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

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

Steve Paikin: Today on the pod, the government has a big week of announcements on mines, roads, and energy policy. And we're going to dig into all the details. In Niagara region, they have more than 125 local politicians for a population the size of Hamilton. The premier thinks that's too many. But what's he prepared to do about it?

John Michael McGrath: We are the ony podcast, but today we're also talking municipal politics because many of you have asked us to. We'll talk to one of the capital city's deputy mayors about local elections happening later this year.

Steve Paikin: And in your column, my column, I'm going to talk about the dubious economics of convention centers.

John Michael McGrath: And I consider the difficult task of writing an obituary about a former politician who died a premature and tragic death, but about whom very few people have anything nice to say. How exactly do you do that? It's March 6th, 2026. So, let's get to it.

John Michael McGrath: JMM, sir, as always, a little sugar to start with.

Steve Paikin: Yes, indeed.

John Michael McGrath: Now, my childhood was filled with playing Pac-Man, and that looks like Pac-Man on your t-shirt today.

Steve Paikin: Yes, I have Pac-Man eating the planets of the solar system. Unfortunately, this is not an orthodox t-shirt. It has only eight planets and not the correct nine that all right thinking people recognize.

John Michael McGrath: Pluto is missing is what?

Steve Paikin: Pluto is missing is what I'm saying. But yeah, no political or current affair significance to this shirt. I just I saw it a few weeks ago. I liked it. I bought it and now I'm wearing it on TV.

John Michael McGrath: Okay. Looks good. And it looks good on you. Looks good on you. I went today. No premier on my chest today. I went today because the weather has been so warm lately. I am already allowing my mind to flow to the summer when I expect to be. And I'm going to stand up here for a second so you can see this. That is a beautiful canoe on water with the word Ontario there because I hope to have my slightly overweight body in a canoe on some body of water in Ontario not too many months down the road from now. We're allowed to think about it a little bit. But I did not want this ann this has nothing to do with a political anniversary. However, stand by. Don't go anywhere.

Steve Paikin: This does.

John Michael McGrath: We're now a prop podcast.

Steve Paikin: Yes. Yes, this does. This is I guess they handed these out at the Ontario Liberal Leadership Convention which took place six years ago this weekend.

John Michael McGrath: Would you call that a placard?

Steve Paikin: I would call it a placard. Yeah, this is from the guy who obviously ended up winning, Steven Deluca. He went on the first ballot and he wrote a very nice, you know, I collect this stuff. So he wrote a very nice thing here to Steve. Thank you for always reminding us of our Ontario political history from Steven Deluca. And you know this convention was if I may say one of the last kind of normal experiences we had because well we started to call it the CO convention even though CO officially was not sort of in full bloom until about a few days later.

John Michael McGrath: Certainly the last big public event I attended before the lockdown started.

Steve Paikin: Absolutely. Absolutely. Now Steven Delooi won that convention in the first ballot. As you know, he went on to lead the Liberals into a campaign that didn't go so well against Doug Ford. Later that year, he managed to pick himself up, dust himself off, became the mayor of Vaughn, a position which he still holds. I guess we'll find out soon if he intends to run for that position once again. But I thought, okay, you know, he didn't become premier, so he's not on a t-shirt, but it was a convention of significance and a political event of significance. So that's why I brought the sign in.

John Michael McGrath: Yes. One of the clear memories I have of that convention is Chrystia Freeland who was I guess co-chairing the convention telling everybody to make sure to cough into their sleeves and not shake hands and yeah and and there were people at that convention who only days later were some of the first positive COVID cases you know in the first few hundred in the province. And so I definitely remember having a thought of like, oh, did I shake that person's hand?

Steve Paikin: Well, there's no question that was sort of the first and obvious, what did they call them? Like spreader events or something.

John Michael McGrath: Yeah, super spreader events.

Steve Paikin: Super spreader events. Yeah.

John Michael McGrath: And I remember having some Purel with me and we were, you know, we were going to gave all day at that convention. And whenever somebody came on the set to do an interview, if we shook hands, you know, little do of Purel and, you know, after that and there we were.

Steve Paikin: Yes. So that was six years ago this weekend. There we go. How time flies.

John Michael McGrath: Yes indeed.

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

Steve Paikin: The annual conference of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada or PDAC as everyone calls it. Well, it's one of the world's largest mining conferences and an annual mustattend appointment for both provincial and federal politicians. This year, Premier Doug Ford and Energy and Minds Minister Steven Leche had a number of important announcements at PDAC. And thankfully, JMM is here to give us the 411 on all of that.

John Michael McGrath: So, your shirt, I think we could fairly say that the image on your shirt evokes Northern Ontario in particular. So, let's start in the north, the far north, in fact. The government wants to develop the mineral deposits around the Ring of Fire. This government like the previous government and the government before that want to develop the ring of fire. But this is a part of the province where there is no year-round road access. So building some kind of link to the ring of fire has been a provincial priority for the last 20 years or so. And yes, I'm making a bit of a joke about how something could be a priority for 20 years. But this week the government announced that it was moving up the construction schedule for the year round roads to the Ring of Fire with some of them now planned to open as early as 2030 which the government says is 5 years ahead of the previous schedule. The proposed road would connect the Ring of Fire with the provincial road network northeast of Lake Nipagon and would connect the Martin Falls and Webquy First Nations on a year-round road. These communities, like many Indigenous First Nations in the Northwest, have to rely on winter ice roads. So, a year round permanent road is a substantial change for these communities.

