out for public consultation this summer. It is a very large proposed development, something like 10,000 new homes and 40,000 new residents in a county that currently houses fewer than 80,000 people overall.

Now, so far this is pretty normal land use controversy, if we could put it that way. What is different is that the lands in question, if I'm reading the map correctly, they are very close to, and I think might surround, the Stelco site along Lake Erie at least on two sides—

Speaker A: in Nanticoke.

Speaker B: Uh yes, in Nanticoke. Uh now this is not the one in Hamilton that uh where we're seeing layoffs. In fact, some of those Hamilton workers have been promised replacement jobs at this Nanticoke facility. But the concern is that if you put 10,000 new homes in close proximity to a steel mill, the natural conflicts that come between those two land uses, we'll end up seeing new rules and restrictions being placed on the Stelco site, and potentially could put those jobs at risk.

Speaker A: Hm. All right, let's continue this municipal election watch because I want to add a story here as well. One of the changes that is coming after municipal election day is that the chair of the district of Muskoka will no longer be chosen by the counselors themselves, but will be appointed by the province. I know it's highly unusual for the provincial government to insinuate itself into municipal affairs.

Speaker B: So strange for this government.

Speaker A: That was a joke. Okay, [laughter] I was waiting for uproarious laughter there, but anyway. Um, but that's what's about to go down. And there are a ton of rumors swirling around Muskoka that the recently departed MP, Conservative MP for Parry Sound—Muskoka, Scott Aitchison, will be appointed by the municipal affairs minister, Rob Flack. Um, in part because Scott has a great relationship with Rob Flack and with Premier Ford as well. It is a part-time job, so Scott could do something else while taking on the Muskoka chair's role if in fact that happens. So stay tuned there.

The current chair is a guy by the name of Jeff Lehman who ran for the Liberals in the 2022 election and almost beat the attorney general Doug Downey. I think he came within 300 votes or so of beating him. Bottom line, he is not going to be reappointed by this government. Therefore, they're going to find another candidate who's more to their liking, and that might be Scott Aitchison.

Speaker B: Right. And you know, I think it's relevant here to say Aitchison was the Conservative Party's housing critic. He had previously held a bunch of council positions in Huntsville. I think he was also up to and including the mayor of Huntsville.

Speaker A: He was indeed.

Speaker B: Undeniably a local voice, but I will be watching to see whether he can live up to some of the positions that he advocated as a housing critic, right? One of his consistent messages as a conservative housing critic was that, you know, cities and towns across Canada—but he was quite vocal about housing policy in Toronto, for example—the way it was obstructing the construction of new housing, that city-created rules, municipally created rules were getting in the way of new housing construction. And it's one thing to say that from the opposition benches where, to be blunt, you don't make policy and nobody holds you accountable. It is quite another thing to try and sell that...

Steve Paikin: ...message to your neighbors in Muskoka, and I suspect it will be more difficult for him to do so.

John Michael McGrath: There's another reason people may have heard of Scott Aitchison, which is to say he ran against Pierre Poilievre for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada. And while he didn't do that well, I think it's fair to say he went into the race saying, "I care about a bunch of issues that I want to give some more attention to." And he did that. "I'm not going to go into debt for the rest of my life in order to do this." And he did not do that.

Steve Paikin: Yeah.

John Michael McGrath: And "I'm not going to blow up my reputation in order to have a shot at winning this thing." And he did not do that. He's one of—I think he's considered one of the straighter shooters in public life. And anyway, he's leaving federal politics, but we shall see. Maybe municipal politics awaits.

Steve Paikin: And with that, let's get off to issue three. Okay, we've got something really special to share with you this week. You have probably heard us often reference the fact that this studio is just up the street from one of the most historically important cemeteries in Canada.

John Michael McGrath: Mount Pleasant Cemetery is the final resting place of five Ontario premiers, and St. James Cemetery just a little further south has two more, including the guy that Steve is wearing today. So we thought we would go for a visit. Let's take a look.

Steve Paikin: Hello, #onpoli fans. JMM, Steve Paikin. We are here at Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Midtown Toronto, about a—I don't know—10-minute ride from TVO where we normally do our program. And we are here today because we are going to take you on a bit of a tour of former premiers of Ontario who are buried in this cemetery, which is celebrating its 150th birthday this year.

John Michael McGrath: Yeah, that's right. So, there are five premiers who are buried at Mount Pleasant, and their graves are marked, in part because of a bill that was passed by the legislature, the Grave Sites of Former Premiers Act. The legislature marks these graves with a plaque just to recognize their service. And there's one person who gets both a provincial memorial and a federal one, and we will talk about that later.

Steve Paikin: Oh, don't give away the plot here. Don't give it away. Well, let's tease that out a little bit. We're going to put up a map as well because we don't want to have all the fun here. We think you also should come to Mount Pleasant. This is a very easily navigable place if you follow the map, and you can as well come to the grave sites of these former premiers and learn a little bit more about them. And we're going to tell people a little bit more about them as well.

John Michael McGrath: Yeah, absolutely.

Steve Paikin: So, let's go do that.

Steve Paikin: Well, JMM, what's the first thing you notice about Oliver Mowat?

John Michael McGrath: That he has both a provincial marker and a federal one. And why does he have two markers?

Steve Paikin: Well, because he was not just a premier of Ontario. He was also a federal politician and one of the Fathers of Confederation at the—I guess the Charlottetown Conference in 1864.

John Michael McGrath: It says Quebec.

Steve Paikin: Oh, Quebec Conference 1864, which I guess started to plant the seeds which eventuated in Canada's creation and confederation...

John Michael McGrath: Took a few years of negotiations, but in 1867 we got a country out of it.

Steve Paikin: Exactly. So yes, a federal plaque for his federal work, a provincial plaque for being the longest serving premier of all time, right? 24 years he was premier of Ontario. I think we can confidently say that's a record that will never be broken.

John Michael McGrath: It seems difficult to imagine. [laughter]

Steve Paikin: Although Doug Ford is, you know, going up the list pretty quickly right now.

