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

John Michael McGrath: [clears throat] McGrath. Today on the pod, what's happened to the Conservatives? A double-digit lead in the polls evaporates in just 1 [music] week. The education minister gets growing at Queen's Park committee, results some high-flying [music] insults back and forth. We'll tell you why. The federal government unveiled a so-called Canada Strong Fund in its spring economic statement. Could there be something there for Ontario?

Steve Paikin: And in your column my column, I ask whether Ford's plans for Toronto's Island airport can survive his bad polling numbers.

John Michael McGrath: And in my column, I'm putting the premier under the microscope and asking what's got Doug Ford in such an ornery mood these days.

Steve Paikin: It's Friday, May 1st, 2026. [music] So, let's get to it.

Steve Paikin: JMM.

John Michael McGrath: Yes, sir. A little sugar to start with. We got a bunch of business to deal with ahead of time here. First of all, okay, let's get the t-shirt stuff out of the way first of all. Well, yes, so it is May 1st, not quite May the 4th, but I thought I could this is close as we were going to get. So, I'm wearing my May the 4th t-shirt with Boba Fett checking the calendar.

Steve Paikin: [laughter]

Steve Paikin: You do this every year, I think, don't you? Yeah,

John Michael McGrath: it started back I guess the 2022 election. Actually, started on May the 4th and we recorded something. So, I wore this t-shirt and now it's just become my annual tradition. Well, may the 4th be with you, as they say. Yes, indeed. Now, for yours truly, I am, let me see, standing up here. Okay, you see that guy? That is Harry Nixon. Harry Nixon is a former premier of Ontario. He won the Liberal leadership 83 years ago yesterday. And 4 months later, he called an election and lost. And he therefore has a very unusual distinction in Ontario political history. He is the shortest serving premier of all time, but he is the longest serving MPP of all time. He got elected in 1919 for the first time and he served right until 1961. And he was succeeded in the riding of Brant by his son, Robert Nixon, who is still alive at age 97 and going strong. Mr. Nixon the younger, Bob Nixon, was David Peterson's treasurer from 1985 to 1990 in that first Liberal government in 42 years. And Mr. Nixon's daughter, Harry Nixon's granddaughter, Jane Stewart, was a cabinet minister in Jean Chrétien's government federally. So, we have 1 2 3 generations of Nixons in public life. And I was thinking about it the other day, what other family has three generations in public life at Queen's Park? And I can only think of one. I bet there's more, but I can only think of one. Can you think of one? I think we're thinking of the same one. The the generation currently occupying the premier's office.

Steve Paikin: You are correct. That is right. Yeah. Doug Ford Sr. Yes. was an MPP in Mike Harris's government. Then of course, Doug Ford, the current premier of Ontario. And not his son, but his nephew, who is the offspring of his sister, Yeah. Michael Ford.

John Michael McGrath: Yes. Was I think, if not the youngest, one of the youngest cabinet ministers in Ontario history. Yes. So, that's three generations as well.

Steve Paikin: Now, shall we talk about these This is not a Star Trek communicator that we have here, although it could pass for one.

John Michael McGrath: [laughter]

John Michael McGrath: It does On a quick glance, yes. I'd love to just tap it and have that noise come out of it at some point. No, you know, journalists are often called or they were often called back in the day ink-stained wretches. Yes. So, we have a little ink stain on here. Would you care to tell the folks what it's all about?

Steve Paikin: So, this is a nod towards World Press Freedom Day. We observe it annually in Canada on May the 3rd to highlight the essential role of a free press in a democracy, the the importance of journalistic freedom. Uh You and I happen to have jobs that are our ability to do our jobs is enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which is pretty a rare privilege that I know you and I take very seriously. Mhm. Um and so, yeah, just marking the importance of a free press. And these of course were sent to us by a viewer and listener, uh Mirko. Thank you.

John Michael McGrath: We do enjoy these pins. Although, Mirko, next year when you send them, if you could have them make this, you know, communicator noise when you tap them [laughter] like on the new next generation of Star Trek, that would be kind of cool.

Steve Paikin: Thomas Jefferson once said, "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter." Yes. Uh what's the day today? Today is May the 1st. It is. Today is May the 1st. This is a big day on the political calendar in 444 places across Ontario.

John Michael McGrath: That's right. Today is the opening of nominations for municipal elections in Ontario.

Steve Paikin: Already seen a few people come right out of the gates. We'll be keeping our eyes open for races all over the province to talk about.

John Michael McGrath: shall. And with that, don't call me Shirley, and we're off to issue one.

Steve Paikin: Premier Doug Ford may have abandoned his attempt to buy an executive jet for his use and the use of his cabinet ministers, but the political fallout is far from over. Three separate polls in the last week all show Ford's Progressive Conservatives losing significant support. As we always say on this podcast, polls cannot predict the future. They only tell us what people thought yesterday. Having said that, JMM, it is highly unusual for the premier to go from a double-digit lead to a one-point lead in 1 week. One polling firm has them at only one point ahead of the Liberals. Yes. What's going on here?

