>> STEVE: Welcome everyone to
the OnPoli podcast, I'm Steve
Paikin. >> JOHN: And I'm John Michael
McGrath. >> STEVE: Today on the pod, the
NDP accused the governing
Conservatives of cowardice as debate ends over a bill dealing
with sexual assault. >> JOHN: Did the minister of
health really say we don't have
a doctor shortage in Ontario? She did, and we'll tell you why. >> STEVE: Online memes critize
governments for not responding
to rising car thefts in the province, and Queen's Park
responds. >> JOHN: For "Your column, my
column" I'll focus on how the
Ontario Liberals are signaling anything Doug Ford can do, we
can do better including tax
cuts. >> STEVE: And I've got a piece
up on one of Ontario's most
important former health ministers who turns 80 on Monday
she had a wonderful career in
politics and suffered the worst imaginable loss as well. Stay tuned for that. >> JOHN: It's Friday May 17th,
2024, so let's get to it. >> STEVE: Partner, I know you're
sitting there thinking to
yourself, the leaves are out of the playoffs ways still wearing
that jersey and the answer is
because this is no ordinary jersey this is my Ron Ellis
Leafs jersey and Ron is my
all-time favourite player for that Leafs growing up I met him
for the first time when I was 10
years old and it was one of those just unbelievably
wonderful things where you meet
your athletic hero and it turns out to be the greatest thing you
could've imagined and then you
become friends and we did become friends over the years which is
truly one of the great joys of
my life and Ron as everyone knows died last week at the age
of 79. I wrote a little column about
him on the TVO website, and I'm
wearing his number 6 today to pay honour and tribute to him. Rest in peace Ron Ellis and I
don't know what team that is,
but that's not the leaves and I don't know what it is. >> JOHN: Although there is a bit
of a childhood connection here
in the sense that I was young, this is what my wife discovered
about me late in our
relationship, became a big nerd for Godzilla movies and when she
discovered this she rolls with
it now and I'm a big fan of Godzilla movies so she bought
this shirt a wild back. It's filled with giant Godzillas
and Mothras and monsters of the
Godzilla universe and some may stop me in downtown Toronto
where they said, that's a great
T-shirt actually are you John Michael McGrath? Apparently I built a bit about
personal brand based on silly
T-shirts in this podcast. >> STEVE: That's certainly one. And with that everybody, let's
go on to issue one. >> SPEAKER: Standing order 77A,. >> SPEAKER: Order order order. >> STEVE: That was the seat in
the legislature earlier this
week as MPP's began to shout down Progressive Conservative
MPP during vote. The issue was over something
called Lydia's law which the NDP
has been championing as a solution to what they see as a
lack of justice on sexual
assault charges. The bill Lydia's law was sent to
further review by passing and
the house which the NDP did not appreciate. Okay let's start with the
private members bill itself,
take us through some of the provisions on it. >> JOHN: This is a bill
introduced by NDP MPP Catherine
FIFE as you might have guessed it's named after a woman named
Lydia who is a survivor of
sexual assault and had to wait almost two years to see justice
in a provincial court because of
associated court delays. The bill grew from the auditor
General in 2019. That audit which many of the AG
produces pretty regularly this
was looking at very lengthy delays in cases in provincial
courts just for clarity here, we
are talking about courts where the provincial government
appoints judges, not superior
courts with the judges are appointed by the Prime Minister
and federal government so the
bill is introduced by Catherine Fife called on the Attorney
General to report each year on
the number of criminal cases that have been held up for more
than 8 months provincial courts
last year the vast majority in Ontario as the bill would also
have the Attorney General's
office sticking to the reasons for delays and it was supposed
to be debated on Wednesday
afternoon but the government decided to skip that and send it
straight to committee without
any debate. >> STEVE: If you listen hard to
the clip we played off the top
you could hear the words of cowards being shouted from the
NDP said to the progressive
conservative side Catherine Fife spoke to reporters she was
choking tears back at the time
and why don't you take us through some of the reactions of
all this? >> JOHN: This is something we've
seen the government do before,
it something similar to kind of a bill from Mike Schreiner
earlier this year they sent to
the bill straight to committee without debate. Back then Schreiner also did not
think he was being particularly
well treated by the government and the issue here is not so
much that the bill is getting
sent to committee because that would have happened if the bill