John Michael McGrath: Yes.

Steve Paikin: Um, okay. A bunch of things we've got to say about Oliver Mowat. Obviously the first really significant premier in Ontario history, having served as long as he did, and we're going back to the 19th century now, right?

John Michael McGrath: Yeah. Not the first premier, but of the early premiers, by far the most significant. Really shaped the province that we know and the relationship between the provinces and the federal government as much as anything.

Steve Paikin: That's the key because of course his relationship with Sir John A. Macdonald was notoriously bad. Macdonald looking for a more national view of things. Mowat being the first guy who really came onto the scene pledging provincial rights. Now we are looking at the face of his gravestone right now in which it has the basics. You know who he was, when he was born, when he died, who his spouse was, but all of his accomplishments are on the backside. So let's go take a look at them because...

John Michael McGrath: He was in public life for a very long time, both federally and provincially.

Steve Paikin: Yeah. And there are just sort of myriad details here about all of the different things he did. 1857 to 1864, member of the legislative assembly of the province of Canada...

John Michael McGrath: Back when Ontario and Quebec were a single province...

Steve Paikin: Right? So we're not—we're not even Ontario yet technically speaking as a province of Canada. And it goes on, right? Minister of Justice for all of Canada, member of the Senate as well, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario. This guy had every big job. Every single one. And surely the only premier to have served both as premier and lieutenant governor, right?

John Michael McGrath: Yes.

Steve Paikin: Okay, there we go.

John Michael McGrath: Yes. For sure. On to our next premier.

Steve Paikin: On to the next one.

Steve Paikin: Okay, JMM, let's just get the chronology right here. So, Oliver Mowat's been in for 24 years. He leaves. Arthur Hardy takes over for a few years. He leaves and then this guy...

John Michael McGrath: Right? The honorable Sir George William Ross takes over.

Steve Paikin: One of the things that's clearly important in politics is timing. And unfortunately for Sir George Ross, his timing was not great. 24 years of Mowat, then Hardy, then Ross. By the time 1905 came around, the liberals have been in power for almost three straight decades. And the public wanted change. He was the last liberal. They turfed him out. J.P. Whitney replaced him. But he did contribute to public life enough that I think it was King George V who knighted him. So he is Sir George William Ross. Yes.

John Michael McGrath: On to our next one.

Steve Paikin: On to the next one.

Steve Paikin: Here is the pride of Northern Ontario. Right.

John Michael McGrath: Yes.

Steve Paikin: William Howard Hearst, the first ever premier based in Northern Ontario. He was the MPP for Sault Ste. Marie...

John Michael McGrath: And the only premier we've had from Sault Ste. Marie.

Steve Paikin: That's right.

John Michael McGrath: Right.

Steve Paikin: Yeah. For sure.

John Michael McGrath: Yes.

Steve Paikin: And also the only premier who came into office after the death of the sitting premier, which also, you know, as we visit each of these grave sites, we want to say the thing that makes them particularly historically unique. Yes.

John Michael McGrath: And in Hearst's case, it was the death of his predecessor, J.P. Whitney, who left a letter behind saying, "I know all of you in caucus or cabinet think you should take over. This is the guy I want." And while it may not have been legally binding, it was morally binding. And Hearst took over.

Steve Paikin: Yeah. And he oversaw five years, including very tumultuous years—World War I. Granted the right to vote to women in Ontario. Got caught up in the politics of temperance as so many governments did in the early part of the 20th century. And then left office in 1919, I believe.

John Michael McGrath: Correct. We should remember I guess a couple other things that Hearst did. Number one, before he became premier, when he was a minister in Whitney's cabinet, he was responsible for negotiating the boundaries with Manitoba of the province of Ontario. And as a result, in the northwest of our province today, we have a lot of land that otherwise might not have been part of Ontario unless Hearst had had his way. He negotiated that and increased, I think, the land mass of the province of Ontario by what is it, as much as 50%, something like that. Huge...

Steve Paikin: Huge, huge expansion. Yeah, huge. The part of the province that they used to call New Ontario because this whole sort of frontier mindset, you know...

John Michael McGrath: Because he was the lands and forests minister or something, which back in the day was a bit like being the minister of health today. They had a lot of responsibility. They had a lot of the money, and of course back in the...

Steve Paikin: 19s was a lot of new frontier up there. Okay. William Howard Hurst, the favorite premier of

John Michael McGrath: uh mayor of Sus Staint Marie and fan of the podcast, Matthew Shoemaker.

Steve Paikin: You got it. Here you go, Matthew. We are here. Okay, JMM. The first thing we notice here about Premier Ferguson is that even though his name was George Howard Ferguson, no one called him George. He was better known as G. Howard Ferguson. He went with the first initial and middle name. And here's the story. JP Whitney is the premier. He dies in office, the only one to die in office. Ferguson is part of his cabinet and would love to succeed him. But Whitney has left a note saying I want Hurst to succeed me. There's no legal authority to that note, but there is moral authority. But basically, the note was saying Ferguson and the other guy who ran Ontario Hydro, Adam, who also was in the cabinet. So, you guys chill. I want Hurst right now. Your time may come later. And in fact, that's exactly what happened, right? Hurst took over, eventually lost the government five years later. The farmers came in for four years, the United Farmers of Ontario, and then who replaced the farmers? Our friend Ferguson,

John Michael McGrath: this guy right here. And you know, we talked a bit about uh the the rise of uh the temperance movement with Hurst. and Ferguson uh really is uh the premier who starts sort of dialing back some of the enthusiasm for uh uh prohibition in Ontario. You could ascribe noble motives to it or you could say that the Ontario government needed money [laughter] and they wanted alcohol tax revenue and so uh Ferguson passed the law that allowed uh 2.2% beers to be sold in Ontario which they uh the public started calling Fergus foam.

Steve Paikin: That's right. Fergie's foam. That's exactly what it was called. It might be too early in the day for some of Fergie's foam. [laughter] Maybe we'll do that later. But anyway, shall we move on to our next premier?

