Steve: Welcome everyone to the OnPy podcast.

John Michael McGrath: and I'm John [music] Michael McGrath.

Steve: Today on the pod, well, last week we gave the Minister of Finance his say about this year's Ontario budget. This [music] week we give his opposition critics the microphone to get their take.

John Michael McGrath: It's not every day that the prime minister, the premier, and the mayor of Ontario's capital city all share a podium and announce something big. So, we're going to look at the new tripartite [music] housing announcement.

Steve: On your column, my column, I'm paying attention to a guy who got the square in front of Toronto City Hall named after him. And yet, no one knows who he is, knowing about Nathan Phillips, that is 50 years after his death.

John Michael McGrath: And I'm going to talk just a little bit more about that big housing announcement, but just a little, I promise.

Steve: You promise?

John Michael McGrath: Promise?

Steve: You promises? Okay. It's Friday, April 3rd, 2026. So, let's get to it. [music]

Steve: JMM, a little spaceelike sugar today because you are wearing a NASA shirt.

John Michael McGrath: Yes. The emblem of the what is it? National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Steve: Very good. Yes, indeed.

John Michael McGrath: Um because uh sorry, we're going to fess up. We're recording this a little bit earlier in the week than we normally would like to. So, we don't know at as we record this whether uh Artemis 2 has successfully lifted off to uh go and orbit the moon. Uh but I am a big space geek as the many flavors of nerd that I am. [laughter] Uh and so I'm I'm very excited uh for this launch. And there is an Ontario angle because of course one of the astronauts on this uh space mission is sorry Jeremy Hansen I believe uh from southwestern Ontario. So uh it still ticks an Ontario box. I'm going to say that that's my justification.

Steve: And it's an amazing thing that despite the relationship between Canada and the United States right now, Trump didn't kick him off the ship.

John Michael McGrath: I would [laughter] take the opportunity to remind our American neighbors and cousins and family that uh when America does great things, they often have Canadians along for the ride.

Steve: Amen. You're here to that. Well, I I kind of liked when I came out here and I sat down at the desk and you looked at my shirt and I could tell there was a look on your face like, [laughter] "Who in the houble hockey sticks is that?"

John Michael McGrath: Yes. because you've never heard of Gordon Conet.

Steve: Yeah, I I think I I have most of the early premers uh memorized, but this was one where clearly I have not been studying enough.

Steve: Well, this is so long ago that even I wasn't born when Con was premier. So, neither one of us was born. I want to do a little setup here because there's no reason why anybody should have heard of Gordon Con, which is why I wanted to wear his shirt today because you need to know about some of these old guys. He was the premier. I'm going to stand up and show everybody who he was. Okay. He was the premier for only 200 days in 1942 and 43. And here are the circumstances. You've heard of Mitch Heper. Yes.

John Michael McGrath: So Mitch Heper, they sometimes called him the boy premier because he got elected when he was only 37 years old for the first time as premier. This is back in 1934. And then he won re-election in 1937. But it was a tense time. It was a difficult time. And at a certain point, I think Mitch Hepern was channeling his inner Johnny paycheck because he eventually just walked down the hall at Queens Park to his attorney general, Gordon Conand's office and basically said, "Take this job and shove it. I ain't working here no more." And he resigned as premier. Mitch Heeper did that. And he basically said, "Okay, you're going to be premier from now on." And that's what happened. Power was transferred to Gordon Conand. He became the premier in 1942. stayed for 200 days and at a certain point he thought, you know, the party really does need a leadership convention and we really do need to kind of make this official. So, we're going to have a leadership convention, we liberals, and I'm going to run for the job.

Steve: But before he had a chance to run in the leadership, he had a heart attack.

John Michael McGrath: Wow.

John Michael McGrath: So, he had to drop out. And Bob Nixon's father, Harry Nixon, ran for and won the Liberal leadership. This would be in 1943. And he became premier. And then seeing as we hadn't had an election for six years in Ontario, he decided to call one. We had an election. A guy named George Drew won that election in 1943 and that started a 42-year long conservative dynasty. Now, strangely enough, after Drew won that election, the liberals after Harry Nixon lost the election, he stepped down as premier. He stepped down as liberal leader and they had another leadership convention. That convention happened 81 years ago yesterday. Do you have any idea who won that convention for the liberals?

Steve: 81 years ago. Uh was it he again?

John Michael McGrath: It was Heepern again. HOW DID YOU KNOW THAT? Very [laughter] good.

Steve: I have picked up enough just by osmosis from being around you.

John Michael McGrath: Oh, [laughter] you know what? I'm deeply impressed with that because I thought for sure no, you know, no one's going to guess that Heeper came back. Yes, Heburn came back. Albeit it was a bit late in the game for Mitch. He ran in the next election. He lost his seat. He retired from politics. That was the end of his political career, but he was the leader on two different occasions for the Ontario Liberals.

Steve: You mentioned uh Bob and Harry Nixon. And I want to take a moment while we're talking about fathers and sons to note um the passing of Steven Lewis, the former Ontario NDP leader. And just days after his son, Avi Lewis, became the leader of the uh federal NDP. Um you know, a bunch of things to say about Steven Lewis. Of course, uh I came too late to journalism to cover him uh as a an active political uh actor, I guess you could say. Um, but uh while I would never dream of defaming Bill Davis in this studio of all things, uh I do think it's worth uh at least arguing or presenting the the the argument that you know a lot of what we remember from the Bill Davis years uh particularly the the 1970s um included the fact that uh really the center of political gravity in Ontario was between uh Bill Davis and Steven Lewis, right? It was the minority legislature and six straight years

John Michael McGrath: and and Bill Davis and Stephen Lewis got along very well and and you know a lot of the productive stuff that we think of as like you know the the the the glory days of of that that era of politics uh really was uh a a um I'm not sure if you would call it a team exactly but uh the two of them working in concert.

