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

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

Steve Paikin: Today on the pod, as you know, the United States Supreme Court has struck down some of Donald Trump's tariffs. Now Doug Ford is looking for a refund.

John Michael McGrath: The Financial Accountability Office has a new report on the state of Ontario's economy, and we'll dig into all the nerdy details.

Steve Paikin: Renovations at the biggest block in downtown Toronto, where the largest number of public servants work, look like they're going over budget and beyond schedule. And at the moment, there are no plans to find the employees any new space.

John Michael McGrath: And in your column, my column, I'll look at a big gamble the city of Burlington is making on the housing file and what it could mean for the province.

Steve Paikin: And I'm still focused on the Ontario Liberal leadership election coming up later this year. Four and a half decades ago, the party chose a 38-year-old to be their new leader. Three years later, he was premier. Could a 38-year-old turn the trick this time as well?

John Michael McGrath: It's Friday, February 27th, 2026. So, let's get to it.

Steve Paikin: Okay. JMM, our traditional sugar to start things out.

John Michael McGrath: Yes, sir.

Steve Paikin: And now we can mourn.

John Michael McGrath: And now we can mourn. I notice you have underneath the goose. That goose doesn't refer to our goose having been cooked at the Olympics, was it?

Steve Paikin: No. No. But in so far as I'm referring to the outcome of the Olympics, you might have seen the distasteful message that the president tweeted about of an eagle attacking a Canadian goose. Yes. Did not love the image. But I stand in solidarity with the geese.

John Michael McGrath: It works solidarity with all the Canadian icons. Right.

Steve Paikin: There you go. Why not? Why not? Well, first things first, the men's and women's gold medal hockey games were fabulous and they were entertaining. I thought our athletes played spectacularly well. You got to remember the women lost 5-nothing to the Americans in the earlier round and then it went to overtime in the gold medal game. The men, let's be honest here. Yes, the Americans won. And congratulations to our American viewers and listeners. Full value. Your goalie stood on his head. I think he's got the Presidential Medal of Freedom now or Congressional Medal of Honor or something now. Connor H. We got hellabucked. Look, we got hellabucked. But our guys totally outplayed their guys and they represented us extremely well, which is why I'm not wearing a premier today. Here we go. I am wearing this is from not double silver, which we did this year, but this is from the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City when we did double gold. So, this shirt is from 20 This jersey, excuse me, shirt is something you'd say. This jersey is from 24 years ago and I will continue to have the happy memories of the double hockey gold in that one and we'll get them next time for hockey gold in the next Olympics.

John Michael McGrath: So I will say, if anybody out there is watching, you gave me some static last week about not watching the game sufficiently. I did.

Steve Paikin: As as as I should have.

John Michael McGrath: I did watch the game. Good for you. Bullying works. If anybody else would like to be bullied by an Order of Canada member, they should work here at TVO. The other reason I'm wearing this shirt, however, I wore this shirt for a segment that we recorded for the rundown, a very brief little thing about the history of uranium mining in Ontario, that aired last night on TVO. And, of course, always want to encourage our audience to check out the rundown. Lots of great stuff there. And this one, about the history, as I say, of uranium mining in Ontario. I always forget just how big a role we played in helping the Americans build the first atomic bombs just as a for example.

Steve Paikin: There you go. There you go. We should also say and speaking of the word recorded, we record this, this is not live on television at 8:00 on Friday night. We do record this earlier and the government of Ontario is as we speak making an announcement unveiling new details about the Ontario Science Center and its new location. So, because that's happening now, we obviously are not going to have a lot of details other than to say the pictures are pretty.

John Michael McGrath: Yes,

Steve Paikin: the plans look pretty.

John Michael McGrath: Yes, the renderings always look so great.

Steve Paikin: The renderings look great. And we will have presumably more to say about this next week when we've had a chance to dive in further.

John Michael McGrath: Yeah, we'll see if there's any more substantive changes with the plans as they've been announced. Obviously, this is something we've been following now for years plus years. So, yeah, absolutely. Okay, shall we get to it? Let's do it. Off to issue one.

Steve Paikin: Late last week, the United States Supreme Court struck down Donald Trump's emergency tariffs. Then in retaliation, Trump announced a new global tariff, which luckily Canada is exempt from because of the CUSMA or USMCA, whichever deal, whatever you prefer. JMM, let's dig into this situation and the potential impact here in the province of Ontario. What do we know?

