Welcome everyone to the OnPaly podcast. I'm Steve Pacen and I'm John Michael McGrath.

Today on the pod, it's a bit of a budget extravaganza this week as the government of Ontario releases its fall economic statement or mini budget and Prime Minister Mark Carney drops his government's first budget.

As Quebec and its doctors are squaring up for a fight, Premier Doug Ford invites physicians to look for greener pastures here in Ontario, ruffling some feathers in the process. And in your column, my column, I urge conservative premers to actually do something about Supreme Court decisions that upset them so much.

And I'm going to take one last look at the season that was for the Toronto Blue Jays. No, they didn't win at all. But even in losing the World Series, they gave us a season for the ages and became one of the most lovable teams ever. It's Friday, November 7th, 2025. So, let's get to it. JMM little sugar to start.

Yes. Yes. I I see that uh for those listening on podcast and who can't see you, you are wearing all black today.

I am just entirely in black. I am still mourning the uh results of game seven of the World Series.

Reflective of your mood then?

Yes. Yes.

Well, I decided to go for my old Blue Jays jersey. And I say old because I got this when Roger Clemens was signed by the team. We're going So, we're going back to the 1990s here. of course, ex-B Boston Red Sox who decided to come to Toronto. So, I thought that was pretty cool. And I don't know if we wanted to No, bet actually better we don't take any close-ups of this, but you know, this is probably Coke and mustard stains from 30 years of wearing this jersey at the Sky Dome. But, um, boy, I'll tell you something. I'm I'm I'm going to talk more about the because my column is about the Blue Jays, so we're going to talk more about it later.

But, I'll tell you what. I was reminded over the last several days about the power of X, formerly known as Twitter.

Yes.

To absolutely make you feel like a complete piece of exploitive delivery because I had the tmerity to say on X that yes, the Dodgers won the World Series, but the Jays made us all feel so fantastic. Yeah.

From coast to coast to coast that why don't we throw them a rally or why don't we have a parade or something because I thought they deserved it. And oh my goodness, the you know what storm that was rained down upon my head was something to behold. You'd swear that I was, you know, anyway, urging the 11th plague to fall on Toronto or something. But I don't know. I didn't think it was such a bad idea.

Yeah. No, I love the idea of of you know people I think had weird reactions about the idea that like we were giving the Jay a participation prize and and I I don't think that's what your intent was and and I don't think you know the idea of like holding a rally at Nathan Phillips Square um you know Lord knows we've done it for less and uh you know uh yeah I I I like the idea of being able to say like hey you didn't win but I've spent 30 years watching the Jays lose and I got to spend a few weeks watching them win and I I'm really grateful for that. And so a a rally would be uh or something would be a nice gesture. I think

and I can tell you because I had I had a conversation with somebody

pretty high ranking in the Blue Jays organization

they thought about it

but then you know what the players dispersed so quickly and it it became impossible to get

I understand that um Vlatty is already out of the country.

Vlatty went south right away. Yeah. But I I think the point is that this team gave us so much during the Major League Baseball playoffs that we wanted to figure out some way to say thank you. And I thought this would have been a nice way to do it. But but apparently I'm just being a typical Canadian um fill in the blank because you're right. I got that all the time. Oh yeah, participation medals for everybody. Why not? That's what's wrong with this country and how dare you recommend such a stupid idea. I don't know. I'm pushing back. I still like the idea.

Anyway, there we go. You got anything more on this? Uh well, we can talk more about the baseball when we talk about baseball.

Yeah, we'll do that. We'll do that. Okay. In the meantime, let's get off to issue one.

Well, this was a big week for financial numbers both here in the province of Ontario and nationally as the new Carney government unveiled its fiscal intentions as well. JM, we're going to start at Queens Park where finance minister Peter Bethan Falvi gave us an update on the state of the books that affect 16 million Ontarians. What do you want to tell us? Well, one of our colleagues here was guessing that I was wearing all black as a sign of uh what is in the budget. And I regret to say that Ontario's books are not in the black. We are uh looking at a deficit of 13.5 billion for the current fiscal year. Uh that is a slight improvement from the numbers that the government published in the spring budget. Uh so just in the 6 months or so uh since the budget, the uh province's revenues have grown slightly faster than uh new spending. So the government says it is currently on track to have a slight surplus in two years time. Uh which is the kind of thing you like to be able to say uh if you are the finance minister. We can talk about this more in the next bit but uh the federal finance minister cannot say that.

No he cannot not.

Um that said it is not all rosy news for Ontario. The 2025 budget predicted that GDP growth would slow in the province and that is uh still likely to happen. According to the this week's document uh we're looking at economic growth of 0.8% 8% in 2025 and 0.9% in 2026, we've actually already had a quarter of negative growth according to the fees. So, um, technically speaking, if we have another quarter of negative growth and like, who knows what the future holds. Uh, that would be a recession. That's like the the economist's definition of a recession, right? Two consecutive quarters of of economic contraction. Don't want to get ahead of ourselves. Um the financial accountability office that you know checks the government's uh uh financial numbers did put out some predictions after the 2025 budget that are largely in line with the government's numbers. Uh they predicted a deficit of 12 billion for this year. So slightly lower. Uh one thing to keep in mind is that the government always uh adds a a reserve of some uh size to its uh budget. Uh if that sum does not get spent then that shrinks the deficit mechanically. Right? It's not uh it's not a form of trickery or anything. Uh but it is just a an accounting thing to be aware of. So that might be, you know, help explain different numbers. So while the FES does project that path to balance that I mentioned, the uh financial accountability office uh is projecting large deficits uh for uh those years still. So uh some dispute in those numbers. Uh the way this tends to get resolved is that it turns out that the uh Ministry of Finance was using pretty conservative projections because of course even better than a surplus or or a balanced budget uh is a finance minister being able to announce a surprise surplus or a surprise balance.