Steve: Uh there's no first of all there's no question about that. I mean, they not only liked each other personally, they they kind of disagreed on almost everything politically, but Bill Davis well understood from 1975 to 81 when it was minority government the whole time and Steven Lewis was there for a chunk of that. He understood that he needed new Democrat votes to get stuff passed. And uh we have rent review in this province because Bill Davis decided in 1975 that as much as he didn't want to do it, he did want to win the election.

John Michael McGrath: Yes.

Steve: And he did need NDP votes. And so we have rent review in large measure because of that. Uh I have no doubt that the Spadina Expressway got stopped in the northwest part of Toronto at Egllandon because uh Steven Lewis made himself a pain in the neck. Yeah. He he he lobbied and lobbied and lobbied and Bill Davis eventually stopped it. I I used to work a bunch of different retail bookstores when I was younger and uh one time Avi Lewis came in and bought a book for me and I was working in the cash register and working in that environment in in Toronto, you get used to seeing people of of you know public uh people in public life if I could put it that way and you also get used to the idea that some of them really do not like being recognized. They they want to have a little bit of privacy and I totally understand that. So I very sort of gingerly said to Avi Lewis, you know, hope you don't mind me saying, sir, just I'm a big fan of your father's. And he he just broke out into this huge smile and just, you know, his face just filled up with the clearly like the love for his father and he said, "Who could possibly mind hearing saying that?" And so, yeah, I I um thinking about uh uh Abby Lewis and obviously uh uh you know, he's had his own moment of of political triumph, but I imagine not under the circumstances uh that he was quite hoping for.

John Michael McGrath: There's no question in my mind that Steven Lewis, who had been fighting inoperable abdominal cancer for eight years, hung on just long enough to see his son get the same job that his father, David Lewis, had back in the 1960s. And that is leader of the federal NDP.

Steve: Yeah.

John Michael McGrath: And there's something kind of poetically beautiful about the fact that he got to see that happen.

Steve: Absolutely.

Steve: And with that, let's get off to issue one.

Steve: Last week, we talked to Finance Minister Peter Bethan Falv about the government's quarter of a trillion dollar budget for 2026 27. This week, equal time for the two major opposition parties represented at Queens Park. Jessica Bell is the finance critic for the official opposition NDP. Stephanie Bowman is finance critic for the third place Liberals and we welcome them both to the OnPy podcast. Nice to have you both here.

Jessica Bell: Thanks for much appreciated.

Steve: And I should add if you are one of the quarter million or so Green voters from the last general election, we are not ignoring you. Uh you are going to we are going to have Green Party leader Mike Shriner on the podcast next week. Uh Jessica, I want to start with you. Um I think top of mind for most voters would be the sort of key provincial priorities of health care, education, social services and and these days I think people would talk about affordability measures uh broadly. I'd love to get your assessment on how you think this budget uh addresses those files and maybe we'll just start with affordability.

Jessica Bell: We issued a report card uh immediately after the government uh announced their budget and on all the major indicators the government did not pass the test health care, education, jobs and affordability in particular. We would have liked to have seen measures in the budget that would address the high price of housing especially rent and action to address grocery prices. And the word groceries isn't even in the budget.

Steve: Stephanie, they did do something on housing though. They've offered a nice HST rebate for homes under a million bucks, which admittedly in Toronto doesn't take you all that far, but in other places around the province. That should do something, shouldn't it?

Stephanie Bowman: Look, uh Steve, we were very happy to see that because we actually brought the idea forward a number of months ago that the government should do this. So, uh I'm still waiting for my thank you note, but uh that aside, uh no, we think it's it's a good first step, but again, it's uh it's a bit of too little too late. This government is has got a broken promise around the number of housing starts that they would create. They promised 1.5 million. Now they're not even talking about that because they're so far off the mark. So while this will will help a small number of people, um it's uh it's a it's a half measure.

Steve: Talking about some of the uh spending in the budget here, Finance Minister Beth Falby told us last week that uh their government will not cut spending on healthcare, education, and social services. Uh, of course critics uh have said that they are in effect uh cutting services. In absolute terms, the government is spending more and dollars uh on health and education and social services. Certainly by 2029 their projection is uh those increases will be about uh 9% 2.5% and 0.9% uh respectively. Um obviously that last one maybe not a huge increase. Uh are these increases in spending enough?

Jessica Bell: When you look at how much the government is spending on health care and education in particular, it's a cut because this government hasn't factored in the impact of inflation and they haven't factored in the impact of population growth. So the issues we're seeing in healthcare today, the number of people that are being uh treated in hallways, um the difficulty many people have in finding a family doctor, those issues are going to continue in 2027. And the same can be said for schools. We will continue to have overcrowded schools. We will continue to have teacher shortages and what we are seeing when it comes to special education is quite honestly immoral. Uh there is literally not enough funding available to special education and this budget is it's just going to continue those problems.