passed anyways. It was that the government used
the shortcut to eliminate the
step where MPP's debate and vote on the bill in the house. If there had been that debate,
MPP's would've been able to
speak on it that matter, they would have been able to give
speeches and would have gotten
government MPPs on that record voting for or against the bill. They didn't get the opportunity
to do that because of the
legislative shortcut if you want to put it that way on X,
formerly Twitter, Mark Stiles
called it despicable. >> STEVE: The Conservative
government Paul Calandra what's
going on? >> JOHN: The House leader as
well as municipal affairs
worriers to different hats here but in this case government
house leader and heat was
accusing the NDP of putting on a show, so to speak. He said the goal was to actually
speed up the consideration of
what's recommended in 5 built because of the committee on
Justice policy is concerned what
to do broadly speaking in partner violence and issues like
that and reforms needed for
justice systems. He has said to reporters that he
believes parts of the bill could
be floated into an eventual report from the committee and
could become law through
government legislation. NDP leader Marit Stiles did SAY
IN QUESTION PERIOD ON WEDNESDAY
THAT NOBODY IS BUYING THAT. I think that's AS close as you
could come to calling THE
GOVERNMENT HOUSE LEADER a liar THE GOOD NEWS SUCH as it is when
at the government if the
government brings forward a new piece of legislation, whether
that is quote reform generally
or specifically tailored to intimate partner violence, we
will be able to see in that text
of that bellwether has anything that Fife. >> STEVE: Was recommending to
put in context were not talking
about the cases delayed over the years, Catherine Fife brought
forward statistics which shows
that we were talking about thousands of cases, thousands
where the justice system has
apparently broken down and not worked to see a timely delivery
of cases, and therefore people
are walking away free with those charges not tested in court. >> JOHN: And part as a result of
the Supreme Court decision for
the last decade which really reasserted the importance that
it spelled in the charter, it's
not like they made it up that they have it right to a timely
trial and the Supreme Court
really put some... Rigour to that rule. And not just Ontario, all over
Canada it's still dealing with
how to expand to other courts and make the justice system more
official so hopefully you see
fewer cases that are tossed simply for literally in some
cases a lack of a courtroom
judge. >> STEVE: And with that we are
on to issue two. HEALTH minister SYLVIA JONES
said this week something that
raised a lot of eyebrows. She said Ontario doesn't have a
doctor shortage. And SHE POINTED OUT the doctors
have gone over up over the last
SEVERAL years IN numbers greater than the general population has
increased. That may be true but opposition
leader Marit Stiles suggested it
was cold comfort to bring perhaps 2 million Ontarians who
don't have a family doctor and
let's keep in mind that comments were made in the midst of
negotiations between the
province and Ontario medical Association is so perhaps we
could understand why the
minister wants to pat down the notion of a doctor shortage
because she wants as an expense
of a settlement as possible. JMM how advisable do you think
those comments were? >> JOHN: You mentioned 2 million
Ontarians without a family
doctor so any of those 2 million people could maybe say they
would disagree. We could also point to things
like emergency rooms around
rural Ontario in particular where we see a shortened hours
or in some cases they've been
closed entirely for a lack of doctors or other health workers. Or we can talk about this from
the other direction. The government seems to believe
very much that there's a doctor
shortage in Ontario and JC that because of things that have
worked for the College of
physicians to expedite doctors outside of Canada something that
both the government and College
has dragged their feet on for many years and after COVID they
discovered gosh, all these
people living in Ontario or potential doctors who maybe we
should get them working here. >> STEVE: Not to mention the new
creation of MEDICAL SCHOOLS
WHICH ARE COMING AS WELL TO THE PROVINCE. >> JOHN: Exactly. Anyway you look at it the
government does note there is A
doctor shortage as you can say you can guess as to why the
health minister says that
shortage is not severe or maybe she would like to believe it
doesn't exist but in the context
of the negotiations, I don't think it made the government
look good. A mix it look like they don't
know what's going on. >> STEVE: And doctor shortages
is not the only problem in
shortages. >> JOHN: The Canadian press
report said its forecasting
severe shortages for nurses and PSW's and long-term care
shortage of 33,000 nurses and