Well, that's the point I wanted to make. Number one, it is genuinely the tradition in Ontario that they don't just go to one or two. They go to a wide variety of economists and they usually take the most conservative prognostications when they're making their forecasts. So if they've got forecasts that suggest that growth will be less than 1% but still above zero, you usually can take that to the bank. That's usually an indication that we're not about to go into recession. So I'm heartened to see that. The second thing though is that yes, I do want to echo what you said there. Finance ministers love to make projections that look worse than they're going to be so that when the actual numbers come in and they're better, they get to say, "Look how fabulous our prudent planning has been and look what magnificent, you know, stewards of the economy we have been." And it's kind of a I don't want to call it trickery either, but it's uh you know, it's a bit of a a well-worn page out of the playbook. Let's call that. Yeah. There you go. There you go. Okay. So, those are the headline numbers what you've given us there. The devil, as they say, is always in the details. Um, any big surprises as we drill down on the numbers?

Well, some stuff is just totally unsurprising, right? The the trend for the last few years uh with this government has been uh relatively uh faster growth in healthcare spending while keeping education and post-secary education spending uh stable to shrinking. So, you know, objectively, right, Ontario has an aging population. you would expect healthcare spending to grow faster than uh education and post-secondary uh spending. Uh that said um you know talk to teachers, talk to uh education unions, talk to the post-secondary education sector. Uh they are all saying uh as loudly and as often as possible that uh their sectors could use more money right now. Um and we've talked about on this podcast before the post-secary education system uh is is in something of a crisis right now. uh they could uh certainly use uh more money. They they would certainly welcome more money. Um but at least uh the plan as published uh this week actually shows funding uh for PSSE shrinking in further years.

PSSE postcary education.

Yes. Um what was more surprising to me given the government's recent focus on crime, right? getting tough on crime, you know, uh uh securing our borders, securing our communities. Uh spending in the justice sector is also predicted to shrink uh in the next several years. Uh now, justice isn't just police. It also includes courts, it includes prisons, but like it's all part of one system. And you know, in particular, the current state of Ontario courts uh is is uh problematic, I will say. Uh we we also have problems with prisons, but the whole thing is jammed up and there's just not enough capacity to handle cases quickly. Um there's a an ongoing scandal which we we haven't actually talked about much on the podcast about uh the um conditions of detention at the Maplehurst uh correction center. These are all issues that you know you probably are going to need money to address. this bud the the fall economic statement does not include any uh any sign that the government is is going to massively increase uh spending in the justice sector and again given the emphasis on crime and crime prevention in uh recent government rhetoric I find that surprising.

What policy changes might we see coming forward as a result of the numbers that have been released this week?

Yeah, this is always fun is like going through the the budget and f first you have to do a filter for like they already announced that, they already announced that, they already announced that. Um, this is not new money. That is not new money.

Well, some stuff is just totally unsurprising, right? The the trend for the last few years uh with this government has been uh relatively uh faster growth in healthcare spending while keeping education and post-secary education spending uh stable to shrinking. So, you know, objectively, right, Ontario has an aging population. you would expect healthcare spending to grow faster than uh education and post-secondary uh spending. Uh that said um you know talk to teachers, talk to uh education unions, talk to the post-secondary education sector. Uh they are all saying uh as loudly and as often as possible that uh their sectors could use more money right now. Um and we've talked about on this podcast before the post-secary education system uh is is in something of a crisis right now. uh they could uh certainly use uh more money. They they would certainly welcome more money. Um but at least uh the plan as published uh this week actually shows funding uh for PSSE shrinking in further years. PSSE postcary education. Yes. Um what was more surprising to me given the government's recent focus on crime, right? getting tough on crime, you know, uh uh securing our borders, securing our communities. Uh spending in the justice sector is also predicted to shrink uh in the next several years. Uh now, justice isn't just police. It also includes courts, it includes prisons, but like it's all part of one system. And you know, in particular, the current state of Ontario courts uh is is uh problematic, I will say. Uh we we also have problems with prisons, but the whole thing is jammed up and there's just not enough capacity to handle cases quickly. Um there's a an ongoing scandal which we we haven't actually talked about much on the podcast about uh the um conditions of detention at the Maplehurst uh correction center. These are all issues that you know you probably are going to need money to address. this bud the the fall economic statement does not include any uh any sign that the government is is going to massively increase uh spending in the justice sector and again given the emphasis on crime and crime prevention in uh recent government rhetoric I find that surprising. What policy changes might we see coming forward as a result of the numbers that have been released this week? Yeah, this is always fun is like going through the the budget and f first you have to do a filter for like they already announced that, they already announced that, they already announced that. Um, this is not new money. That is not new money. Yes. Exactly. And then there's, you know, little odds and ends that I I always like to pick out and uh to to share with our audience. Uh, so there is a mention of a provincial ride share framework that the government would like to introduce. Uh, currently uh ride sharing companies like Lyft and Uber are uh mostly regulated municipally. Um, if the government is thinking about this, I'm just going to throw this out there. They might also want to think about regulating food delivery. Right? In some cases, we're talking about the same app, right? Like Uber versus Uber Eats, right? Um the the province uh has allowed municipalities to regulate uh like ebikes and and food delivery through that. Uh but and like scooters, that kind of thing. But uh I I think, you know, we've talked about on this podcast before some people are quite upset about the way ebikes are being regulated in on Toronto streets, for example. Uh, so that's a whole other thing we could talk about more on another podcast. Um, the province is also promising a new wholesale framework for the LCBO. Obviously, there's been big changes in how the government allows the sale of alcohol in Ontario over the last few years. The beer store is, how do we say this? Fading from existence. They keep shuttering locations. And I I suspect uh next year we'll see, if not all, certainly many more beer locations uh close. And the government's announced policy is that the LCBO will become the sole wholesaler for uh bars, restaurants. Uh they're already the sole wholesaler for convenience stores and grocery stores. So um they are also introducing a a change to the the wholesale pricing. We talked about this a bit before uh where the uh the government is currently losing money relative to the let's say whatever pre2023 status quo where uh you know every beer or wine you buy at a convenience store nets the province a bit less than it would have if you had bought it at the LCBO for example. uh there's some new wholesaling framework coming next year and uh I would assume in normal times that the government uh wants to get some of that revenue back but you know what like the the Ford government has been pretty open about you know they're willing to give up on uh uh revenue coming in to make things easier for business or make things more cenial for business. So we'll see which direction they choose to go uh with this alcohol framework. Knowing you as I do, I assume that at some point you plumbed down to the deepest depths and deepest levels of this economic statement to find some little nugget of nerdiness that would just be consistent with who you are. Do you want to share what that is with us?