John Michael McGrath: So, I think it's fair to say that Ontario voters were unimpressed with the attempt to buy a private jet. They they seem to think less of the premier this week than they did 3, 6, or certainly 12 months ago right after they won re-election to a third majority after the 2025 election. If that election were held instead today, the results would likely be very different if these three polls we're going to discuss are correct. We've got a bunch of numbers to go through and that's not like ideal podcast content. So, I'm going to apologize to our audience in advance. So, bear with us. We're going to start by doing just a little bit of a level set here, right? In the 2025 election, the PCs won 43% of the popular vote. The Liberals came in second with 30%, the New Democrats 19%, and the Greens 5. One obvious thing to mention here is that the seat distribution in the legislature did not reflect those vote shares. The Liberals came in second in the popular vote, but third in the seat count. So, where does the Ford government stand today? All of the three polls that we are going to talk about show the Progressive Conservatives in some real political danger. We're going to start with the poll from Palace Data. They were the first to publish. They have the Tories at 37% with the Liberals relatively close behind at 32, the New New Democrats at 24. That is actually the best poll for the official opposition party that we're going to discuss today. And the Greens at 6. A few days after that Palace Data poll came out, we got a separate poll from Abacus Data. They have the PCs similarly at 37%, the Liberals at 36, just one point behind. The NDP at 17 and the Greens at 5.

Steve Paikin: We should say, and I suspect this is obvious, but those numbers It's almost impossible to win a majority government with those numbers. I'm not saying it's unprecedented cuz I do remember Bob Rae getting a majority government with something like 37.6% of the total vote.

John Michael McGrath: in 2014. Kathleen Wynne had 37%. Yeah. Yeah. So, it's doable, but You don't want to bet on it. You don't want to bet on it. That's exactly right. Now, there's lots of different methodology as well in the way pollsters do polling. So, what do you want to tell us about that?

John Michael McGrath: Right. So, the methodology here is important. That Abacus poll showing the very very close results for the Tories and the Liberals. You know, we would traditionally call that within the margin of error, a statistical tie. I'm going to be sort of prescripted here and say that that Abacus poll does not in fact have a margin of error that we would normally define it mathematically because it's not a random sample. That's the result of an online panel. Nothing wrong with online panels. They've become a pretty standard form of public opinion research, but technically speaking, we don't refer to margins of error with those polls because mathematically you just can't calculate one properly. Whatever you want to call it though, that is a much closer result than the Progressive Conservatives would like to see in any kind of public opinion research. Well, they have gone, frankly, years with double-digit leads over the opposition parties. So, this is definitely news. And sadly for the Conservatives, the bad news didn't stop there. No, it did not. So, on Wednesday of this week, Liaison Strategies released a poll showing for the first time since the depths of the government's COVID response in 2021 that the PCs had fallen very narrowly behind the Liberals with Team Red at 38% and Team Blue at 36. This was a random sample. This one was in fact a random sample. So, we can say that those results are within the poll's margin of error. Again, a statistical tie if you want to call it that. But as I say, you know, it is notable because it is the first time in 5 years. And and you know, people might remember the specific incident when we say 5 years ago. I mean, we may not want to cast our minds back to COVID, but brutal time in the spring of 2021 when the Ford government tried to lock down playgrounds again. Right? That was like a political crisis for this government because it was incredibly unpopular and it it was chaotic and it was, you know, hastily reversed and it gave a lot of voters the sense that the government didn't know what it was doing. Since then, as we say, like that that was one moment. And and since then, they really have not been in that kind of political peril for 5 years, and suddenly we are sort of back in the that kind of space again. Just to sort of round off the the numbers from that Liaison poll, they had the NDP at 20%, the Greens at 4. That is [laughter] the last of this data dump that I'm going to provide, and I thank our listeners for bearing with us.

Steve Paikin: [laughter]

Steve Paikin: Okay, I'm going to pluck a line from history here to remind people what they need to do right now. And my line from history is Bob Rae, as we just mentioned, in 1990 got elected with 37.6% I think of the total votes in that election.

John Michael McGrath: I think of the total votes in that election. And 3 months later, his approval rating was at 60%. For whatever reason, a whole bunch of people said they supported the NDP. Way more people said they supported the NDP 3 months after they actually voted for the NDP. And when Floyd Laughren, who was the finance minister of that government, walked into question period one day with these polling numbers showing the NDP in the stratosphere, and he showed it to his premier, Bob Rae, the premier's response to his treasurer was, "Don't inhale."

Steve Paikin: [laughter]

Steve Paikin: And this is the admonition I'm going to leave with the opposition parties right now. Before anybody gets too excited about this, let's remember the Liberals don't even have a leader right now, okay? So, essentially these polls are comparing a very known commodity in Doug Ford with a very unknown commodity in a Liberal leader whom people can presumably foist their loftiest ideals on right now. Who knows what the polls are going to say once there is a real person, Doug Ford, being compared to a real person, the next Liberal leader, whoever that is, and Marit Stiles, who's the NDP leader. We have to say as well that the NDP numbers are more buoyant here than they've been in a long time, at least in one or two of the polls. And if the Liberals pick somebody who doesn't catch on with the public, who knows? That could be an opening for the NDP and Marit Stiles to do even better in numbers that are not reflected in these polls. We also have to remember that the last time the polling was this tight, Doug Ford went on to win the next election with a larger percentage of the total vote than he had enjoyed in the previous election. So, I know I say this all the time, but we do have to remind people cuz people can get excited by this stuff. Polls are snapshots. Polls don't tell you what people are going to do tomorrow. They tell you what people thought yesterday. It's always been that way. It's still that way. But it's interesting. It is. And you know, even I, you know, I I find these discussions kind of fun. I do want to say very briefly, um, some you mentioned the Liberals do not currently have a leader. Somebody on Blue Sky asked me, "Is it possible for a political party to win an election without a leader?" And because I have been doing this podcast with you, I was able to say, "Not only is it possible, it has happened in Ontario history." That's right. Uh, with the the United Farmers and Ernest Drury. Um, I won't go into all of that again, but I just lest you think that I'm not listening when you speak.

