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

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

Steve Pagen: Today on the pod, Doug Ford says he's taking over Toronto's Billy Bishop airport and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Is he right about that? Ontario has appointed a military defense representative. We'll talk about why the premier wants an office like this and what it means. And last year featured one of the shortest sittings of the legislature in recent memory. This year will only be a little longer. We'll dig into the numbers and ask whether people want their politicians showing up at Queens Park more than they apparently do.

John Michael McGrath: And in your column, my column, I'll look at a recent report on homelessness in Ontario. Spoiler alert, it's bad news.

Steve Pagen: While JMM is writing about homelessness, I'm shining a spotlight on another major problem, food security. Spoiler alert, there may be some encouraging news here.

John Michael McGrath: It's Friday, March 13th, 2026. So, let's get to it.

John Michael McGrath: Hello my friend. Hello sir.

Steve Pagen: A little traditional sugar to start with as always.

John Michael McGrath: Yes indeed.

Steve Pagen: Why do you have the word turbo on your t-shirt today?

John Michael McGrath: So I I am once again wearing the turbo train t-shirt that a a listener uh gifted to me. Um it is about the era when we once had faster trains in this country than we currently do. And beyond that I'm just going to I'm actually going to save this for uh the Billy Bishop segment uh to to talk a bit more about that. There is method to the madness of this shirt.

Steve Pagen: Every once in a while I do bring method to my madness. How about you?

John Michael McGrath: No premier for me this week, but given that the temperatures actually got up to double digit earlier this week, it was really sweet. Where did my mind wander? It wandered to the spring and to the summer. And what happens in the spring and the summer? People all over Ontario, if they're lucky enough to have them, open their cottages or as we say in northwestern Ontario, their camps. And how do you get to my camp?

Steve Pagen: Right here. You got to go up Highway 17. Uh, actually, you got to go up 400 69 across 17 and then down to get to Manatulan Island. So, I'm wearing this as inspiration for the days ahead.

John Michael McGrath: And of course, 17 north is is one stretch of road, but as an Ottawa born boy in eastern Ontario, the the 17 goes all the way east to the Quebec border. And I I know a different stretch of the 17 has no meaning for cottages.

Steve Pagen: The 17 north I think it goes well. It goes up, you know, Sue St. Marie and, you know, well up there. So yeah, it's a good it's a good stretch of highway.

John Michael McGrath: Yes.

John Michael McGrath: We just very briefly before we get to our three issues should talk about something that literally just broke sort of,

Steve Pagen: you know,

John Michael McGrath: Exactly. Exactly. And it's apppropo of the discussion we were having last week. We were talking about Niagara region and how the premier appointed a guy named Bob Gail as the Niagara Region chair to essentially try to make the case for why 500,000 people in Niagara region, which stretches after all from sort of Hamilton all the way to Niagara Falls, why they need 126 different politicians representing them at the various villages, cities, towns, etc. through that region. Mr. Gail has just resigned and he resigned under some rather curious reasons. Do you want to go through some of that?

Steve Pagen: Yeah. So, as you say, this is the uh chair of Niagara Region who had been the the driving force uh behind the latest drive to uh discuss amalgamating some or all of Niagara region. We we discussed this at at further length last week. Uh and he has resigned because it was revealed that he owns a signed copy of Minecom, uh the I don't know what we call the memoir of Adolf Hitler.

John Michael McGrath: Certainly manifesto.

Steve Pagen: Manifesto. Yeah. Um and uh now

John Michael McGrath: for which he paid about seven grand I think. Yes. It wasn't cheap.

Steve Pagen: And uh now Mr. Gail says he is a a collector of all sorts of historical books and uh there is no denying that mine comp is a historically significant text. Um but the revelation in 2026 of owning a signed copy of Mine Comp is certainly eyebrow raising for a lot of people and he announced his resignation Wednesday night. Uh, and I think it's fair to say that this will take a lot of the steam out of the um the most immediate drive to to discuss amalgamation. And certainly Mr. Gail has asserted that uh the the the public disclosure of this was in part a political attack on him specifically to derail any further discussion of amalgamation.

John Michael McGrath: Exactly. I think, look, I'm not going to weigh in on this and take a position on it, but I think it's worth putting on the record, that there is a difference between purchasing even a book as notorious as this, and you might even say as evil as this. Yes. For collector purposes. You know, there are people who have Nazi memorabilia that they've collected from World War II for whatever reasons they have it. Yeah. versus he has it in his collection because it is it is his sort of operating philosophy in politics. Yes,

Steve Pagen: we know that's not the case.