Steve Paikin: Plenty of obstacles between here and there, I presume still to go, right?

John Michael McGrath: Yes. Nothing is ever easy. And so the province's lingering irritant criticism perhaps of the federal government. These are provincial roads. But they do require some federal approvals because there are matters of federal jurisdiction here. We're talking about endangered species that are listed under federal law. Fisheries, migratory birds, I love that migratory birds is a category of environmental policy that is like exclusive to the federal government. And navigable waterways. These are these are all areas of federal jurisdiction. These are all areas where the federal government will have to give approvals and permits for these roads to go forward. The province, of course, did take the opportunity to say to the federal government, hey, as much as we value our our great partnership with the federal government, if you guys could really like get a move on with these approvals, that would be nifty. We've talked before on the podcast about Bill C5, which was the federal version of this, and and Ontario's bill 5, which both of these pieces of legislation give the respective governments very broad powers to issue exactly these kinds of approvals more quickly than previous legislation would have. So, it's possible that Ontario might not have to wait very long to get these approvals. It is just March now so maybe we we could see some some movement on this at least on the policy side of things before the end of the year but you know we will see what we see.

Steve Paikin: So that is a more ambitious effort by the government of Ontario as it relates to the ring of fire what else you got.

John Michael McGrath: right this was interesting the energy and minds minister Steven Leche also announced a national energy corridor agreement technically this was not an announcement made at Pedak but all of the premers were in town attending Pedak's I'm going to shoehorn this into our category here. This is an agreement among several provinces and territories that would build a more interconnected power grid among the provinces. It includes British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, obviously Ontario, not Quebec, and then several other provinces and territories. there is obviously some electricity trade between Canadian provinces. Right now, Ontario trades electricity both with Quebec in a very big way and Manitoba to a smaller extent. But the the objective here with this agreement is to try and really make that a more robust and active trade in electricity.

Steve Paikin: Well, there have been plans I would say going back decades and I know you know Jack Gibbons for example from the Clean Energy Alliance and Mike Shriner, the leader of the Greens at Queens Park, they have often talked about trying to establish trans what do you call them? Transmission lines. Yes. between Quebec and Ontario.

John Michael McGrath: Interize is the technical term.

Steve Paikin: Yeah. And if you could somehow beef that up, you would obiate the need for spending, you know, tens of billions of dollars on nuclear. Anyway, where's all that at?

John Michael McGrath: Well, obviously the current government is not talking about more electricity trade in lie of new nuclear power. They're a big fan of nuclear power and have...

Steve Paikin: you've made a big bet on that?

John Michael McGrath: Yes. And we'll talk more about that on the podcast in the future because that's a that's a big thing for the the current government. But at the same time as they want to build as much as 10,000 megawatts of new nuclear power they are also talking about expanding the transmission between provinces and you know there's reasons why this can be good for industry because you know different provinces generate electricity and consume electricity at different times. So you know it it can make the whole system more efficient in theory.

Steve Paikin: Would the feds be involved?

John Michael McGrath: Well this is the interesting point here. The federal Liberal Party in last year's election they did endorse the idea of a national grid. They talked about building a net zero national grid. They lamented the fact that Canada as a G7 country does not have a national grid. No sign of Canada in the press release yesterday earlier this week I should say from the Ontario government. And you know, I periodically get on my hobby horse about the fact that the the provinces matter and the provinces can make substantial major policy even if it doesn't involve federal politics. And this is one of those cases where I think that's true where the you know it's it's the provinces that own the power systems that you know I mean literally you know the the nuclear power plants that's complicated with Bruce Power but you know the power system is by and large owned operated regulated by the provinces and any decision to make a national power grid basically doesn't need to involve the feds at all. It just needs to the have the provinces agree on how things move forward. Now, the big stumbling block to a a national grid is...

Steve Paikin: Well, I was going to say, can you can you have a national power grid without the second most populous province in the country being there? No, Quebec.

John Michael McGrath: Well, so a the second most populous province one who's historically been a major hydroelectric exporter that is still sees their hydroelectric crown corporation as really, you know, a crown jewel in that that province's economy. And also not for just like geographically like is Ontario going to be able to trade electricity with like New Brunswick and Nova Scotia if we don't have Quebec on board? It seems kind of difficult.

Steve Paikin: Seems a big piece of land to bypass.

John Michael McGrath: Right. So in the news release from the government earlier this week, they did say that Quebec supports many of the principles in this agreement but did not put their name to it. They also not surprisingly the Quebec government insists on the sort of absolute primacy of provincial jurisdiction here. So did not want to even get a whiff of federal interference in their affairs. But you know I think the other obvious point we should make on a political podcast after all is that the current government of Quebec has an expiry date. There is an election coming and the bigger question for any kind of national electricity ambitions is who the next government of Quebec will be. It is if it is for example a Peltic Keepqua government, cooperation amongst the provinces on electrical matters might become more complicated.

Steve Paikin: That is a nice diplomatic way to put it. And with that we're off to issue two.

Steve Paikin: Niagara region has 126 politicians for a population the size of the city of Hamilton. In comparison, Hamilton has 16 local counselors. There's been talk for years about downsizing and amalgamating the various municipalities that make up Niagara region, but any efforts around this have always hit a snag, including the most recent attempts. JMM, what's going on?

