Steve Paikin: Welcome everyone to the first edition for 2026 of the OnPy podcast. I'm Steve Pac.

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

Steve Paikin: Today on the pod, well, Ontario Place is back in the news. The Supreme Court of Canada is going to hear arguments about whether it's a good idea to put a spa on Toronto's waterfront. It's been a rough flu season, but there might be some good news for Ontario's healthcare system. New numbers suggest fewer people might need a family doctor than we previously thought. How would you feel if your boss ordered you back into the office? 5 days a week, but the boss was enjoying one of the longest work away from the office stints ever. Yeah, that's what we thought. And in your column, my column, I will ask when exactly the Ontario Liberal Party is going to get around to picking a new leader.

John Michael McGrath: And speaking of Liberal leaders, I'm focused on one of the true lions of the legislature, 97-year-old former Ontario Liberal Leader Robert Nixon, who got elected for the first time 64 years ago this weekend. And we've got some funny stories from the Hustings from that one. It's Friday, January 16th, 2026. So, let's get to it.

John Michael McGrath: JMM, first sugar of 2026. There we go.

Steve Paikin: Back at it.

John Michael McGrath: Now, there's a little bit of snow out there.

Steve Paikin: And I must say, all day long, I have been wondering to myself, I wonder if he's going to cycle in today.

John Michael McGrath: You did not cycle, did you?

Steve Paikin: I did not. No. And like every point on my way into the office as I met one of our colleagues in the halls, they were like, "You didn't bike into work today." No, no, my instinct for self-preservation is stronger than my moral pining about riding a bike in the winter.

John Michael McGrath: But it's nice to know that your brand has definitely stuck in people's minds. That's the first thing everybody thinks of when they see you.

Steve Paikin: Yes. Well, and you know, I do enjoy—well, I don't enjoy, I enjoy the idea of being somebody who bikes in the winter. But I also this week's weather has been too much even for me.

John Michael McGrath: I think so. I think so. Now, what exactly? You've got a bucktoothoth glasseswearing cheese head or something. Oh, emoji. Okay. Yeah. What exactly is that?

Steve Paikin: This was a gift from my kid for Christmas. My kid as much as anybody else knows that I wear funny t-shirts on the podcast. And they decided that they wanted to help out with the wardrobe selection. So yes, we have a nerdy-looking emoji saying "um actually," which is I think depressingly on brand.

John Michael McGrath: Did you do that?

Steve Paikin: Well, in terms of what kind of journalism do we do here? Well, I do a lot of explaining things, right?

John Michael McGrath: You do a lot of "uh actually, uh no here's what's really going on." So yes, both a valued contribution to the podcast wardrobe and also I think my 10-year-old is making fun of me just a little, but yeah, that was coming anyway.

Steve Paikin: Okay.

John Michael McGrath: And how about you, Steve?

Steve Paikin: Well, um, just as you like to wear kind of funny, cute, odd, science fictiony sometimes t-shirts. My thing here is to usually wear a t-shirt with a premier of Ontario on it. And I have chosen, let me stand up here.

John Michael McGrath: Okay, there's John P. Robarts, who was premier of Ontario in the 1960s, which coincidentally was probably Ontario's best ever decade. And why am I wearing Roarts today? Because 109 years ago, last weekend, he was born. January the 11th, 1917. 109 years ago. And there's something really kind of coincidentally weird about Mr. Roberts's birthday. He shares a birthday with Sir Johnny Macdonald who was also the 11th of January and Jean Cretam who turned 92 on the 11th of January. So parents out there I am telling you right now if you want your child to become a first minister make sure they are born on the 11th of January and they have John in English or in French as their first name. That appears to be the trick.

Steve Paikin: I missed that one unfortunately. I mean February baby.

John Michael McGrath: Oh there you go. There you go. Can we put this picture up Sheldon? First of all, this is Mr. Roberts at a progressive conservative meeting. And I'll tell you what, he won his leadership in 1961 to become leader of the PC party and thus Ontario's 17th prime minister, as the term was called back then. Wasn't premier, it was prime minister. He won on six ballots at Varsity Arena. It was one of the great all-time leadership conventions. And funnily enough, he won over a fellow cabinet minister from Lesie Frost Cabinet whose name was Kelso Roberts. So, you had Robert's versus Roberts. One letter different.

Steve Paikin: Boy, one vowel.

John Michael McGrath: One vowel different. You got to be careful when you mark your ballot for that one. As I said earlier, a great time to be premier of Ontario. No deficits, right? They balanced budgets all the time. They created the first nuclear power plants in Ontario at Pickering under the Roart's years. Go Transit came in under the Roart's years. He established what was called the Confederation of Tomorrow conference on the top floor of the newly built TD center. This was in 1967 because bombs were blowing up in mailboxes in Quebec and he wanted to try to understand better what is it that Quebec wants. So he got all the premers together at the top of the TD and had the first and most important first ministers conference since Charlotttown in 1864.