John Michael McGrath: Yes. And and it it really is worth being quite clear on that that this there's no evidence or or as far as I can tell nobody is even alleging that like he's leaving this on his bedstand at night to flip through and for inspiration. This this is just not that kind of a book for him. And you know like uh uh A generation of men fought in Europe and came home with bits of paraphernalia that had swastikas on them. Yes.

Steve Pagen: momentos to their work.

John Michael McGrath: Yeah. Nobody questioned their uh devotion to fighting the Nazis. Um these things are uh these things can be complicated and and at least more nuanced than

Steve Pagen: Yeah. And Mr. Gail has said I don't want this meaning his collecting of historically significant books. Yes. uh to derail or distract from the business at hand. And he believes the business at hand is to, you know, whatever, amalgamate, downsize, pick your word, for all of what's going on in Niagara region. So anyway, he's out of the picture right now. We'll see what happens.

John Michael McGrath: Yeah. And and uh you know, we'll see whether this uh takes the steam out of any move to to amalgamate Niagara Ridge. Premier has said that any move would would have to come from the local government and as far as I can tell the regional chair was really the only person really pushing this forward. So

Steve Pagen: are you saying that the 126 local politicians in Niagara region are not in favor of legislating their jobs out of existence?

John Michael McGrath: Not uniformly. No.

Steve Pagen: Okay. Go. And with that, let's head off to issue one.

Steve Pagen: Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport first opened in 1939 right down there on the waterfront of Ontario's capital city. It regularly serves between two and three million flyers annually. But its short runway has meant that airlines flying out of Billy Bishop can't use bigger jets to serve travelers who would like to fly further a field than say New York or Nashville. This week, Premier Doug Ford announced that's going to change with the province seizing Toronto's interest in the airport. Ford will now be in a position to expand the runway and ensure bigger jets can in fact fly in and out of the island. Question one, can he do this?

John Michael McGrath: The short answer is yes and also no.

Steve Pagen: Oh, and I knew it was going to be complicated.

John Michael McGrath: Uh so our audience is familiar with the cliche that municipalities are creatures of the province. So there is no land that the city of Toronto owns that Queens Park uh cannot uh take, cannot seize, and the city happens to own approximately 20% of the land under the airport. So the province can seize that land. Uh and while Premier Ford says he will compensate uh Toronto for this and and I think he's even said he'll compensate them for future losses incurred, uh formerly speaking, that's not really necessary. He he can just take it. Um

Steve Pagen: so you're saying he's being a nice guy by offering compensation?

John Michael McGrath: Yes. Um well relatively um but that is sort of where the easy part in all of this ends because the rest of the airport lands or most of the rest of the airport lands are actually owned by the Toronto Port Authority which is a federal agency. Uh Toronto is a creature of the province but the Toronto Port Authority is not. The federal government is not and Ontario just cannot seize those lands uh and and move forward with this.

Steve Pagen: This is where Canada is a hilarious country.

John Michael McGrath: Yes. Um, welcome to federation.

Steve Pagen: Exactly. Uh, so

John Michael McGrath: additionally here, um, aviation is a matter of federal jurisdiction, right? Like airports are federally regulated. Uh, so is navigation, right? We're talking about literally like if we want to expand the runway at Billy Bishop, we're literally talking about filling in chunks of Lake Ontario, which will change navigation in uh the the lake. Uh, both of those, just at a at a most basic level, will require federal approval. Um, it would also probably be the Toronto Port Authority that would actually be responsible for financing and building the the runway expansion. Um, and again, that that is a federal agency that would be responsible for it, though I I imagine the province could help financially contribute if it wants to. Um, so all of this is to say that the premier can sort of get the ball rolling and he can he can box out the city in the sense that and that seems to be what he's doing here, saying like Toronto City Council just will not have any input onto this matter, but he he can't really make this happen without federal cooperation. I I will also add very quickly, you're going to hear a lot of discussion over the next little while about the tripartite agreement uh that governs uh Billy Bishop Airport. uh we are used to think when we hear that phrase if you hear that phrase a lot and maybe you don't but we we hear it in the context like of waterfront Toronto which is an agreement between uh the city the province and the federal government and I've already seen some journalists make the mistake that uh this tripartite agreement that governs Billy Bishop includes the province it does not the tripartite agreement uh in this context is an agreement between uh the port authority the uh transport Canada and the city of Toronto Uh so the province formally speaking is not involved in this agreement at all and you know

Steve Pagen: and yet

John Michael McGrath: well yeah and yet uh so we're going to see how that is all negotiated. So, it's it's uh yeah, a a long way to go yet.