John Michael McGrath: Right. So Bob Gail is the Niagara Regional Council chair and he recently wrote to the province saying that he thought there were too many elected officials in Niagara. So he's looking at several possible reforms including slashing the number of counselors and amalgamating the 12 municipalities of Niagara region. It is worth noting here that when the Ford government was elected they announced a a proposal to make major reforms to the system of regional municipalities. We have in Ontario. It's kind of a peculiar system that you don't necessarily see a lot of in other jurisdictions, but it has worked for us for a few decades. But that that proposal to to make major changes to regional government did not really go anywhere in part because the 2019 budget of the Ford government was so toxic that they kind of decided to lay low for a while and not make any changes and then co happened. So what they did do was make regional chairs appointed instead of elected. So just for the context here right Bob Gail is the regional chair of Niagara but he is a Ford government appointee writing a letter to the people who appointed him. This matters because when these letters became ma a matter of public record, the elected officials in Niagara, mayors and counselors very politely lost their minds a little. Basically they passed a motion at regional council saying like no we don't want you moving forward on this in any way. They have basically forbidden Gail from spending public money to to move this forward while they pursue their own review of what Niagara region's governance should look like.

Steve Paikin: Well, let's us pursue our own review of this whole thing right now because this sort of came to light again because Doug Ford was asked about it at a press conference last week and and anyway, let's go through it right now. There are a lot of municipal politicians in the region of Niagara, just south of Lake Ontario for what is arguably not a very large number of people. A half a million people, 126 politicians, although the premier says is more than 150, but I don't know how he does the math on this.

John Michael McGrath: Yeah, I I not clear on that. We were speculating earlier. Maybe he's counting like school boards and boards or something.

Steve Paikin: I don't know. But um well, let's go through this. What would the pros be? what what is the argument in favor of some kind of significant reamalgamation to reduce the number of politicians?

John Michael McGrath: So the usual argument that is made in favor of amalgamation is fiscal efficiency, spending public dollars more efficiently. If you reduce the number of politicians you are paying fewer politicians and so from the the perspective of Premier Ford as just one example that is just by definition better we've seen this play out before though and for example you know we go back to 1997 when the city of Toronto was amalgamated we could talk about 2018 when the size of Toronto city council was cut in half it tends is not to generate dramatic savings in part because the the salaries that we pay elected officials are not like the primary thing that government spends money on, right? It's hiring police, hiring firefighters. Like these are the the real things that drive the cost of local government of all government. So I I would say I I don't see a a terribly strong correlation there. I mean the other issue though I think and this gets back to the the structure of regional government itself where you have one level of government the the regional government that would be deciding some issues and then other issues are the purview of the the smaller local governments and there you could see at least in theory an argument that there's there's conflicts where and I I'm not going to pretend to know the exact division of powers amongst the various regional governments in in Niagara. But, you know, as a for example, if you had one level of government planning the sewers while the other government was handling the the local zoning matters, you could um imagine a mismatch there and a and a conflict there. And so, it might deliver better results for residents to amalgamate things and and just make one level of government responsible for both uh issues.

Steve Paikin: Okay, those are the pros. And of course, some people think it is a good thing in and of itself to reduce the number of politicians. I think there's some people watching and listening to this who would say that's in and of itself a good thing. How about the other side of the coin? What would be the reasons not to do this?

John Michael McGrath: Well, so the the flip side of having fewer politicians is less local representation. And I mean that both sort of numerically, right? Like just having fewer elected officials available. Again, I'm going to refer to Toronto City Council. I mean when council was cut in half that doubled the number of voters and citizens that each counselor was responsible for representing that makes their job more difficult. I I've spoken to a counselor who you know said like that you know just the difference of you know events and places where a counselor needs to be in their ward when you double the size of their ward it suddenly makes it extremely difficult just to to respectfully attend all the different parts of your community. Our audience can probably guess I'm kind of unsympathetic to the idea that this is going to be a way that saves lots of money. I am a bit more sympathetic to the idea that there are arguments for reorganizing who does what on a municipal level that might deliver better results to residents but yeah as as a matter of saving money I'm skeptical.

Steve Paikin: Well I I think you know just in terms of a concept we can understand one tier government and the the you know alleged simplicity of that as opposed to two-tier governments where you're wondering you know which level's responsible for doing what thing. You know, if you look at a map, you can see where the 416 is. The city of Toronto. If you look at a map, you can see where Hamilton is. This is now, you know, Hamilton is no longer two-tier. It's one tier since the year 2000. Ottawa, Carlton. Same kind of thing.

John Michael McGrath: Um, actually, can I swap you just there? Sure. Because Ottawa is a a case that is kind of relevant to what I was talking about the the the geographical spread of interests where when Ottawa was amalgamated, it included a big chunk of what used to be Carlton County and the rural communities there very quickly found out that they did not love being governed from city hall in Ottawa. and a lot of a lot of rural resentment bubbled out of Carlton County that would end up being represented by groups like the Ontario Landown Owners Association. People who remember Ontario politics, you know, people like Randy Hillier came out of the landowners association movement and you know it was not exclusively about the the particular details of the way that Ottawa was amalgamated. But when I talk about, you know, rural interests not always getting well represented in urban amalgamations, that's one case I would point to.