50,000 more PSW's will be needed in less than a decade. >> STEVE: Not to be a smart Alec
but how do we know that? >> JOHN: It's part of the story. HOW the numbers came out on how
we talk now about the terrible
state of information access laws. In this case, Global News had
requested these numbers after a
2022 request under the Freedom of information laws. THE GOVERNMENT HAD redacted the
numbers and GLOBAL APPEALED BUT
WAS DENIED. >> STEVE: YOU JUST READ THE
NUMBERS SO how do we know THEM? >> JOHN: Because SEPARATELY
Canadian press HAD FILED A
DIFFERENT FOI TO THE MINISTRY OF LONG TERM CARE and those numbers
were released without reaction. >> STEVE: HILARIOUS, talk about
left hand not knowing what the
right hand is doing. >> JOHN: And when I say this
next bit I'm going to get a bit
of a soapbox here but I really want to have this partisan point
or even a provincial one is that
governments across this country are just absolutely god awful
terrible on the basic matter of
letting the public know what it has a right to know. Our laws are bad, the
implementations of the laws as
we see in this case are bad, and even when candidates are elected
on their promises to improve
access of information as Justin Trudeau was in 2018, I keep
getting worse and worse. To me it's a scandal in this
country but it is a regrettably
kind of like the weather at this point nobody really does
anything about it. And with that I will take a
breath and quickly get off of my
soapbox. >> STEVE: I don't, mind you, on
there. Stay up there because we are
entitled to this information I
remember 1985 when David Pearson was premier along with support
from Bob rate. They passed the first ever
Freedom of information a law in
the province of Ontario and everyone thought it was a cool
thing at the time and we were
finally in 1985, doing something that not many other
jurisdictions in the world were
doing and here we are all these years later we feel like we've
taken steps back. Governments have got to get over
the notion of some how can't
handle the truth. That's not the case we are not
Jack Nicholson. We can handle the truth and we
want the truth. Anyways... Should I get off my
soapbox? Let's move on. On to issue three. Ontario and particularly the
greater Toronto area has been
rocked by a wave of car thefts in the past year and of the
government has announced new
measures this week to help combat this problem. Convicted car thieves could see
their drivers licence is
suspended potentially for their entire lives. We've got to hear more on this. Go ahead. >> JOHN: The government is
introducing a bill that would
get past like the Minister of transportation suspend people
drivers licenses if they are
convicted of specific crimes so imagine how this works, you
would be in court prosecuted for
a federal crime like we will get to which crimes in a moment and
then at the time of your trial,
whether it's the Crown prosecutor would say we will
take your licence for a period
of time with the traffic law allowing this but not auto theft
at the moment the government
would now extend that language to auto theft and policies would
be more severe on a first
defence car thieves could not car thieves could lose their
licence for 10 years, ON A
SECOND 15 and if they get a third strike or more they can
lose their licence indefinitely. And then on Wednesday the
government announced it would
also be increasing the penalties for drunk driving including the
potential requiring two people
install intermission interlock. You blow in and you test
positive for alcohol, your car
will not start. They've been around forever,
this would allow the province to
more easily require them and that government is also
proposing to STIFFEN THE
PENALTIES for stunt driving THOUGH in that case, if I'm
reading the GOVERNMENT
announcements correctly it's more comparable to the way other
crimes are ALREADY TREATED IN
THE HIGHWAY TRAFFIC ACT. >> STEVE: LET'S follow-up up on
that what other crimes can
people lose their drivers licenses for? >> JOHN: You won't necessarily
have your licence suspended for
all of these but many are them for what you would think. Drugs, drunk driving, dangerous
driving, causing bodily harm or
death, these are can already see your licence suspended. Also I stumbled across the fact
that you could have your licence
suspended for mutiny or treason. >> STEVE: I did not know that,
that's a new one. >> JOHN: One question I got and
you have to see the full text as
we record this, it's on like the penalties for auto theft could
actually end up being stiffer
than the penalties for killing someone at least if alcohol is
involved. >> STEVE: That's potentially... I could see a civil rights
lawyer doing something with
that. >> JOHN: The first person has
their licence suspended under
this law is certainly likely to launch a charter challenge as
we've seen before the government
strengthened drunk driving rules. One of the courts we will look