Steve: The thing we haven't mentioned in education is the postsecondary sector where the government spending will actually decline outright from about $14 billion to a bit under 13 billion. We mentioned this on the podcast last week that some of that is due to declining enrollment and changes in the uh immigration policy federally, but uh there is at least one key key area of of provincial policy where it is just undeniably outright a cut in spending.

John Michael McGrath: That is a reduction. Yeah. You want to take a kick at that question too?

Stephanie Bowman: Sure. Look, um we we have talked about this government uh because they are one that I've been saying never has a government spent so much to deliver so little. Um so they are actually while they are increasing uh those programs in real in sorry in nominal dollars um in real dollars it's not keeping up. The FAO talked about the gap in funding for health care uh that will that's already in place given demographics. Just just do the math right as people age of course they need more healthare. So um the government is is got misplaced priorities there. They've wasted according to our count at least about 17 billion dollars. Uh, and that includes things like handing out $200 checks to people prior to an election with borrowed money. That's that that that co that that money will actually cost us more than we got in our pockets because of the interest on it.

Steve: Oh, they borrow 7 billion a year to pay my hydro bill. That's right. Not all on me, but you know. [laughter]

John Michael McGrath: Yeah.

Steve: All of us here actually. Okay. Well, all right. Let's do one thing here. We get really specific here. Tell me, Jessica, one thing in this budget that they chose to spend money on or they made a decision about that you thought was wrong and then tell us what you would have done instead.

Jessica Bell: Well, I've noticed with uh every budget the government has done, they like to spend a lot of money on Doug Ford's pet projects. We see investments in studying putting a tunnel under the 401. Uh we see a real enthusiasm in uh changing the waterfront with their mega spa and now we hear talk about Doug Ford wanting to create a Ford Fantasy Island for his new convention center. I think we should be spending that on the basics. Let's get more teachers and educational assistants into the classroom. Let's get more nurse practitioners and family doctors providing primary care. That they are the two big things that the provincial government is responsible for. Let's invest there. Stephanie.

Stephanie Bowman: Yeah. Look, um, this budget really is a it's just a plan that pretends to protect Ontario. So, while they talk about expanding Billy Bishop Airport, you know, again, interfering in municipal politics once again, um, we've got no new affordability measures, right? Uh, people are struggling to pay their rent and pay their groceries. And yet, the Ford government uh, promised to deliver a middle- inome tax cut. They made that promise in 2018. They still haven't come good on that promise. So, a middle- inome tax cut would have put close to $1,000 along with a cut to uh HST on home heating, about $1,000 back in the pockets of the of families in Ontario who could really use that money right now as again they they struggle to uh to make the rent and and and uh put groceries on the table.

Steve: Hard to criticize these guys on tax cuts though, right? They pride themselves on never having raised the tax. They cut the license plate tax. They've for people who take public transit, they've made sure you get free fairs if you,

John Michael McGrath: you know, if you take take your trip within an hour or [clears throat] two of the the last trip and the integrated fairs and all that. I mean, they've done a lot on that, haven't they?

Stephanie Bowman: They have certainly cut a lot of fees that again, nobody was uh to be honest really complaining about no one no one I never had a constituent complain to me about the fact that they had to pay for their driver's license, you know. So again, the cut the government has cut fees which of course cut uh sorry fund programs. Um, when we talk about tax cuts, those are things that are actually affecting your paycheck every single week or bi-weekly as you get paid. And a middle- inome tax cut would have actually would have actually uh helped every every family in this province. So, um, you know, small business tax cut, they did that to a measure. Again, that's something that we called for. We tabled a bill on that twice. They defeated it. They've again done a what we're calling a half measure. Uh, instead of cutting it by 50%, they're cutting it by 30. Um, so that will help small businesses, but there is a lot that they could a lot more that they could be doing if they weren't spending spending money on the wrong things.

Steve: After the next election, one of you might be finance minister and a future government is going to have very different priorities than the current one. We've talked about some of the tax cuts that uh this government has implemented. Do you think that the next Ontario government uh whichever party might form it uh is going to have to raise taxes if they want to do different things with uh in public policy?

Stephanie Bowman: Well, look um you know, one of the things that this government has failed to do is grow the economy. Uh again, this finance minister has talked a lot about that, but in this budget, everything that's going uh that should be going up is going down. So, GDP growth going down, number of jobs created going down, number of housing starts going down. So what the government should actually be focusing on uh as opposed to raising or a new a next new government should be focused on how do we actually fix the wrongs of this government around their approach to economic growth because they have dismally failed. GDP growth in this province is one of the the lowest in the country. Ontario used to be a a leader. We are now a lagard. So I think focusing on economic growth that brings in tax revenue to pay for the programs that we need.

Steve: And Jessica, do you think that a future NDP government might have to raise taxes? Any responsible government needs to look at spending and needs to look at revenue. That's that's what any responsible government needs to do. Uh what we're finding with a conservative government is they have no plan to balance the budget and they have no plan to address the deficit and they are required legally to do that by the uh auditor general and they just haven't they haven't done it. Uh first thing we would do is we would get rid of unnecessary waste. So that means uh getting rid of some of these ridiculous fantasy Ford projects that he's got going on. And the second thing that we would look at is moving away from investing in the for-profit healthcare system. We know that investing in for-profit surgery delivery for instance costs more and doesn't improve health outcomes. So there are some practical things we would do.

John Michael McGrath: I've said some stuff about the 401 tunnel on this podcast before and I will just say I don't think that's going to save you a bunch of money because I don't think it's going to happen. about otherwise. [laughter]

Jessica Bell: Well, he keeps talking about it.