John Michael McGrath: Right. So the tariffs in question are the so-called liberation day tariffs from early last year that Trump invoked saying that he had the power to do so unilaterally, i.e. without the approval of Congress under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act or AIPA. Having lots of fun with acronyms this morning. A coalition of small and medium-sized businesses challenged the tariffs in court and after a lengthy wait the court heard this case, the Supreme Court heard this case back in November. A sixth justice majority on the court ruled that the tariffs were in fact illegal under AIPA. I'm just going to enjoy continuing to say that.

Steve Paikin: And I say you smack. I say no. Anyway, let's pull the whole thing off.

John Michael McGrath: The majority found that the tariffs were illegal. The law as written could not justify the use of tariffs. The law gives the president power to regulate and make other policy regarding trade. But the majority found that it did not give him the power to use tariffs in this way. Three Republican justices did dissent, but the majority includes three other Republicans and the court's three Democrats. The majority, you may not be surprised to learn, disagreed in key ways, right? Like three Republicans and three Democrats. They

Steve Paikin: They came together on the core issue, but they all had different interpretations, if if I could put it that way. So I'm going to grossly summarize condense the decision hopefully without doing too much violence to it. Either Trump's tariffs were illegal under AIPA because the law simply did not give him those powers or if the law did in fact give him those powers then the law itself was unconstitutional because tariffs are a tax. They are a tax paid by Americans and under the US Constitution, it is Congress and only Congress that has the power to levy taxes unless they unambiguously delegate that power or any of their powers to the president, which the court found that they had not in this case.

John Michael McGrath: And just to be clear, you're you know, when you say the Republican justices and the Democrat justices, you mean those appointed by a Republican president or a Democratic president?

Steve Paikin: Yes. Formally speaking, the Supreme Court is not a partisan body. Um although

John Michael McGrath: how much more we want to extend that charity to the court is up for debate.

Steve Paikin: Up for debate. Yes indeed. So the big question, do we got our money back? What's the story now?

John Michael McGrath: So this is the key point that at least the vast majority of Canadian trade was not affected by these specific tariffs. The vast majority of our exports were entering the country under the exemptions we had under CUSMA or USMCA. We're going to get back to that in one second. But for example, the Royal Bank of Canada has calculated that Canada was paying an effective tariff rate of 3.1%, which is in fact was the lowest of all of America's major trading partners. However, there I guess there's two howevers. One, there's certainly an argument that a whole bunch of trade that used to happen seamlessly is now now requires a whole bunch of paperwork to comply under CUSMA. So there is a hidden trade burden if you want to put it that way. Separately, some have argued that while this specific decision does not directly affect Canada, it could help us in negotiations because CUSMA is getting renegotiated this year in July. And this was specifically the section of law that Trump was using to bully countries around the world by suddenly announcing that I don't like the cut of your jib. So here's an extra 10, 15% tariff. You said something mean about me. Here's an extra 5% tariff. I don't like the sound of your voice, etc., etc. He no longer has that lever to pull in international trade policy. So, that might strengthen our hand in renegotiations. However, the Trump White House has already said that they are looking to rebuild the tariff regime using other sections of law.

Steve Paikin: I don't think we've ever had a premier of Ontario who has appeared on American television as much as the current premier of Ontario has. And of course, it started with the tariffs and Donald Trump and he was back on CNN this past week talking about this decision from the Supreme Court and what impact it might have on us. So why don't we check what the premier of Ontario had to say. Doug Ford,

Doug Ford: We have to get to a resolution as quickly as possible to really give the American people and the Canadian people the certainty that they need. The walls are closing in, I believe, on President Trump right now and he's feeling the pressure. So, a lot of these jobs are border border states that are being affected and he needs those seats. So, if it continues on, people are going to they're going to be unemployed and which will affect the midterms.

Steve Paikin: Well, the midterms is the key, right? They're coming up in November at the moment. Of course, the president's party, the Republicans have the White House, they have the House of Representatives, and they have the Senate. But with a third of the Senate up for grabs at the midterms and the entire House of Representatives, the premier clearly believes that if and it's a big if, but if Donald Trump loses his majorities in one or heaven forend both of those houses, Canada might be in a better position to renegotiate, USMCA or CUSMA, whatever you want to call it. However, that's not the end of the story, right?

John Michael McGrath: No, there's a calendar problem here. July 1st of this year of 2026 is when Canada, Mexico, and the United States all have to indicate in writing whether they intend to continue with this agreement. Which just to remind our audience, Donald Trump negotiated in the first place in his first term,

Steve Paikin: at which time it was the greatest agreement ever signed in American history.