You know me so well. Um, so there is an issue that has been bubbling away um for advocates uh who want Canadian governments to get uh more serious about combating moneyaundering and that is the creation of beneficial ownership registries. Uh I think you probably did some episodes of the agenda on this uh idea where uh currently in Ontario you can start a privately held corporation. You you know pay a nominal fee to register it. you get a numbered corporation and uh you currently have to provide the government with uh the names and addresses of people who are like the beneficial owners, right? Somebody who who could uh uh benefit financially from being an owner of that company. But uh it is not publicly available information. The only people who have access to it, I believe, are police and they can only get access to that information with a warrant. And it the whole thing was kind of a concession. the government made to good government advocates but it didn't accomplish much. Uh so they are now moving forward with a proper beneficial ownership registry that is going to collect more data that is uh not going to be restricted solely to police and at least in theory could help the government uh more effectively combat uh money laundering. Uh this also I I want to be careful not to defame anybody but you know this could have let me put it this way. uh British Columbia adopted a beneficial ownership registry in large part because it knew that uh or it had discovered that uh huge amounts of money were being laundered both through their provincial casino system and in their housing uh markets. Uh if the similar things are true uh here in Ontario a beneficial ownership registry uh could be very uh effective indeed but again uh they are just sort of announcing moving forward with it now. Uh we will have to see uh again the devil is always in the details. Is it a coincidence that beneficial ownership registries acronym is bore?

I'm trying to make it interesting. I had to explain to my kid this week that, you know, my job is sometimes to take boring stuff and try and make it sound interesting and sometimes it's a swing and a miss.

No, we're getting to baseball later. Um, anything else, JMM? Okay. So, I am going to take uh an excuse for a bit of let's call it uh remedial civics education, right? Uh budget figures can always change and we take them with a great assault whoever is making an assertion whether it's the government or the opposition. So, we heard a lot uh both uh earlier this year and in last year about uh the government cutting the funding for wildlands firefighting uh despite we know that the the fire seasons have been getting worse thanks to climate change. Um and the government uh h actually had allocated less funding in uh 2024 than it had spent in 2023 just as a for example. And so the opposition pointed to that and said well look they've they've they're they're cutting funding. It turns out it's not that simple. In fact today's fees uh says that the government spent $90 million more than planned because uh last year's fire season was so bad. was a 300% increase in hectares burned. The government can move money around. They can the budget is a plan, but the plan can change. Um, and so, you know, for example, when the the union representing firefighters, uh, claims that, you know, they are being short changed. I don't even think they're necessarily wrong, right? uh we might actually be in a a better position, for example, if they had more stable permanent funding at a higher level than what the province currently provides them. But we must be careful with these figures when we talk about them. I suspect that next spring when the budget comes out, there will be a smaller figure allocated to wildland firefighting. Th this claim will be repeated and I will remind people once again that the budget is just a plan and plans can change. Our plans will not change. And by that I mean we are going to have a special guest talk about this more next week on the program. Brian Lewis I think is the guy who's coming in. Yes indeed.

And I know that because I saw him at a conference yesterday and we both made a plan. And the plan is that inshallah if the Tiger Cats win the Eastern final this year, this weekend, what am I saying this year? This Saturday if they win, we're both going to wear our Taiat garb next week in anticipation of the Gay Cup because he's a Hamiltonian. I'm a Hamiltonian and we need to, you know,

I have no CFL garb at home.

Why does that not surprise me? And with that, we're off to issue two.