Steve Pagen: This Well, you say a long way to go, which is true, but but things are moving quickly. And I mean, it was only a couple of weeks ago. I was at that Toronto region board of trade dinner at the convention center when Doug Ford, as he loves to do, went off script a little bit, started to talk about how he didn't like the convention center. He wanted a new one of those, only a billion dollars or a couple of billion, whatever. And then he just sort of apppropo of nothing said oh and incidentally I've seen numbers and lots of people want bigger jets at the airport down on the waterfront and it is in fact the Toronto Star reporting that the premier's office has pulled this and found 60 to 70% support across the greater Toronto area for runway expansion. So the thinking is if that's the case you're not going to have much trouble getting the feds on board because it might be popular,

John Michael McGrath: right? And they're clearly uh betting on that outcome. Uh now thing things are complicated, right? Um the current policy of the federal government is uh that no, they're not going to uh uh allow heavier jets to fly uh out of the airport. There's been some discussion of expanding the footprint of the airport for basically changing technical safety reasons. Uh but the current policy is no jets. Uh and it's been that case since 2015 when the then new Trudeau government uh uh was elected and uh then transportation minister Mark Garno made that decision. the wrinkle here the and this is a political podcast so let's talk politics right uh Prime Minister Mark Carney has called three bi-elections for April 13th and two of them are in Toronto uh one in University Rosedale where voters will choose a successor to Christopher Freeland uh and another in Scar Bro Southwest where voters will uh replace Bill Blair uh I I think it's fair to say that in both of those cases the Liberals would be strongly favored to hold those writings but uh University Rosedale is a downtown writing with a relatively uh uh progressive makeup and and some complicated feelings about uh the the airport and jets at the airport. And then Scar Bro Southwest includes like a chunk of the waterfront. And I I mean I will just talk about the part of the geography that I'm familiar with because I I live in the writing right next door. Like you can see the current Blannes taking off and landing from Billy Bishop uh from from that that part of the eastern waterfront. So, people with homes in the south end of Scarbor Southwest might actually have some thoughts about this. Um, I'm going to just take as granted that this is polling very well, but uh Toronto's waterfront also has a very uh wellorganized, very active constituency. Uh Doug Ford knows this. He got into a tussle with the waterfront activists at the beginning of of his political career. Prediction is hard, especially about the future, as they like to say. But I I am quite certain that the uh groups like no jetsto0 uh code blue tio there are there are a bunch of of waterfront groups out there they are going to be using the circumstances of these bi-elections to try to extract a commitment from the liberal government not to allow the expansion uh of uh Billy Bishop. Um,

Steve Pagen: well, since predictions are hard, particularly about the future,

John Michael McGrath: do you think they'll be successful in getting Mark Carney to reverse the previous position held by Justin Trudeau's government?

Steve Pagen: I mean, I don't know. Um, I will also add, and this brings me back to my t-shirt. Oh, yes.

John Michael McGrath: That the the policy of the Canadian government right now is not just uh no jets at Billy Bishop. It is also fast trains between Toronto and Montreal. And the a significant portion of the current business that uh flies out of Billy Bishop is exactly those short flights to uh from Toronto to Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City. Uh these are exactly the the the areas of the country that are supposed to be served by what is like a pretty marquee promise by the federal Liberal government that they're going to get this this fast train built and it's going to be running quickly. And so I do think there's a fair argument of like and it's I don't want to say they are necessarily in conflict because you know you can do lots of different things at once but I do think that a lot of voters will ask like what are why would we necessarily build both a fast train and a souped-up airport on the island. Um again the it's not that you can't do the both but I think you at the very least they will be challenged on that. Well, a lot of these things come down to the relationship between the prime minister and the premier of the day, whoever those two people happen to be. Yes.

Steve Pagen: And right now, those two people, Carney and Ford, are getting along reasonably well. Yes. Had a little hiccup a little while ago, but they're getting along pretty well. So, you have to I mean, I think you have to imagine that if Doug Ford goes to Mark Carney and says, "I want this."

John Michael McGrath: Does the prime minister want to pick a fight with the premier of Ontario over this? Probably not.

Steve Pagen: Probably not. I mean, the the only thing more popular than this island expansion though with Ontario Liberals is picking a fight with Doug Ford, right? I I mean, you know, if you believe Angus Reed's polling, for example, Doug Ford is one of the least popular premers in the country. And in fact, once France go resigns later this year, Doug Ford will be the least popular premier uh in the country. And so it's not like there's no room for Mark Carney to say no on this file.

John Michael McGrath: And yet Doug Ford's party has been in first place in the polls for several years in a row.

Steve Pagen: Yes,

John Michael McGrath: life is funny in politics.