John Michael McGrath: Yes, absolutely. And and now only a few years later, it's the biggest disaster in history. Whose idea was this anyway? Um so the renegotiations have to start in July. The midterms are not until November. So they can't directly affect the outcome of negotiations for Canada's sake at least. Now this is politics, right? If Republican numbers continue to look very dire, um

Steve Paikin: which they do at the moment.

John Michael McGrath: They do. I mean, you mentioned the Senate. Like, up until even a few months ago, I think the conventional wisdom was that while the Democrats might retake the House, the Senate was beyond consideration. Just some years, it's just not really not in the cards. Exactly. Um, but there are now realistic polls showing that they could even win the Senate seat in Texas. Which would if that might end up being the 50th seat that they need to win, right?

Steve Paikin: So anyway, if these numbers continue to be dire for the Republicans, then you could imagine some GOP leaders, some people in Congress, some people who are desperate to hang on to their seats, just begging Donald Trump to, you know, play it cool for a little bit, at least until after the midterms. And you know maybe we we get lucky on that score. On the other hand Bloomberg News reported earlier this month that Trump is apparently walking around the White House idly asking his staff why he shouldn't just take the US out of this agreement altogether which is a power that he has.

John Michael McGrath: Well if the idea was to play it cool I'm not sure he did that at the State of the Union address earlier this week. There wasn't a lot of playing it cool there. There were some pretty rough moments in that speech. You mentioned Texas previous

Steve Paikin: the longest speech, the longest state of the union speech ever in I I will confess I did not watch that one. Some some years I watched the State of the Union. I thought it probably best for my mental and cardiac health that I not watch.

John Michael McGrath: Okay, back on track here. Premier Ford is going to the states. He's going to go down to Texas. He's going to go to Utah in the spring and the summer. He's going to be continuing his involvement in the United States and Canada as it relates to trade relations. He's also said, now I'm not sure how far this is going to go, but he's also said he'd love a refund on the tariffs that Washington has collected and which Canadians have paid. I'm not sure that it works that way, but I don't know. What do you think?

Steve Paikin: No. So, the tariffs were collected by the American government off of purchases made by American customers, right? Businesses and consumers something like $175 billion in the last year which is estimated to be about $1,300 per US household.

John Michael McGrath: So much for that tax cut.

Steve Paikin: I I suspect they will keep the tax cuts and just let their deficit grow larger. But that's a prediction. Um you know, one thing about this Supreme Court decision is that they did not spell out if or how or or why or when there should be a refund. That is going to be a matter that will continue to be litigated. Um, in any case, I do not expect us to see any direct benefit in Canadian consumers pockets. Um, I think actually the analogy that Doug Ford is reaching for is that we would like to see reparations from the US government for the regime of of threats and bullying that we've seen. I'm not super optimistic about that.

John Michael McGrath: Advice to Premier, don't hold your breath on that one.

Steve Paikin: Yeah, exactly. Um, and then about the premier's travels, I I have to say it's going to be very interesting to see how the premier gets along with some of these other Republican governors. And, you know, you might think that like he's a conservative politician. He might get along well with other conservative politicians, other Republican governors, that kind of thing. But like the Republican governor of Texas is very Republican and like a very Trumpy and very mega. And I when I say it will be interesting. That's literally what I I mean I I I'm not trying to be cute about this. I just I I'm genuinely curious to see how they get along, if they are able to, you know, do the usual like, you know, smile and handshake photo op or whether it becomes a bit of a fiasco.

John Michael McGrath: Well, I don't think I'm out over my skis in saying that if times were different, this would be a wholly different meeting. Which is to say Doug Ford, you know, before Donald Trump became president, Doug Ford was a kind of populist conservative who has sort of changed his stripes into a more moderate, pragmatic, progressive conservative in large measure because of the election of President Trump and the premier obviously needed to pivot in order to win re-election here because anybody who was close to Trump, which he was, remember he was a fan of Donald Trump's when he first got elected back in

Steve Paikin: even when remember his hot mic moment. He said he was happy to see Trump re-elected.

John Michael McGrath: There you go. There you go. But how do we put this? Things changed.

Steve Paikin: Indeed. So he will travel to the US. He perhaps he will be able to rebuild some bridges with other American politicians. He is the first to say and often saying that you know keeping Ontario's economy humming is one of his biggest jobs. And I believe that will bring us to our next segment.