Well, we heard a lot of very powerful rhetoric out of Ottawa this week as this federal government tabled its first budget. Words like transformative and unprecedented were used by the federal liberals to describe what they feel they're doing at a moment in history where our relationship with our biggest trading partner is pretty terrible. JMM, why don't you take us through some of the key highlights of the federal budget?

Right. So, uh, revenues for the government of Canada will be 507 billion this year. Uh, spending, however, of $585 billion. So, our, uh, perceptive audience will note that the spending number is substantially larger than the revenue number.

Not what you call balance.

No. No. Uh, so we are looking at a deficit federally of 78 billion. Uh now that number has largely been driven by a substantial runup in spending uh from the last several years under uh then prime minister uh Justin Trudeau particularly of course since the co9 pandemic. Uh prime minister cardi and finance minister fron philip champang want to bring that deficit under control. So they are proposing uh to do that by substantially reducing the growth of program spending. uh this is you know a lot of the service spending that we think about uh the the day-to-day operations of the government uh they are looking to reduce that growth down to half a percent per year. Now that is certainly going to be uh less than the rate of inflation, less than the rate of population growth. Uh although the federal budget also includes a substantial reduction in immigration levels u but so I think it's fair to say that this is going to manifest as uh service cuts federally. uh something we are going to have to keep an eye on for the details of, but I don't think anybody is expecting um uh uh anything like the uh substantial federal funding we've seen for the last certainly 5 years.

Mhm. Well, it is a big deficit. Not co big.

Yeah.

Because those were really big. What did we get to in CO? Was that like 300 billion or something?

Yeah, I think the deficit was was huger than anybody could possibly imagine. This is not that big, but it is sizable. The federal government are telling us however that they are taking a new approach to spending that will be different from the past with different priorities and a different way of sort of organizing things. What does all that mean?

Right. So the big shift that the government is trying to uh communicate uh is that in a relatively short time over the next two years or so the deficit will go from uh largely paying for the day-to-day operations of the government which is kind of what it is doing now um and they are going to shift it so the deficit you know will be primarily driven by longer term investments big capital projects that kind of thing and you know people might be more familiar with this concept from municipal budgeting at least here in Ontario where Ontario municipalities are not allowed to run operating deficits by law

by law. Um and if you you know if you try to propose uh a a budget at a municipal council that runs an operating deficit, you will very quickly find yourself on the phone with the minister of municipal affairs saying like uh sharpen your pencils, try again. Um and so obviously there's a different relationship uh between the provincial and federal governments. Nobody can sort of force the federal government to do this. But I think it's illustrative. Uh municipalities can can go into debt for big capital expenditures whether that's a a sewer system or an arena or you know those kinds of things so long as uh they are within certain guidelines set by the province. So similarly here the federal government is proposing that you know as it continues to go into debt and these these deficits are going to be pretty substantial going into the future they are going to be spending that that new debt on uh large big capital projects uh and not just running the the the day-to-day stuff keeping the lights on uh of the federal government. big question mark of course is that like it's not like there's a bright line dividing what is an operating expense versus what is a capital expense. And you can imagine that a lot of people who would like to have access to federal money are going to discover some really um creative accounting definitions for why their pet project is in fact an investment and not just an operating expense.

by law. Um and if you you know if you try to propose uh a a budget at a municipal council that runs an operating deficit, you will very quickly find yourself on the phone with the minister of municipal affairs saying like uh sharpen your pencils, try again. Um and so obviously there's a different relationship uh between the provincial and federal governments. Nobody can sort of force the federal government to do this. But I think it's illustrative. Uh municipalities can can go into debt for big capital expenditures whether that's a a sewer system or an arena or you know those kinds of things so long as uh they are within certain guidelines set by the province. So similarly here the federal government is proposing that you know as it continues to go into debt and these these deficits are going to be pretty substantial going into the future they are going to be spending that that new debt on uh large big capital projects uh and not just running the the the day-to-day stuff keeping the lights on uh of the federal government. big question mark of course is that like it's not like there's a bright line dividing what is an operating expense versus what is a capital expense. And you can imagine that a lot of people who would like to have access to federal money are going to discover some really um creative accounting definitions for why their pet project is in fact an investment and not just an operating expense.

Well, as is always the case, there's a ton of feedback anytime the federal government brings out a budget. And we should tell you that Ontario's treasurer, Peter Bethlin Falvi, said well quite different things from what the federal government were saying. He said the budget lacked ambition. It lacked urgency, is not as transformational as he'd hoped the feds were suggesting. Some of that unhappiness, I suspect, is due to the fact that the provinces will be receiving far less money for infrastructure projects than they had hoped. I think that's one potential explanation. What else are you thinking? Well, so to be clear, it's not that Ontario is is getting nothing out of this federal budget, right? Uh these announcements have already been made, but you know, the feds have brought forward $2 billion for the Darlington Small Modular Nuclear Reactor. Um the budget is committing to starting construction on uh highspeed rail between Toronto and Montreal within four years uh instead of eight. Uh, I do have to just like this Liberal government has been in power for 10 years and we're still talking about maybe starting highspeed rail by year 14 instead of 18. I I guess it's an improvement, but like just Oh, kill me.

I remember covering this story 40 years ago. Yeah. When they first started talking about highspeed rail between Windsor and Quebec City. Yes, we're still talking about it.

And and I I might be in the cold cold ground when we're still talking about it.