Steve Pagen: It it is very funny. And also bi-elections can be even funnier.

John Michael McGrath: Oh yeah. Yeah, they can. And with that, we're off to issue two.

Steve Pagen: The Canadian Armed Forces are of course a national institution, meaning they come under the oposes of the federal government. But this week, the province of Ontario announced that we're going to get our first quote military defense representative. And the first person in the post will be Ontario's current economic and trade representative in Southeast Asia, a man named Bernard Deerl. This is different.

John Michael McGrath: Yeah, it is. Um, you know, there's a history of course of uh the Ontario government uh naming foreign representatives to uh economic and trade and diplomatic posts. We have a person in Washington DC who who just represents provincial uh interests of course. Um this is one of those times where uh this podcast where we uh we spent a lot of time talking about municipal or provincial politics, occasionally federal politics, and now we get to talk about global affairs. Um it turns out there's a whole wide world out there beyond Ontario's borders.

Steve Pagen: So global events uh if you doubted that uh they mattered to us uh

John Michael McGrath: Yeah, exactly. Uh I the cost of food.

Steve Pagen: I am quite smug about being a cyclist this week, but yes, uh food costs too, right? Um so, a few things going on here. Uh the first is simply to use the uh academic jargon of my political science degree. Uh things are getting kind of nuts out there. Uh between the war in Ukraine, uh the war in Iran, uh chaos in the Persian Gulf, we mentioned gasoline prices, oil prices, uh tensions in many other parts of the world. Uh it is a sellers market for uh weapons and other military supplies. Canada has pledged to increase our own military spending. We are not alone. Lots of other countries are looking at uh building up their armed forces and Ontario with its large manufacturing base uh wants to make sure that at least some of that huge global pool of defense spending uh finds a a home here. So now this is obviously tied to uh matters of national defense and security but this specific announcement uh about the appointment was made by Vic Fidelli who is the minister of economic development, job creation and trade and that gives you a sense of where the government is placing the emphasis here. Can I tell you one of the few advantages of having been around the block a few times at Queens Park? Here's one of This is an indication. This appointment is really an indication of how much things have changed at Queens Park because I well remember it's got to be more than 40 years ago. There was a cabinet minister in Bill Davis's Ontario government by the name of Gordon Walker and he was from the city of London. He was the industry minister and he was rather on the more right-wing side of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party. And one day while walking in the cabinet, and I think I was there, he got scrummed by a bunch of us snot-nose reporters about what he thought of the news that General Motors, which had a plant in his if not riding than city of London, getting bigger into the business of manufacturing weapons,

John Michael McGrath: which he was starting to do at that time. And Mr. Walker kind of went on at length about how wonderful it was. anything to create more jobs, anything to create more economic development, it's good for the city of London. He was very boosterish about weapons manufacturing in the city of London. When Premier Davis heard about this, he was not pleased. It was his view that if Ontario companies are going to be in the business of weapons manufacturing, they needed to do it quietly

Steve Pagen: and without a lot of fanfare. And the next time Mr. Davis shuffled his cabinet, Mr. Walker was no longer the industry minister. he was rather significantly demoted. Now, we are clearly not in those times anymore. I I just bring up this story not as a means of, you know, embarrassing Mr. Walker, who had a very good career in Ontario politics,

John Michael McGrath: but we're not in those times anymore. No, there was a very uh a substantial period uh I mean through certainly even my early years uh you know where governments didn't want to be seen as um merchants of death for lack of

Steve Pagen: profiting off global misery. Yes. Exactly right. But Premier Ford and I'm not making a value judgment here but he is clearly saying Ontario is open for business even when it comes to weapons manufacturing. I'm just presenting this story as an indication of how much times have changed over the last few decades.

John Michael McGrath: Yeah.

Steve Pagen: Now, what else on this story?

John Michael McGrath: So, the other part and and this was uh mentioned as as uh one of the responsibilities of this new office. Um the other part has to do with something called the defense security and resilience bank. Now, this is a lending body that is being created by NATO member nations to help uh countries with less than stellar credit uh borrow at cheaper rates uh so that they can afford to increase their defense spending uh the the the the increases that Canada and other NATO members have committed to. I guess we should mention uh they've they've made these commitments in response to uh not so subtle uh bullying by the US government. Um the DSR bank uh has a web page where people can learn more about it and uh the problems that it is intended to solve. Uh but for our our purposes today, the the important point is that this will be a a largeish financial organization that is currently looking for somewhere to place its headquarters, its permanent headquarters. Lots of NATO members uh will be vying to host that headquarters and Canada is of course among them. Uh it is going to be the federal government i.e. Prime Minister Carney who chooses uh which Canadian city will be uh our bid to host the DSR bank in much the same way that like a a single city would be chosen to bid for the Olympics or those kinds of things. Um Ontario of course would very much like Toronto to be picked uh to to be our uh our candidate city uh to to uh get the the headquarters. Uh other provinces have other opinions of course. uh Montreal and Vancouver at least are are also uh being mentioned as as potential cities. Their provincial governments of course uh backing them and uh not us.