Steve Paikin: His minister of education was John Michael.

John Michael McGrath: I would be fired if I did not know this one. Bill Davis.

Steve Paikin: Well, you'd certainly not be my friend anymore. Yes. I think he was 33 when he got the job. 33-year-old Bill Davis who was Minister of Education for almost nine years. And they were again some of the best years we ever had when it came to education in Ontario. The creation of the entire college system in the Roart's years. The creation of OISE, the Ontario Institute for Studies and Education.

John Michael McGrath: The creation of there was one more. One more. What was the Oh yeah, TVO.

Steve Paikin: TVO also created in the Robart's years. And for those who want to I don't know. I'm one of these kind of people who likes to do this. Sheldon, next picture if you would. Mr. Robert's final resting place is in the cemetery in downtown Toronto at the corner of Parliament and Blure. And as he is a former premier of Ontario, there's one of these official looking plaques that you get beside your graveside. But what I find fascinating about his headstone, you can see a couple of trilliums, which makes sense for a former premier of Ontario, but it's very understated. And you see the title, Prime Minister of Ontario there. Very understated. It's not one of these big, you know, ego trip things. That was not his style. And, you know, why do I like and care about and frankly know so much about John Roberts? Sheldon, next picture, if you would. Yes, I wrote a book about him. So, this is going back about, I don't know, 15 or 20 years. And I wrote a book called Public Triumph, Private Tragedy, The Double Life of John Roberts. And the double life refers to the fact that he had a truly splendid premiership. I mean, one of the best of all time. And his life ended in suicide. He had a stroke when he was 65 after he was out of office. And he just decided, I don't want to live life like this. I I I need more out of life. And therefore was lost to suicide. It really caused him a great deal of depression. So, a double life in some respects. Anyway, that's why I got Robarts on today.

John Michael McGrath: If I can live up to my new t-shirt, I do have to make one small correction. You referred to the first nuclear power plants at Pickering. Ontario's first nuclear power plant was at Douglas Point, close to where the Bruce Generating Station is today.

Steve Paikin: Is that a fact?

John Michael McGrath: Wow. Okay. So, the first what what shall we call it? Multi-reactor.

Steve Paikin: Yes.

John Michael McGrath: Yeah. Picking I was was followed on a few years later and is is a more substantial complex I believe. And then later they would build the much larger scale Bruce generating station.

Steve Paikin: Sheldon, meet me on camera. Meet me on this camera. Folks, this is why you need to listen to or watch this podcast because actually McGrath is usually right about all this kind of stuff. And with that, now you can meet me back over here on the main camera. Off to issue one.

Steve Paikin: Last Friday, the Supreme Court of Canada made one of its regular announcements about which appeals it has decided to hear and which ones it won't. Why is that news? because this time the country's highest court has decided it will hear from critics of the provincial government who are trying to stop Doug Ford's plans for Ontario Place. Are you surprised to hear that the court is taking this up?

John Michael McGrath: I really was. I did not think that the court would hear this case. I'm going to take a pundit humility moment here and say that I was wrong.

Steve Paikin: You're going to give yourself an uh actually.

John Michael McGrath: Um, but I I'm hoping that it turns out that I was wrong in an interesting way. Um, why did I think that the court would not hear this appeal? Well, the short version is that there wasn't much disagreement between the trial court and the Ontario Court of Appeals. This first went to trial in 2024. Ontario's highest court heard the appeal last year in 2025. Neither decision was a huge departure from the existing precedents. So, I didn't think that there was a lot for the Supreme Court to say. And you know, the Supreme Court has a lot of demands on its time. and it has to manage its own case load. So, I thought they would leave this one alone.

Steve Paikin: Now, we're going to dig into this one a little bit more here because the government's critics want to stop the province from redeveloping Ontario Place along the lines that we have talked about before on this show, including the Therma Spa, which has received so much attention. So, again, if you know, not everybody follows all of these nuances in and out, what's the case they want to make?

John Michael McGrath: So the community group in question, Ontario Place Protectors, they have made two main arguments in court so far. First, they argue that the law that the legislature passed in 2023 to speed the redevelopment of Ontario Place violates the constitution by functionally eliminating most opportunities for the public to challenge it in court. Basically, the law says you cannot bring certain types of legal actions to court about this redevelopment plan. You know, in our constitution, the provinces administer all of the important provincial courts, even cases where it's actually the federal government that names judges to important courts. So, but that administrative power includes a broad authority to determine what matters can be heard by a court, which courts can hear them, whether they can be heard by a court at all. So, and and that is what the Ford government did in Ontario Place. They just said this is not a matter that we are giving the courts a huge amount of input into. They did still allow for overall judicial review of the law, but yeah, there's no argument that they substantially limited the avenues available to the public. The second argument that Ontario Place protectors made is that the site of Ontario Place which is like a heritage site they argued that it's a kind of a public trust and that the Ontario government should be seen as having violated that public trust with its redevelopment plans. I should probably also add very quickly because I got this question a lot when the Supreme Court's announcement was first made. Nothing in the argument so far is a Charter of Rights and Freedoms case. So the notwithstanding clause is not really relevant here whatever the Supreme Court would eventually decide.