Steve Paikin: It's it's interesting. I'm trying to get my head around how this would work because if you look at other two-tier regions, you know, just north of us in the region of York, you know, you still have Markham, you still have Vaughn, in Durham, you've still got Whitby, you've still got Ashawa. Um, in Niagara Falls, is it I mean, excuse me, in Niagara region, is it possible to imagine a single tiered city that would go all the way from Hamilton, Ontario to Niagara Falls? That's a long way. And there are lots of different communities within that region. And I wonder if they could all be adequately represented by a single tiered city or city council in the way that is now the case in either Hamilton, Ottawa, or Toronto. I don't know the answer.

John Michael McGrath: I I don't know the answer either. It is just it is I happen to have family who have moved to Niagara region and so I I've become a bit more familiar with the geography and it's just it's really big. It's a really big chunk of the province to think of as a single municipality and it's it's relatively diverse in in exactly that way that I'm talking about about like big differences between relatively large cities versus a lot of rural areas. And yeah, I I it would be very challenging. Now, there has been a sort of a middle ground proposed that would see some of the smaller municipalities amalgamated into a larger but still like primarily rural municipality. But would not totally collapse all of the local government into a single tier municipality. They, you know, they might decide to go that route. I I I get the sense that the local elected officials are trying to find some way to avoid total amalgamations.

Steve Paikin: Yeah.

Steve Paikin: Le let's just do one more round on this and that is to say, you know, Doug Ford at the press conference said if this is going to happen, municipal amalgamation in Niagara region, it's Niagara that's going to have to lead it. I mean, he obviously has the power to impose this, but he has said he will not do it.

John Michael McGrath: Yes.

Steve Paikin: Um do we believe him? Well, we don't have any clear evidence yet that he's planning chicainery, if I could put it that way, because he also said, you know, if the people of Nagra region want to keep paying double the taxes that they otherwise would need to pay, they can keep doing that. But yeah, you know, he he believes obviously in amalgamation.

John Michael McGrath: Yeah. And.

Steve Paikin: Doesn't want to do doesn't want to, you know, take the political bullet for doing it.

John Michael McGrath: Yes. And I in that specific point I would just say like again we we we have many case studies to to draw from here and you know amalgamation that the city of Toronto did not produce any substantial long-term savings because at the end of the day the the the the stuff that drives government expenses is the stuff that we ask government to do. And so amalgamation is not going to on its own, it's not going to, you know, fire a thousand police officers or shut down fire stations or or cut EMS or library services, right? This is really complicated stuff and and the government has already learned this lesson once when they thought about this amalgamating Peele region. It turns out this is really complicated. The the police are amalgamated in Peele region but the transit system is not. the sewers are and and just pulling that all apart after gosh 50 years of of regional government. It turned out to be a bigger mess than the government really wanted to take on.

Steve Paikin: Yeah. And with that, let's move on to issue three.

Steve Paikin: We have received a number of emails lately from people wanting more information about what it takes to run for a seat at city hall. Any city hall. Let's take a read of one now from a listener named Steven Lee in Bmpton who writes, "During the last election, I ran as a candidate in Bmpton. There were a lot of things I didn't know. I'm sure your audience is composed of civically-minded people who might consider one day running. Perhaps a conversation about the nuts and bolts and practical realities of being a candidate would be useful." Thank you for the great podcast, Steven Lee. Thank you for your great note. A reminder that nominations for Ontario's municipal elections don't officially open until May the 1st. Counselors, mayors, Reeves, wardens, dog catchers. Do we elect dog catchers? Anyway, there are myriad positions up for grabs in this October's local elections. So, what does it take to run in a municipal election? We thought we would ask someone who's done it. Amber Moley is the counselor for Toronto's Ward 3 Atobico Lakes Shore. She also serves as one of Mayor Olivia Chow's deputy mayors. and we welcome you back to our little podcast here at 2180 Young Street.

Amber Morley: Such a pleasure to join you. I'm glad to be back in studio.

Steve Paikin: A delight to be here. Let's get really granular here. You ran for the first time in 2018. Correct. What made you decide that you wanted to put your name on a ballot in the first place?

Amber Morley: I was a very keen young person in the local community. I got involved with our community center and there were many of my peers who were starting to learn about how to do organizing pulling events together. we were really focused on basketball tournaments and fashion shows and other programming opportunities that we were able to pull together with within our community center to animate our community and bring our bring our peers sort of into some positive and productive opportunities. So while doing that work, we got to learn more about how decision-m happens at city hall, how parks and recck programming comes about, how do you advocate for space in your community, and it opened my eyes up to the whole world of city hall and governance.

Steve Paikin: I love that it's such a granular thing, you know, I don't want to say small stakes, but it is a small local scale thing that made you want to get into this. Now, you didn't win in 2018, but what did you learn from that initial race that clearly it did not turn you off of politics entirely. What made you want to What did you learn that made you want to try again in 2022?

Amber Morley: I learned that it was possible to try, right, to participate, to be at the table. I learned that you could mobilize a huge amount of people and get people to share a message that resonates with community members. My first time out I was unsuccessful but I was a very close runner up with almost 11,000 votes my first time out. And that was a really important opportunity for me to understand there were people who were aligned with what I believed was a good way forward in our community and the type of leadership I was looking to provide. And so that really motivated me to stick to it. Also, a lot of the things I was hoping to contribute as a leader, I still felt needed contributing. So, you know, the work was not done and so we we stuck at it.