John Michael McGrath: Indeed. It shall off to issue two.

Steve Paikin: This week, the Financial Accountability Office, the nonpartisan group that keeps an eye on our economy, issued one of its regular reports about how we're doing. The good news is that after shrinking somewhat in the second quarter of 2025, the provincial economy is growing again. The bad news, he gets to tell you that.

John Michael McGrath: Sure. Make me the bad guy here. Um, yes, the FAO has issued their regular Ontario Economic Monitor report, and this is one of the regular reports that they issue. We don't always mention it when they release it on the podcast because it's just it's it's a regular issue. Um but this time there was some interesting details that we wanted to highlight particularly in light of the whole Trump tariff issue that we just talked about. But yes, as you said, the economy does seem to be growing again, albeit slower than governments would usually like. We're still less than, you know, the 2% growth that you usually aim for, you know, being at or above. Um and the the bad news that you've given me the a sad job of relaying here comes in a few areas. The FAO still describes Ontario's unemployment rate as elevated. Though youth unemployment did come down slightly. People who are unemployed are also having a harder time even just finding job opportunities as vacancies trend down. The FAO says that long-term unemployment is at its highest rate since the mid 1990s. Hm. Now, just for our younger viewers, we should remind them that the 1990s were a very difficult time in the province of Ontario. We had the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 20s and 30s at the beginning of the 1990s. And then, of course,

Steve Paikin: I mean, that that kind of torpedoed Bob Ray's government, led to Mike Harris being elected in 1995, after which time the Common Sense Revolution was brought in, and those were tumultuous times in the province of Ontario. I say tumultuous in a neutral way. A lot of people loved it. A lot of people couldn't stand it anyway. They were revolutionary times to be sure.

John Michael McGrath: Yeah. Exactly. And so now obviously we're not saying that the economy is as bad as it was back then. Just that that that specific indicator is definitely dismal I think is a fair word. You would like to see that doing better. Um there was a bit of good news in the housing sector in a sense in that we closed out 2025 with more housing starts than we saw earlier in the year. But, this, sometimes use the phrase dead cat bounce in this line of work. It was still pretty bad. Ontario had fewer new home starts in 2025 than in any year since 2014.

Steve Paikin: Hm. Okay. And you're going to have more to say on housing when we do your column, my column. So, everybody stay tuned for that.

John Michael McGrath: We teased our listeners with something relevant to Trump's tariffs. What else you got to say on that?

Steve Paikin: Right. So, this was really interesting. The FAO says that we are seeing the impact of Trump's tariffs in Ontario's trade with the US and that is despite the fact as we've mentioned that most Canadian goods are not directly affected by these tariffs. Ontario's exports to the US shrank by 4% in 2025 while exports to everywhere else in the world grew by 17%. Imports are a similar story. We bought 4.3% fewer goods in dollar terms from the US and we bought 8.6% more from the rest of the world.

John Michael McGrath: Now, before everybody gets a little too excited about this, let's remind everybody we're still beside them. Yes.

Steve Paikin: They're still the biggest economy in the world. Yes.

John Michael McGrath: And we're still very dependent on them, aren't we?

Steve Paikin: Yes. The the the laws of economic gravity still apply here. So, yeah, we'll put these numbers in a bit of context. The US is overwhelmingly still the biggest customer for goods made in Ontario. 83.3% of all international exports went to the US. Exports to the rest of the world are growing relatively quickly, but still from a much much smaller base. So, it's going to be a while before anyone ever displaces the US. Imports are a different story. And this I I thought really was interesting. For the first time, I think in Ontario's history, Ontario consumers and businesses imported more from the rest of the world than we did from the US. Now, this is part of a trend that long predates Trump or his tariffs. Ontario imports from the US have been falling throughout the data series that the FAO published. Um, but in 2025, we passed a bit of a a notable milestone. 49.6% of Ontario's imports came from the US, while 50.4% came from the rest of the world. So for the first year, the US is now a minority of imports from into Ontario.

John Michael McGrath: by that much.

Steve Paikin: Just just a little bit. And and and that one I I feel a bit more secure saying that you know this is a a trend we will expect to continue simply because it has been continuing through as I say through the entirety of this data series going back to the 1990s. Um and you know based on what I know of the rest of Canada's economic history I have to imagine that this is probably something that goes back at least I would say to the 70s.

John Michael McGrath: Huh. Okay. Let's I'm just reminding myself here that Mark Carney's coming up on a year in power.