Steve Paikin: Can I do a little um actually.

John Michael McGrath: Sure.

Steve Paikin: Which premier decided to build Ontario Place?

John Michael McGrath: I mean was it Robarts?

Steve Paikin: It was indeed. Very good. Good for you.

John Michael McGrath: Because it was a like a centennial thing. It was 1967, right?

Steve Paikin: Well, it didn't. He actually made the decision in the late 1960s because he thought, you know, kids who are not lucky enough to be able to go away to summer camp need something to do in the summertime. So, he wanted to build an amusement park for kids on the waterfront in Toronto that they could go to. And of course, it was wildly popular for a while. By the time it was ready to open, it was actually 1971 and I think Bill Davis opened it because you know, he succeeded Mr. Robarts.

John Michael McGrath: But it was John Roberts who made the decision to make this happen.

Steve Paikin: Now, the arguments that you've just summed up, Yes. have been advanced twice already at previous courts and I mean rejected twice by previous courts. It it did not go well for the Ontario Place protectors. As I say, at both the trial and appeal courts, those arguments were pretty thoroughly rejected. The court said that while it's possible to imagine a situation in which a government so limited the court's jurisdiction that that that would in fact breach the constitution. They did not think that is the case here. From the point of view of the courts, this is a pretty straightforward case of the legislature making policy within its own jurisdiction. Ontario owns the land. It makes local and municipal policy. These are all really clearly spelled out in the constitution as as the province's powers. So this is just entirely within the normal jurisdiction of the province. And they also said on the the public trust issue, there's really no precedent to apply a public trust framework to Canadian governments and they did not think this was the right time to start.

John Michael McGrath: Well, at the risk of asking a dumb question, if it's so cut and dried, why is the Supreme Court agreeing to hear this case again?

Steve Paikin: Oh, well, I wrote about this for TVO this uh, yes, this week. And I will just remind everyone listening that I have already been wrong once about this case. So, take the following for what it's worth. But sometimes the Supreme Court does agree to hear a case not because there is like a strong consensus among the justices that the lower courts goofed and need to be reversed. But because some of the justices see an important public issue where the court can update its guidance or clarify some precedent. Right. And this key issue in the Ontario Place case is important on its own, right? Like how how much can governments limit the jurisdiction of courts? That's already, I would say, an important question and it's going to get more important as we go forward with laws like Bill Five in Ontario and to a lesser extent bill C5 federally, which are these laws designed to streamline major sort of resource and industrial projects. You know the Ontario government's Bill Five that created these special economic zones that we referred to on the podcast before that are designed to you know accelerate mining projects for example the government used almost verbatim the exact same language in that special economic zones bill that it used in the Ontario place bill. So the court may just be looking to clarify this question of you know how much can you circumscribe the power of provincial courts before you breach the constitution. Once again very clearly I do not know the future. But I think that's a bit more of a realistic outcome. I I don't expect that the Supreme Court is going to step in to save Ontario Place at the last minute.

John Michael McGrath: You want to put a friendly wager on that?

Steve Paikin: I do not. I I've already been wrong and I don't want to lose money.

John Michael McGrath: In which case, off to issue two.

John Michael McGrath: One of the most persistent problems for the Ontario government has been health care and in particular the shortage of family doctors in the province. Late last year, the Auditor General reported that 2 million Ontarians did not have access to a primary care provider. For its part, the government says, "Hold the fort. There is some good news here to start the year." What's the government referring to here?

Steve Paikin: This is one of those cases where the words relative good news really need to emphasize the word relative. Earlier this week, Health Minister Sylvia Jones touted the government's record in expanding access to primary care and said the government is on track to connect everyone who needs one with a family doctor by 2029.

John Michael McGrath: Jones made the announcement with Dr. Jane Philpot, who our audience will remember was recruited by the government to lead this file,

Steve Paikin: former federal liberal, actually health minister.

John Michael McGrath: Yes. So 2029 is a way off but it is still within the likely lifespan of the current legislature. So it's not that distant. And there is some more immediate milestones the government says they have passed or very nearly have. They say they are on track to exceed their target of attaching 300,000 Ontarians to primary care for the 2025-26 fiscal year. Now those targets start to get harder for the government in future years. They've got to connect 500,000 people with doctors in the coming fiscal year and then 600,000 each in 2027 and 2028. So fair to say that is a big list and obviously we can't say whether they will in fact clear that bar.