Steve Paikin: That note that I read off the top from Steven Lee from Bmpton, I I get I'm sure you do too, John Michael. We get notes like that all the time from people who really want to understand the process better and want to offer themselves for public service but kind of don't have the first notion about what you should do. Yeah. Which is of course why we wanted to get you in here. So give people some advice if you if they're thinking of running in October. What do you need to know?

Amber Morley: Yeah. So I think like any good start startup, you need to have a clear sense of your mission, your vision, and your values. I think that's something that we need more of in politics is real leadership and real authentic leadership. Where people are running for a reason that are standing for something and are able to articulate that in a way that brings people along. I think that's the place to start. And then of course starting to identify your allies and who in the community believes in that mission, vision, and values that you want to drive and represent. And how can you get them involved? A lot of it is volunteering and people power especially at the beginning. Especially as a first-time candidate. You can't do this work in isolation. You cannot do it on your own. You have to build a team. You have to build sort of a bit of a coalition. And identify your people, right? I'm told the hardest thing for first candidates to learn how to do is actually ask people for money.

Steve Paikin: That's it.

Steve Paikin: How did you find that experience?

Amber Morley: Terrible. Awful. Hated it. Hated it. Hated it. Um probably one of the things I hated or I did not like doing most. um as part of a first-time candidate, uh even a second time candidate, it's difficult, especially when you're an unproven, you know, nobody from an outsider to politics and pe getting people to believe in your belief in yourself. And then also feeling confident enough to say, you know, I'm going to put your money to good use and we can get this done. You're convincing yourself half the time, so then when you got to pick up the phone and convince somebody else, it can be a bit more daunting. But I was really lucky. A lot of our donors out for both of my campaigns actually both the first and second time in 2022 were smaller scale donors. Right.

Steve Paikin: Small scale is what?

Amber Morley: Um $20, $25, $100. The max you can do in a municipal campaign is $1,200. Um so any of those?

Steve Paikin: I did. I did. I did. I tried to identify at least a small handful of people in my orbit that could contribute at that level to have a strong start.

Steve Paikin: Can we have some fun here?

Amber Morley: Yeah. Okay, I'm a potential constituent. You're running for office.

Steve Paikin: Yes.

Steve Paikin: Make the pitch. How would you ask me for money?

Amber Morley: Oh goodness. If you are a potential constituent, so this is the other thing, right? Identifying your stakeholders, like who can you go to for money? Who can you maybe get to volunteer and come out and drop flyers? Like there's kind of different things that you ask of different people. The average constituent, I would say, and again different as a rookie candidate versus a now counselor who's got a record to stand on. But just to say like politics takes all of our participation. I'm really proud of the work that I've done so far. I hope to continue to serve this community in these good ways. I'm just getting started and with your help, we can continue, right, to do this work together. And you can go to my website and you can check out this information and, you know, you can find ways whether you want to do a financial contribution or come out and knock some doors with me and meet neighbors. All of that is on the table and it's a great way to get people involved and help them appreciate whether you got $5 to put in or five hours, you know, in a month to come out and get involved.

Steve Paikin: Five square feet of lawn to accept a sign.

Amber Morley: Or to take a sign. Exactly. Which we love all of our friends who take signs. Um there's always ways that people, you know, whatever skill set, whatever demographic, wherever you're coming from, there's ways you can participate and support a candidate who aligns with your vision and values. I want to preface this question by saying, you know, I've spoken to councilors in the past who, you know, they get elected with big ideas about the the kinds of things they want to do at city council and then the actual day-to-day work, they become a bit, I will say, disenchanted. Um, you know, they say, you know, like I I had no idea how much time I was going to end up spending on parking permits. And so I don't want to, you know, jaice your possible answer to this question, but, you know, what has been the biggest surprise? And you can say positive or negative. Uh, something that you just didn't anticipate, from the last three and a half years of being a counselor.

Amber Morley: I have a huge amount of respect for people who who run for office and take up space as elected officials. Cuz the thing that I've learned is you can't make everybody happy and everyone's got an opinion. So finding your way through difficult files and difficult decision-m points in a way that is reflective of your community, inclusive of their opinions, thoughtful, rational, you know, all of that and also still aligned with that core mission, vision, and values that I think every leader should have and and hold firm to. It is not easy and we've had you know our share of difficult files bike lanes you know have become a matter of provincial you know interest many other things files that we've you know had our hands on and or been impacted by in our ward shelter for example. So navigating those things, and the challenge of trying to navigate them in a good way, is massive and, definitely a huge amount of time and energy. And again, putting all that time and energy in and still sometimes feeling like people are disappointed with the outcome is a difficult thing to swallow. But, you know, again, that's the challenge of leadership. If you're always bending and breaking and folding to appease people, but you're not staying grounded in a clear set of again, you know, values and and sort of what are you trying to accomplish here? I think it's easy to dilute the the work. If that makes sense. So, sorry. I hope it made sense. I'm sure there are people watching this or listening to this who are young.

Steve Paikin: And are wondering if they're too young to put their name on a ballot. Now, I don't know how old you are, but I know you're younger than I am.

Amber Morley: Just a few years.

Steve Paikin: You know, how how how young is too young before you should consider this?