at is weather the penalties the
government imposes are proportional to the problem they
are trying to solve. And I don't know necessarily
again, I will say again I'm not
a lawyer but this kind of... Disjuncture between penalty for
drunk driving or penalty for
auto theft versus penalty for killing somebody... The court
could say actually this makes no
sense. These penalties don't pass
charters because of that. Nobody is arguing car theft or
drunk driving certainly are not
valid problems for the provincial government to try and
suppress but I'm curious as to
weather courts will look at the disparity here and have
something to say. >> STEVE: Indeed. And now onto the stuff we wrote
this week. Time now for our regular feature
"Your Column, My Column" in
which JMM and I reminisced about the stuff he wrote for TVO.org
over the past weekend JMM, what
do you have this week? >> JOHN: My column is about
Bonnie Crombie trying to out
POPULIST DOUG FORD. >> STEVE: I like that piece
actually and this is a pop
fascinating topic. Here's the 411 the liberals had
a press conference to unveil a
proposal to REDUCE ONTARIO'S SMALL BUSINESS TAX RATE
3.2 percent to 1.6 percent and
to increase the threshold from half a million dollars to
$600,000. More generous for small
businesses. Crombie says the move would
benefit nearly 300,000 small
businesses in the province and you were down there at Queen's
Park for the announcement so
what did? You. >> STEVE: Think. >> JOHN: I will start off by
saying I don't take a specific
tax proposal from the third party at the legislature two
years before the NEXT ELECTION
TERRIBLY SERIOUSLY IN ITSELF There's just so much time
between now and then. I don't think we can necessarily
expect Crombie to catch and nail
all the details of the specific policy that said what I found
more interesting than the
proposal itself was how Crombie presented it. More obvious the think she wants
people to understand that the
liberals want to cut taxes and she said that repeatedly. And I think that's an
interesting term especially with
the last Liberal premier when her government was in power. >> STEVE: That's what I heard in
this announcement and I'm
fascinated about the political decision of the liberals to
essentially decide to fight FORD
and his government on the issue of tax cuts. And since 1990 Mike Harris ran
as the tax fighter and pretty
much nonstop since then, so what are we talking now, 34 years
question arc the PC party of
Ontario has positioned itself as the keep taxes low party while
the liberals under David
Peterson in 85 and Dalton McGuinty in 2003, Kathleen Wynne
in 2013 have kind have been
taxed more so we and prove your public services party and this
is an attempt for the liberals
to compete with the PCs on what essentially has been pretty much
Tory turf for three decades and
I find that an interesting choice can the liberals under
Crombie rebrand to be less of a
tax and spend party or will the public think if I want lower
taxes I'm going to vote for the
conservatives? They demonstrated over decades. Why wouldn't I stick with them? It's an interesting place to
play ball and we will see how it
works out. >> JOHN: When Crombie launched
her campaign she said she
thought the party should move to the right of where it had been,
I thing this is sort of an
example of what that looks like in the real world. And one of the things I want to
underline here is it's not
tax cutting that Crombie is striking a more populous tone
here when I asked how much will
this tax change your proposing costs she had specific answers,
it would cost as much as the
Ontario Place parking lot the government is paying for it more
complicated than that because
it's costing $5 million every year. And presumably only have to
build that parking lot once. She also would later say to me
that you could also compare the
costs how much of the Ontario government would be spending on
every agency nurses. We talked up before on the
podcast but keep this in mind
over the next two years as we watch the liberals and Tories
try to define each other in the
next election the Tories trying very hard to find Crombie as the
quote unquote Queen of the
carbon tax and now we seek Crombie is responding in kind. We will watch to see how this
plays out in months and years to
come. >> STEVE: It's a campaign and
now. Campaigns never end. >> JOHN: How about yourself? >> STEVE: Let's start with this
Elinor Kathleen turns 80 on
Monday and that seems to me a good reason as other two do a
story on her and who is Elinor
Caplan younger viewers and listeners might be wondering? If you're onto #onpoli, I took
that picture a few days
actually, she's someone you need to know about. Elinor served in all three
levels of government not all
able and politics do that P or she was a North York city
counsellor, Liberal MPP and
cabinet minister under David Peterson and federal MP in
cabinet minister under JEAN