John Michael McGrath: I'm so delighted. [laughter]

John Michael McGrath: Um, but you're your admonition is is an important one. You know, events matter, campaigns matter. Uh, you know, the Liberals, as we say, are going to pick a new leader this year. That choice will matter. When the 2015 federal election began, the Liberals under Justin Trudeau were in third place, and when the votes were done being counted, they had a majority in the House of Commons, right? Events matter. Uh, polls can change. They can change very quickly.

Steve Paikin: That said, it isn't just the party standings we're talking about here. All three of these polls show that uh Ford's personal brand took a real beating in the last few weeks. Uh, voters clearly forming negative opinions about both the the purchase of the plane itself, but also their impression of the premier, right? This is a politician who for a very long time has had a bit of a Teflon shield. Uh, you know, voters were willing to excuse a lot of things on the grounds that, you know, they felt that he was at least on their side. And you know, probably one of the the biggest, you know, blinking red alarms that I would suggest people pay attention to if you're a Progressive Conservative these days, are the number of respondents in these polls saying things like they don't believe that Doug Ford cares for people like me. Um, that's that's a big hit to the brand that is going to be hard to reverse, I think. Agreed. Anything else on this?

John Michael McGrath: Just to reiterate that we can always take these polls with a grain or even many grains of salt. They are interesting. These polls are fun to talk about, but they they do not change anything immediately. But, I think you and I will both be watching with some interest over the next 6, 12, 18 months, whether this is just a blip or whether this is something that continues, right?

Steve Paikin: That's the key. The key is is this the beginning of something or is this a blip, and the premier with an apology can win back the credibility that he seems to, at least in the short run, have lost. Yeah, and even, you know, if this persists, if the Tories fall further behind, which, you know, it is possible. I I have reminded a few people recently that when Patrick Brown won the PC leadership in 2015, he inherited a party that was already ahead in the polls, and more or less stayed there for the until the 2018 election. Um, but, you know, if this persists, if the PCs fall farther behind, well, we've seen that story, too, and we've seen it recently. What happens to a political party? Well, you start getting a lot of pressure from within the party to think about changing leaders. We saw that with Kathleen Wynne in the run-up to the 2018 election. We saw that with Justin Trudeau federally. In fact, Trudeau was forced out before another election, right? We tend not to to follow each and every poll that comes out, but you and I will be watching this to see whether this is a blip or something more consequential. Quite so. And with that, we're off to issue two.

John Michael McGrath: Education Minister Paul Calandra visited a committee of the legislature this week to answer questions about the government's latest school board reform bill. Nothing terribly newsworthy about that. Ministers appear before committees all the time. This time, however, when he was done answering the questions, Calandra took a seat at the committee and started asking questions himself. Now, to my to the best of my knowledge, and I've been watching committees at Queen's Park for, you know, more than a couple of years, I've never seen that happen before.

Steve Paikin: Yeah, I I this is unusual. I couldn't swear to you that it has never happened before, but I also have no memory of it happening in any sort of substantial way. I mean, you know, the thing about the legislature is, you know, one of the the jobs about parties is you always try to make sure you've got bodies in the right places, and so in theory, I I think I might have seen a minister get rushed into a committee once to just to like fill a seat so that they could vote the way the government needed to, but certainly what is odd about this is the minister asking questions about his own legislation.

John Michael McGrath: This was regarding Bill 101. We talked about that on the podcast before. Makes pretty major changes to running school boards, and you know, imposes new financial constraints on school board trustees. Uh, and among groups who are concerned about that legislation are education unions. Joe Tigani was at the committee representing the Ontario School Boards Council of Unions. Uh, and he was subjected to, I'm going to say, some pretty direct questioning from the minister. Here is part of what that looked like.

Paul Calandra: Do you think you'd be qualified to run a school board as a CEO?

Joe Tigani: Do I think I would be qualified?

Paul Calandra: You or any of the members that you represent.

Joe Tigani: Uh, I don't I can't say what the other members may have as far as qualifications. Me personally, no, I would not be qualified to run the school board. So, if members had the qualifications that are required, you don't think that they should be able to run the school board?

Paul Calandra: Of my You're asking about my specific members? Yeah.

Joe Tigani: Yeah. I I think if they have the if they have the qualifications and could demonstrate that they could run the board, I guess yes, they could.

Paul Calandra: Okay.

Paul Calandra: That's interesting because this bill allows the allows them to actually do that. And you're you're suggesting that we shouldn't allow them to do that.

Steve Paikin: Okay, well, as I say, that's something I have not seen before. Why is this so unusual, though?