Steve Paikin: So as we track whether or not the government is fulfilling its commitment. Can we say that the number of people who now have doctors is a higher number or a lower number?

John Michael McGrath: Oh we're that simple. So that 2 million number that we have referred to both today and on previous podcasts comes from a collective of researchers called inspire PHC. The auditor general in fact used their estimate in her annual report last year. But it's one of those cases where the best estimate we have is also just an estimate. If you go to their website, they've actually said they are updating their methodology and I'm going to just read the quote directly here. "We anticipate that the number of unattached is likely to be lower than previously reported."

Steve Paikin: Likely to be lower than previously reported.

John Michael McGrath: So it's it it is likely to be smaller than that 2 million number.

Steve Paikin: So that's good.

John Michael McGrath: Right. So that you know the number of people without a primary care provider in Ontario is very likely smaller than what we've been discussing.

Steve Paikin: So that's encouraging.

John Michael McGrath: Yeah, it is. And you know if if people remember like the auditor general report was was pretty clear that with the number of unattached people in the province I think it's fair to say the auditor general did not think that we were on track to connect as many people with healthcare providers as the government had claimed.

Steve Paikin: What else about the AG?

John Michael McGrath: So I think this is a useful point for the audience to keep in mind just when you're reading the news in general. Folks might remember that in her report, Auditor General Shelley Spence had very specific things to say about something called Healthcare Connect. This was the system that Ontario built to match people, who needed doctors with doctors who were looking to take on new patients. Spence reported that doctors who work in the system said that it was terrible and, in their words, not fit for purpose. That they recommended that Ontario should more or less blow it up and start from scratch. It was so bad. Well, here's the funny thing. Of the nearly quarter million people who were on the Healthcare Connect weight list at the beginning of 2025, just over 50,000 were still on that weight list as of January 2026. And the government says it hopes to clear the weight list by spring of this year. Now, just to be clear, that's a small fraction of the overall number of people who still need doctors in Ontario. But that's a substantial success, one that I think the government can justifiably claim some credit for. But yeah, they they have substantially resolved one of the most headline grabbing issues that the auditor general spotlighted.

Steve Paikin: Is it the government's view that the auditor general was simply wrong about this?

John Michael McGrath: Well, they would never say so, of course, at least thought on the record. You know, but it does sound like that, right? and and and you could get that impression. It turned out that there were a number of relatively straightforward changes including changes that the auditor general had recommended and that the Ministry of Health accepted as recommendations to make healthcare connect work better. It did not need to be totally blown up and rebuilt from scratch. And and again remember that it was not the auditor general saying tear it all down. It was the auditor general saying doctors in the system were saying tear it all down. Her actual recommendations were much more measured. What I would say though, you know, I think this is both an example to sort of the general public, to our audience, and also to reporters that, you know, we love the Auditor General's annual reports. They are kind of like Christmas for us. They they always provide.

Steve Paikin: cha block full of malfeasants.

John Michael McGrath: Absolutely right. Juicy headlines galore. And it's it's important to read those reports. And you know the the headlines are a good hook into what are often really substantive criticisms and substantive evaluations of things where like the government is not getting things right. But it is also the case that sometimes the the substance of the reports is more measured than what makes the headlines.

Steve Paikin: This reminds me of our friend Martin Redcon from the Toronto Star who writes a column probably once a year where he asks who's minding the minders, right? as in the auditor general is keeping an eye on everybody else, but who's keeping an eye on the auditor general? Anyway, I look forward to reading that column by Martin at some point this year when he writes it again. And with that, we're off to issue three.

John Michael McGrath: Ontario's public servants have been ordered back into the office 5 days a week. Doug Ford said the move will help increase productivity. Union leaders have said it will hurt productivity. Workers have complained about the lack of office space available. Doug Ford says that's just a bump in the road and that space is coming. I guess hybrid work is a thing of the past now. Eh,

Steve Paikin: Uh so it would seem uh just to refresh people's memories. I mean this is you know the long shadow of the co pandemic right during co 19 Ontario's public servants were ordered to work from home wherever possible. We are of course some of those workers. I remember gosh, you know, 6 years ago or not quite 6 years ago now being told like basically pack up your stuff, go home and we're going to start working from home. You and I in a earlier incarnation of this podcast recorded from our respective homes for many months.

John Michael McGrath: Actually, you recorded, if I recall, not from your respective home, but from your respective broom closet.

Steve Paikin: Yeah, my linen closet on on the second floor of my house. And we we kept doing that right into the summer and it got very hot and uncomfortable. Um but you know obviously the government has slowly started to bring workers back into the office but um you know until relatively recently it was still at least nominally committed to what it called like the flexibility of of hybrid work. It advertised that it was a a progressive employer if I could put it that way. Um and that it saw some value in in that flexibility. Um and then yeah this uh uh I guess just this past August they announced that uh they will uh it started with 4 days a week it has now gone to 5 days a week. Uh you know the government says of course this will um improve productivity and you know there is some evidence to suggest that uh bringing everybody into uh the office can uh improve workplace productivity. OPSU, one of the major unions representing public service employees says that, you know, commuting is not in fact productive time. Uh it's particularly unproductive in a city that is already choked by traffic congestion. I would mention uh it's bad for the environment, that kind of thing. So obviously very different perspectives on this.