Steve Pagen: I don't think this is a slam dunk for what it's worth. I mean I know we are the the capital of banking in the whole country, but I remember again I'm going to go back in history here 40 years ago when Brian Maloney was prime minister. uh he was sort of handing out international designations of banking capitals and Montreal got one and Vancouver got one and Toronto did not

John Michael McGrath: despite the fact that even then Toronto was still the biggest banking capital in the country.

Steve Pagen: So you know politics is hugely at play here and we should not make any assumptions that just because Toronto is the banking capital and Bay Street's got a lot of tall buildings that were a slam dunk to get this

John Michael McGrath: fair. Um, Montreal is is an interesting uh case there. Uh, I would not bet against Montreal getting it. Uh, France obviously a very important NATO nation and there's obviously uh some some a common linguistic heritage there. Um, maybe Montreal gets it, maybe Toronto loses out in that case. I am going to say that I don't think Vancouver is in the running here. I I don't think that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is going to place a substantial office on the Pacific Coast. It just doesn't sound right to me.

Steve Pagen: We've just lost all of our British Columbia viewers and listeners. Shame on you.

John Michael McGrath: Also, also I will just add because we mentioned like politics and you know, you got to consider lots of different variables here, but like the borders of NATO go really far east now and asking people who might already have to fly across the Atlantic to come to uh Montreal or Toronto to then fly several hours more to Vancouver feels like it's asking a lot.

Steve Pagen: Okay, maybe it is. And with that, we're off to issue three.

John Michael McGrath: I'm sorry, Vancouver. You've got many fine virtues, but this ain't one of them.

Steve Pagen: The legislature won't return for another 10 days after a longer than usual winter break that came after last year's shortened spring and fall sittings as well. How normal or abnormal is all of this? Well, we got an email from a guy named Steve Isco in Kingston, which got us thinking about this. So, JMM, should we give a nerd alert here? We're about to inundate people with all kinds of crazy numbers, but why don't you tell us what Steve had to say first?

John Michael McGrath: It's true. We we might have gone a little bit overboard, but we we had fun with this one. So, first, let's start off with uh Steve's email. He writes, "My MPP states that the legislature was in session for just 51 days in 2025. Given the historical context you so often provide to topics, I was wondering if there has been a progressive decrease in the days that the legislature sits over the last century. Also, is there a difference when the government is a minority as opposed to a majority? Steve Isco Kingston.

Steve Pagen: Okay. We actually looked into this.

John Michael McGrath: Yes.

Steve Pagen: Because we're nerds, too.

John Michael McGrath: Yes. And Okay. Inundate away.

Steve Pagen: Sure. So, I'm just going to start off with a caveat that while these numbers are publicly available. Uh you and I are not academic researchers. It is possible that I have, you know, forgotten to carry a six somewhere. But I believe that these numbers are broadly correct. Um we did not go back a century though I am going to come back to the broader historical context here in a minute. Um we went back about 30 years so to 1990 that gives us governments of the NDP uh progressive conservative and liberal and now progressive conservative again uh governments to to judge by. We do have some charts. uh you've got the number of days that the house met this on this chart that's uh every year from 1990 to uh 2025. You will notice that there are uh occasional uh dips. Uh those tend to be election years. Uh so particularly when there's a transition from uh a majority of one party to another, naturally the election campaign season uh disrupts the sitting uh calendar of the legislature. Um in the last two decades the uh longest number of sitting days uh was in 1997 that was uh 131 days under Mike Harris. That uh year included the amalgamation of the city of Toronto. Uh it also included teacher strikes. So a very long uh sitting year. Uh that year the fewest number of days was uh 40 though and that was uh in the first year of the miser government. That was in 1995. But I think we could fairly attribute more to the Ray government uh that chose not to sit for most of the the first part of that year. And so the the legislature only really came back after the election of that year. Uh was so a transitional year. From a glance, I you know, I don't see a really pronounced trend of sort of a general decline of the number of days uh spent in the house. Uh but uh if we go to our next chart, we will take a look at this is the cumulative number of days uh that the legislature sat under uh different premers. The obvious caveat here is that McGinty was premier for the longest of these uh premers. So cumulatively there were just more days in session there. Um but uh for people who are listening and not seeing the video here, I'm just going to go over some numbers very quickly. Uh the Bob Ray government sat for 477 days over 4.7 years. Uh Mike Harris and Ernie Eves uh collectively sat for 677 days over 8.3 years. Dalton McGinty 750 days over 9 years. Kathleen Wyn 59 days over 5.3 years. And Doug Ford so far uh has 517 days over 7.6 years. So, if you wanted to uh look at averages, actually Kathleen Win has some of the highest numbers of sitting days at 105 and Doug Ford has uh the lowest average uh so far at 68.