Steve: The the tunnel under the 401. Do either of you think it's going to happen?

Jessica Bell: God willing, he'll be defeated before he starts. [laughter]

John Michael McGrath: I don't think God takes that much of an interest in Ontario politics, truth be told. He's got bigger fish to fry these days. What do you think, Jessica? Is that ever going to happen that time?

Jessica Bell: I hope not. I don't think I think there are many conservative MVPs who shudder when they hear the premier talk about the tunnel under the 401 because some of them know just as well as we do that their constituents are calling about needing a primary care provider. You know, needing uh improvements in education, uh more practical things like that.

Steve: Should I get back on my hobby horse here?

John Michael McGrath: No, I'm not going to stop you.

Steve: Okay, I ask about this every year. Maybe some people are sick of it, but uh you know, the fact of the matter is I just alluded to it a few minutes ago. We do go to the markets every year to borrow seven billion dollars to help subsidize people's electricity usage. And I'd be the first guy to say for those who need the help, I want them to have it. But I get 46 bucks off my hydro bill every month because for some reason the government of Ontario wants to subsidize everybody. Every expert I've talked to thinks this is nuts, but we do it anyway. I'd like to hear some alternatives from you two as to how we might do this differently so we're not borrowing 7 billion a year to subsidize John Michael's hydro bill. [laughter] You're okay. I actually don't mind if you get it. Jessica, what would you suggest?

Jessica Bell: It astonishes me that the Conservatives are subsidizing electricity rates so that Galen Weston gets the same discount as someone who is on social assistance. uh we would bring in means testing so people who really needed that extra help to pay for their electricity bill get that gets that help uh but that we it would not be something that would um someone who was a higher income owner uh would be any would be eligible for anymore and we're the NDP we were very concerned uh when the Liberal government chose to partially privatize electricity uh and we would phase in the return of having our um Hydro 1 uh be under public control again so so that we're no longer uh having to um you know direct some money to to shareholder profit. It would be kept it would it would be kept in Ontario.

Steve: How much would it cost to repatriate all of Hydro 1?

Jessica Bell: Well, we would phase it over um time. So, we would essentially buy a series of shares over time to gradually bring Hydro 1 back under public control. That would be our goal.

Steve: Billions, right? Multiple billions.

Jessica Bell: Uh it would not be it would not be cheap. However, in the long term, uh having uh public control over our electricity grid will save rateayers money.

Steve: Okay, Stephanie, 7 billion a year to the markets to borrow money to subsidize hydro. Would you do things differently?

Stephanie Bowman: Yeah, look, look, absolutely. Um, you know, taxpayers are not getting their money's worth from this government, whether it's on the energy file, um, on again the pep projects that we've talked about, moving the science center down to Ontario Place. So when we look at the things like cancelling the um the wind and solar uh projects, cancelling green energy contracts that were in place that cost a lot of money and so those kinds of wasteful decisions are part of the reason why costs go up. So I think the government needs to be more transparent about what the what the real costs are for for our energy plan and they need to actually look at things uh look at ways to incent uh reduce demand. you know, um they spend a lot of money on ads in this province, over hund00 million dollars, telling us we are being bombarded. Some people might say brainwashed, uh trying to be brainwashed by these ads. How about talking about um you know, energy consumption? How do we reduce energy consumption? So, absolutely, I agree that the people who need the subsidy should get it. We don't we don't need people or we don't have to have people who are um uh low-income families being cold in the winter and and too hot in the summer. We have the resources here in Ontario to provide for them, but we do not need to be providing subsidies to people who are um who don't need it. And so again, that that is absolutely something I would be, if I were finance minister, encouraging the government to look at. Jessica, can I ask you one more thing about the the means testing because I think the NDP in particular um has had a a more critical view of means testing some policies that you know uh there's traditionally been an argument that um uh means testing can often uh cost the government more in time and money than it would be to necessarily just uh provide that service uh generally. And I'm gonna, full disclosure, I'm kind of recruiting you to help answer a question from our mailbag this week. Um, but I do think it's true that uh the the NDP and and maybe progressive uh uh politicians generally um have had that criticism of means testing, not universally, but at least in some cases. So, how do you see the difference between a policy that really should be means tested versus one that should not be? I mean, in this case, because we have such serious affordability issues in Ontario right now, I don't think anybody, any government would be in a situation where they'd want to eliminate a subsidy for low-income people. There is all there is always an administrative component to bringing in a means testing uh approach, a means tested approach, but in in this case, we think it's worth it.

Steve: Can I just finally ask you to a um this is not a finance question, this is a political question, and it goes something like this. When you look, I can't remember who does it. Is it Angus Reed? Who does the surveying of who the most popular premers in the country are? Angus Reed.

John Michael McGrath: Angus Reed. Okay. So, every few months they bring out a new survey which shows who the most popular premers in the country are. You'll be delighted to know W Canoe from Manitoba, New Democrat, is number one in the country right now. And Doug Ford is something like second last. Yes,

Steve: he's only about 30% popularity, which is not great.

John Michael McGrath: And yet his party is over 40%. If you do all of the if an election were held today, who would you vote for? I need somebody to explain this to me. How is it possible that both of your two parties are doing so badly against a guy who's the second least popular premier in the country? [laughter] Jessica, start us off.

Jessica Bell: The last election, uh, I believe was an anomaly. We had a situation where we had President Trump uh elected in the United States and it's safe to say that a lot of Ontarians wanted stability and they wanted things to stay the same. I also know that Doug Ford has a real habit of saying things before an election and doing things very different after an election. He never said he was going to move forward with for-profit healthcare delivery. He never talked about how he was going to open up the green belt so that his friends could make a whole lot of cash. He doesn't talk about that. He didn't talk about how he's now going to make it so it's harder to get access to government records. Uh because, you know, maybe he's got something to hide. I also think it's uh the responsibility of our party, every party, to make the case. We need to go out and speak to Ontarians about why it's important to vote and why the Conservatives are not a party that should be running Ontario anymore. Stephanie.

Stephanie Bowman: Yeah. Look, um, you know, people talk about, uh, Doug Ford being the the kind of guy you want to sit down, have a beer with. He's a he's a likable, friendly guy. He's an ineffective premier. Ontario, as I said, used to be a leader in the country, we are now a lagard when it comes to economic growth. And I think as people begin to see that and feel it even more and begin to realize that it's not just the US, it's not just the federal government. Doug Ford has a role to play in making our lives worse. He has made our lives worth worse in education. He's made our lives worse in worse in health care and he's made our made our lives worth worse in terms of people who are um unemployed

John Michael McGrath: and he's yet first in the polls. His party is first in the polls still.

Stephanie Bowman: So again, I think that as Jessica said, we have an obligation. Um we are going through a leadership review or a leadership race as you know and um I'm confident that the the leader who comes uh uh who wins that race in November will do an even better job of helping us uh gain gain seats and gain votes. We we got 30% of the the vote last time. Um the government called an unnecessary expensive early election to protect themselves. That's who they were protecting. And uh just like this budget that protects the premier's phone records more than it than it protects the people of Ontario. I think the the voters of Ontario know that this uh this government, not just the premier, cannot be trusted and and they will be looking for an alternative in the next election.

Steve: Okay, I've got one more.

John Michael McGrath: Fire away

Steve: real quick. Well, maybe not, but uh [laughter] every time the government has changed partisan hands in my lifetime, uh the new government of the day says, "We've opened up the books and we've discovered, oh my god,

John Michael McGrath: cupboard's it's a mess. the cupboards bear and all of those promises we made before the election. We're going to have to make some tough choices now.

Steve: In a basic brass tax way, do you trust the budget as presented by the government? Do you think it is an honest representation of the finances of the province? Jessica, first [laughter]

Jessica Bell: when I look at the budget, uh the big thing I see is that the minister will say, "Oh, we're on track to balance the budget by, you know, 2027." And then every year it gets pushed further on down the road. And it is I think he's, you know, he's he's playing in a fantasy game. The Conservatives are not the fiscally prudent managers that they pretend themselves to be. And uh I I I [laughter] think he needs to be more honest about what his plan is to address the deficit and address the debt.

Steve: Stephanie,

Stephanie Bowman: uh yes. I mean, look, um we've been asking for information as simple as the $8 million that's being spent on the premier's office, right? The government won't even talk about that. I pestered them uh uh in the finance committee hearings on that uh last year and and certainly will do the same. They won't even talk about that. So absolutely I think there are things that we do not know that are buried in the details. Um but as I said this is a budget that just pretends to protect Ontario. The finance minister has delayed the path to balance now six times. We cannot trust their forecasts and we can't trust them to to meet this current this next path to balance. So um I absolutely think that there will be some cleanup to do. Um but I think that also there are priorities that again they have just been um uh misaligned around Ontarian's needs. So, you know, spending $300 million to give people checks for tutoring when they could have spent that money on adults in the classroom. These are the kind of things that you can redirect dollars to actually make a difference in people's lives. And that's absolutely something that uh that we would do.

Steve: And with that, we want to thank both of you for making the trip up here to Young and Egllandon and answering our questions. Jessica Bell, Stephanie Bowman from the New Democrats and Liberals, respectively. Thanks so much.

Jessica Bell: Thank you, Steve. Thank you, John Michael. Great to be here.

John Michael McGrath: It's not every day of the week that the prime minister, the premier, and the mayor of Ontario's capital city share a podium to announce a significant new development, but that happened this past week in, as Doug Ford calls it, the great state of Atobico as the three leaders unveiled a plan to get more homes built. JMM, what's the gist of this announcement?

Steve: Right. So, the heads of government for Ontario and Canada are announcing a suite of policies that they are calling the Canada Ontario partnership to build. Um there's a bunch of stuff in here. We are not going to be able to cover all of it. But for starters, uh the HST cut for new homes that was mentioned in the budget. Uh the feds have formally come up with their share of that money. Uh so uh there's technically some legislative stuff that needs to happen, but I think functionally we can say that's a done deal. That is going ahead uh without too much of a hitch. Um the bigger item that was announced uh this week was that uh the premier and PM are announcing an $ 8.8 8 billion fund to induce Ontario municipalities to cut development charges.

John Michael McGrath: Well, you know us, we like to get into the weeds on these things. So, why don't you take us into the weeds and tell us how this is going to work?