Um but of course you know there are some disappointments for the premier. The uh premier Ford wanted federal support for his uh 401 highway tunnel idea and did not get it and of course I weep for him. Uh

looks like JMM it's going to take a lot more breakfasts at Perkins in Tobico for for Mr. Carney to pony up for that.

Yes. Um the province had also been seeking support for the idea of a uh a James Bay port in Museni. Uh the feds are already supporting an expansion of the port in Churchill, Manitoba. So uh I I I suspect they are unlikely to support two competing ports in James Bay, particularly when economists will tell you that there's not necessarily a ton of demand even for one.

But uh yeah, so I I can understand why uh the premier and why the finance minister are a bit disappointed about this budget. But to be clear, Ontario is still getting some goodies from this budget. Do you remember that scene in Casablanca where Claude Reigns comes out of the casino and says, "I'm shocked. I'm shocked to see gambling going on here." Okay, I'm going to use that same line right now. We've been talking for I don't know what, 15, 20 minutes already. I am shocked. I am beyond shocked that you have not mentioned housing yet.

Are we going to re rectify that right now?

We are going to talk about housing.

Everybody can can stop sweating. Um you can reset your you know days since McGrath has talked about housing timers. Um there is not a ton of new stuff and and this has been uh disappointing to some people. We'll get into that in a minute. But um you know some of the biggest measures uh had already been announced outside of the budget process. So uh both proincially and federally we have now uh an HST rebate for uh firsttime home buyers for homes under a million dollars. Uh these rebates are it is hoped will uh kickstart the frankly pretty disastrous uh housing start numbers that the province has seen this year. Um we'll see. Um not a ton of other progress on measures that were for example included in the federal liberal uh campaign platform. uh you know, measures to uh get more uh support for rental housing, changing some of the the tax treatment of rental housing, that kind of thing. These these changes have been announced, but they have not been uh implemented yet. We're still waiting uh for those measures. U so kind of a disappointing budget document uh as as far as these things go. Again, with the sort of caveat that there there are some other federal measures that have happened. They just haven't happened in the budget process. Uh I am not the only one saying the budget is kind of disappointing. Uh the Canadian Homebuilders Association uh put out a release saying that you know they were disappointed by the the lack of ambition and specifically uh they say that you know they're worried that the feds are making promises about the outcomes of federal policy that their actual implemented policies are not going to be able to match. Right? It's you can't tell people that like Hosanna everything is going to be marvelous. Look at all the great things we're doing when you're kind of doing half measures that aren't going to actually move the ball down the field. Uh the government's we'll see. I I'm not entirely certain how this is going to play out yet, but uh the government's previous demand that municipalities cut development charges in half uh seems to have been softened. In the text of uh this week's budget, it simply says reduced. Um and and you know maybe the the simplest way to put this, you know, uh Mike Moffett, one of the more uh prominent housing advocates uh nationally and and particularly in Ontario, uh simply called this budget a disaster, an absolute disaster for housing policy. So uh I am, if anything, being charitable.

Mike usually knows where. He speaks on these things. He does a really nice podcast called The Missing Middle in which he talks about housing every week. and uh he is one of those go-to people on housing issues that people like us go to when we want to find out what's going on. I um now I mentioned a few I guess it was three or four weeks ago now I was at an Ontario Homebuilders Association conference up in Collingwood

and and I do remember a number of developers coming up to me saying you know people are waiting to buy homes because they are looking for signals from government. Um, it's all well and good for Ontario to say we'll take the HST off homes if the feds do as well. The the the upshot of that is that nobody's going to buy a home if they think by waiting they can make, you know, cost of a house $100,000 less. Province put forward that idea. Do the feds pick it up? The cost of, you know, taking the HST off of

Oh, yes. Yes. So both the federal and provincial government have now uh announced these these rebates. Yes.

So that theoretically should should make that less murky and less of a reason for people to delay buying homes.

Yes.

You know because that'll save you a lot of money now that you don't have to pay HST on a purchase of a new home.

there's reasons why you you would want to minimize these kinds of rebates, right? You want to preserve as much tax revenue for the government as possible. But Mike's point is that at this certainly in Ontario, our housing starts are are so low and our the the sector is in such uh desperate need of stimulus that uh limiting this to first-time home buyers when you know one of the public policy aims that we would like to to see over the next decade or so like it would really really help our housing sector if uh seniors would who you know might be living comfortably in a uh you know three or fourbedroom home but they're empty nesters now don't need all that space if they want to buy a new home somewhere where they can retire comfortably and sell their existing home onto the market where a younger family could get that you know three or fourbedroom home and and start their own family that's the kind of

and not have to pay HST on it

and not have to pay HST um you know that that senior family that household they're not first-time home buyers But it would be worth it to give them an incentive to downsize. And uh this the way these rebates are currently structured, that's not going to happen.

In fact, I think the way the current rules work, we're going to disincentivize them from doing it even more because there's probably a land transfer tax on the purchase and sale of a new home or or an existing home. And therefore,

and there's subsidies for uh renovating your existing home to be more congenial for aging in place. So

there you go. A lot going on there. Okay, that that's a good kick at the sort of substance of the budget. There also of course is the politics uh of the budget which are very important in a minority parliament because uh obviously none of what we've talked about matters if it doesn't get passed through the House of Commons.