John Michael McGrath: Now, most shows would say that's enough.

Steve Pagen: But we're not most shows.

John Michael McGrath: We are not.

Steve Pagen: We have more.

John Michael McGrath: We do.

Steve Pagen: Would you care to continue?

John Michael McGrath: So, this is where we're going to go back uh to the the broader historical context here. And uh you know it would be easy to look at these numbers and say well this just proves uh if you are a critic of this government uh this just proves what I've always suspected that Doug Ford is is not working as hard as previous governments. The historical context adds some nuance to this as it so often does. Um the modern legislature generally meets and sits for a much longer uh part of the calendar than was once the case. Right. Historically, certainly, and and when I say historically, I mean before World War II, Queens Park was a part-time legislature. Uh they did not even keep a regular hansert until after World War II. Uh it was what was called a scrapbook hansered where you relied on journalistic reports and and if if you wanted the record of a speech, the MPP actually had like hand their speech to the notekeepers, these kinds of things. Um the sitting calendar used to be organized around the farming season. So, uh, you know, you didn't have, uh, uh, late summer sittings at all. You know, MPPPS did not show up until October usually. Um, that all started to change in the 1970s. Uh and it was in part because the it was perceived that the legislature had come to be so dominated by the premier and cabinet by the executive uh that MPPPs uh particularly backbench MPPPs in the PC party were starting to grumble about being treated like rubber stamps like glorified clapping seals, you know. Um and then new Premier Bill Davis uh convened a commission, the Camp Commission named after its chair Dalton Camp uh to look at uh modernizing and formalizing the role of the legislature. Uh and the camp commission made a number of recommendations uh about changing the job of MPPPS and also changing the structure of the legislature itself that led to uh MPPPS got better pay. they were uh the the the sitting calendar was I guess you could say modernized. It no longer depended entirely on the farming uh calendar. And you know the the certainly the philosophy was to make the legislature uh a more important uh body uh and not so uh dependent on the whims of the premier of the day uh than it had been. So I mention all of this to say okay like let's let's take this back back to the sitting calendar issue, right? The shorter the sitting calendar is, the less time MPPPS have to debate the substantive bills brought forward by the government. Right? If you want to make MPPPS nothing more than a glorified rubber stamp, the the most expedient way to do that is just shorten the sitting calendar. And so lengthening the sitting calendar was a way of just by definition giving MPPPS more power uh rather than less. So this is all to say we have been here before. If you think that it is bad that the uh government or that the legislature is not sitting as much as it sometimes does, uh we know what the solution is. We have been here before. The camp commission showed us one way to address it. Maybe there are new and uh different and perhaps better ideas 50 years later. But this is not an unsolvable problem. We should also point out that the fact that legislators are not in the house doing routine proceedings, attending question period, giving speeches about bills doesn't mean they're not working. Very true.

Steve Pagen: They do work in their constituencies. Obviously, many of them travel all over the province. Sometimes we have legislative committees that travel all over the province. So, it is it is often an easy cheap shot for the opposition to take to say we're barely sitting at all here anymore and none of you people are doing your jobs. I mean it might be true in some cases but in the vast majority of cases they're doing work outside the legislature.

John Michael McGrath: Yes. And and I I think that's absolutely a valid uh an important role that MPPPS have. It's actually I mean it is one of the things that it is unparliamentary to uh talk about whether an MPP is even present in the legislature because we recognize that MPPPS have lots of responsibilities beyond just being physically present in the legislature. Um, nevertheless, I I would just say that uh there is still, I think, the the uh inescapable problem of the the shorter you make the the sitting calendar by definition, the more powerful you are making the premier and cabinet.

Steve Pagen: Mhm. You know what? Have I got time for a little story here? Again, this sort of popped into my head here.

John Michael McGrath: My time is your time.