Steve: Well, sure. I mean, twist my arm. Make me get into the weeds here. Um, so we say that development charges pay for infrastructure that new homes need. But that also can work in reverse, if I could put it that way. You know what Canada and Ontario are unveiling here is a fund that municipalities can apply to that will help pay for the the major infrastructure works on the condition that they lower development charges in that municipality. So if I can just like draw out a fictional example here for you. Let's say York Region wants to build a water treatment plant under the current system. uh they could put some of the costs of that new plant uh on the sale of new homes in the form of development charges and that you know raises the cost of those new homes in exactly the way that the province and federal government say they want to stop right with this new pot of money available this 8.8 8 billion. Uh York Region can instead of uh putting that in development charges, uh they can get that money from uh the province and Canada instead. And if they've already levied those development charges, they can now take those off of uh the the cost of new homes. So uh that in theory should uh help reduce the sale cost of new homes. And just for good measure, uh the province is hoping that this will not be a one-off thing. they are forcing uh municipalities or they saying to be eligible municipalities will need to uh reduce development charges not just for one year but for three years.

John Michael McGrath: I remember an American politician named Everett Dirkson who once said a billion here, a billion there and pretty soon you're talking real money. So this is 8.8 billion. Yes, which is real money. That's a lot of money. But is it enough money to get the job done?

Steve: Well, you know, I think uh established McGrath precedent on this podcast is that you know serious policy starts at a billion dollars, right? Um, and so I I think this is a serious amount of money, but it is also 8.8 billion over 10 years. So it's not quite as much as it might initially sound like. And the the real catch here is that it is far far less than what Ontario municipalities actually collect in development charges. Uh, in 2018, Andrew Sankton of Western University estimated that the province and cities collect over $2 billion annually, or that would be like $22 billion over 10 years. So 8.8 billion versus 22 billion over a decade. it's not going to solve the problem entirely. Um, and in fact, that's understating the problem because the cost of DCs really did go up substantially uh after 2018. Like in the city of Toronto, for example, they I believe they nearly doubled from 2018 to present. So those numbers really do understate the nature of the problem.

John Michael McGrath: You can't help but be a Debbie Downer, can you? [laughter]

Steve: It's true. So let's let's talk about some positives. Uh first of all, as I say, it really is a substantial sum of money and it will clearly get some councils to move. Uh earlier I earlier this year, gosh, was it a month ago? Uh on the podcast, I mentioned uh the city of Burlington where uh the mayor and council are debating uh reducing development charges there. But the sticking point that they have been waiting for uh the mayor's u uh critics on council, the sticking point has been a guarantee from the province or the feds or whoever that the city wouldn't just be uh left holding the bag, that that there would be money available uh to uh replace the lost revenue from development charges. Um the fact that municipalities have to agree to that multi-year development charge cut, that three-year cut, I think that's uh a good thing for the industry. Certainly. Uh we spoke to some of the developer representatives at Queens Park this week. Uh they're pretty enthusiastic about that. And this is more on the political side of things for the government. That three-year period could potentially give them some extra breathing room, some some runway to think about more structural changes and, you know, how we fund infrastructure. Um the minister has said particularly he he really does want to move forward with this idea of municipal service corporations for water and sewers. They keep talking about this idea. They keep not moving it forward terribly quickly. But the budget did include some uh measures uh for uh again they seem to be intent on using Peele region as a test bed for this idea before they uh try it out more broadly.

John Michael McGrath: Now while the prime minister and the premier and the mayor of the capital city were doing their thing in the morning on that same day, the Ontario housing minister had an announcement in the afternoon on something related to this. What was that about?

Steve: Right. So this is bill 98. the Building Homes and Improving Transportation Infrastructure Act, uh, which was introduced by Rob Flack, uh, on Monday afternoon. Uh, again, the bill does a lot of different things and we're not going to have time to cover everything as it is. The section I'm about to talk about is going to be long, so I'm going to ask our our audience to bear with me here. On housing, the government is taking more control over local planning matters. This has been a theme uh of the government basically since 2018. Um, in this case, they are taking a crack at official plans. If you've ever heard uh if you live in the city of Toronto, for example, if you've ever heard uh you know a developer say, "Well, we need to build this condo tower, but we need to make sure it conforms with the official plan." This is the core document that the province forces all municipalities to write that dictates uh how they are going to grow, where some types of homes are allowed, where different businesses can operate, these kinds of things. Um it's not the only important document, but it's really one of the primary ones. And what the issue that the province is trying to address here is that um in historically cities have had a whole lot of flexibility and freedom in how they write their official plan. Um some of them are quite pretty and look very nice. Uh but the province is imposing a sort of a set standardized uh format for official plans and it's also uh restricting the types of land uses that municipalities are going to be able to prescribe. So, you're not going to get this situation where like Missaga defines a super uh boutique kind of residential land use that only allows this one particular type of home and then Toronto next door has a totally different set of rules. The official plans at least will be standardized uh across uh the province. Um Toronto has a a mandatory green standard for new homes. This particularly applies to condo towers where they're trying to impose some new environmental standards on these towers to see that they use less energy, that kind of thing. Uh the province uh first introduced legislation last year to prohibit that to say like, "No, you cannot impose mandatory rules above and beyond the building code. The city of Toronto fought that saying, well, actually with the law you've passed, we can still do what we want." And now the province is coming back and saying, "No, you really can't." And they've brought in more law. This was, you know, anybody who could watch this fight from the beginning could see this coming. I I I'm going to editorialize very slightly here. I do not understand why the city decided to pick this fight. Um it was very clear what the province was going to do if they put their foot down. So what everybody thought was going to happen has happened. Um and uh yeah, the other thing that I wanted to highlight very quickly is that the province is also going to force municipalities to accept smaller lot sizes. And these are rules that govern like the actual size of the piece of land that you build a house on. Lots of municipalities in the GTA, uh particularly in areas where they want to maintain, I will just say, a um a more sprawly suburban character. They say you can only build a home on a lot that is this large and no smaller. the province is going to allow for relatively small lot sizes as as small as 185 square meters or I think they said that's about 1,800 square f feet. Um, and you know, that is the kind of thing that might uh allow for uh a lot more infill development, particularly in a city like Toronto where, you know, we have a lot of historic suburbs where in theory this rule could let somebody buy up a uh let's say a larish lot that has currently has a bungalow on it and you could split it up into depending on how big the lot is, maybe two or three homes instead. Uh currently the city of Toronto has rules that make that more difficult. This change would make that easier. So, let's ask the obvious follow-up question here, which is, okay, big announcement. Will any of this make a difference?