Amber Morley: I tell everyone, get involved now. As long as you're 18 and over. Like the qualifications to run for council or frankly any other elected office are embarrassingly low. Like there's four things I think, right? you got to be a Canadian citizen, you got to be 18 and over. And there's like two others that are again very much, I'm sure, applicable to the the vast majority of of us here in the city. So, I think it's always a good time if you think you have something to offer and you have something to contribute, you have a clear mission and a desire to contribute to cityb building, to tackling the endless challenges that come with being in an urban center.

Steve Paikin: Such a diplomatic way of putting it. You know, as I as I sit here, I I recall Steve Clark, who is now a member of the Ontario legislature on the governing side. He was a cabinet minister once upon a time.

Amber Morley: I think he was the mayor of Brockville when he was either 19 or 20 or something like that. That's right. And you know, it was a perfect storm of circumstances that led him to win that election. So,

Steve Paikin: I guess uh yeah, 18's old enough.

Amber Morley: That's it. 18's old enough. And even before then, right, I'm pretty sure, you know, if you're a young person, I sat recently with the Toronto Youth Cabinet, encouraging them to having some conversations around the budget. And they said like, how at what age should we start thinking about? So, right now, you can come to a a committee at city hall. You can debute on matters of climate and, you know, environment or transit and infrastructure or, you know, budgetary considerations. There's always a time, my first deputation at city hall, I think I was 15 or 16 years old at executive committee. What did you depute on at 15 years old?

Steve Paikin: Um, we were trying to get a community center built in our neighborhood. Uh, there is a series of co-ops where I was raised where there were section 37 money, which is a historic thing. We don't have that anymore. Um, now it's community benefit CBC charges, which is much less than we used to be able to secure. Um, but anyways, there was a pot of money uh put aside sitting with the city for years and years. And as teenagers after having grown up in, you know, in this community, we learned about this money that was sitting in a pot. And then that was sort of again my introduction to city hall of learning like, okay, so what does that mean? Who's responsible? How does this money get released? Who gets, you know, who comes up with the plan? And it all came down to the counselor. And so we tried to engage with the counselor. We surveyed our neighbors. We really got involved. Uh, and it it didn't quite go our way. Uh, we didn't have the best reception from the local counselor. Um, 15 years later, but this was the same counselor you would later.

Amber Morley: I went and got his job. That's right. Yeah. That experience, I'm sure, was part of what motivated me ultimately to run for that office and show up in a different way for my community.

Steve Paikin: Yeah.

Steve Paikin: Um, you mentioned your predecessor and you you have a very different approach than than he did. Different perhaps different values, different priorities. It's politics, right? But how much of local politics, how much um, for lack of a better word, how much freedom do you have to lead in a municipal situation as opposed to really having to reflect and represent the underlying desires of your constituents, right? It's the same voters who voted who are in W three. You represent the same people that Mark Grimes did.

Amber Morley: That's right.

Steve Paikin: And and so I'm just wondering how how you balance that tension.

Amber Morley: Yeah, it's a great question and it's a difficult tension to balance. Um something that I really observed when I was got to city hall as a staffer was that the majority of people who engage with their local counselor's office are in fact of course voters often property owners homeowners and skewed to a particular demographic of folks who engage in the system and in the process and as we know our voter turnout's like around 30%. it's not fully reflective of the, you know, the whole population.

Steve Paikin: And I apologize for interrupting you except to say that the city's own research on this when when you say it's a specific demographic, and I won't put these words into your mouth, but the city's own research just showed that the people who engage are older. They are less likely to be people of color. They are frequently retirees.

Amber Morley: They are people who are very secure in their housing.

Steve Paikin: Correct. I I will now let you resume your answer. Apologies for interrupting.

Amber Morley: Yes, no worries. I think that's a helpful clarification. And again, as someone who doesn't necessarily resonate with that demographic, right? I grew up low-inccome. I'm a racialized woman. All of that kind of thing, it struck me the voices that get prioritized at city hall. And sometimes how that can inhibit the kind of work that needs to be done for vulnerable communities whose voices are not being considered in the same way because they're not calling their counselor. They're not necessarily voting. They're not, you know, all of the things. But when we're making decisions just based on the loudest voices in the room, but not always the expert, the experts, you know, the data, the social sciences that we should be, you know, a little bit more, I think, attuned to as leaders. Again, it's a very tricky balance because I I hear from my residents and their voices and their feedback and participation matters deeply to me and we really go above and beyond to try to facilitate as many opportunities as we can to ensure that the community's voice is central to our perspectives and decision-m. But I also understand as a leader that I have to sometimes think outside of just those voices. And I think for me, that's part of the reason I ran for politics is because it's critically important in society that we have folks who can do both. Listen to the voices of their constituents and do their best to make sure that they are seen, heard, respected, while also balancing the pressures and priorities of a growing urban city and a growing urban center. So, a good example on that is bike lanes. um in on the Blure corridor. That's something that had been previously approved before I got there. I am supportive of it. It has been implemented on my watch since I've been in office, you know, and we've got a lawsuit, right? There's a number of businesses who came together and are suing the city and suing myself personally because they feel that these bike lanes are not um that they've been detrimental to to their businesses and and this type of thing, which is their right. It's not to say we hadn't been in conversation. we had, you know, we we've done a lot of work and that was the space that that landed, which is fine. And on the other side, I'm aware because I meet with planning on a regular basis. I know the official plan. I know the pressures that we're under and the mandates from the province. We've got 70,000 units of housing in the pipeline for our ward. And we've already got congestion issues. So, if we think that the next 20 years all this housing is going to be built and everyone's going to be able to drive a car in our community, that's just not.