Steve Pagen: Well, apppropo of the fact that that politics has become very professionalized now, and these are very much full-time jobs now. There was a time when being a member of the Ontario legislature was a part-time job. And I can recall being told a story, and this would go back to probably the 60s, the 1960s. John Roberts would have been premier of Ontario. And an opposition MPP saw one of the conservative backbenchers asleep on the other side of the house. And he said to his colleague, "I'm going to have some fun here at this guy's expense. You just watch." And the colleague said to his federal, I'm not sure if he's a liberal or New Democrat, but said to his fellow opposition MPP, actually that guy's name is Da Da. And he's a farmer and he has been seeding his farm for the last many days and he drove all night from a long way away to be here today because he'd finished his farm work and now he's at Queens Park and he's exhausted. So, we're going to let him have a little catnap and we're not going to embarrass him because he's a good guy. Yeah.

John Michael McGrath: And that just sort of, you know, apppropo of the old days when the legislative calendar

Steve Pagen: worked around the agricultural schedule.

John Michael McGrath: Yeah.

Steve Pagen: Yeah. That sort of popped into my head.

John Michael McGrath: Yeah. No, and and it's uh it is the kind of thing that I I I suspect we would not see again. You and I have talked at length on this podcast about the um lack of civility uh in contemporary politics. And I feel like if that same thing happened today, not only would uh would the member in fact uh get mocked for it, we'd probably have cameras on them.

Steve Pagen: I'd like to think that's not the case, but I'm probably wrong. Anyway, Steve Isco, we thank you, I think, for that email. You prompted a very lengthy discussion. Um once again, if you want to um bend our ear with some of your thoughts, what's the email address?

John Michael McGrath: Uh that email is on politicsvo.org.

Steve Pagen: Good. And with that, we're off to your column, my column.

Steve Pagen: Okay, you know this feature, we call it your column, my column. JMM and I have a little reminiscence here about the columns we wrote for tvO.org. We wet your appetite here and then we hope you'll go to the website and read the whole thing. What do you got for us?

John Michael McGrath: Uh, last week the Financial Accountability Office uh released a report about homelessness in Ontario and uh the uh the numbers are quite bleak uh to put it bluntly. The good news, relatively speaking, is that uh both uh federal and provincial, but particularly municipal spending on uh homelessness supports uh is increasing. Governments really are trying to uh uh address this issue uh with, you know, sums of money that, you know, end with the word billions. So, it's it's not like uh chump change that we're spending on this. Uh the bad news is that it's not enough. that not only uh is the uh rate of homelessness in Ontario not projected to decrease uh despite all of this new money, it is expected to increase. uh the number of people who uh receive supports through the government uh that actually um make their uh shelter costs uh relatively sustainable is something like onethird of the total uh population of people who either uh need uh or receive those supplements because of course some people receive the money and it still doesn't do enough to to make their shelter affordable. And then a a very large uh fraction of Ontarians who would otherwise be eligible for these programs are not receiving the money because there is not enough money available. So as I say a very bleak uh report. Uh it is an update to a previous report from 2021. Uh things continue to uh deteriorate and obviously this is an issue that the government is paying some attention to. they they have uh brought forward uh legislation and some new money uh last year to uh help uh accelerate the construction of shelter spaces uh across the province. Uh but if you talk to, for example, municipal leaders in Ontario, uh I'm I'm not quite sure uh lighting the hero on fire is the the the apt phrase here, but they really are uh increasingly vocal about how uh the the problem is uh bad in their communities and getting worse. And uh unfortunately, you know, I I would love to be able to end on a a positive note, but this is just one of those cases where that there there really isn't one.

Steve Pagen: Used to be a Toronto thing. Now it's an everywhere thing. It's really quite depressing.

John Michael McGrath: Yeah. and and you know it used to be uh I think that's part of what is uh so notable about this issue that it is not um as you say it used to be a Toronto problem and now it's it's showing up in places where this is a totally novel thing for them and in some cases they're they're sort of having to learn how you deal with a uh this isn't like the occasional person sleeping out on the street in town. It's like you've got substantial encampments now in uh parts of the province where uh homelessness was just not an issue before.

Steve Pagen: I'm shining my spotlight on a different problem of significance. But this one I'm going to suggest leaves people with a little bit of hope because I saw something last week that that uh I thought was of such significance I wanted to write a column on it and bring it to everybody's attention. And I'll I'll start the story by going back to the federal election we had last year. Lesie Church is running for the Liberals in this writing Toronto St. Paul's. And she's, you know, knocking on doors. She gets up to a door, knocks, nobody answers, nothing going on. She turns around, she leaves, she gets threequarters of the way down the driveway, and all of a sudden on a snowy day, uh, a woman holding a child in her arm bounds out of her front door and races down the driveway and says, "Excuse me, excuse me. I want to just bend your ear for just a moment. Don't forget about food security.