The government got some encouraging news on that front because a conservative MP from Nova Scotia named Chris Dontrammo crossed the floor to sit with the Liberal caucus with the intention of voting for the budget. So now the Liberals were three votes short. Now, they're only two votes short of being able to pass it. So, they will either need two more opposition MPs to indicate they're prepared to support the budget or alternatively get what I think over the years has been referred to as the budget flu, meaning they just don't show up to vote. You know, if they don't show up, an abstension is as good as a as a yes vote uh in that case. Um, so the drama is not over yet is what I'm trying to say. I think there's a lot more to come here.

Yeah. And you know, if they do get those two additional uh MPs and uh rumors flying around Ottawa this week about uh whether two more Conservatives might uh cross the floor, uh we'll see. It might not happen. If it does, one thing that I always like to point out to people is like it's not just the composition of the House of Commons itself. Uh the government would be able to uh present a motion to the commons to reorder the committees, right? Once you have a majority in the House, you are allowed to then also have a majority in committees. And one of the things that always kills minority governments both federally and we've seen historically proincially, uh, if you don't have control of the committee process, you get dragged into all of these inquiries and the committees can dig up all sorts of dirt on anything they want that's within their their rim. Right? That's what happened with the gas plant scandal here in Ontario uh, during the minority Liberal government. So, it is not just that Mark Carney would certainly welcome having two more conservative floor crosses just to get his budget passed. Uh, but reasserting uh majority control over the committee process would also uh really clear the decks and give them at least a chance at a relatively scandal-free next few years.

Yeah, that's a really good point. You know, I should also mention it was just earlier today in fact that I was talking to the press secretary for the federal finance minister for France Philip Champang and I I this is new information to me. I did not know this. He said that the budget bill is actually broken up into many small pieces and that there will be over the next few weeks several votes, I mean maybe 15 votes in total on all of the different aspects of the federal budget. And that actually offers the opportunity for the opposition on all of those different occasions to torpedo this thing. So the government doesn't just have to be good once on a single vote at the end of the day. Apparently there are many hurdles to to jump over along the way and they got to jump over them all or else who knows are we off to another election maybe. I don't know. That's a distinction between how the federal and provincial legislators handle uh omnibus bills, I guess, right? Because proincially the, you know, the the budget bill is just one piece of legislation and it's it's really the only uh confidence vote that the the opposition gets every year, right?

And the official line from the government of Canada today, and I suspect going forward, is we expect the budget to pass. They don't tell you how they're going to get it to pass, but they expect the budget to pass. We shall see. And we shall see what's up on issue three.

Quebec has passed a controversial law that's imposed a new payment system on its physicians, and it features fines if those doctors look for ways to protest. Reaction, as you might imagine, has been very swift. Premier Franis Lago's social services minister Lonel Carmon, who is a doctor, resigned after his daughter, who is also a doctor, penned an open, very critical letter about the law. Now, as you might imagine, again, all of this has got some Quebec physicians looking to move elsewhere. And here's what Premier Doug Ford had to say about that. Premier Ford,

call 1800 Doug Ford, all the docs, and uh come by, call me on my cell phone. It's on the internet. People are taking advantage of it now. And uh we'll have you working real quick.

What I shouldn't laugh. What the premier did there is a real violation of the so-called and you know this is a term that goes way back so you'll understand why it's called this. You know, there's a bit of a gentleman's agreement among premers of the various provinces of the country that they are not supposed to so brazenly or opportunistically openly poach, you know, specialists from other provinces, whether it's engineers or doctors or teachers or whatever. You know, the federation, the premers in the federation are supposed to try to get along with each other. Um, Ontario has really, well, Doug Ford has done it here. Um it usually this kind of intreaty is done much more tacitly so that you don't make a an enemy of your fellow first minister and of course in the past when this kind of thing has been done to Quebec it can have national unity implications. So what do we think about what the premier of Ontario is doing to the premier of Quebec here?

Well it might be working right. Um something like uh 150 applications from Quebec doctors uh have already uh been filed I guess to come work here in Ontario.

Premier LGO is going to love that. Uh yeah, exactly. Um now this is not entirely new and I'm just remembering uh during Kathleen W's time as premier uh one of the uh first of what have been several uh laws that were you know so-called secularism laws designed to uh allow Quebec to discriminate against Muslims, if I can put it bluntly. um that law was either introduced or passed. And Ontario uh was was quite happy to let it be known that if Quebec Muslim nurses in particular uh felt that they could no longer work comfortably in uh Quebec that they were more than welcome in Ontario

because they weren't allowed to wear a hijab or

Yes. Exactly.

That said, the the Quebec government is not happy with Premier Ford. Uh Franago called the comments unacceptable. uh said that it is not time to quote stab each other in the back.

There we go.

Uh so, you know, there is a a potential political cost uh to premier Ford weighing in here. Uh and you know, some uh commentators are saying that this could be used by separatists in the future. Uh you know, to say, you know, Canada isn't standing for us on Ontario, other provinces, they're never going to support us. We have to go uh strike out on our own. You know, I can give you another example of this, and this one again goes back more than 30 years. You know, there's always been a situation in Eastern Ontario where if, for example, an Ontario firm was bidding on and let's say winning a a contract on something in Quebec, had to use Quebec workers. Yes. Couldn't use Ontario workers.