Steve Paikin: on.

Amber Morley: That's just not on. Thank you.

Steve Paikin: Let's finish up on this. We cannot have the deputy mayor, one of the deputy mayors of the city of Toronto here, Ontario's capital, without asking her about the massive news that came out this week. Not just John Tory, the former mayor, deciding not to run again, but the premier's nephew, the former cabinet minister Michael Ford, thinking about running for mayor,

Steve Paikin: and I'm also hearing the name Rod Phillips, the former finance minister for the province of Ontario, thinking about the same thing.

Steve Paikin: Discuss. Well, I think and I hope it's it's really been clear my perspective on politics, especially in a moment like the one we find ourselves in now, real leadership is required. For me, it's important that whoever um you know is in charge of this great city is really genuinely focused on the health of the entire city because even those folks, right, even the loudest voices in the room benefit when we do this thing right. Right. When we invest our money upfront to preventative things to actually resolving things, we're not bleeding money down the road to maintain systems that aren't working.

John Michael McGrath: This is all well and good and true and I, you know, respect everything you're saying. But who'd you vote for in the last Maril election?

Amber Morley: Olivia Chow.

John Michael McGrath: You going to vote for again?

Amber Morley: I more than likely leaning in that direction. It's been an honor to work with her and I think she's been one of our most productive mayors in my lifetime. So,

John Michael McGrath: so you would be very happy if a whole bunch of people ran against her, splitting the anti-chow vote.

Amber Morley: I love more people getting into politics because that means more conversations are happening, more people are paying attention, and hopefully our voter turnout gets higher and increased because that's what we really need is Torononians paying attention, getting informed, getting empowered, and participating. Right.

Steve Paikin: Shaping up to be a very fascinating race.

Amber Morley: That's it. We're looking forward to.

Steve Paikin: watching. And very briefly, are you running for re-election?

Amber Morley: I have. I would be remiss if I did not um really take advantage of all of the learning and all of the seeds we've planted in this past term. I'm really proud of the record that I have. And I'm looking forward to getting back out in community to see if they'll have me back.

Steve Paikin: That sounds like a yes.

Amber Morley: Yeah,

Steve Paikin: you're filing your papers on the 1st of May.

Amber Morley: Well, I don't know about that. See, we got a I'm managing this as an incumbent counselor. It's my first time being an incumbent. So, how do you be a counselor to a ward bigger than Ajax while also being a full-time candidate? you know, lots of background thinking and work is underway, but I'm sure you all hopefully will be pleased with the outcome or our or official announcement when we make once we make it. But yeah, we're feeling good about the work and again really proud and privileged to serve the city. I can't think of what else I would rather be doing right now and I hope to continue.

Steve Paikin: That's Toronto City Councelor Amber Moley who sure sounds like she's running for reelection. Thanks, Deputy Mayor, for coming into TVO tonight and having this conversation. Much appreciated. Thank you.

Steve Paikin: Okay, time now for our regular feature. It's called Your Column, My Column, in which JMM and I have a little chat about the columns we wrote for tvO.org over the past week. JMM, which one are you going to pick on?

John Michael McGrath: Uh, you may not know this about me. One of my little crank beliefs is that I think convention centers are a terrible example of local government. Um there's a a very good researcher in the US who has just looked at this, you know, from every different direction and it's it's kind of a racket. Um, you know, local governments become convinced that if they just build a bigger convention center that they will uh attract more visitors and more business and it almost never works out and a handful of large convention centers in the US uh disproportionately uh draw all of the the major uh conventions, but that is true almost regardless of what they spend on this. And I raise all this because earlier this week the premier revealed that the Ontario government is looking at some kind of revitalization plan for the Metro Toronto Convention Center. The Toronto Star has reported that the province is looking at substantially expanding the inner care center which is currently at exhibition place. These are public assets. The the convention center is actually not publicly owned but there's a crowd agency. The enterare center is owned by the city of Toronto. So in some sense it it behooves us to get the most money out of these assets that we own. I I I understand that argument. Uh but we are going to just throw an enormous sum of money at an investment that makes no sense whatsoever. Um you know I was there that night when it was at the Toronto region board of trade dinner and Doug Ford was up there giving a speech and you know the premier he can go off script every now and then and he sure went off script here where he looked around the room and he said you know this convention center I hate it. I think it's the worst one around. We're 24th out of 25 in the biggest cities in the world in terms of attracting conventions. And he says all you do here when you come to the Toronto Convention Center, you go down, you go up, you go down, you go, which is true. There's a lot of escalators going up and down. But anyway, we were all looking at each other at the table saying where, you know, looking through the cop, where did this come from? Where did this is this was some real freelancing? And the premier who two minutes earlier was saying, you know, we don't have a taxing problem here. We have a spending problem. governments have got to spend less. And then he went on to say, we're going to spend a billion dollars to build a new convention center that I don't know, you seem seem to think we don't need.

Steve Paikin: The whole problem is that there's like there's no rational calculation here of supply and demand, right? There's there's no genuine this isn't even this is not even as virtuous or meritorious as a sports arena, like a pro sports arena. There's at least actually like consumers out there who want to go see sports games. The the convention industry makes no sense to me. And additionally, this premier and the the position of the government of Ontario is currently that Toronto winters are so bad that bike lanes are an extraordinary waste of of scarce urban space and we shouldn't cater to cyclists. Okay. Um, where has all of the growth in convention attend attendance happened? It's the American Southeast, the American Southwest, and California. It's kind of where the weather's good, you know?