John Michael McGrath: Okay, so, I'm going to step back and do my favorite civics 101 here on the Unpolly podcast. After an election, one of the first things that happens is that the legislature assigns committee seats to the recognized parties, and since this legislature has a Progressive Conservative majority, the PCs are also assigned a majority of seats on the committees. We are seeing this exact same principle at work right now federally, where the Carney Liberal majority has asked the House of Commons to reassign committee seats to reflect their new majority. At Queen's Park, specific MPPs are named as the members of those committees, and generally cabinet ministers are not named as members of committees. But, any MPP from within the same party can be substituted in by by the the party. I think they have to give notice to the clerk of the committee or whatever, but functionally, any Progressive Conservative MPP can replace another PC MPP at any time. Which is what happened. So, no no rules, no laws are being broken here. No, the minister hasn't hasn't broken any law. There's no misconduct, per se, but it's odd, right?

Steve Paikin: [laughter]

Steve Paikin: Ministers are busy people, and there is already a person whose job description it is to help the minister out with specifically these kinds of committee appearances, these helping the bill get through the committee stage of the legislature. That person is the parliamentary assistant. Uh has two parliamentary assistants, right? The education minister that's a big portfolio. He's got two PAs. Uh we have uh Jess Dixon of Kitchener South Hespler and to Billy Pang of Markham Unionville. They both have seats on this committee. They could have been doing the minister's job. In fact, that it is their job to do the minister's job.

John Michael McGrath: [laughter]

John Michael McGrath: And that job isn't just, you know, questioning uh witnesses, but it is also, you know, for example, ensuring that no uh opposition motions to to amend the bill uh get passed in any way that would like thwart the government's intent, right? So, it's it's not unusual for a witness to get subjected to even some kind of sharp questioning from government MPPs, but for the minister to do it is Well, like I said, it's it's odd.

Steve Paikin: It's odd, but when opposition MPPs say it's really not appropriate for you to be showing up to committee, answering questions, and then taking a seat on the committee and blasting witnesses who don't like what you have to say in the bill. Have they got some I mean, they got some heft behind those concerns?

John Michael McGrath: Well, I think it's worth remembering here that, you know, cabinet ministers wear two hats, right? They they are MPPs and they have the right to sit and debate and vote in the legislature and in committees and you know, you and I are sort of parliamentarians in the sense of of being like pro-parliament. Um you know, we we take the rights and privileges of MPPs seriously and I think we understand that, you know, they they have a serious job to do and and that sort of comes as a package. But ministers also represent the government. They represent the Crown and when you're talking about some of the most important ministers in government and and at a provincial level, the education minister is a very important minister indeed. Uh I think someone being on the receiving end of hostile questioning from someone like that, you know, it has a very different impression of of getting those kinds of questions than when it's coming from a parliamentary assistant or some government backbencher, you know, uh in the Ontario education space, uh Paul Calandra and we're going to do a different American presidential quote here. Uh I'm borrowing a phrase from Abraham Lincoln. Paul Calandra is clothed in immense power. And being on the receiving end of hostile questioning is going to feel different from that than from some backbencher. It's just another episode of Better Call Paul. When in doubt, better call Paul. And I do want to add, you know, I I was I was puzzling over like it it was I've used the word odd a few times and and I was like trying to figure out in my brain like why do this? Why why make this appearance? Why do the the questioning? And then it all became clear on Wednesday night when Paul Calandra's Twitter feed started pushing out clips from this committee appearance. I wouldn't be so crass as to say the entire thing was manufactured purely for social media video hits, but certainly they have decided to take advantage of that committee appearance to make social media content. And I would say just whether you are a journalist or an elected official or a minister of the Crown or whatever, we are all influencers now.

Steve Paikin: [laughter]

Steve Paikin: Some more than others, yes. And with that, let's get off to issue three.

John Michael McGrath: The federal government rolled out something new in its spring economic statement this week. Prime Minister Mark Carney unveiling a so-called sovereign wealth fund. The idea is to put 25 billion dollars into the Canada Strong Fund as they're calling it, and then let an independent board invest in projects that could significantly grow the Canadian economy. Here at our podcast, we wanted to know how these plans might affect our province. So, JMM, what do we need to know about what's going on there?

Steve Paikin: Well, so for starters, if you are really plugged into like international trade economists on social media, there is a lively debate going on about whether this is even something that we should call a sovereign wealth fund. It does not totally resemble other international examples of these kinds of funds and I can get into some of that in a moment, but as you say, the intent announced this week from the federal government is for the government to provide 25 billion dollars over 3 years, so a bit more than 8 billion dollars a year for a fund that will invest in federal priority projects, whether that is infrastructure or manufacturing or resources resource extraction, you know, mining, forestry, that kind of thing. Uh the idea is that those investments would return a profit to the fund. They would be in partnership with private investment usually. So, the fund would invest a sum of money for a minority stake in a project. The private sector would provide the majority of the funding. And then any kind of upside on the investment would be returned back to taxpayers in the sense of it it would go back into the fund. The fund would grow, would be able to make more investments, etc., etc. Well, this is the OnPoli podcast. So, we want to know how it affects On as in Ontario. What do we know? Uh so, there is some um ambiguity, I would guess I would say. On the one hand, as you mentioned, the government is saying that the investments will be directed by an arms-length agency, an independent Crown Corporation. On the other hand, the budget also seems to strongly be hinting, implying that the Canada Strong Fund will be investing in projects that have already been handpicked by the extremely not arms-length Major Projects Office. Uh that office has already picked two projects in Ontario for accelerated federal approvals, the Darlington new nuclear project and Canada Nickel's Crawford Mine project in Timmins. So, those two projects are are hypothetically on the list of projects that might get federal financial support through this sovereign wealth fund as well as, of course, the auto high-speed rail project between Ontario and Quebec. Obviously, if you live between Toronto and Ottawa on that particular train route, that you could benefit in that sense as well.