CHRETIEN, all three levels. When she was a health minister
under David Pearson's government
in the late 1980s she made one of the biggest splash is any
health minister has ever made. You may remove or the Supreme
Court of Canada weighed in on
Canada's abortion law at the time and ruled constitutional. And you might imagine a
provincial health ministers,
Attorney General, lots of people over the country were figuring
out at that time including the
federal seen what will we do here, will we use that
notwithstanding clause or return
this court decision, except that, try and pass a law
question arc what we do? When it came out she held 8
scrum and said we respect the
court's decision I'm pro-choice we are moving on. That was it. And she freelanced that. Didn't consult anybody else in
government, she just did it and
premier Peterson went up after the fact and said Eleanor, don't
you think you should've
consulted with me all that before going out there and
freelancing government policy? And her answer was, nope, that
was my personal belief I figured
you could fire me if you wanted to but that's what I wanted to
plant my flag and there you go. That's a pretty gutsy thing to
do. >> JOHN: And way to spend the
political capital you have. >> STEVE: One of her proudest
moments many years later her son
David was also elected to the legislation also became health
minister so you can imagine it
was the pride Eleanor felt in her son following her footsteps. Here is where it gets hard. I wish I could say that this
family affairs story had it not
happy ending but for those who do remember, it does not. David died 5 years ago under
very very curious circumstances
he was only 54 years old, there was an explosion in his home, he
died from his injuries sustained
in that. Elinor's CAPLAN spend died just
earlier this year as well so
these last few years had been particularly hard for her, she's
a wonderful person, she's a
strong person, it was a dinner a few days ago and we saw her then
and spoke to her a few weeks ago
for this column that I'm talking about right now. And she was in good shape, fine
form amongst her friends, so
happy 80th birthday Elinor Caplan at Queen's Park and on
Parliament Hill. There you go. Now just before we go to the
mailbag, this is usually part of
the podcast where we like to give a few shutouts. Let me do some of that here
earlier this week I went to the
downtown campus of the University of Toronto and a guy
named Jacob Nicholas stops me on
the street and we got into a conversation and he tells me
he's about to go to law school
at the University of Ottawa and says he's a regular listener to
the podcast and I told him, you
can't just listen you have to watch us on TV. Always love to hear kids are
getting onto #onpoli so Jacob
good luck in law school. Then I bumped into a couple name
Bob and Gail who said we like
you and that other nerd. That was great. Finally one more shelled and put
this picture of a shot this
backstage over the weekend this guy's name is Dean Yates, a
trombone player. I'm on stage at last weekend in
Hamilton hosting a 40th
anniversary celebration for the Hamilton all start jazz band
which my dad has been a
volunteer for years and as I'm introducing that band and as
members of the band are walking
out on stage, Dean walks up to me, leans up to me and says, I
love the podcast. There's lots of things that I
thought a jazz trombonist would
say to me as he walked me onstage but I love the podcast
was not on my top 10 list. So I thought that was pretty
cool. >> JOHN: I also want to give a
shout out to Peter Constantino's
academic director of the Ontario legislative intern program. He stopped me in the basement in
the legislature this week when I
was there on Tuesday. I was complement Terry about the
podcast he says he recommended
it to the students who take part in it the intern program at
Queen's Park. We are after all the educational
broadcasters so there's not much
that I could hear that would make me happier than that so
thank you, Peter and lovely to
hear that. With that let's go to the
mailbag. >> STEVE: We remind you if you
have a burning question are
insightful comment we always love getting them at
ONPOLITICS@TVO.ORG. And WE throw it over to JMM to
read the first letter. >> JOHN: This is from Anthony
Silva. Greetings gents, long time
follower and viewer and
listener. Here's my question. How much does it cost Ontarians
to conduct a provincial election
and in it the year 2024, how is it possible that we still don't
have the option to vote online? I would think voter engagement
would be escalated and costs
would be massively decreased. Thanks, by the way, Steve my dad
RIP, was a huge bill Davis van
to you. Anthony. >> STEVE: Your father obviously
had good judgement. Let's tackle the online voting
angle first and have to say I'm
torn on this issue. I've heard lots of great
arguments on all sides of this