John Michael McGrath: Let's go to the next one.

Steve Paikin: Okay, John Michael, let's situate our next premier in history.

John Michael McGrath: Yes.

Steve Paikin: This is George Stewart Henry.

John Michael McGrath: Let's go back. Howard Ferguson is the premier of Ontario. He served seven years. He stands down and Henry takes over from him. We talked about the importance of timing earlier. Could the timing be worse than becoming premier of Ontario at the dawn of the Great Depression?

Steve Paikin: Right. He becomes premier in 1930 and you know the the Great Depression had started we always date it as beginning in 1929 but it it would proceed to get worse and worse in uh you know 30 31 32 and you know it's it's difficult to overstate just what an economic calamity it was and and it was it was novel in a bunch of ways. It touched every part of uh Ontario's society, right? If you were living in cities, working in industrial jobs, suddenly there were no industrial jobs. If you lived out in rural Ontario and were a farmer, well, global uh prices for agricultural commodities had collapsed. So, the farmers weren't making any money either. So, people will not be surprised to hear that he served for 3 years and 7 months. He called an election for 1934 and lost. So, interestingly enough, he was premier for almost four years, but never won an election. Now, we should state for the record as well because the first thing you observed is my goodness, this guy wasn't premier for all that long and look at the size of the obelisk that [laughter] he has appointed to himself here. The reality is he is buried here, but so are his parents. Yes,

John Michael McGrath: so is his wife.

Steve Paikin: So is a brother. So are I mean there there are

John Michael McGrath: got people

Steve Paikin: numerous relatives who are buried here along with him. So this is really more of a family

John Michael McGrath: died as recently as the 80s and '9s.

Steve Paikin: Yeah.

John Michael McGrath: So Yes.

Steve Paikin: So this is a family plot and it's not just

John Michael McGrath: for him alone.

Steve Paikin: Yes. And and a uh a very substantial I think the most substantial marker we've seen of any of the premers on our our our day so far today. Uh but yes, not just for the premier but also for his family.

Steve Paikin: Well, JMM, through the magic of television, we need to say two things off the top. Number one, we are later in the day. Yes,

John Michael McGrath: we have left Mount Pleasant Cemetery. We are now at St. James Cemetery in downtown Toronto at the corner of Parliament and Blure. And as people can tell, we've dropped our jackets cuz it's gotten nicer out. Yes,

Steve Paikin: the sun has come out.

John Michael McGrath: Unseasonably warm for October.

Steve Paikin: Unseasonably warm for October is exactly right. We want to tell you now about the man who was the second premier of Ontario.

John Michael McGrath: Funnily enough, the first prime minister of Canada was a guy named John McDonald. The first premier of Ontario was also a guy named John McDonald.

Steve Paikin: One of your favorite facts. It is. [laughter] But number two was Edward Blake. And one of the reasons that almost nobody has heard of him is because he was premier for less than a year.

John Michael McGrath: But he was premier number two.

Steve Paikin: Yes. And may have, despite his short tenure, may actually have one of the more interesting uh political careers out there. He uh served as premier. He was also a federal liberal. uh he was leader of the Federal Liberal Party and one of only three people to uh be the permanent leader of the Federal Liberal Party and not serve as prime minister.

John Michael McGrath: That's right.

Steve Paikin: The other two being Stefan Dion and Michael Ignatif. So like something like a century between those uh uh people. Um so he served in uh the British Parliament as an Irish MP and Irish nationalist MP and that really became sort of the cause of his later life. Um, even as uh then Prime Minister uh Wilfred Laurier was uh trying to get him back to Canada to serve in important roles, he was like, "No, no, I'm I'm good here in Ireland."

Steve Paikin: We are going to finish our tour with, if I'm allowed an opinion on this, I think one of my favorite premers in Ontario history. Let's go visit him. JMM, I was down at the University of Toronto the other day speaking to a group of students and one of them told me that he had been doing some studying earlier in the day at Robarts. I said, 'You mean the Robart's library, right?

Steve Paikin: Yeah. I said, 'Who's it named after?' He said, John Roberts. I said, correct. I said, 'Who's that? He said, I don't know. Well, for all you University of Toronto students and anybody else for that matter, let me introduce you to John P. Robarts, the 17th, as it says again on the headstone here, the 17th prime minister of Ontario. John Roberts, I think, has the most Shakespearean story of any premier we've ever had. We've had 26 of them. Mr. Roarts had a truly great time in public office. He was a consequential premier of Ontario from 1961 to 1971. So much of what we see in the province today was formed on his watch. everything from nuclear power to GO Transit um to the increasing urbanization of Ontario um you know the list goes on and yet his life ended in suicide. His first wife drank herself to death. His son was lost to suicide and his daughter was lost to cancer in her early 50s. That juxtiposition prompted me about 15 years ago to write a book about this guy called public triumph private tragedy the double life of John P. Robarts because I thought that juxtaposition was truly Shakespearean.

John Michael McGrath: You know, it's one of the cases I think and we've mentioned some of them already today. You know, people who leave a real legacy in the province, not just in terms of uh you know, uh policy changes, but really, you know, like building the the literal structures of uh the province. And I think uh Robarts is, you know, has to be on that list of somebody who left a a province that was uh really consequentially changed by his time in office. And I think the other thing that's interesting about this is how modest this headstone is.

Steve Paikin: Yeah,

John Michael McGrath: this was one of our best premers. I think he's the fourth longest serving premier of all time. And yet a very modest headstone, not some giant obelisk, fairly modest with the plaque as all of the premers now have. John Parmentor Robarts and right beside you, other members of his family.

Steve Paikin: Yes, we've got

John Michael McGrath: buried here. So that's our tour of Ontario premers who are buried within about uh 15 minutes drive of TVO Studios.

Steve Paikin: Yep.

John Michael McGrath: A worthwhile uh may maybe for some people it might uh take

Steve Paikin: ...an afternoon. But you could certainly do it, at least while the weather stays nice, you could certainly do it on a bike. And aside from everything else, some gorgeous scenery around indeed.

And I'm glad we've ended up here on Mr. Robarts's grave site because every October 18th since I wrote the book about him, I come here and I do that because no one else from his family can, right? Both of his kids are dead. His second wife has moved back to the United States. His first wife is also dead. I know there are Robarts's cousins in town. I don't know if they come to visit, but I've always felt a bit of a responsibility to do so. So, given how close we are to the anniversary, I'm glad I'm here today and I'm glad I'm here with you.

Back inside to the studio. Before we get to our columns, we should let folks know that there is an unabridged, which is a nice way of saying much longer version of the tour coming out on YouTube next week. So, please keep an eye out for that.

Time now for our regular feature, your column, my column, in which JMM and I have a little chitchat here about the columns we wrote for tvo.org this past week. What are you going to favor us with, my friend?

John Michael McGrath: I am revisiting this issue of Stelco and whether Canadian governments will beat up the US owners of Stelco a little bit. And my column this week really argues that Cleveland-Cliffs has put themselves in a kind of a no-win situation.

One of two things is going to happen in the medium-term future, I think. Either, with the Democrats taking both houses of Congress, they have already talked about ending the trade war because they see it as both an affordability issue—eliminating US tariffs will allow cheaper goods to come into the United States and lower inflation. And they see this as part of what other people more well-versed in this history than I have called historic levels of corruption in the Trump White House. So eliminating his tariff powers really allows them to hit Trump in two different ways there.

So that's one possibility and that's going to be a problem for Cleveland-Cliffs because as we've discussed, they were one of the companies that lobbied hard for these steel tariffs and they've benefited from them, and if those tariffs go away, that will be a blow to their corporate strategy.

But let's say I'm being overly optimistic about the Democrats here for a moment. If that does not happen and as the premier has warned, we are in for a longer trade war, well then the pressure on Cleveland-Cliffs from Canadian politicians and really more importantly Canadian voters is going to become greater and greater to the point where I think it's going to be very difficult for Canadian politicians to let this continue.

John Michael McGrath: And Cleveland-Cliffs is not our only problem, right? This is not the only case of—

Steve Paikin: [clears throat]

John Michael McGrath: —nationally important industry that is owned by a foreign company that when push comes to shove is going to choose US interests over Canada.

And so there's a very real prospect, I think, of Cleveland-Cliffs being made into kind of a scapegoat or a public whipping boy here as an example to other companies. You know, at a certain point, Canadian leaders are going to say, like, we don't want the much larger industries getting the idea that they can simply close up shop and not bear any cost for this.

And so there needs to be somebody is going to be made an example of, and I suspect that if for no other reason than that the CEO has been unabashed in his support for Donald Trump, I suspect Cleveland-Cliffs has unwittingly auditioned for the role [laughter] of example here.

Steve Paikin: So this a bit of a shot across the bow at forestry companies, auto manufacturing companies.

John Michael McGrath: Yep.

Steve Paikin: The list may go on.

John Michael McGrath: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, this is a problem that Canada has faced for many decades. But you know, I don't think there's ever been a point where the Canadian economy has been majority owned by Canadians, right? We were owned by British interests and then you know over the course of the 20th century it became more American ownership, but there was never a point where like we were Canadian owned primarily.

Um but that's not a problem if you've got decent predictable relationships with your trading partners. The problem we have now is that Donald Trump has ended all of our prior assumptions about what we could rely on.

Steve Paikin: Okay. My column. John Michael, you've known me for about a decade, right?

John Michael McGrath: About that. Yes.

Steve Paikin: Yeah. You know me to be a fairly—I think anyway—a fairly mild-mannered guy, right?

John Michael McGrath: Uh yes.

Steve Paikin: Takes a lot to get me upset about something.

John Michael McGrath: I was going to say earlier, if you ever actually cursed on air, we could probably sell tickets, you know. [laughter]

Steve Paikin: Well, I'm glad you say that because I think I agree. It takes a lot to grind my gears about various things. So I want to take you back to Confederation—no, excuse me. Centennial year.

John Michael McGrath: Yes.

Steve Paikin: 1967. John Robarts, whom I am wearing here today, is the premier of Ontario. He invites all of the premiers of Canada to come to the TD Centre to go up to the top floor, which is so new they haven't even laid down the carpet yet. That's how new this building is.

He wants to have a discussion about the future of Canada. He wants to talk about Quebec's role in Canada. He notices that bombs are blowing up in mailboxes around Quebec and there is a burgeoning separatist movement there and he wants to learn more about it. He's a unilingual Anglophone from London, Ontario. So he wants to know more about this.

Turns out this Confederation of Tomorrow conference which he mounts at the TD Centre is the most important gathering of first ministers in the country in more than 100 years, probably since Charlottetown in 1864 where John A. Macdonald brought everybody together to create Canada.

As a result, there was a beautiful large plaque mounted on the wall of the TD Tower in downtown Toronto with a circular seating plan depicted and pictures of all the first ministers who attended. A few years ago, when the lobby underwent renovation, the building's owner and landlord, which is Cadillac Fairview, big company, they took the plaque down, they put it in storage. The renovation has been completed. The plaque has not shown up again. The plaque has for all intents and purposes disappeared.

Steve Paikin: I have been making inquiries for a year about where that plaque is. Do you plan to remount it? Tens of thousands of people walk by that plaque every day and just by osmosis probably learned a little bit about Ontario history by seeing that this Confederation of Tomorrow conference happened in that building back in 1967. They can't do that anymore.

Cadillac Fairview when I made my initial inquiries sort of shunted me off to a public relations firm and they answered some of my questions—how do I put this charitably?—with complete baffle-gab complete, and then they ghosted me altogether.

So as we sit here on a Friday, two days before the 44th anniversary of John Robarts's death, could someone from Cadillac Fairview or their PR firm please answer my emails or phone calls and tell us when you plan to put the plaque back up? Because something historically important happened in your building almost 60 years ago and it would kind of be nice to let people know about it. Rant endeth.

John Michael McGrath: I have some reservations about how we do building heritage in Ontario, but that's a much longer discussion. This is a pretty straightforward case. This is, you know, a plaque that had been there for many, many years. Just put the plaque back, or if you can't find it, you've got to tell us that too. [laughter]

Steve Paikin: Well, that's the other thing I wonder about. You know how I found out about this in the first place?

John Michael McGrath: Some guy who works downtown in the financial district was walking by one day and noticed the plaque was missing. I'm never down there so I didn't notice.

Steve Paikin: But he called me and he said, "You know, there used to be a plaque up here and it's gone." And he would know that there was a plaque there cuz his name is Richard Robarts. He is a cousin of—

Steve Paikin: ...the former prime minister of Ontario.

John Michael McGrath: So then I went down and nosed around and that's okay. That's why we are where we are.

Steve Paikin: Now, shall we move on to our mailbag here?

John Michael McGrath: Let's shall.

Steve Paikin: We always do this. If you got a burning question or insightful comment, we always love hearing from you at onpolitics@tvo.org. JMM, who's up this week?

John Michael McGrath: Uh, we have an email from listener Zoe Easton who writes to us on private members' bills, one of our favorite topics. "Hello, Steve and JMM. I'm a longtime listener and love your work. I have a question about private members' bills. I understand that the role of the official opposition is to hold the government of the day to account and I believe the NDP does that well. They're consistently bringing attention to many of the more scandalous and rage-inducing stories and doing so they keep me angry at but not apathetic towards the state of our government.

However, outside of this political engagement, I'm wondering how effective official oppositions can be in shaping policy. There have been several NDP private members' bills that have gone seemingly nowhere. While it is interesting to see which MPPs vote against the NDP policies I agree with, it seems that the impact of these bills ends with those MPPs voting no to align with their party.

I was wondering when the last time a private members' bill was passed in Ontario, what it was aiming to change and if it is possible for MPPs outside of the ruling government to represent their constituents through policy. Thanks for everything you do for political discourse in this province. Zoe Easton in Toronto."

Steve Paikin: Zoe, that's a beautiful email. Thank you for that. Let me as a general point of principle start by saying private members' bills during majority governments in parliament never pass or almost never pass.

John Michael McGrath: Almost never.

Steve Paikin: Right? When it's a minority parliament and the parties have to get along a little better, you got a better shot at getting your private members' bill passed if you're on the opposition side.

John Michael McGrath: Um but you know what? If it's a private members' bill in a majority parliament and the government of the day actually kind of likes the bill,

Steve Paikin: There's a really tried, tested, and true method of what they do. They steal it.

John Michael McGrath: Yes.

Steve Paikin: And they pass it themselves so that one of their own members gets the credit for it.

John Michael McGrath: Yes.

Steve Paikin: And that may not be fair, but this too is politics.

John Michael McGrath: And you know, because everybody recognizes those are like the rules of the game. You know, I think it is fair to say that that is one of the ways that the opposition can influence policy even if they don't necessarily get their name and their bill title on the policy change.

Um but to Zoe's specific question, six private members' bills received royal assent on December 11th of last year in 2025. The way it tends to go is that the government will let a bunch of private members' bills get called for third reading and then later we'll get grant royal assent. So that there were six in the end of year bunch last year.

Four were about dedicating a day, week or month to recognizing a cause within Ontario. So not a policy change as Zoe was asking for. But you will find the vast majority of private members' bills that pass, certainly in every legislature I've covered, the vast majority of them are these kinds of symbolic, you know, dedicating a day to somebody, a week, a month, those kinds of things.

But of those six that I mentioned, two did make some policy changes to a substantial law. The one by Windsor—Tecumseh MPP Andrew Dowie changed the types of provincial parks that the government is allowed to establish, and the other was co-sponsored by MPPs Matthew Rae and Dave Smith. Rae is now in cabinet but was not then, so this was still a private members' bill. And this bill allowed MPPs to solemnize marriages.

John Michael McGrath: They were not allowed to prior. I believe at least at the time that the bill was passed no other province allowed their legislative members to solemnize marriages. But Dave Smith was one of the, as I mentioned, one of the co-sponsors. He has already used this newfound power to solemnize a marriage in his riding.

The law actually allows an MPP to solemnize marriages for as long as they are in office plus another year, on the theory that an MPP might agree to solemnize somebody's marriage and then there's a snap election or they were expecting they would win and then they lose in a surprise election or whatever, and so the now former MPP can still solemnize a marriage so that they don't put out a marriage party.

Steve Paikin: Can I ask you a question though? What do you notice about those three MPPs?

John Michael McGrath: The three MPPs who got bills who were passed. Yes. They are all members of the governing party.

Steve Paikin: Hello.

John Michael McGrath: Yes.

Steve Paikin: So this is not quite what Zoe had in mind. She's really I think inquiring about opposition private members' bills.

John Michael McGrath: Yes. And so it is still very much the case that in order to get a substantive private members' bill passed, it certainly helps to have the government's party beside your name on the legislative website.

Steve Paikin: Can I... I'm going to do a couple here that are opposition ones and I think more in the spirit of what Zoe was asking about. Percy Hatfield, who used to be a CBC reporter from Windsor, Ontario. He was, I think, the MPP there for Windsor—Tecumseh for a long time. He put forward a private members' bill creating a poet laureate for the province of Ontario. That one passed.

John Michael McGrath: Not controversial, but that one passed and Percy can always—

Steve Paikin: Take to the end of his days the satisfaction of knowing he got that through.

Steve Paikin: Yes. I remember now going back I think the first private members' bill I ever remember covering was by a guy named Ed Philip who strangely enough was a New Democrat representing the same riding Doug Ford now does. He was from the north end of Etobicoke and this was at a time when for whatever reason hunters in Ontario were permitted to use leg-hold traps in order to trap animals when they went hunting.

And it was Mr. Philip's belief that this was inhumane and he marshaled together a lot of evidence to show that animals that were caught in these kinds of traps suffered grizzly and awful deaths. And despite the fact that it was a majority parliament—the Bill Davis government had a majority—Ed Philip put this private members' bill forward for a leg-hold trap ban in the province of Ontario and he got it through.

So again, he was able to take a great deal of satisfaction of knowing that that could be done. They didn't steal it. They let him have the glory of passing that. And leg-hold traps, as they have been now for, I guess 40 years in Ontario, are illegal.

John Michael McGrath: Uh I throw one more, which is kind of a partial case. Michael Prue, who was the New Democrat MPP for my riding, Beaches—East York, introduced a private members' bill to put controls on whether like bar and restaurant owners could take a portion of tips that were intended for workers. This is a practice that he brought to people's attention: that people thought they were tipping their server and it turned out that the manager was just pocketing their tip money.

And so Michael Prue introduced this bill. He was then defeated in the 2014 election. The bill had not passed and his successor, a Liberal, Arthur Potts, reintroduced it, acknowledged it as, you know, Michael Prue's idea, and it eventually passed in that legislature, I believe. I think I've got the timing right on that one. We'll have to double check this.

Steve Paikin: No, Michael Prue is still in politics. You know.

John Michael McGrath: He is, he's still... he's the mayor of Amherstburg. We mentioned him before on the podcast because of course Amherstburg was... is the site of the distillery that Doug Ford threatened and he famously poured that bottle of whatever out onto the ground.

Steve Paikin: Not very quickly. No. Forgot to take the...

John Michael McGrath: Pouring bottle. Yeah. But I think Michael Prue's got to be close to 80 years old now and he's still making a...

Steve Paikin: ...contribution in public life down in southwestern Ontario.

John Michael McGrath: Yes, absolutely.

Steve Paikin: Could you give the email address and we'll get out of here?

John Michael McGrath: Right. Again, if you'd like to ask about content on the show, you can always email us at onpolitics@tvo.org.

Steve Paikin: And that is the OnPoly podcast for this Friday, October 16th, 2026. And a heads up, there's a special unabridged, meaning longer version of the Gravesite Tour coming out next week on the TVO Today YouTube channel. Have a look out for that.

John Michael McGrath: You can follow our show wherever you get your podcasts so that you get notified each time a new episode is available. And you can see the video version of the podcast on the TVO Today YouTube channel.

Steve Paikin: Any feedback you have, we're always happy to hear it, good, bad, or indifferent. Write us an email at onpolitics@tvo.org. Please include your first and last name and where you're located. Now, before we get to our credits, make sure you stick around for a special interview on whether Toronto can give itself the green light on its transit issues. Coming right up.

John Michael McGrath: This week's episode was produced and edited by Matthew Omera, editing by Colin Kish. Production support from Jonathan Hollowell and TVO's digital media services team.

Steve Paikin: Laura F is the executive producer of digital. Vanessa Casease is vice president media.

John Michael McGrath: Extra special thanks to our studio crew for making the video part of the podcast happen and the set looks so nice cuz these folks were up late last night. Where were we? We were down at Rotman at the University of Toronto. So they were cleaning up the set from there last night and then coming in early today to get it set up down here. So well done guys. Thank you very much. And with that, until next Friday. Bye-bye.

Steve Paikin: Bye-bye.

Steve Paikin: Transit is of course a major issue in the city of Toronto, whether you're stuck in traffic or waiting for the next LRT. The question is, what's the plan to deal with all that? Well, joining us now over Zoom to discuss their ideas are Antoine Belaieff, who spent a decade at Metrolinx and now works with public transit organizations internationally, and Kelly Rowe, who is a partner at City Action Lab, and who has two decades of experience working with the public sector as a researcher and senior adviser. I want to thank you two for joining us here today on TVO. And let's start with Kelly. What city are you joining us from?

Kelly Rowe: Yeah, thanks for having us, Steve. I'm joining you from Girona, which is a city in Catalonia in Spain. It's a place that I'm residing temporarily as I teach at the University of Girona here complex urban systems course.

Steve Paikin: Terrific. And Antoine, how about you?

Antoine Belaieff: I'm currently in Budapest, a little bit to the east. So the sun is setting already and I'm here for a conference and business meetings.

Steve Paikin: Marvelous. Well, we look forward to picking your brains and John Michael will start us off.

John Michael McGrath: Right. So you wrote an op-ed in Spacing magazine earlier this year. We've read it and we'll discuss it a bit, but before we get to that, what spurred you to write that op-ed? Antoine, let's start with you.

Antoine Belaieff: I think it was the realization after spending 10 years in transportation and many more years in planning that things in Toronto never seem to change. I remember the phrase "Toronto is at a crossroads" when I was in planning school in around 2000, and traveling for work now realizing that a lot of the answers actually already exist and it's not a matter of money but rather of how we organize ourselves. And I have to say that meeting with Kelly, the ideas came flowing pretty easily and we're quite excited about what we've come up with.

John Michael McGrath: Kelly, what would you add to that?

Kelly Rowe: Yeah, well, it's an election year. So the municipal campaign is underway in Toronto and Antoine and I felt that this was the right time to put forward some ideas around transportation. As you both know, it is one of the top issues for Torontonians: congestion, traffic, transit. And so we thought, let's put our heads together and let's put out some thoughtful ideas based on our experience working in Toronto directly—myself being a former adviser to the chair of the Toronto Transit Commission—but also working with cities in Europe and seeing firsthand different models and how they work.

John Michael McGrath: Do you want to just go back and forth? You've got four big ideas in the piece. Maybe we should just go back and forth: Antoine then Kelly, Antoine and Kelly, and share what the four big ideas are.

Antoine Belaieff: Of course, but Kelly will start with the first one. We agreed on that.

John Michael McGrath: Oh, okay. Let's see how we play, Kelly.

Kelly Rowe: Sure. So the first big idea is let's have a politician be accountable for mobility in the city of Toronto. Believe it or not, no one individual politician is responsible for transportation, accountable for transportation and transportation outcomes in the city of Toronto. You could argue the mayor is, but you could also say that governance is quite dispersed across many different agencies and committees. So for example, you have the TTC, you have the Toronto Parking Authority, you have Transportation Services, and you also have council committees like the Infrastructure Committee, and city council, I might add, where all 25 counselors, including the mayor, can opine on different aspects of transit and transportation. And yet we have no single politician who's accountable for the system as a whole.

Toronto has finite street space, right? Ultimately the city has to make decisions around what its priorities are and how it wants to use that finite space to the best way it can perform for citizens. And right now we don't have that accountability. In other jurisdictions, you'll often see a deputy mayor role who might hold a portfolio such as mobility. And this is not a unique concept. It's not something that you just see in Europe, although many European cities have this kind of cabinet style governance model. Burlington has a cabinet style governance model. So it is actually something that can happen in Ontario. While they might not have someone specifically for mobility, they do have dispersed accountabilities across politicians and those politicians are there to give strategic direction on those files, to be point person on those files, to answer questions around them, to shepherd motions and resolutions around those and talk about trade-offs. And Toronto was lacking that, and that's a big surprise given the size of the city and the fact that it's the biggest city in Canada.

John Michael McGrath: Okay. Increased accountability number one. Antoine, number two.

Antoine Belaieff: Well, as number two, appendant to the first idea is to actually have a bureaucracy that's organized around the theme and not in silos. So, right now you have Transportation Services, you have Planning that does everything related to plans on mobility—more about that later—you have Municipal Licensing, you have so a variety of groups within the city that all take care of transportation in different ways but not reporting to the same top bureaucrat.

And one thing that we found particularly interesting compared to other cities we looked at is that the TTC as an agency has a board, but it doesn't have what you would see, for example, in ministries that have agency oversight. So the TTC is actually not directly overseen by a group of bureaucrats at the city. So it doesn't have really a formal agreement or formal plan that it has to respond to. So the idea here, as we discussed with the accountable politician, is to have in a way a sort of ministry of transportation or department of mobility, which is something that you would see, as we said, in a lot of cities. And so that means that they can deal with scarce space, which is really the crux of the problem. The fact that there's not enough space for everything that we want from it, and they can look at all the tradeoffs that we need from that space and reach the balance that is needed to deliver...

Antoine: ...everything that that uh that we want. And so make sometimes tough decisions and that's really hard to do when uh there's so many different uh groups that um can of course collaborate but that are not uh organized as a single entity.

Host: Back to you Kelly for number three.

Kelly: Sure. Yeah, we need a plan. Um we need uh a multimodal integrated transportation plan. And wow, that's that sounds like a lot, but really it just means that we need a plan that uh consolidates uh the vision around how people move in the city, whether it be on bike, on foot, in a car, or on a street car. Uh and right now we don't have that. Uh I understand that the city is in a process of developing a multimodal plan. So great, we'll have one. Um but but we need one now, right? We need to understand what are the options to use this finite road space. What are the trade-offs? What's the vision for mobility in the city, right? And then make that public. So make it so uh the citizens, the residents of Toronto know where we're headed in terms of mobility. Where where are we going to be in 5 years? What does it look like? What does transportation and mobility look like in the city of Toronto in three years and 5 years and 10 years? And right now we don't have that. Antoine, number four,

Antoine: I just want to add to that that it's uh it's really important not just to have a long-term plan because we're very good at these in in Ontario.

Antoine: We really need to make it happen. We really need to have an annual version of that plan that's linked to the budget process so that we can see how that plan is is being implemented. And the the benefit of having this multimodal plan is that you can have all the trade-offs in the plan and through consultation and engagement you can talk about the trade-offs instead of having it as a culture war through the media. And then of course if you have a plan you need to be able to measure the outcomes of the plan and how we're doing against the plan. And this is the fourth idea to have performance indicators that are public and that are collected professionally that are transparent that are online and that are uh collected and evaluated independently. And we could even dream and think that the same or similar uh performance indicators would actually be collected throughout Ontario so that there could be comparisons between the the municipalities because if we don't measure it then we don't know how we perform against each other but also from uh from year to year. So we don't know how well the money is being spent and we don't know if the measures from the plans are actually having the effects that we want them to have.

Host: I want to turn back to the first uh item specifically uh putting one politician in charge. You know, much of the last uh 20 years and I I think particularly back to the uh transit debates in Toronto over the previous decade uh there was a real cry to depoliticize transit to get politicians out of transit planning. We took elected officials off of the Metrolinx board uh provincially. Um was that a mistake?

Kelly: Yeah, I don't think I don't think we're arguing that they need to be in the nuts and bolts, those politicians of policy, right? Um what we're saying is you need a politician that is accountable at the top that's going to be the point person that's going to speak to Torontonians around uh why the system is failing in some areas and how it's going to be corrected. Um that position though does need to be mirrored by uh something like that could be a deputy city manager for transportation, right? And that individual which would be a civil servant would be responsible for the nuts and bolts of implementing changes to transportation or implementing a plan. And the plan of course um plans are transportation plans are developed by politicians whether it be in London or or Vancouver by by the Translink Mayor's Council. I mean that is the norm but we need a plan to begin with right and and those elected officials can be accountable for achieving that plan at the end of the day but something needs to be put on paper and someone needs to be again held accountable for whether that plan is being achieved and what's going wrong and why and how it's going to be corrected. So, so less around the nuts and bolts of whether there needs to be bus lanes on Scarborough's streets or not and more around um you know where are we headed, what's the vision, who's going to speak to course correction and those sorts of things.

Host: You two are in European cities at the moment and I guess I want to know Antoine, do do you believe that most European cities pass the four tests that you've just laid out?

Antoine: No one's perfect, [laughter] but we we see these elements in in a lot of cities. Um, and and we really see the the results. Uh, there's there's a magical element that we haven't discussed because we discuss it all the time, but it's not in the four ideas, which is funding. And so, you can have the best intentions and the best governance, but if you don't have funding, then uh you cannot implement what what you want to implement. So that's that's a very important ingredient and sometimes you have these elements of governance in place but the funding is just not there. What I wanted to add to what Kelly said and and that sometimes we we also see in uh in Europe that's that's missing or conversely done well is that if there is no plan if the plan is weak then it creates a vacuum that politicians enter. And this is this is what I think causes the diagnostic that maybe we should depoliticize transportation. And this is this constant micromanagement or [clears throat] random ideas that are that are brought uh by politicians. But if we have a plan, if we have clear roles, clear accountability with the buck stops here, and this is the person that is going to be questioned by council, who is going to be questioned by the media, it's a lot clearer.