John Michael McGrath: At the risk of doing a little naval gazing here, I can tell you that when we had our editorial meetings on Zoom, Yes. as opposed to at the desk where everybody gathers around the desk and really kind of goes at it hammer and tongue. If you pitch a story idea, you better be prepared to defend that idea or you're going to have a bunch of other producers, you know, coming at you.

Steve Paikin: The dynamic of everybody being there in person, I thought was important and was useful and Zoom just wasn't the same.

John Michael McGrath: Yes. On the other hand, I will confess there are a few moments during the course of a day in an office where people drop by other people's offices and aren't necessarily the most productive possible. Is that nice a nice enough way to put it? They may be doing, you know, five minutes of chitchat gossip here, which is not what you'd call incredibly productive. So, I do see both sides of this.

Steve Paikin: Yeah, I I I am I like working in a newsroom, right? I like when the newsroom is busy and and we have lots of co-workers and and you know you can um uh going to use a short hand for this that would not be appropriate but uh you can uh uh discuss various matters of of uh importance even if it's not directly uh you know what you're working on at the moment and and it's also like it is helpful for uh everybody on the team. I mean, it probably will not shock you that, you know, a lot of people will come by my desk to ask, you know, to to just check a quick thing about Ontario politics or Ontario government or, hey, you know, stuff about municipal policy. Can I ask you a quick thing? Right. I get a lot of those types of questions when I'm at the desk.

John Michael McGrath: Or, how about this person is a guest, Steve, what do you think of this? Yeah, we get that all the time.

Steve Paikin: Yeah. And so, I absolutely I think there's there's value to that. But um you know I already mentioned like you know the the the policy change really started in in August and and I do um want to to mention this again that you know you might remember during co um I I remember there was a a push for large employers to give as much not notice as possible to their workers uh before September.

John Michael McGrath: because if they were going to be called back to the office, people wanted to make sure that they could organize their lives around getting their kids to school.

Steve Paikin: Absolutely.

John Michael McGrath: The government announced this change starting in August. You know, people had weeks to start getting, you know, making pretty substantial changes to their their planning for their households. Now, obviously, it's been a few months since then. January, you know, is is is a bit different. Um but certainly one of the allegations from the unions is that this is less about government productivity in the public sector and has actually been implemented in a way to be as ownorous as possible for workers and to try and shrink the government's payrolls without actually doing a a full-scale layoff.

Steve Paikin: Well, here's part of the other tricky aspect of this, and that is if you go downtown to Bayon Welssley in downtown Toronto, you will see fencing all around a complex where Ontario public servants have worked for whatever it is, 50, 60 years because it's under renovation right now.

John Michael McGrath: Yes.

Steve Paikin: So, okay, you're calling everybody back to work 5 days a week. Where exactly do you intend to put them all because there is a space shortage right now?

John Michael McGrath: Yeah, absolutely. Now, of course, the government says that you know, they they have acquired more space where they've needed to. It'll be interesting. I certainly I intend to ask it, you know, in the spring budget like what what what has been the cost to the public treasury of you know, acquiring this new office space.

Steve Paikin: I'm betting it's more than a $1.95.

John Michael McGrath: I'm

Steve Paikin: that's what I'm betting plus HST.

John Michael McGrath: Yes, I suspect that's correct. One more thing we have to hit on this and that is.

Steve Paikin: optics.

John Michael McGrath: Yes.

Steve Paikin: Now I know there's reality in real life but then then in politics there's optics and optics matter almost as much as reality sometimes more. You've got MPPPs returning to Queens Park on March 23rd.

John Michael McGrath: Normally MPPPs are back in their head office right after family day which is you know about a month from now. There have been I won't saying this is unprecedented. is not unprecedented, but there have been precious few governments in Ontario history that are sitting fewer days at the legislature than this one. They are taking a very long winter break away from the legislature, which coincidentally means ministers are not having to stand up in question period and defend what they're doing. Now, we know I'm not taking a cheap shot here. They're not on holiday, right? It's not a four-month holiday break or something. They are back in their constituencies. They are working. They're doing constituency work. Having said that, talk to us about the optics of forcing public servants back into the office while the MPPPs are taking one of the longest breaks away from the office ever. Right. So, as you say, the optics are not great and we've already talked about the weather and just as we are recording this, I'm already seeing reports that um it has not been made clear to members of the public service whether they have to come into the office today or not. Um, clearly they have not worked everything out. Let me just put it that way. It would be a different story if we had not just had a extended summer recess immediately before this, right? Like they had a very short fall session. They're now gearing up to have a pretty short spring session. And you know, things continue to happen that just from a a principle of like democratic accountability, you would think like it would be really good to have the Minister of Labor, for example, continuing to answer questions in question period about the skills development fund scandal, which continues to develop. Let me put it that way. Um

Steve Paikin: I'm betting he doesn't mind that Queens Park isn't sitting right now.