John Michael McGrath: I do actually think that in some ways, Bill 98 is the more important housing announcement than the agreement to cut development charges. Right? Some of these changes are actually going to come into effect faster than the development charge changes. Um, these changes could make uh a difference in what types of housing are uh uh possible and attainable in Ontario cities. you know that that minimum lot size rule that I was just talking about is the kind of thing we've seen in some US cities and it's been really effective in building um you know that that kind of you know middle inome family-sized home in otherwise uh hard to build cities. So potentially a very big deal. I do have a little bit more to say about it but I am going to save it for the uh your column my column.

Steve: I can't wait. We better get there right away ladies and gentlemen. Off to your column my column.

Steve: Okay. Well, you know what this part of the show is all about. We call it your column, my column in which JMM and I, we have a little chat here about the stuff we wrote for the TVL website this past week. And since you're on such a roll, keep on rolling.

John Michael McGrath: Caught my breath and I've had some water. So, the only thing I want to add to this uh discussion of Bill 98 is that there is a difference between what the law says on the page and what the government actually uses it to do. And this is where I think we've got some ambiguity with the Ford government's policy right now. Um, you know, Premier Ford can give himself all of these powers, can give the government all the powers they want to uh get new homes built, but this is also the premier that when the issue, people might recall the idea of the Liberal Party supported of uh allowing fourstory forplexes in residential areas. And Premier Ford railed against that idea, said it was going to destroy neighborhoods. And so the big question we are left with is whether the government actually has the will to push through the changes that would get a lot of new homes in the places where people want to live built or whether this becomes a license for just more sprawl of the kind that we it used to be the consensus that that in this province we wanted to reign that back. Right? both the Tories and the Liberals uh were worried about sprawl overrunning uh things like water and sewer capacity. Um so we shall see. Uh I I would just yeah reiterate that what you see on the page doesn't always determine how the policy actually gets implemented by the government.

Steve: You don't say.

John Michael McGrath: Yeah. [laughter]

Steve: And how about you Steve?

Steve: Well we you and I already talked about Steven Lewis. I did a column on Steven Lewis a couple of days ago after his death. So, I won't talk about that one here, but that is on the website, tvOo.org, and I would encourage people to look at it. But earlier in the week, I did a column on a guy who died 50 years ago this year. And you've all heard his name, but none of you know who he is, apparently. And how do I know that? Because I asked my good friend Aaron Kelly from Advanced Symbolics, Inc., I said, just do me a favor. Do a little test. Do a little polling test. So, get get Paulie. Get your artificial intelligence Paulie avatar to get out there and ask people in Toronto who was Nathan Phillips,

John Michael McGrath: right?

Steve: You know his name from the square, right? Nathan Phillips Square outside of Toronto City Hall. That's where the Argos and the Leafs, although not in a long time, but the Raptors and, you know, next year the Scepters, let's hope. Um, that's where they all gather to have their championship uh trophy events. Uh, that's where protests take place. That's a Terry Fox came there 45 years ago or so. Um, Nathan Phillips Square is the big gathering place in downtown Toronto. And so I asked Aaron, let's see how many people know who Nathan Phillips was. What do you think the answer was?

John Michael McGrath: I'm going to guess a rounding error of zero. [laughter]

Steve: You know what? You're not far off. When I asked Aaron to do this, I said, I'm betting less than 1% of the people know who it who Nathan Phillips was. 6%.

John Michael McGrath: Wow.

Steve: 0.6% 6% of the people could identify Nathan Phillips as the mayor of all the people. That's what he was called, the mayor of all the people. He was the mayor from 1955 to 62. And if you consider all the mayors in Toronto from when we were incorporated in 1834 until Phillip's election in 1955, every single mayor was Protestant. Phillips was sort of the first, if I can put it this way, ethnic mayor Toronto ever had. He was Jewish. And it was kind of astonishing that he won his election in 55. He was a city councelor already. Kind of astonishing he won his election in 55 because there were signs in Toronto at that time that said things like no Jews or dogs allowed. So this was a, you know, a pretty racist city back in the middle 1950s unless you were kind of white Anglo-Saxon Protestant.

John Michael McGrath: Member of the Olter order.

Steve: There you go. There you go. So Nate Phillips had his place in history. He championed the building of the new city hall which is still I think one of the most gorgeous futuristic interesting f 60 years later it's still a very futuristic design um the two kind of shelves towers.

John Michael McGrath: Yeah the oval towers and um and that was Nate Phillips's doing and as a result city council named the square in front of city hall the new city hall after him. So now you know. Now you know who Nathan Phillips was. And anytime your favorite sports team or maybe if I'm talking to folks in Windsor or in Ottawa, your least favorite sports team next wins something, you'll know why they're gathering in a square named after Nathan Phillips.