John Michael McGrath: Yeah. like where are people going to go in December, January, February? I don't think Toronto is ever going to be competitive except maybe if certain people get their wish and climate change is unbaited for another century. So, um yeah, found another reason to be cranky and get on a soap box this week. And I will just reiterate that convention centers are um a terrible waste of public dollars and we should not build them.

Steve Paikin: Okay.

John Michael McGrath: How about you? Well, I tell you, I had a very challenging assignment this past week.

Steve Paikin: Yes.

John Michael McGrath: And the challenging assignment was this. I tend to write obituaries when they are required around here because, you know, I've been around for a while and I I have known and met a lot of people along the way. And when a person of significance dies, I think they perhaps ought to be remembered and as a result, I tend to write these obituaries which tend to get a lot of good feedback. How do you write an obituary about somebody who is very wellknown but perhaps for not particularly good reasons and who during his political career did not necessarily distinguish himself with his civil conduct or the way in which he did his job but who who died a premature and tragic death.

Steve Paikin: Yes. So that's the challenge I had this past week writing an obituary about a guy named Giorgio Mamaliti. Now Giorgio was first elected I think in 1990 as part of the Bob Ray government. He was a new Democrat backbenture. Never made it into cabinet. was a very kind of unhappy member of that government because he was very socially conservative and for example when the Ray government tried to extend some rights to same-sex couples. Giorgio spoke rather harshly against it and certainly voted against it and was part of I think a dozen or more members of that government who voted against those attempts and the bill failed. Anyway, after that he ended up getting elected for almost two decades to Toronto City Hall and was a Toronto city councelor for a while. Um but again said and did a lot of very odd, you might even say like crazy upsetting things when he was at city hall. And so I wrote this piece which basically said, you know, here's a guy who didn't do a lot of things that were particularly admirable during his public life. I'm sorry to have to say that, but that's the truth. It's an empirically provable fact. Notwithstanding the fact that he died a very sad and tragic death. I think he had a fall. He fell down some stairs, I'm told, at his home, went into a coma, and never came out of it. So, on the one hand, a you know, a terrible tragedy for his family, but on the other hand, do I have an obligation to be kind of honest about what his public life was like? So, I wrote this piece, which I hope people will look at, tvO.org, And I fully expected there to be a torrent of people sort of sending me emails or calling me and saying, "How dare you write such a mean-spirited nasty piece?" Which it wasn't incidentally. I think it was just the facts, ma'am. Um, and instead I got quite the contrary. My my feedback came in about 95 to five in terms of percentages of those saying, "You weren't tough enough. Now, let me share my Giorgio Mammali story with you." And maybe 5% of the people who who dialed up said, you know, shame on you for writing, you know, such a piece.

John Michael McGrath: Anyways, I you try to find the balance. You try to do your job. Uh, you know, based on the feedback I got, I think I got the balance right, but who knows? I invite people to read the piece themselves and come to their own conclusion.

Steve Paikin: Well, you you mentioned civil conduct, and I think that has been a theme we have returned to time and again on this podcast, right? the the desire, the need for civility in public life. And it's difficult when somebody like George Mameali, who was a counselor when I covered Toronto City Council, uh oh so many years ago now. Um, and you know, it's it's one thing to, you know, we could talk about Doug Ford at his career as a Toronto city councelor. Also, periodically said and did things that that did not meet that threshold of of great civility, if I could put it that way. But because of the rest of Doug Ford's political career, that is not going to be the first or second paragraph of his obituary.

John Michael McGrath: And in fairness to the premier, he's gotten better.

Steve Paikin: Over the years. He's improved.

John Michael McGrath: Um my my point is that you know for Mammali the the difficulty in writing an obituary for him of writing his story is that unfortunately there was a lot of negativity and not much else. Um that you know he he was reelected many times as a local counselor. I'm sure there are people in his ward who would say that you know he helped them solve a matter of of local importance to them. Uh of course you know that's the sort of the bread and butter of municipal representation. Um but the stuff that people remember the stuff that made headlines, the stuff that got his uh name and face in the papers was very frequently uh conduct that you would not want modeled as good behavior.

Steve Paikin: There we go. And with that, that was the OnP podcast for this Friday, March the 6th, 2026.

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

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

John Michael McGrath: 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.

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

John Michael McGrath: We should say a word about that. Yes, we should because John Ferry is vice president for just a little while longer. He just announced this week he's going to retire and we wish John John's not going to retire the way I retire.

Steve Paikin: I just rewired. I'm not retired at all. He's actually.

John Michael McGrath: he's not gonna stick around the place.

Steve Paikin: No, that's right. He's gonna go out and live his life and travel the world and do some fun stuff. And so, uh, we thank John for all of his support for this show over the years and we wish him all the best in the next chapter of his life.

John Michael McGrath: I've had the privilege to work with John both here and, uh, at another outlet previously and, uh, been a really important part of my career. So, thank you, John.

Steve Paikin: Good stuff. And also, we always like to thank our wonderful studio crew here on the ground floor at 2180 Young Street for all of what they do to put this show together. So, guys, thanks as always for your help. And as we say, until next Friday, bye-bye.

John Michael McGrath: Bye-bye.