Steve Paikin: Yes. And so when Justin Trudeau was in and Trump put the tariffs on us. Yes.

John Michael McGrath: Trudeau counterveiled, right? He put some tariffs initially on the US before later taking them off. How did all that work out?

Steve Paikin: Later as part of attempts to sort of negotiate and take the temperature down on things, Mark Carney then removed many if not all of those counterveailing tariffs. So it's possible that we're seeing some effects here. The other thing of course I would I would point out is just not even so much a public policy thing as a popular culture if I could put it that way. You know we had that sort of elbows up moment last year. A lot of people talking about you know not buying Americanmade products that not buying American produce in the grocery stores. So it's possible we're seeing some contribution from that as well.

John Michael McGrath: Gotcha. And with that let's get off to issue three.

Steve Paikin: Let's get you another update on the multi-billion dollar renovation project that's happening a stones throw from Queens Park at the intersection of Bay and Welssley Streets in downtown Toronto. We've now learned the project will go over budget and beyond deadline and something else too. What's up?

John Michael McGrath: According to the CBC, the province is not renting or otherwise acquiring any new space, any new office spaces downtown and is still ordering its the Ontario Public Service back to work 5 days a week back to the office. In the CBC's reporting, they spoke with the head of the Association of Management, Administrative, and Professional Crown Employees or AMAPCEO is it's one of those times I remember the acronym better than the actual phrase. They represent 17,000 workers in the public service. They say that, you know, they've got cases of workers sharing desks, crowding in common areas, managers in some cases simply having to tell employees that notwithstanding the return to office mandate from the government, there's no room, you just have to go and work from home. So it's not going smoothly, if I could put it that way.

Steve Paikin: I must say I didn't quite understand the obligation to go back to work 5 days a week, which you know, the government of Ontario made that decision in its wisdom. Yes. But we're not going to give you any offices to go back to because of course this renovation job has gone long and over budget. So I never quite figured out how that was going to compute.

John Michael McGrath: Yeah. So I guess we should say in spirit of disclosure that this return to office mandate does bind to TVO as well and and we have returned to the office 5 days a week. Um that said you know the allegation from unions like AMAPCEO, like QP, like OPSU is that this is not about workplace efficiency, workplace productivity or anything like that. That this is in fact about making the work environment more unpleasant for the public sector and nudging people to

Steve Paikin: in the hopes that people will quit.

John Michael McGrath: Yeah. In the hopes that people will quit and they will not have to be paid severance. Certainly you know it's not just the the public statements from the union saying this. You can if you know where to look on social media you can find the places where Ontario public servants are are venting and you know people are you know whether it's Twitter or Facebook or Reddit you can find these groups where people are discussing this and you can see every single day there are posts about people talking about you know we you know we moved to somewhere where we could afford a home more easily during COVID we were told that you know the worst case scenario was we would be in hybrid work for the foreseeable future. Um, and now I'm spending 5 days a week with, you know, a 2-hour commute each way and I don't see my kids anymore. I can't do this anymore. I I have to quit. These are the kinds of things that, you know, people are complaining about. And um yeah the the as I say the allegation from the unions is that this is basically contrived by the government to shrink the payroll of the public sector without having to do an explicit layoff and certainly without having to pay severance.

Steve Paikin: Do we know what the price tag is on the renovation for the McDonald Block now? I mean it's it's got to be approaching a billion five or something like that.

John Michael McGrath: Oh, I I'm sorry. I actually haven't seen an updated figure on that, but you know I imagine because it's not just the McDonald Block. They're also eventually going to move MPPs out of the legislature itself. And there that will also be a very substantial and a very lengthy project. I I mean Parliament Hill has been many years and is is going to go on for many more years. I suspect the legislature I I think the the last time I saw a public statement was that they were projecting at least a decade of construction and it'll be a billion. No doubt it'll be a billion dollars. Everything's a billion dollars.

Steve Paikin: I mean, yeah. Is there a public works project that does not start at a billion dollars?

John Michael McGrath: No. The answer to that is no. And with that, we're off to your column, my column.

Steve Paikin: Okay, friends. You know how this works. We call this segment your column, my column. John Michael and I each write a column for tvO.org every week. And what are you going to favor us with this week?