Steve: And if I could add to real quick, just for people's general edification, uh William Allen and Frederick Gardner, both chairs of the old Metro Toronto, and uh they are the people that the various highways are named after.

John Michael McGrath: Exactly. Right. Gardner Expressway. Allan, we're not allowed to call an Allen Expressway, right?

Steve: Allen Road. They insisted on calling it because, of course, we don't build expressways through the middle of cities, so we had to change the name anymore. [laughter]

Steve: That's right. All right. Shall we go to the mailbag?

John Michael McGrath: Let's do it.

Steve: Okay. If you've got a burning question or an insightful comment, we always love hearing from you at this special email address. It's on politics at tvO.org. JMM, fire away. So, we have a letter from first-time writer Sarah Mayhew from North Bay, who writes, "Steve was talking about how he doesn't need the government to give him $40 back each month for his hydro bill and would prefer seeing the money go to someone else who needs it more. My question is, isn't it sometimes more efficient to have a program be universal? For example, I recently applied to a government program that I qualify for, but due to a simple mixup, got denied and will need to reapply with the proper documents." This of course takes up my time doing paperwork, but it made me think about how many government employees it might have taken to receive my application, review it, and send the appropriate decision. However, if a program is universal and everyone qualifies, none of this paperwork would be necessary. I guess what I'm really asking is might it not be cheaper to just send Steve Pacin 40 bucks that he doesn't need rather than spend the time and resources necessary to figure out that you don't need it. Hope that makes sense. Sarah from North Bay.

John Michael McGrath: Sarah, uh, good question and you're absolutely right. There are circumstances where that is the case where it's more expensive and actually I've got a really good example. I remember talking to the federal finance minister Franis Philip Champang after he brought out his budget and one of the things he did in his budget was to cancel the kind of luxury excise sales tax that the Trudeau government had put on yacht purchases. And I remember when Mark Carney came in and people said, "Oh my goodness, like how rightwing are you? you're taking you're even taking the tax off the richest people in the country when they purchase their yachts. So I asked the finance minister about that and he said yeah you want to know why? Cuz it cost too much money to administer that tax compared to the piddly amounts of money it was bringing in. He said I'm a very pragmatic person so I canceled it. That's not the situation here. It doesn't cost $7 billion, right? It doesn't cost $7 billion to administer this tax. So, I'm going with all of the experts, Sarah, who have told me that in principle, while you may be right, not in this situation. It actually is it's not going to cost anything close to that much money to administer this tax and it can be more effectively targeted to people who need it with the rest of that money going to more important things, maybe health, maybe education, maybe paying down the deficit,

Steve: etc., etc., etc.

John Michael McGrath: Yeah. I think there's two things to keep in mind when we talk about this. And you know, it's it's sort of like the cost of the overall entitlement versus the cost of administration. And so if we were talking about giving something universal where administrating it might cost, I'm going to make up some numbers here, but like $100 million and the benefit itself was maybe only $200 or $300 million, then you would say, well, it makes no sense to add on that whole layer of administrative burden um for a benefit of this size. But when you're talking about $7 billion, it's it's very difficult to imagine the administrative burden that would not make sense in that uh context. But I I do want to say like I don't think we take this issue seriously enough uh in society. And there's a journalist, I believe it's Annie Lowry, who's written about the time tax. And you look at the benefits that uh if I could put it bluntly uh people like you and I uh collect from things like the tax code uh versus the benefits that uh seriously disadvantaged people uh are forced to apply for through things like social services or whatever. Um the tax code is written to make it really easy for people like us to get benefits and those social services are designed to make it very hard for people to apply for them. and we impose a time tax on uh people of uh generally of lower incomes. Uh that uh is is not fair. Uh it is not equally distributed uh amongst the population. Um and it is something that I think we should absolutely uh take more seriously uh when we talk about social programs uh when we talk about uh how governments spend money and of course tax breaks are also a form of spending money. Um, in this specific case though, I will say that I I I I'm pretty sympathetic to the idea that uh means testing the uh hydro subsidies in Ontario would probably be a net benefit.

Steve: You can check a box on your tax form, right? It' be as simple as that. If you make this much money, you're not eligible.

John Michael McGrath: Period. Full stop.

Steve: Can't they just make us premier for a day jam and we could solve this one issue and then hand the reigns back to more responsible people?

John Michael McGrath: Well, you might hand the reigns back. Uh, do I get a vote? [laughter]

Steve: Oh, that's a good point. You might want to be emperor for life. Right. Time to get out of here.

John Michael McGrath: I think we need a third for a Roman triumphirate [laughter]

Steve: in our next lifetime. That is the OnP podcast for this Friday, April 3rd, 2026.

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

Steve: Any feedback you have, we're always happy to hear it, good, bad, or indifferent. Write us an email at onpolitics@tvo.org.

John Michael McGrath: org. Please include your first and last name and where you're from. [music]

Steve: This week's episode was produced by Tiff Lamb. Editing by Shaa Affleck.

John Michael McGrath: Production support from Jonathan Hallowell and TVO's digital media services team.

Steve: Lori F is the executive producer of digital. Stacy Dunce is acting vice president programming and content.

John Michael McGrath: Special thanks to our wonderful crew for making the video [music] podcast look so good. Appreciate you guys. And until next Friday, everybody, bye-bye.