The corollery was not the case. If a Quebec firm won, they could use whoever they wanted. And Ontario, successive Ontario premers over the last three decades have not really pushed that Yes. that double standard because they feared that, you know, Quebec would get its backup and there would be national unity implications.

I think Mike Harris did pass a law at one point and he tried but he didn't enforce it.

Yeah. Yeah. I I only remember because it had, you know, these laws always have names and this one was the fairness is a two-way street act.

Yeah. That's right. That's right. Very good. Yeah. Now, obviously in the past, I know Premier Ford and Premier LGO, they used to say very nice things about one another. They had almost what you might call a bit of a bromance. What do you think this does to their friendship?

Uh, I'm going to guess it doesn't help, right?

Um, but you know, uh, Premier Ford can read the polls about, uh, Quebec politics as well as anyone. If if anybody has put one in front of his face, I'm sure, uh, he's noticed. Um, you know, France LGO may not be long for this world politically, right? His party is not doing well in the polls. He is widely expected to be defeated in next year's Quebec election. Uh so you know maybe at this point uh Premier Ford is just saying that there's not a ton of costs uh for alienating a premier who is uh not going to be around much longer.

Well, let me return to something I referenced earlier in our program and that is this Saturday at Hamilton Stadium 3 p.m. Eastern time. Uh, there's going to be more Ford LGO confrontation, except this time it's going to be Ford's football team, the Hamilton Tigerats, against LGO's football team, the Montreal Alowettes, for the CFL East Final. Whoever wins that game is allowed to compete in the Grey Cup the following weekend in Winnipeg.

And I sure hope this doctor poaching has not uh caused the Tiger Cats any sleepless nights or anything like that because uh if they're not in the Grey Cup the following weekend and and somehow this whole doctor controversy has somehow presented itself on the football field and given the Alowettes added incentive to beat the Tiger Cats, I'm going to be plenty pissed about that. I can just tell you right now. Okay, let's go Cats onto your column, my column.

Time now for our regular feature. your column, my column in which JMM and I reminisce about what we wrote for tvO.org, this place's website over the past week. What did you write about?

Uh, so I uh wrote about the uh conservative premier reaction and it was several conservative premers, not just uh Doug Ford uh reaction to the recent uh Senville uh decision by the Supreme Court. Now this is a a case that multiple premers and not just conservatives have uh heavily criticized. The Supreme Court struck down mandatory minimum sentences for people who uh access child pornography. The facts of these two cases uh that were before the court are predictably uh quite vile. Um but the majority of the court uh in a 5-4 decision, so a a narrow uh 5-4 decision, uh said that mandatory minimum sentences were not constitutional. and uh Doug Ford and other premers uh have urged the federal government to invoke the notwithstanding clause and restore mandatory minimum sentences. Uh Pierre Pv has said if he were to lead a government he would do that. And uh you know

the feds have never used the notwithstanding clause.

The feds have never used the notwithstanding clause and in this context only the feds could because it's a matter of criminal law. It's federal jurisdiction. Um what happens in federal politics is uh frankly beyond uh my ken. Uh but I wanted to write this column to say premers actually have other levers that they can pull. And I'm making a little bit of mischief here by saying like if we want to uh rebuke the court. We don't just have the notwithstanding clause at our hands. The premier can propose a constitutional amendment. uh I have written before for TVO that I think one way to read the notwithstanding clause is to give governments uh both federal and provincial uh a sort of a five-year window in cases where we think that the courts have gotten something so uh badly and obviously wrong. Uh it gives us time to hash things out as a country and say, "Hey, do we want to uh amend the constitution to reverse this judicial decision?" Um, as I say, I'm making a bit of mischief here, but I also think like a constitutional amendment might go nowhere. We might not get enough provinces on board. Although, frankly, you've got Ontario uh and several other provinces already vocally on board and that you already clear the population threshold.

That's a good start. Um but even if it goes nowhere, even if it it dies in the House of Commons, dies in the Senate, um that too would be instructive because it might give our premieres a bit more sympathy for a divided court, which in this case also reflects a divided country.

Yeah. Yeah. We don't normally write about sports on the TVO website, right? We just don't. I mean, we are very focused on politics and social services. Although I do want to flag that our our editor Ned Basin did write a very lovely piece.

Sure did. He wrote a lovely piece on the blue. Jason, this is you're helping me make the point I wanted to make which is we really took a a few exceptions to that rule of no sports on the website over the last few weeks because the you know the the quest for the World Series title for the first time in 32 years really captured the imagination of so many people not just in the capital city of the province of Ontario but from coast to coast to coast. And and the headline on my piece was, "Bless you boys." And I didn't make that up. I want to give, you know, full disclosure here. Uh what is it? 41 years ago, the 1984 Detroit Tigers got out of the gate so well at the beginning of the season. I think they went 35 wins and only five losses. And they just steamrollered their way to a World Series championship that year. And if you remember four decades ago in Detroit, that city was going through, you know, some very, very difficult times in every way you can imagine. And it just lifted the spirits, the Tigers great season, lifted the spirits of everybody in Detroit and Ernie Harwell, who was the announcer for the team, you know, at the end of his broadcast would say, "Bless you boys." And I just felt the same way. I thought the way that Jay's played and lifted everybody's spirits here and across the country, you know, bless you boys. I I this is not going to shock you to hear this. I've seen probably more than 50 World Series in my lifetime. I've never seen players after the game was over say they're having difficulty doing a scrum with reporters because they've just been crying for the last hour.