John Michael McGrath: Right. So, this is a local item from Burlington, but it has provincial implications that I want to talk about. The city council led by the mayor Maryanne Me Ward, who is also the head of the Ontario big city mayor's group. They are considering a 2-year elimination of the city's development charges. These are of course fees that municipalities charge to help defay infrastructure costs under the principle that the growth is supposed to pay for growth. But if you've been paying attention to this podcast certainly you know that development charges are also considered sort of public enemy number one in terms of housing affordability.

Steve Paikin: They get passed on to the home buyer,

John Michael McGrath: Right? The we we nominally charge developers these fees to help pay for sewers and that kind of thing. In fact the the costs almost entirely get passed on to the home buyer. And in the case of the GTA, there are a lot of municipalities where the develop the the cumulative development charges now are well in excess of $100,000 per unit. And and that's just tax. That's before you put a single nail in to a single 2x4. Right.

Steve Paikin: Burlington is talking about eliminating the development charges for a period of two years. And it's interesting because you were at a meeting in Collingwood, I believe, in October where Mayor Maid Ward actually was very skeptical of the idea of cutting development charges and said basically she was unconvinced at the time that there was any real evidence that it would improve affordability that in her city they were approving lots of homes but developers weren't building. So this to me was very curious and so I spoke with Mayor Mid Ward and asked her like what what changed and to quote John Maynard Keen, you know, when the facts changed she changed her mind. What do you do?

John Michael McGrath: And and you mentioned that in your piece.

Steve Paikin: Yeah. Um and the the in particular the facts that that changed that that had her most more concerned is that the Canada Mortgage Housing Corporation which does regular projections of what we can expect to see in terms of the housing sector is is making some really dire predictions for Ontario in particular um but also Burlington of course as well where they might see fewer than a thousand new homes built this year if they don't make some kind of dramatic changes. Um it's been a bit of a an odd journey for this particular policy idea through city council. They were initially supposed to decide yay or nay um earlier this month, earlier in February. It now looks like that it will be debated in April, I believe. Um and they're going to give staff some more time to figure out what the financial implications of this. You know, in theory, if this were a normal year where you were talking about giving up development charges on thousands of units that might be built, the financial implications would be very large for the city. They'd be talking about giving up tens of millions of dollars in revenue. The problem right now is that there are no homes being built and you don't get to collect development charges on homes that don't get built. And so there's this ambiguous question of of like how much money will this actually cost? And I swear I'll let you speak in a moment. But finally, you know, this is an issue in which the province has said they want to see municipalities doing things exactly like this. And there's a a broader argument about whether development charges were ever really a good idea and certainly whether it was a good idea to let Ontario municipalities rely on them to the extent that they have. Um but we are where we are and municipalities like Burlington are saying like we're willing to cut development charges but we need some other source of money and the province you know the province has its own fiscal issues which we'll talk about I'm I'm sure as we get closer to budget day but um the province could easily fill the gap for a city like Burlington. You know, we're talking about at most a few tens of millions of dollars and so far they have not gotten any assurances from either the province or the feds who have both said they want to see development charges come down. Um they have gotten no assurances, no clear assurances that that money will be made available to them.

John Michael McGrath: I interviewed Rob Flack, who of course is the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing at the Empire Club, I think last week. Boy, the weeks they just sometimes they're a blur. But I think last week and I said to him, "Look, you have the power to pass a law prohibiting development charges. You know, if if these things are really a problem to getting housing built, why don't you pass a law, just ban them and make up the difference, you know, however you make up the difference?"

Steve Paikin: And, you know, it is obviously their hope that this thing will all work itself out in the wash and the province doesn't have to come in like the heavy and ban something which in some places may be working and in other places is not working. You know, who else has done it? Vaughn I think has cut DCs by 50%. Missaga Peele region I think in general. So um yeah so this is there's a great debate about whether or not it makes more sense to get 100% of zero or 50% of something you know.

John Michael McGrath: Yeah. And and of course the province is looking at other strategies as well. They've talked about broadening the HST cut on new homes and also this issue that we've talked about before on the podcast of moving the costs of water and sewer infrastructure into these specially created municipal corporations so that those would not be paid for by property taxes anymore. Those are all ideas that I expect we'll see some forward mo movement on later in the spring. I'm quite certain Minister Flack is going to be moving the ball forward on municipal service corporations. Yeah.

Steve Paikin: I'm not sure they want to eat the costs.

John Michael McGrath: Well, you said it. Budget's coming up soon. Everybody wants more money.