John Michael McGrath: Well, we know this premier is very pro-nuclear and we know he also talks a lot about getting critical minerals out of the ground and to market. Yes. So, do we infer from that that he likes what's happening here?

Steve Paikin: Uh Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy certainly seemed to be. He spoke with Bloomberg News this week and he said that these federal announcements play well with Ontario's own priorities, including the fact that Ontario has uh established an analogous fund as well. We've spoken before about the Protect Ontario Account Investment Fund. Uh the government announced it in this year's budget. They are still in the process of standing that up and they have to find a private sector company that is going to manage the funds and the assets for that. Uh Bethlenfalvy told Bloomberg that speaking of the federal Canada Strong Fund said, you know, this will help fund those major projects. Tens of billions of capital are required in order to do that. So, obviously, he's looking forward to the federal contribution here bringing in more private capital to help these projects move forward. Now, at the risk of getting into the weeds here, but that is our brand after all. Yes, indeed.

John Michael McGrath: I understand the people who say you can't really call this a sovereign wealth fund cuz it doesn't really act like the sovereign wealth funds that we know and love act. And by that, I mean, if you want to go back 45 years or so, the then premier of Alberta, Peter Lougheed, created something called the Heritage Fund of Alberta. And oil windfall revenues went into that fund. It wasn't tax dollars, it was oil money that went into that fund. Similarly, and that's a sovereign wealth fund. Similarly, in Norway, they also have a sovereign wealth fund in which all of the, again, windfall from oil and gas goes into that fund, not taxpayer dollars. So, that this is realized revenue. This is, if you like, found revenue that then can go into supporting priorities of the government of the day, including, as Peter Lougheed used to say back in the day, we don't want this to be used for operating funds. This is a rainy day fund. This is meant the Alberta Heritage Fund was meant to protect Albertans from the ravages of recessions and as a result, sort of smooth out the edges when the country went into recession. That doesn't appear to be what's going on here. This is tax dollars going into a fund, not oil windfall revenue. Yeah. Does that matter? I don't know. Maybe the folks can debate about whether that matters, but but it's not the same thing. It's not the same thing and I would say that, you know, if you want to talk about sort of generically, a sovereign wealth fund exists to solve a problem, usually. You know, lots of different countries have have built things they call sovereign wealth funds, but I would say, you know, in general, the problem that you are usually trying to solve with a sovereign wealth fund is that sudden windfall of money. Classically, oil revenue is is a perfect example of this, right? Alberta, Norway, Alaska, these are all places that have established things like sovereign wealth funds to deal with that, but it doesn't have to be natural resource revenue, right? Singapore started a sovereign wealth fund because it the nature of its economy, it was suddenly having this huge influx of like foreign reserves during the '70s and '80s and they wanted to keep that from distorting their very small economy. And so, that's what they did. They started up a sovereign wealth fund. Whatever else you could say about Canada and the federal government specifically right now, we do not suffer from the problem of having too much money.

Steve Paikin: [laughter]

Steve Paikin: We have

Steve Paikin: deficits

Steve Paikin: as far as the eye can see. Even, you know, this most recent budget had some relative good news on on the deficit front, but we are still looking at deficits into the 2030s as I understand it. So, I'm hesitant to call this a sovereign wealth fund both because it's not really addressing the classic example of a problem and and as you say, it's it's it seems to be just another way of of dressing up tax spending. Yeah.

John Michael McGrath: And and I will add, you know, I sorry I would very briefly, you know, one of the other things that they're talking about potentially using to fund this sovereign wealth fund is uh potentially privatizing federal assets including one that's gotten a lot of discussion in the last few days is privatizing airports. Um I'm not going to take a position on whether airports should be publicly or privately run, but this feels extremely familiar to me as somebody who remembers the Wynn government which privatized some provincial assets, most notoriously Hydro One, but others as well. And they said that they were putting it in [clears throat] the Trillium Trust which was this dedicated account was going to go towards infrastructure priorities. And like at the end of the day, nobody really bought that as like a credible independent fund, right? The Tories criticized it as a slush fund whether you think that is fair or not. It it it didn't mollify voters who saw the privatization of Hydro One and other provincial assets as really fatal to the whole idea. Well, these things tend to gain public trust when they are arms length from politicians. And the reality is that if politicians are going to get in there and monkey with these so-called sovereign wealth funds, then you're right. It just becomes another pool of money that they get to play with however they want. But if it is in fact arms length with a separate board, separate governance, and and it stays out of politics so that it has a bigger mission if I can put it that way, they tend to be somewhat seen much more credibly by the public of whatever jurisdiction's involved. And I can add that, you know, people are extending a certain amount of grace towards the current government right now. I mean, we've already talked a lot about opinion polls. I I will just say Carney is doing quite well in the polls right now. So perhaps voters will have a more charitable interpretation of this than they did of the Trillium Trust here in Ontario decade ago. We shall see. And with that, we're off to your column my column.

Steve Paikin: Okay, folks, it's time now for our regular feature, your column my column, in which JMM and I have a little chitchat about the columns we wrote for the TVO website tvo.org over the past week. We love it when you go onto the site, click on our stories, and read about what we are teasing in this segment here. Which one do you want to talk about this week?

John Michael McGrath: I am going to talk about a column I wrote earlier this week at tying a bunch of things that we've already said are to spoken of together. Um the start of the municipal election campaign, Ford's increasing unpopularity, and something we haven't spoken about this week, the proposal to expand Billy Bishop Airport. We've spoken about that previously on the podcast. The government introduced legislation last week that would at least in theory allow the government to seize not just the lands of the airport itself, but all of the Toronto Islands and the Little Norway Park, the municipal park that is on the land side of the water in the in the city's waterfront. And uh the the government I should say does not intend they have said they do not intend to seize all of those lands, but they they are sort of casting a wide net and they're going to negotiate with the city about how much land they want. But it has already alarmed people who were frankly already alarmed by this proposal. And I think more importantly that and some of the other things that the the premier has said and done in the last few months have really set the stage for the coming Toronto mayoral election. If it is not entirely about this airport expansion plan, it is going to be certainly largely about this airport plan. And that's uh I mean, this has been a recurring issue in Toronto politics going back at least 20 years if not much longer. But the problem for the premier right now is that this airport plan is very closely associated with him. And so voters will be rendering their opinion about this airport at least in part based on frankly how much they like or don't do not like Doug Ford. And as we've already discussed, they do not like Doug Ford a lot right now. At the moment, that is the case.

Steve Paikin: And the additional problem here, and I've I've sort of alluded to this previously on the podcast, is that, you know, this is not a municipal or a provincial decision. This is a federal decision. Airports are federally regulated. This there's any number of areas of federal policy that will have to be analyzed and and discussed and debated at the cabinet level. And this decision will not be made for many months. Probably uh the the final decision I would be very surprised if it happened before the next mayoral election. And so let's just game this out for a second, right? If I'm going to just for assumption's sake for argument's sake, Olivia Chow I'm assuming will be running against this airport expansion plan. If she does and she wins reelection, what does a federal cabinet do? Do they decide to ignore the expressed will of Toronto voters to associate themselves extremely closely with a unpopular premier and a project that has not frankly been terribly well explained or justified to the public? Maybe a pro-airport candidate wins the election, right? Like literally as we record this, the election has not even begun yet.

John Michael McGrath: [laughter]

John Michael McGrath: So I don't want to presume these things. But you know, these these there's not an infinite number of scenarios that could happen between now and then. And I think that one that I laid out is one that should give people in Mark Carney's close orbit some pause. I I I don't think Toronto voters are going to abandon the Liberal Party en masse. I don't think that's the way these things work. But if I were if I were in Mark Carney's close circle, this would be the kind of question that you I would be debating how close you want to get to Doug Ford right now.

Steve Paikin: [laughter]

Steve Paikin: You have actually provided unknowingly, I suspect, a sneak peek to what my column is going to be about next week.

John Michael McGrath: Okay.

Steve Paikin: How many seats do the Liberals have in the city of Toronto? All of them. All of them. How much have you heard from the federal Liberal Party on this Billy Bishop Airport plan of Doug Ford's? Zero.

John Michael McGrath: Next to nothing. Right. And there's a reason for that. And we will explore that next week. I don't want to get ahead of myself here.

Steve Paikin: Yeah. But that's next week's column. And what did you write about this?

John Michael McGrath: Well, you know, I you and I both don't get obsessed with polls. Polls go up, polls go down. We always hear the line, the only poll that matters is the one on election day. That's really true. John Diefenbaker, the former prime minister, used to say polls are for dogs. And we know what they did with the we know what dogs did with polls. But the reality is Doug Ford, ever since he first became premier back in 2018, has I think pretty much been in first place in the polls with a decent lead non-stop ever since. You know, it's really a pretty remarkable run he's had until this week. This is the first week where anybody could look at public opinion polling and say, "Ooh, something happened and you've lost a lot of support and we need to analyze that." So that's what I did. I did some of that this week. The premier has been, I think it's fair to say, unusually ornery in the last couple of weeks. I think the jet thing really ticked him off. It was a self-inflicted wound because he did not lay the groundwork as we've talked about here before. He didn't lay the groundwork that would have been necessary in order to justify that purchase. But it really came to a head this past week when apropos of absolutely nothing, in the middle of question period, the premier answered a fairly straight-ahead question by the member actually who represents the area we're sitting in right now. That's Toronto-St. Paul's. Her name is Stephanie Smelt. She used to be a television broadcaster broadcast journalist on CP24, which is the all news channel one of them here in Toronto. And she basically said, you know, our job is to hold the premier to account. And if it was about the FOI stuff, the freedom of information stuff. And if he makes these changes, how are we going to hold him to account? And the premier went nuclear

Steve Paikin: Yes. on what was a pretty basic straight-ahead question. And he made a lot of kind of nasty allegations about the only reason that she's elected and got here is because CP24 fired her and they didn't want her anymore. And that's why she's here. And it was it was an odd There's that word again. It was an odd thing for the premier to have said, you know, oftentimes, both in politics and in humor, something works when you punch up.

John Michael McGrath: Yes.

John Michael McGrath: When you punch down, and if you're the premier, there's not much more punching down you can do than a member of the third place party on the opposition benches. I'm I'm kind of speculating as to what's going on. I should say, the premier did apologize. He did. Several days later.

Steve Paikin: Several days later, he did apologize. Stephanie Smelt did put out a press release indicating that she accepted the apology and she's moving on, but she intends to continue to hold this government to account.

John Michael McGrath: The premier's in his third term. Yeah. The premier's been the premier for eight years.

Steve Paikin: We all know these jobs have a shelf life.

John Michael McGrath: Yes. Sometimes it's five years, sometimes if you're lucky you get 10, sometimes if you're really lucky you get more. But these jobs all have a shelf life. And the premier is pushing up against what is traditionally these these days seem to be the shelf life of a first minister. Stephen Harper got nine years. Justin Trudeau got nine years. Brian Mulroney got less than that. He got almost nine years. I mean, Jean Chrétien got about nine years. You know, there's a there's a there is a a pattern of time limit to these jobs.

Steve Paikin: Yes. And at a certain point, he's in his third term. At a certain point, sometimes, and I'm not saying that's what's going on here. I'm merely throwing it out here for potential discussion. You know, it's possible that Donald Trump's got a great line where he you know, when people try to tell him you're wrong about this, you shouldn't do this. He comes back and says, well, if I'm so stupid and you're so smart, how come I'm sitting here as the president and you're advising me? So, there may be some of that going on here, you know?

John Michael McGrath: Anyway, I've found the Ford conduct to be a little bit it certainly was off brand with the jet and a little bit curious this past week and I suspect they are having meetings in the premier's office right now which are focused on, okay, how do we get back on track here? And back on track means back on brand and back on brand means not buying planes and not attacking people who really did not deserve to be attacked in that fashion. Yeah, and and you know, we talked about with the polling question that you know, you and I will be watching to see whether this is a is a blip or whether this is something that becomes a a more enduring pattern and I would say this is in that same category, right? If if everybody just had a bad week and then they go back to a bit more comprehensible behavior, if I could put it that way. Then, you know, with things could return to the mean, you know? But if if you start seeing a they had in their first year, people remember they had a a pattern of frankly of I'm going to say obnoxious Oh, it was frat boy behavior. It was terrible. And but and that went on for months and I think if they you know, it's one thing to do that when you are brand new in government and the voters are giving you a lot of leeway because they're still angry about the guys you kicked out.

Steve Paikin: Yeah. You know, that's not the position this government finds itself in right now, right? As we say like they they are eight years into government. They are a phrase I've used before you know, the problems they are now confronting are no longer the problems caused by the other guys.

John Michael McGrath: watch. And so, the job is hard. The job And so, the job is hard. The job is going to keep getting hard and you know,

John Michael McGrath: people can be cranky sometimes, but if if this it becomes a pattern that persists, I think

Steve Paikin: [clears throat]

Steve Paikin: you're going to see that end of the bad poll numbers start having a dynamic effect. Let me put it that way.

John Michael McGrath: Yeah, look at there's a huge chunk of Ontarians who really like Doug Ford the happy warrior, you know, the guy who shows up and calls people champions and really seems to enjoy his job and and has a little fun with his opponents from time to time. Um, but the bully, the obnoxious guy, the guy who's playing sort of frat house politics and taking stuff way too far, I they they don't like that. And we saw some of that happen this past week.

Steve Paikin: Okay, let's get on to the next thing which is we like to go into the mailbag because we always like to take your burning questions or insightful comments which you send to us at onpolitics@tvo.org. JMM, what's up this week?

John Michael McGrath: I'm going to preface this by saying that I I did go a little bit nuts on this one because well, a few different reasons. One, it's a a topic that I've I've paid some attention to over the years and the other is that it involves dogs and as I've mentioned before on the podcast, we now have a a dog in my household and so I've clearly become a kind of a mental dog person. So, [laughter] this comes from Jacob at Atibi Sled Dogs. They are a business up in Connaught, Ontario. The email reads in part, Ontario's updated outdoor dog standards in 2022 came into force with roughly a two-month implementation window after being finalized. From where we sit in this community, that felt like a very compressed timeline, particularly given that the changes required not just procedural adjustments, but significant infrastructure upgrades. In our case, compliance meant building an entirely new kennel at a cost of approximately 80 to 100,000 dollars in materials alone, again within that two-month timeline. But in addition, Jacob asks, you know, why has it been so difficult for us to have any meaningful conversation with our MPP or ministers about this? It seems like the kind of issue that sits at the intersection of policy, rural economies and how regulations actually land on the ground. Happy trails, Jacob. Hmm, I had to look it up actually. Connaught, Ontario, which I did not know where it was. It's not too far from Timmins, northeast Ontario, Kirkland Lake, Timmins, Iroquois Falls, that area. Yes. Okay, well, okay, dog person, how do you want to respond to this?

Steve Paikin: Okay, so we're going to say that this is part of what is to me a very interesting change in Ontario law. In 2019, the government of Ontario really changed fundamental way that it administered animal welfare laws. It used to be that the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the OSPCA, had this kind of legal, quasi-legal enforcement role and a court found that to be basically unconstitutional saying that like it's it's kind of nuts in the 21st century to give a nonprofit charity law enforcement powers when they do not answer to any kind of elected government. So, the Ford government brought in the PAWS Act, the Provincial Animal Welfare Services Act.

John Michael McGrath: PAWS, how clever. Very clever. That law passed in 2019 and now the regulation that Jacob is referring to was posted in 2022 and you know, a matter of public record, right? The regulation was made public in I guess it was April of 2022 and they were told that they had to come into compliance by if I remember correctly, it was July. Um, and so that's [clears throat] that's a more compressed timeline than I think a lot of businesses would normally get from the government in terms of particularly when the regulation is is going to make them make major sort of infrastructure investments and so Jacob was asking two questions like one, you know, is is that isn't that unusual basically? And then also he was referring to his experience of not being able to frankly get the government on the phone. And I actually called Jacob and and spoke to him just a little bit more to make sure I was understanding his situation. I I don't think I've got a good answer for him on this one. At least not a not a clear black and white answer. I do have some theories.

Steve Paikin: [laughter]

Steve Paikin: Did you get a politician on the phone? Because if you did, you're better than the rest of us.

John Michael McGrath: It's real hard to do these days. Yes, it is. And so I mean one answer I have unfortunately for Jacob is just that like he's in the same boat as the rest of us. And I like I spoke to some other people who I would say, you know, I I granted some people sort of anonymity so you know, off the record conversations and I spoke with some other people in the animal welfare space broadly and and they all basically said they had the same experience as Jacob has had. They just have had a really hard time getting the government to talk about this file. So, Jacob can at least console himself that he's not alone. Um, so it might just generically be that the government is not answering a lot of phone calls about this one. But there are some specific things that are going on on this file that I I think might be contributing to it. The first is that there is a legal case that has been making its way in and out of the courts for several years now that is specifically about sled dogs and the government's enforcement powers. There was a sled dog operator where the government alleged that they had been mistreating the animals. They seized many of that operator's dogs, I think all of them I think and then unfortunately the dogs actually started dying under the government's care. So, it's it's a very very sad story with many allegations going back and forth. Not going to get into all of it here except to say that it has been before the courts for several years. I actually could not confirm before we started taping where exactly it sits in the legal space right now, but of course from our perspective, we know that there's almost nothing the government loves more than to be able to say, well, that matter is before the courts and we can't discuss it right now. And so, it would not surprise me if that was another reason why somebody like Jacob's had a hard time getting the government to answer their questions. Just a few other small things. I mean, the the sled dog sector in Ontario is very small.

Steve Paikin: There is a sled dog sector?

John Michael McGrath: Well, Jacob suggested that I think he said to me there were fewer than 10 operators in the entire province. And you know, this is a very common story of you know, this used to be I guess a much more popular activity, but some people who you know, were getting to retirement age, they've they've closed down their operations. They haven't been replaced by younger people. Broadly speaking, you know, the the population of northern Ontario is not growing as fast as southern Ontario. So, lots of things there as well, but you know, when there's only like 10 operators in the entire province, the government might frankly um, decide that you are just not so important that they are going to respond to phone calls very urgently, that kind of thing. And the last thing I will say is this is also an old story in terms of the differential impact of animal rights politics between northern and southern Ontario. You will of course remember the story about the the spring bear hunt which was Right. prohibited under the Harris government and then was brought back under I guess starting incrementally under the Wynn government. But the political assertion of the time was that the Harris government prohibited the spring bear hunt basically as a sop to southern urban animal-minded voters and did not really account for what the economic impact was in the north. And you know, certainly I I over the years I spoke to northern tourism hunting tourism operators who said like actually that was incredibly harmful to them and and they they resented the fact that their livelihoods were sort of cast aside basically to to impress voters in the 905, if I could put it that way. Jacob, I I I do want to say we would not normally go this long on small business owner complaints about regulation film at 11, you know,

Steve Paikin: [laughter]

John Michael McGrath: but I thought it was an interesting case to discuss like all of the different ways that you know, the the things that go into a government's thinking when they make a rule and why sometimes they don't want to talk about it afterwards. So, that's why as I say, I kind of went a bit nuts on this one.

Steve Paikin: [laughter] Don't touch that dial people. We have all the dog sled news you need tonight.

John Michael McGrath: [laughter] Keep it here. Why don't you give the email address and we'll get out of here?

Steve Paikin: Right. If you'd like to ask about content on the show, you can always email us at onpolitics@tvo.org. And that is the On Poli podcast for this Friday, May the 1st, 2026. You can follow our show wherever you get your podcasts so that you get notified each time a new episode is available [music] and you can see the video version of the podcast on the TVO Today YouTube channel. 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. This week's episode was produced by Tiff Lamb, editing by Colin Kish. Production support from Jonathan Halliwell and TVO's Digital Media Services team. Laura View is the executive producer of digital. Stacey Donsey is acting vice president programming and content. We always like to end our program by thanking the crew both here in the studio and in the control room for making the video part of this podcast podcast happen. So, thanks gang and until next Friday. Bye-bye.