John Michael McGrath: Well, I'm I'm sure he does not mind. Um uh and yet you know the the the principle is that actually you know the government should have to suffer some things here. Um so yeah I would just say that uh uh as you say it's not that like everybody is in St. Bart's you know on the beach sipping you know my ties all okay uh for the entire break although I imagine some of them are have gotten away to warmer climates while they can. Um but there is just this this basic question of you know at the end of the day we do elect MPPPs to the assembly and I think there should be a presumption that the assembly should be sitting to do important work. I will point out that like the federal parliament is taking a much shorter I think their break might already be over or might almost be over soon. Um, you know, it is certainly possible for elected officials to get uh to to do their work in the the public assemblies to which they are elected.

Steve Paikin: Indeed. And with that, we're off to your column, my column.

Steve Paikin: Okay, folks. You know how this goes. John Michael and I write a column every week for the TVO website, tvo.org. And we call this little segment your column, my column, in which we discuss those columns with each other. JMM, what will you favor us with this week?

John Michael McGrath: So, I am actually going to take a column that I wrote last week about the Ontario Liberal Party. But I'm going to start by talking about politics in Quebec where actually things have evolved since I first wrote this column. Currently the governing party Fran Go's party the coales de Quebec Premier Lego has announced his resignation. His party will be looking for a new leader. And the Quebec Liberal Party this is what prompted this column. Their leader has also resigned and they are going to have a leadership race in that will select a leader might actually end up happening before we even know when the Ontario Liberal race starts. Um

Steve Paikin: in other words, quickly.

John Michael McGrath: It's they are doing it very quickly. Now the reason that it's happening very quickly in Quebec is is very different than the Ontario context. Quebec is going to have an election later this year and so there's obviously more time pressure and I I don't want to ignore that or deny that but it is still the case that when I wrote that column Kroby had announced her intention to resign months ago and we had no sign from the Liberal Party formally about when the leadership race to replace her would start. Now, off the record in the background, people are saying, "Oh, well, you know, we're doing lots of consultations and you know, we want to hear from the membership about what kind of a race they want." But I mean, in any given week when I'm talking to Liberals, like nobody seems to have any clarity about even a basic question about like will this be a short race or will this be a long race? And that's like one of the most basic questions that the party needs to answer. Now, since we published that column, of course, we got some more news that Bonnie Krombi, who had said that she intended to stay on until her replacement was selected by the party, in fact earlier this week, she announced that she is resigning effective immediately. I believe next week the Liberal caucus will select an interim leader. It has been John Fraser two or three times, twice before. Um and he he I think has been serving the role of of the parliamentary leader and and I I think has functionally been doing most of the roles of of the party leader since Cromby's um defeat in that that vote. Uh

Steve Paikin: just on that point, can I interject one quick thing? One of the ideas I'm hearing out there, which I think is kind of neat, I've never seen it happen before, is that rather than do one interim leader between now and whenever the permanent leader is selected,

John Michael McGrath: they should do

Steve Paikin: they should give everybody a spin on the bike. They should let every MPP in the caucus, and there's only 14 of them or so, let each of them have a couple of months at the job.

John Michael McGrath: and um gives them a little bit of ice time. Shows the liberal backbench a little bit more. Remember, they're in third place in the legislature. They don't get as much ice time as everybody else. Yeah.

Steve Paikin: So, um, and anyway, I don't know if they're going to do that, but that idea is percolating out there.

John Michael McGrath: Yeah. No, and you know, it's complicated by the fact that, you know, at least, uh, some members of the caucus, uh, pretty clearly do not want the permanent leader job. Like Fraser has always said that he's not interested in being a permanent leader. Uh, Kingston in the islands MP Ted Shu has has uh, publicly said he he will not uh, seek the leadership. Others are still uh, considering it. Um and uh you know some of them frankly deserve uh that kind of prominence but all of this is still you know a question of like when will the race actually happen and as we record this we still don't know what the length of the race will be what the structure will be there's some discussion about whether they allow online voting or not. Um, and then of course, you know, aside from the caucus, uh, there are potential, uh, federal, uh, MPs, federal liberal MPs who might be interested, uh, in the job as well. Uh, most notably, uh, Beaches East York MP NK Smith, who is sort of always there in the background, uh, uh, being mentioned as a a possible candidate and I said, he's interested in the job.

Steve Paikin: He's, I think, putting an organization together as we speak.