Host: You used the word micromanaging and that uh teased me up for my next question because in this piece you do uh mention that Toronto has the powers that it needs to do much of what we're talking about. It owns the TTC, the roads, the traffic signals, the Toronto parking authority, that kind of thing. But we've also seen the provincial government has taken a very uh detailed interest in matters like uh the design of roads, the placement of bike lanes, the use of specific traffic enforcement technologies. And so I guess um Kelly, I'll ask you. I mean, is the current government at Queens Park helping or hurting matters?

Kelly: Um well, I'd say it's it's confusing things, right? I know and I know Antoine will have more to say about this. um having having worked for Metrolinx before, but I I I feel like we're in a moment in time where we can't predict when and how the provincial government will intervene in Toronto's transportation matters, right? And so although Toronto has autonomy and authority, right, to execute its responsibilities on its road network, um as we see and as you mentioned, you know, the province can step in when it doesn't like things. And so we end up with almost like a confusing hybrid model. We don't quite have this Translink model where you've got a regional authority um that is doing planning for the metro region and and then executing that plan. So we don't quite have that, but we don't quite have, you know, an autonomous large city kind of operating within its purview um and being held accountable to that. We've got we've got the province interjecting. So, I'd say it's confusing things. Um, and I think that it's a question for, you know, the province and what it wants, uh, the model for transportation to look like, transportation governance, uh, in in Toronto and maybe even in the the metro region as a whole. Um, I think that is a question that it might need to grapple with sooner or later rather than, um, these ad hoc interventions that have become really unpredictable.

Host: Antoine, anything to add?

Antoine: I think that provincial politicians should be provincial politicians and not municipal politicians. [laughter] There's enough radical notion.

Host: Yeah, we're we're laughing here because we uh I I think it's fair to say, and I'm not taking a poke at him, but I think it's fair to say that the current premier of Ontario, maybe

Host: ...more than any other premier in my lifetime, disagrees with that statement.

Antoine: Well, he was elected to do a job which is provincial and not municipal. There's a lot to do. I think that interest by the province is of course welcome in terms of adequate funding and really letting municipalities do what they do best. The cherrypicking of issues, be it bike lanes or whatever else, is not helpful because it's not creating a clear area of responsibilities for the city. It's making it hard to plan, and I would actually say that the province has enough to worry about. The role of Metrolinx versus the Ministry of Transportation is not very clear at the moment, and if you look at the area between Ottawa and Windsor, you could say that there is also a need there for more coherent, wall-to-wall planning. How do you get from one end to the other? And that, I think, should keep them busy instead of deciding what kind of bike lane or not will be on my local street downtown Toronto.

Host: Well, let's ask finally the obvious question, which is to say, if you care about these issues, if you care about transit, if you care about the four pillars that gird your suggestions here, who's the better candidate on the ballot of the top two running for mayor of Toronto right now, Olivia Chow or Brad Bradford? Go ahead, Kelly. You start.

Kelly: I love these questions. Look, I think ultimately if we take the four pillars and we hold it up against the platforms and the statements that have been made, well, no one meets the test, right? No one is meeting the test of those four pillars. And what we see is there are a lot of kind of smaller-scale policy-type or project-level positions that have been put forward, whether they be on fares or whether they be on a specific set of bus lanes or bike lanes on roads. And so I don't see, being honest here, that whether one or the other is elected that things change substantively, again because we are going about this in a very ad hoc, project-based, micro level rather than looking at the whole system and rather than putting forward a vision for mobility in the city. So we don't have anyone of the main two candidates now that have put forward a vision for mobility in the city, and so all we know at this point is the various different policy levers they might pull or tinkering that they might do. Toronto deserves a plan, and we deserve a vision and we deserve a plan. The city is big enough. It is the largest city in Canada. It is an important city, and at the very least we need a vision and a plan, and right now we don't have that with either.

Host: Antoine, Brian Mulroney always used to say, "Don't compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternative." We have two major alternatives here. Which one do you like better in terms of keeping faith with what you've suggested?

Antoine: Well, I will follow Kelly's lead and not pick one, but I will add that there's actually great things that are happening at the city, and they've been brewing for quite a while. For example, there is the congestion charge that has started; I think that's a good move, just needs to be formalized and anchored in the structures that we propose. There is movement afoot to better anchor the relationship or better define the relationship between the TTC and the city, and that has been going on for a little bit. There is an acknowledgment that streetcars and LRTs can be sped up, and there has been progress this summer. We've all seen the media coverage of Line 5 and Line 6, and we've also seen the progress that's been accomplished. But I don't see right now an acknowledgment by either of them that there needs to be a fundamental rethink of governance and accountabilities. And I think there is a little bit of a difference between the two candidates in acknowledging the role of streets and also the space that cars occupy and the fact that in a growing, world-class city, we can't necessarily have everybody drive their cars everywhere all the time. And so I think that is an important point, and also basing decisions on evidence. I'm a professional planner, and I think a lot of my colleagues would agree with me that it is important to follow basic principles of urban and transportation planning, recognizing that space is not an infinite resource.

Host: Well, Antoine and Kelly, I know John Michael and I want to both acknowledge how skillfully you avoided answering the last question. That was very elegantly done. But we do also want to thank you very much for putting your four pillars, your four ideas on the table for us and our viewers and listeners to consider. So thank you for joining us from points beyond overseas on the continent of Europe. Thank you for joining us very much.

Antoine / Kelly: Thanks for having us. Thanks Mike.

Host: And we want to thank you folks for joining us here on the OnPoli podcast. We'll see you next time.