Steve Paikin: Okay. I am very focused on what is I guess this will be the third Liberal leader of the last eight years who will be elected in November. We remember of course Kathleen Wyn led the Ontario Liberals into the 2018 election. Steven Deluca was the leader in the 2022 election, Bonnie Crombie in the 2025 election, and Doug Ford beat them all. So, the Ontario Liberals are looking for a leader again. And when you and I gathered here a week ago, I was wearing a t-shirt with David Peterson's portrait on it because back in 1982, so that's 44 years ago. 44 years ago last weekend, the Ontario Liberals picked a 38-year-old David Peterson to be their leader. And there were some people questioning at the time, isn't that a bit young to be leader? But you know what? Three years later, he was premier of Ontario. So, for whatever reason, it worked out that time. Liberals now have potentially the opportunity to pick somebody else who will be 38 years old at convention day in November. And his name is Rob Serjanick. And I'll tell you a little bit about him because I suspect there's a bunch of people who haven't heard about him. He is the member of the Ontario legislature for Ajax in Durham Region. And it was a year ago, actually a year ago today. It was a year ago today, Feb 27, when Doug Ford's Tories were winning just about every single seat in Halton region, Peele region, York Region, and Durham region. And Rob Serjanic in the midst of that blue wave took one of those seats in Durham region Ajax away from Patrice Barnes who was the sitting member for the progressive conservatives only a 300 vote gap out of 41,000 votes cast so don't tell me every vote doesn't matter every vote matters super close margin he is the only liberal MPP with a 905 area code on his phone all the other liberal MPPs are 416ers or 613ers.

Steve Paikin: And as a result, I think one of the things he's going to be selling is that presuming he runs, he wants to run. Is that he represents a part of the province where the Liberals are going to have to be better, get their act together, start a bit of a, you know, plant a flag and get bigger after that, if they're ever going to get back into power. And he's if he can raise the money going to put himself forward as the guy with the right ideas, the right amount of energy, the right amount of judgment and ambition to even at age 38 be the next leader of the province. He does have a really interesting backstory and I won't give it away here. I'll just encourage everybody to go to tvO.org and find Rob's picture and click on it and that will tell some of the story because he has an unusual backstory. Reminder, the leadership election is in November. And in case I haven't complained about it enough, it will not be a delegated convention. It will be a ranked ballot where people will vote once and that's it. There will be no arm twisting in between ballots. As soon as the voting is over, they'll know who won. They'll drag it out to make it look like some, you know,

John Michael McGrath: drama

Steve Paikin: drama is actually happening when it isn't. Um, I'm not sure I've ever mentioned before on this show whether or not delegated conventions are a better way to go or what they currently

John Michael McGrath: I feel like it might have come up once or twice.

Steve Paikin: Has it come up before? Okay. I I wouldn't want to overdo it, but um yeah, so that'll be later this year.

John Michael McGrath: Yeah. So, just a few things about Rob Serjan. I first met him when he was working at Toronto City Hall back at the beginning of my journalistic career when I was covering Toronto City Council. Um, and so it's been very interesting to watch his career progress. And it was one of those things where on election night, I mean, there are always like 10,000 things going on. And and when I saw his name, you know, win a seat, I I just had that that moment of like, wait, wait, that Rob. Okay. Okay. I just need need to take it take a minute because of where he won and and and you know, it was not the most expected result if I could put it that way.

Steve Paikin: He was not even not I mean the election was in February. In January, the Liberals had no candidate there. They they sort of threw him in there at the very last minute and he won the seat.

John Michael McGrath: Yeah. The other thing I will say and actually we we can mention after we taped last week's episode, the Liberals announced that they will be having an open nomination for the contest in Scarborough Southwest. This of course is the writing that has become a bit of a proxy battle about the leadership fight for the Liberal Party with Nate Erskine-Smith and I'm sorry, Kadira Jackson was it? Yeah.

Steve Paikin: Yeah. Kadira Jackson.

John Michael McGrath: You know who her campaign manager was, right? Yes.

Steve Paikin: Rob Serjan was Kadira Jackson's campaign manager in last year's election.

John Michael McGrath: Um but we asked we the reporters at the press gallery there was a a press conference that Sjanic held a few weeks ago about Metrolinx of all things. But we asked him about the Scarborough Southwest contest and and he I I want to give him full credit like you know he he said from the outset that the only reasonable choice in his mind was for it to be an open contest that despite the drama about you know who was backing Nate Erskine-Smith who let's you know make this clear right like Erskine-Smith could end up being a competitor to Serge Janick if if they both end up running um despite that he was very clear that yes it it should be an open contest. This is, you know, a liberal in good standing has the right to run in any nomination race and let's just have the open nomination and I thought that was the the the right call to make and in fact leader John Fraser did actually make that call and

Steve Paikin: now whenever that election is called we will see what happens.

John Michael McGrath: Meaning it will not be an appointed candidate there. They will have a contest for it.

Steve Paikin: Yeah. So, we're waiting for the premier to call the bi-election to fill the vacancy left by the new Democrat deputy leader who resigned and then

John Michael McGrath: and who's now running as a liberal

Steve Paikin: now running as a federal liberal and has broken some hearts back in Scarborough Southwest. Um and once that election is called or I guess sorry there's nothing stopping the Liberals from holding the nomination in advance of the formal election call, but it will probably be after that election call. We will see who the who wins that liberal nomination and if it is Nate Erskine-Smith and he then goes on to win the seat in the actual bi-election. Many people see that as a bonus for him going into the leadership race.

John Michael McGrath: Stay tuned everybody.

Steve Paikin: Okay, time to look inside our mailbag because if you've got a burning question or insightful comment, we always love hearing from you at onpolitics@tvo.org. JMM, give us this week's. Right here we have a comment from Jude Gal in Windsor who writes, "Hello, Steve and John Michael. Although this is not the question of the week, I want to thank you for OnPaly. I watch it regularly and find it extremely helpful to understand what is going on in Ontario. In this latest episode, I found John Michael's discussion of online gambling to be very useful and gave me ammunition to write to the government and voice my concern about this. I also appreciated Steve pointing out how important civility is in politics. Thanks again for this podcast." Jude Gal, Windsor.

John Michael McGrath: Jude, that is a wonderful note. I I I should clarify here just in case there's any doubt about this, and there shouldn't be.

Steve Paikin: We do love the clash of ideas on this show. We don't want all 124 MPPs down there at Queens Park all saying and believing and thinking the same thing. Of course not. We want them representing the wide variety of views that people hold all across this province. But but we think they can do it with a civil tongue. Let's just put it that way. We think they can do it with some civility without practicing the politics of personal destruction which makes sensible people want to avoid politics like the plague. So Jude, thank you. We are glad that you also think that civility is important in public life and that that issue has found some resonance with you because we believe in it too.

John Michael McGrath: Yeah, you know, politics is about disagreement, right? And and they are important disagreements. People should have strong feelings about matters that will affect their lives or the lives of others. And I I don't want to drain the passion out of politics and you know make it all some kind of variant of beige where as you say we we we don't all want to agree on the same thing all the time. Um but yeah, fundamentally democracy is about settling the arguments without throwing punches.

Steve Paikin: Here. Here. And okay, just before we go, we wanted if you're listening to this Friday morning, we want to alert people, especially those of you living in the region of Waterloo, that our next TVO Today Live episode will take place in your neck of the woods tonight. We are talking about digital sovereignty and what Canada and Canadians need to do about it. Friday, Feb 27, tonight, 700 p.m. We'd love to see you there. For more information and free tickets, thanks to the Wilson Foundation, go to tvO.org.org/tvotodaylive. And that reminds me, I should say a quick word about Red Wilson, who is the dear departed head of the Wilson Foundation and who just died and about whom I just wrote a column.

John Michael McGrath: This past week as well. Red Wilson was a legend. He was huge in the history of the province of Ontario. Started as a deputy minister at Queens Park, worked his way up to being a captain of industry at some of the biggest companies in this country and gave away a hundred million dollars. Wow.

Steve Paikin: To worthy causes, one of which, I'd like to add was us. His funding for TVO Today Live allowed us to put these series on for I think we're in our third or yeah, third year now of doing it. So, Red Wilson, you are um look at I'm just going to say it. You were loved. You will be missed. And um thank you for everything you've done for us, for Ontario, and for Canada.

John Michael McGrath: Thank you.

Steve Paikin: Amen. And that is the OnP podcast for this Friday, February 27th, 2026. 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. Any feedback you have, we're always happy to hear it, good, bad, or indifferent. Write us an email at onpolitics@tvo.org. Please be sure to include your first and last name and where you're located.

John Michael McGrath: This week's episode was produced by Matthew Omera, 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 is vice president programming and content.

Steve Paikin: Special thanks to our crew here in the studio at 2180 Young Street for making the video part of this podcast happen and look so good. And until next Friday, everybody, bye-bye.

John Michael McGrath: Bye-bye.