John Michael McGrath: Yes. Anyway, and he came second last time, so it's logical that all eyes will turn on him as a potential replacement for Bonnie.

Steve Paikin: And how about you?

John Michael McGrath: Well, as long as we're talking about liberal leaders, I want to talk about a former liberal leader. And this guy actually was liberal leader four times, if you can imagine, over the years. I'll get to that in a second. 64 years ago, this coming weekend, one of the most important political figures in Ontario history won his first ever election. And I'm going to set this up now. Let's go back way back from 1919 until 1961. The riding of Brandt, you know, half hour west of Hamilton was represented by one guy, Harry Nixon, who was actually premier in 1943 for a little while. Harry Nixon is the longest serving MPP in Ontario history. He was the MPP there for 42 straight years. And in 1961 he was driving home and not far from his home he had a heart attack on the road and you know went into the ditch and died at the age of 70. Obviously a personal tragedy for the Nixon family but a you know a political problem for the Liberal party which now had an open seat and they needed a candidate for the upcoming bi-election. Mr. Nixon's 33-year-old son Robert ran to replace him as the Liberal MPP. Robert Nixon is still around at age 97 and he is still a force of nature. Sheldon, you want to put the picture up? I went to visit him last month. There he is. He's living in a senior's residence in Paris, Ontario. I do like to visit Mr. Nixon a couple of times a year because he's still so bloody sharp and has so many great stories from the Hustings from back in the day. He actually won the leadership and poor guy is as he describes it. I was right off the turnup truck in 1967 having won the leadership and then had to face John Roberts in an election shortly thereafter and of course he got taken to the woodshed by Mr. Roberts but he stayed on his leader and ran again in 71 against Bill Davis. Mr. Davis defeated him. He stepped down but then his party said Bob actually we want you back. So he ran again for the leadership to replace himself and won and was liberal leader in 75. So keep track now. That's twice he's been liberal leader now. And then when Stuart Smith lost the election in 77, he jumped into the frey and became interim leader again.

John Michael McGrath: Um and then in what year? 1990 when David Peterson lost the election. He was still an MPP at that point. I think he'd been an MPP for about 28 years at that point. And he jumped into the breach again and became interim leader again until they could replace David Peterson a couple of years later. So, um, he's been the leader of the Ontario Liberals four times.

John Michael McGrath: in this bi-election in 1962 coming up 64 years ago this weekend on the very first door that he knocked on as he's campaigning in the bi-election a dog leaps at him bites him on the leg he jumps back his pants rip right up to the kester.

John Michael McGrath: and that was the first and things fortunately for him got a little bit better after that and he did end up winning the bi-election and stayed from 1962 until 1991. And of course, I think is best known for having been David Peterson's treasurer from 1985 to 1990. Um, father and son together represented Brandt and Environs from 1919 to 1991. Wow.

Steve Paikin: And I am willing to bet that that's a father-son or parent child combination of service that will never be broken. So anyway, Robert Nixon, happy anniversary this weekend. Before we go to the mailbag, we have a little bit of news about if I can call it the extended onpie family. We talk about our columns every week. The person who edits those columns is Nat Basin who is actually on pat leave. Because in the last days of December, little Edy Shas was born. My understanding is that mom and baby are doing well. So congratulations to Nat and Colby on their beautiful baby girl.

John Michael McGrath: Well done. And just so you know, you know, when we talk about these columns here on this program, these columns don't become these columns until Nat says they're these columns. He's the guy we have to pitch. He's the guy who either green lights or red lights, and he's the guy who edits. So, we love Nat because u I think 95% of the time he says yes, which I appreciate.

Steve Paikin: Yes. And thank you to Sarah Sweet who has stepped in to edit while Nat is on Pat.

John Michael McGrath: Amen. Now, if you've got a burning question or insightful comment, we always love hearing from you at this special email address onpolitics@tvo.org. JMM, what's up this week?

Steve Paikin: So, this is a new one for us. Someone has sent us a video question for the mailbag. This comes to us via listener Teddy Charles in Northgore, Ontario. Let's take a look.

John Michael McGrath: Okay.

Teddy Charles (AI): My name is Omnibus Triion. I seek counsel from you, Steve Pikin, chronicler of the greatest education minister in the history of the galaxy, William Brendan Dates, and from you, John Michael McGrath, expert in policy and legislation and wearer of snazzy shirts on a subject that will transform education. In Ontario school boards, it is the supervisory officers, not trustees, that hold much of the actual power. In the Education Act, it states that to become a supervisory officer, one requires a graduate degree, but no experience running a school is necessary. Many of the greatest principles do not have time to take a masters. They are too busy keeping their schools staffed, running breakfast programs, and ensuring their students are safe. I propose the regulation be changed to reflect this. Is this something the honorable minister of education can change by himself or does it require a vote in the legislature? Thank you. Till all can stand.

John Michael McGrath: Oh my goodness, Teddy, you are brilliant. That is an absolutely brilliant piece of work. And I guess I should say for those who are listening on podcast as opposed to watching it on television or on YouTube, what you just heard was some brilliance by Teddy Omnibus Trion, that transformer that was generated by artificial intelligence. And you know, you can see that well, you can't see, but if I'll describe it for you, there's a design on his head that's shaped like a trillium. Omnibus, like omnibus bills, right? There's the name. And the word on the bus that drove off at the end when he transformed himself from a robot into a school bus, a blue bus, a big blue machine on the side, referring to, of course, the 42 consecutive years that the conservatives were in power from 1943 when Harry Nixon lost the election. Uh, all the way through to George Drew and then 1985, Frank Miller being the last. Anyway, he asks a really good question there. Uh, brilliant piece of work, just brilliant. Anyway, what is the answer to Omnibus's question?

Steve Paikin: Right. So the question is about the supervisory officers in school boards and and the the structure of a school board if you've never thought of it before, right? Like the the trustees are not the trustees we elect to to oversee school boards are not day-to-day managers of the schoolboard system, right? Um so the supervisory officers are the people who hold those positions basically inside the bureaucracy of the school board itself but who are not in the schools, right? They are not the principles, the teachers, um those people. they they are the people in the bureaucracy of the schoolboard making decisions that might get implemented at the school level. And so and the the government or the Ontario Education Act does spell out that you have to have certain qualifications to be a director of education who sort of like the chief supervisory officer or other positions as well. Um to Teddy's direct question, right, this is a pretty straightforward regulation, at least in the the current version of the Education Act, it gives the Minister of Education the power to write regulations for the qualifications of both supervisory officers and the directors of education themselves. And the the text is pretty open-ended, right? the minister doesn't have a a ton of caveats or or or things spelled out in the law itself about what they need to include as qualifications for a supervisory officer. So in principle, yes, the minister of education could change the regulation on his own with you know cabinet would recommend the the change in regulation to the left governor who would of course sign it. Have to be constitutionally correct here. Um now that said amending the rules around like job qualifications and who can hold which positions and roles in the education system is actually like fishly sensitive and is very politically difficult and I I'm not going to get into you know examples of that but I will simply say that there's there's the sort of legislative fact that like yes the minister could change this regulation himself and would not require a a vote. and you know or three votes in the legislature to pass a bill. Um and then there's the political fact that it would it would be more difficult than just the straightforward laws.

John Michael McGrath: I'm going to recommend that if you are listening to this podcast right now as opposed to watching it, just go on the YouTube and FF to the end and see Teddy's masterwork because that's really a beautiful piece of work he did to see how he posed that question. So I guess we should encourage people to give us their questions not just on the email address but by video as well. Yeah.

Steve Paikin: Well, let's let's start a trend. I mean, it doesn't have to be generated by AI. I think DVO has an AI policy that we we might have to brush up on, but if you want to send us video questions, I'm certainly open to it.

John Michael McGrath: Good. And if you want to do it the oldfashioned way, what's the email address?

Steve Paikin: Right. If you'd like to ask about content on the show, please email us at onpolitics at tvo.org.

John Michael McGrath: Beautiful. And that is the OnP podcast for this Friday, January 16th, 2026. You can follow our show anywhere you get your podcasts so that you get notified each time a new episode is available. And you can see the video version of this podcast on the TV Today YouTube channel.

Steve Paikin: Any feedback you have, we're happy to hear it, good, bad, or indifferent. Write us an email at onpolitics at tvo.org. Please include your first and last name and where you're from.

John Michael McGrath: This week's episode was produced by Matthew Omera, video editing by Colin Kish.

Steve Paikin: Production support from Jonathan Hallowell and TVO's digital media services team.

John Michael McGrath: Lorie F is the executive producer of digital. John Ferry as vice president programming and content.

Steve Paikin: We always like to thank the crew for making this space all gussied up and available for us. And I think this might be our last podcast episode here on the fifth floor in our temporary space. I think we're going into the big studio next week.

John Michael McGrath: Yes, the the big studio's been under renovation. And I I believe it's you know, knock on wood, ready to to receive its first occupants.

Steve Paikin: Excellent. We look forward to that. Now, just one more note before we go. Our first town hall show, TVO Today Live, for 2026, is coming up on January 24th, and it's a very timely one. Amid a shifting international order, Ottawa has earmarked billions to rearm and rebuild the Canadian Armed Forces. So, we will ask, what kind of fighting force does Canada need right now and for the rest of the 21st century? You can get free tickets at tvo.org/tvodaylive. So join us in hangar A of the Bombardier Center for Aerospace and Aviation at Centennial Colle's dedicated aerospace campus. That's January 24th, 2 p.m. in the afternoon for that. And until next Friday, everybody, bye-bye.

John Michael McGrath: Byebye.