John Michael McGrath: And Leslie Church, uh, who won the election, is now the member of parliament for this constituency. I'm not sure she needed reminding, but the fact of the matter is she did, she does know there is a food bank at the end of her street. She does know there is a soup kitchen around the corner. There are lots of food banks in Toronto St. Paul's, which is one of the more, you know, economically buoyant ridings in this country. And yet there we are. Why am I telling you this story? Because at the brick works in Midtown Toronto last week, there was a get together of a bunch of people who care about food security and there was a very neat idea presented.

Steve Pagen: 10 years ago, two students at the University of Ottawa were on a school trip up to Nunovot and they learned firsthand about food insecurity. They saw heads of lettuce cost 15 bucks a piece because the food has to be shipped in from so far away and sometimes it goes bad by the time it gets there and there's a whole host of problems. and they thought to themselves, is there anything we can do to try to fix this problem? Turns out there is. They created a company 10 years ago called Grosser. G R O W C E R Ger. And the idea behind it is quite simple. They have huge shipping containers that can act as green houses that communities can purchase, put people to work there, and you can grow tens of thousands of pounds of vegetables over the course of a year that can deal with food insecurity, get people eating properly again. Um, hopefully put some food banks out of business. Um, they've got a hundred locations signed up already. They're in talks with a hundred more. There's 100 more in the in the pipeline. They want to have a thousand communities across Canada with these grosser ge uh green houses uh somewhere on site. You know, maybe a Lions Club will buy one, maybe a Rotary Club will buy one. Maybe a municipality will buy one. And I mean, you've got jobs for students actually who want to work in these things and teach people about agriculture and how the food cycle works. Anyway, to me it just seems like a a really smart solution to a problem that is getting worse and worse all the time. We are 40 million people in this country. 7 million of the 40 million used a food bank last year.

John Michael McGrath: That's crazy. So hopefully these folks at grocerers have got something going on.

Steve Pagen: Yeah. I mean we have uh a bit bit one part of our brand here is that we are both um kind of nerdy. We both enjoy Star Trek and I I would say that um a perhaps unsurprising amount of my politics is tied to my love of Star Trek as a young boy and and the just the the belief of or or the optimism in the future. The belief that uh new technologies can help us address social problems. Not every social problem by any means. Uh some some things require politics to put it bluntly. Um but that uh technology can open the doors to some creative solutions that help us address these problems. Uh that is one of those uh core beliefs that I have and uh I love stories like this. You know a system like grocery is not going to be the thing that solves all hunger in Canada uh everywhere but it can help at the margins and the margins are important and I think it's great. And to come full circle, if you go back to a Callowit in the north of this country where they have a grosser greenhouse there, they can grow vegetables that will serve the population there even in minus 40.

John Michael McGrath: This is a solution worth following up on. Anyway, and they've got a of course they've got a website and um you know go to the website and find out more information if you want and read my story online as well.

Steve Pagen: Yes.

John Michael McGrath: Now, what else do we want to do here? Uh I think that's it. Is that it? Are we done? Time to wrap it up.

Steve Pagen: Wow. Do we not have any more numbers on sitting days in the Ontario legislature we can add?

John Michael McGrath: Give me a minute. I can get more.

Steve Pagen: I bet you can. Let's get out of here. Okay, that is the OnP podcast for this Friday, March 13th. Friday the 13th, JMM 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 Pagen: Any feedback you have, we're always happy to hear it, good, bad, or indifferent. Write us an email at onpolitics@tvo.org.

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

Steve Pagen: This week's episode was produced by Nat Basin, editing by Colin Kish.

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

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

John Michael McGrath: Should we mention the fact that you did not hear Matthew Omera's name in the credits because

Steve Pagen: uh because he has had a second child.

John Michael McGrath: There we go. Congratulations, Matthew. How about that? He's taking some Pat leave and uh he will rejoin us uh in in a month or two. Longer than that, but sometime.

Steve Pagen: Okay. But in the meantime, Nat Basin's holding the fort and we love Nat too.

John Michael McGrath: Yes.

Steve Pagen: Uh what else do we want to say here? Oh, we want to thank the crew of course for setting us up here as we always do. And we got one more special note that we want to leave you with. If you're watching this on television, it's too late. But if you're listening to this online, we want to say that our monthly town hall show, TVO Today Live, will feature a discussion about digital sovereignty on Friday night, 700 p.m. on TVO on television. Or you can see the extended edition on our YouTube channel. That's TVO today. I think I've got that right.

John Michael McGrath: Believe so. Yes,

Steve Pagen: there we go. And with that, until next Friday, everybody, bye-bye. Byebye.