Yeah.

This team was different. These were not mercenaries. These were guys who loved each other.

They played for each other and they represented us and we felt like they represented us. There were so many unprecedented things that happened in this World Series. Uh Addison Barger, who's a 24year-old, no 25year-old kid with three children already. Yeah. Had a kid in the middle of the playoffs. He hit a pinch hit grand slam home run.

Extraordinary.

That had never been done before. In a 121 World Series that had never been done before, 22-year-old Treya Savage broke a 76-year-old record by striking out 12 batters on the other side. Nobody'd ever done that before as a 22-year-old rookie. Max Serger, 40 Sherzer, 41 years old, started game seven. No one that old has ever started game seven before. The drama of being two outs away from victory in the bottom of the ninth. Uh, poor Jeff Hoffman gave up the gamety home run.

Yeah.

Uh, a chance to win in the bottom of the ninth. A chance to win in the bottom of the 11th. They just couldn't do it.

Yeah. Dodger solo home runs in the eighth inning, the ninth inning, the 11th inning. 44 that I I know a bunch of people who went to the game. I didn't go to game seven. I went to game six. Yes.

Want to put a picture up? I went to game six. I mean, you want to talk about patriotism? I've never heard the anthem sung by 44,000 people with so much gusto

as they did for game six. Game seven, all the people left the stadium just crushed.

Yeah.

Because baseball is not only thrilling, but it's also agonizing. and it's supposed to be agonizing and people just walked home in stunned silence. So, you know what? Even in losing, bless you boys because you gave us a fall to remember. And uh whether we have a parade or a rally or not, doesn't matter at this point. Uh this probably was I think it's the case. This probably was the greatest World Series in terms of the mix of storylines, unprecedented things, game seven, probably the best World Series ever, you know. Um, so 10 years ago or a bit more than 10 years ago, the the the summer of 2015, uh, my wife was pregnant with our child, and I was out like mowing the lawn and realizing like I'm I'm going to be a a dad. I'm going to be a middle-aged dad and I need to start watching baseball. This I I had been a baseball fan in my youth, right, when the Jays first won the World first and second time winning the World Series. I I was, you know, a big baseball fan back then. And then like a lot of people I suspect I I had uh sort of drifted away from uh the Jays and uh then yeah 10 years ago I'd like you know uh uh subscribed to uh not sports net but the MLB TV service and started watching the Jays again and this is all like very confusing to my wife who was like what what is going on here?

that turned out to be an incredible year as well. And so my child was born during October baseball and uh they have uh we've just continued watching baseball, you know, for the last decade. Um and uh they have become a baseball fan as well. And that was tough that you know let them stay up late watch the game and uh you know when uh when the game tying home run happened

that was that was the first uh of uh uh successive rounds of tears uh and and just having to you know comfort a kid and say you know this is what sports is Right?

If it were always easy to win, winning would be meaningless, right? And we got to game seven of the World Series against the LA Dodgers and

who were heavily favored to win.

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And and you know, I I was saying to you last week, right, just just having gotten two wins against the Dodgers, I was like, great, you know,

whatever happens,

whatever happens next, you know, this has been a hell of a season. And then to get to force it all the way to game seven, I just thought, you know, fantastic season, fantastic series. How old is your child now?

Uh, just turned 10.

Just turned 10.

Yeah. Okay. My oldest child is 34

and lives in Switzerland.

Yes.

And got up at 3:00 in the morning so he could watch game seven. And uh that's pretty early in the morning. Yeah. That's pretty early in the morning to get up to watch your team lose. Your eldest has a a very young child still at this point.

My eldest has

he's not sleeping that.

No, that's that's a good point. My eldest has three children, four and under,

so sleep comes at a premium in that household, but he still wanted to be up at 3:00 in the morning to watch the game and uh

I respect the commitment

and we've we facetimed and that was a bit of a sad call.

Yeah.

Well, what do they say in sports? We'll get them next year.

Next year.

Get them next year. Pitchers and catchers reporting in February. It's not that far away.

And that's the OnP podcast for this Friday, November 7th, 2025. You can follow our show on Apple Podcasts so that you get notified each time a new episode is available. And you can see the video version of the podcast on the TV today YouTube channel.

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

Please include your first and last name and where you're located.

This week's episode was produced by Matthew Omera, editing by Colin Kish.

production support from Jonathan Hollowell and TVO's digital media services team.

Lori F is the executive producer of digital. John Ferry is vice president programming and content.

You know how we always like to give a shout out to the crew for helping make things operate so smoothly on this podcast. And let's also do one more thing. Let's say an Osci weew wee for the Hamilton Tiger Cats and hope they eat them raw on Saturday at the Eastern Final so they can get to the Gay Cup the following weekend in Winnipeg. Are you with me JMM?

I I'm happy for you. You're happy for me, but you're not really with me. Okay, I get it. Anyway, till next week, everybody. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Hi there. My name is John Michael McGrath and I'm a podcast host and writer here at TVO. I focus on provincial politics, explaining to our audience what is happening at Queens Park. From education policy and healthcare to transit and housing and yes, even bike lanes. Here at TV, we believe that democracy requires an educated, engaged citizen. And one way we help build that is by supporting quality journalism. Your donations help make that possible, and we're grateful.