thing. I've always started from the
position that there was
something really quite special about election day and I know we
have lots of advanced polls,
never vote in them, never. Same for you. Something special about election
day never mind that it gives you
the opportunity to hear all the information up to the last
minute before you make. Your decision but there
something cool standing in line
waiting to check in with their fellow citizens, putting the x
on the piece of paper, I think
that's kind of a neat shared experience with my citizens I
like that. I think it's an issue that we
have our elections on days of
the week where people lots of people work and therefore
sometimes tough to get time off
from work are no employers are supposed to give me time off,
doesn't always happen. If we had elections on the
weekend, it might be easier to
get people out to the polls maybe we'd have BETTER turn out
so that's a possibility but
however Anthony, I do take your point about online, it's 2024. People can do there banking
online, that's pretty secretive
stuff. Doctors can send x-rays of your
body parts to each other online
that's also pretty private stuff. I appreciate the fact that older
people or people, with
disabilities voting online would be a lot more convenient than
going to the polls. So where am I after all that? Right where I started. I don't know. I'm of two minds. >> JOHN: Online voting would be
the first reform I would look
for. You mentioned voting on weekends
I was thought to people have
different holy days and I thought the idea of doing voting
on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and
then we announce the results on Monday morning. I feel like that would be pretty
easy but nobody asked me. Ontario does allow city councils
to implement online voting and
the results aren't a homerun. Last week we mentioned the
abysmal turnout in the Black
River Matheson,. >> STEVE: 6 percent or
something? >> JOHN: A specific situation
but online voting was an option
there and it didn't save them from low turnout is my point. In 2022, there was an analysis
of Ontario municipalities
because they have been several election cycles were online
voting has been an option, and
they found out a consistent pattern of an initial boost to
turn out online voting first
became possible followed by a return to the norm for municipal
elections anyway being pretty
low turnout. It's possible things would be
different provincially but I
think when you say scepticism. >> STEVE: Anthony also asked
about the cost of holding a
provincial general election in 24 different ridings across
Ontario. Watino? >> JOHN: This is easy to answer
because Ontario is required to
produce a report and the cost is 158 million dollars to
administer and that includes the
campaign subsidies to political parties. >> STEVE: You got to say that
number again it cost HOW MUCH? >> JOHN: $158,760,922. >> STEVE: That is a lot of
money. >> JOHN: And that number will
all will certainly be larger in
2026 because we are likely to have more than 124 ridings next
time. The federal House of Commons has
already adopting a new riding
map nationally for the next national election and it's up
for a generation now Ontario's
practice has been that we adopted the federal map for
Southern Ontario while keeping
the number of northern seats the same. So if I had my numbers right we
should have 125 MPP's after the
next election. The catch here is that Ontario
isn't actually required to
follow the federal map constitutionally Ontario can
adopt its own map if it wants. We are sort of assuming for it
playing purposes because has the
practice for the past 20 odd years that they will just adopt
the federal map for 7 Ontario
and unless we hear otherwise from the government. >> STEVE: Okay kiddo give the
address again. >> JOHN: If you'd like to ask us
about the show please email us
at onpolitics@tvo.org. >> STEVE: And that's #onpoli
podcast for this May 17th,
2024. >> JOHN: You can follow our show
on Apple podcast and get
notified when it's available. AND YOU CAN SEE THE VIDEO
VERSION OF THE PODCAST ON THE
TVO TODAY YOUTUBE CHANNEL. >> STEVE: ANY FEEDBACK YOU HAVE
WE'RE HAPPY TO HEAR IT: GOOD,
BAD OR INDIFFERENT. WRITE US AN EMAIL AT
ONPOLITICS@TVO.ORG AND BE SURE
TO INCLUDE YOUR FIRST NAME, LAST NAME, AND WHERE YOU'RE LOCATED. >> JOHN: This week's episode was
PRODUCED AND EDITED BY TIFF LAM
VIDEO EDITING by Ian Partridge. >> STEVE: Production support
from ARIANA Longley, JONATHAN
HALLIWELL, CHRISTINE Gardiner, CARLA LUCCHETTA and Vito
Tagarelli. >> JOHN: OUR managing editor is
KATIE O'Connor, LAURIE FEW IS
THE executive producer of DIGITAL, John Ferri is VICE
PRESIDENT OF PROGRAMMING AND
CONTENT. >> STEVE: Special thanks as
always to our studio crew for
making our show look so darn good and video podcast
happening. And for that we say until next
Friday, bye-bye. >> JOHN: Bye-bye. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪
