# What About Zalev's?

An episode of [Rose City Politics](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1247337855), 11 May 2023, 57 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/53813631/what_about_zalev.mp3

Jon, Don, Melinda and Doug discuss Mayor Dilkens' recent interview in the Narwhal Magazine, which leads all sorts of places. Rose City Politics is brought to you with the kind support of LiUNA Local 625: Building Better Communities. Support the show at Patreon.com/RoseCityPolitics. Read us in Biz X Magazine or online at BizXMagazine.com and RoseCityPolitics.ca

## Transcript

[0:00] Good evening everyone, Welcome to Rose City Politics. It is May the tenth.
[0:04] Our regular panel tonight includes Melinda Monroe, John Merryfield, Junior, Doug
[0:09] Sartory and myself John Lidkey. Do support us at patreon dot com forward slash
[0:14] Rose City Politics. What with all the great sounding audio Now it's a perfect
[0:18] time to do so too soon, dude as its magazine and City Politics able
[0:23] to broadcast live on tape thanks to the kind supportably in a six two five
[0:27] building better communities. How are we all doing tonight? Yeah, it's very
[0:31] good, John, Yeah, great. Well, we just spent thirteen million
[0:35] dollars on audio upgrade, so those Patreon people better get off their wallets.
[0:39] Yeah. Yeah, that's why we need new ones. Now we have run
[0:43] through the reserves. It's good to be with all of you tonight. Thank
[0:48] you for joining us. We've got a fun episode. We are going to
[0:52] be looking at a story that came out last week in the Narwall, a
[0:59] rather in depth interview between Fatima said who wrote it, Mayor Dilkins says Ontario's
[1:06] housing crisis demands developing floodplains and farmland. We're gonna go through what that interview
[1:12] discussed the author of it. The journalist Fatima said it was she was all
[1:19] paraphrase, just sort of surprised by what some of the responses were from the
[1:25] mare because they were eye opening, um and popping yes. And then we'll
[1:30] also talk about some of the politics behind it. How do you think an
[1:37] hour long interview like this, could you know, start where it did and
[1:41] end where it did and not end after five minutes, quite frankly, because
[1:46] that's what I would have thought. As the handlers rush them to the car
[1:49] and right on the building, we've got to get everybody out of there quickly,
[1:53] pulled the fire alarm. Um. And then we're in the second half
[1:56] of the show, going to talk about a downtown quote game changer. This
[2:00] is the City Hall, Plaza, Civic Esplanade, Riverside Drive, no more
[2:07] tunnel now a crosswalk with a elevated bridge with elevators, new downtown proposal.
[2:15] We'll talk about what it looks like, maybe how much it's going to cost,
[2:21] and through the lens of some other, you know, pretty significant capital
[2:24] projects that we are already looking at being either approved or deferred to be approved,
[2:30] or know that they will be required. All this to say it's a
[2:37] show, so looking forward to this one. Let's dive into this Narwall piece
[2:40] by again if Fatima said. Mayor Gilkins says Ontario's housing crisis demands developing floodplains
[2:46] and farm land. Mayor Dilkins his premier forts housings are right now. He
[2:53] was interviewed in a piece for the Narwhall that came out on May fourth.
[2:57] He provided some eyebrow raising responses when discussing change in Windsor and the trade offs
[3:00] between development and the environment and building homes, industry and a hospital either near
[3:06] or on the Sandwich south Lands. He was asked about Windsor being the last
[3:12] point in an evy supply chain and whether he was concerned about if it doesn't
[3:17] happen, will the transition to occur. Primarily the need for minerals, and
[3:24] he said that he sees very strategic moves from the province to be a leader
[3:28] in the automotive space. He said, obviously minerals and mining are critical to
[3:32] that. In the ring of fire, he criticized past governments for only talking
[3:38] and he says that this current government is making moves that he thinks the public
[3:42] should see is very positive to help feed the supply chain that will help our
[3:45] city grow. I think the way that it's probably gonna be best for us
[3:49] to go through with this one is to take a quick stop after each question,
[3:53] because again, this was a full hour interview that was summarized here.
[3:58] I don't really have much to say beyond what we've already just heard from Mary
[4:01] Dilkins on the need for the minerals aspect of it. To me, that's
[4:06] just you know, a lot of talking points there. If anyone else wants
[4:09] to add in though, on this first question, yeah, looking like it's
[4:14] not a big deal. Second question, so you have no doubts that it's
[4:19] gonna work, He responds, I have no doubts. It will be ten
[4:21] years away, but we're gonna have the minerals and we're gonna have a fully
[4:25] electric gride of new vehicles salt. The author then moves on to say,
[4:30] well, this means that more people are gonna come to Windsor. And one
[4:32] of the things that the Narwhal has been looking at is the impact of Bill
[4:35] twenty three, one of the housing bills, and she says she understands that
[4:39] Windsor's one of the most flood prone cities in the province and asks what kind
[4:43] of support does Windsor need to deal with the impact of increased population growth and
[4:46] ensure that paving over more Land doesn't cause flooding that devastates the transformation that we're
[4:53] discussing now. May Dilkins responds, quote Windsor as flat as a pancake and
[4:57] surrounded by water. Yes, perfect, correct, it's perfect. I love
[5:02] that so much. Mary Delkins again is a guy who should have a microphone
[5:06] in front of him all the time. He is the perfect talk radio just
[5:12] quick response guy. He should have Twitter blue. He is a great reply
[5:15] guy. It's worth every penny of that thousand dollars. You know what you
[5:19] know? Where else as flat as a pancake and surrounded by water. And
[5:23] you'll be surprised to hear this, but both Vancouver and Richmond, British Columbia
[5:28] flass pancake. In fact, Richmond is so flat that it's going to sink
[5:30] when there's an earthquake. Flass pancakes surrounded by water. So the city Vancouver
[5:35] is actually smaller and foot footprint than the city of Winter but has three times
[5:40] the population. Why because they built up they can't expand either, but they
[5:45] still continue to grow their population. They don't actually have to sprawl into or
[5:49] perhaps they could have done something like the Netherlands and just gone out into the
[5:53] ocean, but they didn't do that. They just built up and within always
[5:59] every year in the three most of thoble cities in the world. And not
[6:03] to not to bring up the like because Don's right here, so not to
[6:08] bring up the down thing. But um, isn't that Isn't that like a
[6:12] math problem based on the the underlying value of the land, Like there's only
[6:16] so many stories up you can go if the if the return on investment isn't
[6:21] there, right, But they you know, they can't expand for I mean,
[6:26] the other municipalities are expanding Mission Maple Ridge. You know they're driving in
[6:30] for yeah, right. But what I'm what I'm yeah, So what I'm
[6:32] saying though, is that there's like I'm just speculating that they're that Vancouver,
[6:38] like there's a there's a tipping point of land value after which high rises make
[6:43] sense and before which they don't. I don't know if that's true or not.
[6:45] I'm just kind of guessing. But if that's true, like maybe we
[6:48] can't take that lesson so easily from Vancouver because because our most of the land
[6:54] and Windsor doesn't justify building more than three stories. Well that could be,
[6:57] and then there's so much you know, perhaps it's more like Calgary ware you
[7:00] can just expand forever and the rest of the county just no limits on,
[7:04] like LaSalle or Amersburg or Yeah. Well sorry, I don't interrupted, but
[7:09] I think what you said about Vancouver is actually very pertinent. Winsor. Vancouver
[7:13] can't do anything else because they're basically landlocked now. So Maple Ridge, those
[7:17] kind of communities are expanding and people are just driving in twenty minutes or whatever.
[7:21] You know, however far it is, I've never been a beast,
[7:23] but yeah, sure, well the other crazy but fine on a much smaller
[7:29] scale. But the mayor is saying is the same thing. We're out of
[7:32] land in the city of Windsor, so unfortunately we don't again we can go
[7:38] back. I talk about regional developing and planning all the time, but we
[7:41] don't do that here. So we're doing the same thing. Ambersburg is expanding
[7:45] like crazy, LaSalle has gone nuts the last ten years. Lake Shore was
[7:49] the fastest one for many years, so we're kind of doing the same thing.
[7:54] Now. The question is within the footprint of Windsor itself, have we
[8:00] pretty much maximized all the land for what we can do with it? Now
[8:03] took anyone who lives around here. You can look around. We don't have
[8:07] a lot of high rise buildings. That's normal here, dude, look across
[8:09] the street. Yeah yeah, well trust maybe if people were watching us on
[8:13] video, you would not want to see us across the street. So we
[8:16] haven't done that. So the option is is, yeah, we start building
[8:20] much taller buildings. And the advantage, I know everybody's gonna hate to hear
[8:26] this coming from real estate agent, the advantage with housing prices going up so
[8:30] much is the math makes sense on those kind of developments now. And that's
[8:33] why. Look, it's not you know, we can talk politics and the
[8:37] CIP program downtown and all these great things that the city did to encourage development.
[8:41] What really encouraged development was housing prices are going up because now the math
[8:46] made sense. There was no point in building you know, buildings downtown that
[8:50] are you know, six hundred seven hundred scare Foo condos or something unless you
[8:52] could sell them for four hundred, five hundred thousand dollars because just construction costs.
[8:56] You know, you can all do the math. Is the problem that
[9:01] that a county commune isn't shitty enough one hundred percent, it's not shitty enough.
[9:05] And the problem again is LaSalle doesn't give a rats ass about what Windsor's
[9:09] problems are. Amasburg doesn't give a rat's ass about what Windsor's problems are if
[9:15] they're seeing that people who want to live in single family detached homes on a
[9:20] seventy foot by one hundred and forty foot lot and are willing to drive twenty
[9:24] minutes. We also make assumptions here that I think are probably not correct in
[9:31] a normal city. That doesn't sound nice, but look, I lived in
[9:35] Toronto for a long time. Everybody worked downtown Toronto. Windsor doesn't have that.
[9:39] Everybody's not commuting from Amasburg to downtown Windsor. They might be going to
[9:43] you know, Maidstone where the shops are. They might be going to christ
[9:46] Or if they worked there. So we don't have a centralized business district as
[9:50] much as I think major cities have. And even you know, a lot
[9:54] of people in the county, some do work agricultural type stuff too, So
[9:58] we're always going to have this problem and we can fight about it whether we
[10:03] like it or not, or if you want to pick sides, that's fine,
[10:05] But the reality is being in real estate, there's a desire to have.
[10:11] You know, once you get to your thirties and forties and have kids,
[10:15] you want a single family home. You don't want to live in a
[10:16] high rise condo or a low rise condo. And we have the option of
[10:20] building outside the city even if you worked in the city, it's only a
[10:22] fifteen or twenty minute drive. We're going to have this discussion forever about sprawl,
[10:28] but it's not just a windsor thing, because if we don't sprawl,
[10:31] whether it's good or bad, the other municipalities are, and then we're just
[10:35] going to have people going to those municipalities. So maybe what's God forbid?
[10:43] Anyone on ROAs city politics ever say this, We're making Drew Dippins look like
[10:46] a heel when he's not the only heel in the picture. Well he's not,
[10:48] but that the other communities. Eventually, the other communities need to also
[10:52] ask themselves a serious question, why are you paving farmland? Why are you
[10:58] paving land that we need to grow food on, or that we need to
[11:01] protect our carbon footprint? All this is why are we letting you Amhersburg continue
[11:05] to expand and you know, and Leamington and wherever else. Instead of saying
[11:09] no, we get all stopped, you know how start to go up those
[11:11] concretos. Windsor is making the Windsor is making the classic blunder of like of
[11:20] insecurity, right, because what Windsor should do is double down on being a
[11:24] city. We're the only city between here in London. What we should do
[11:28] is have great transit, great public amenities, shovel the sidewalks in the winter,
[11:35] all that stuff, put a cherry on top of it, because nobody
[11:39] else can offer what we can offer. Instead, what we try to do
[11:41] is be the shittiest suburb available. And like, that's not that's not what
[11:46] we should be. That's not as not the correct vision for Windsor. I
[11:50] think it's a very narrow vision of what Windsor can be and that I think
[11:54] is what plays into the hands of our I guess we're calling them villains today.
[11:58] I think them as friends and neighbors and maybe a little bit of you
[12:01] know a little bit hicky, but otherwise fine, our county friends, you
[12:07] know, we are trying to compete with them instead of instead of doing things
[12:11] that they can't compete with. Right sure, And if so, I'm gonna
[12:16] attribute these comments to Don MacArthur out in Amasburg. If Don, if you're
[12:20] listening and it wasn't you, I apologize, but I think it was.
[12:24] There's been tons of development and there's been some development shann against that have happened
[12:28] out in Amasburg, and that's why everybody gets fired every six months. But
[12:31] don I believe Don. Okay, I'm not gonna say Don Amasburg as a
[12:35] community because I could be wrong Amasburg as a community. Whether it's at a
[12:39] meeting or I read this in a newspaper or whatever. They have said.
[12:41] They said the same thing that we pounded former Ward two counselor John Elliot.
[12:50] John Elliott, sprawl is the future. They just basically said that, like
[12:56] last year or two years ago when they were talking about putting services in for
[12:58] some of the new sub divisions that we're going up. That is, so
[13:03] what is happening. I'll tell you exactly what's happening is everyone knows there's going
[13:07] to be thousands of houses built somewhere in Windsor Essex County. As a municipality
[13:11] in a city, everyone is competing for those future property tax dollars. Whether
[13:18] the math works, I don't know, that's for you know, show me
[13:20] the math and I'll tell you if it's gonna work. But that's what they're
[13:22] competing for. So I understand what the mayor is saying, because he's saying,
[13:26] if we don't He's not saying this out loud, but this is what
[13:30] he's saying. If we don't develop the Sandwich south Lands to come see LaSalle
[13:33] and Essex are going to build subdivisions and they're going to steal that tax base.
[13:39] So the tax base is going somewhere, let's keep it in Windsor.
[13:43] So let you know, let's dive into a bit more of what Mayor Dilkins
[13:46] said specifically, You mean you want to move on to question too, well,
[13:48] I want to finish this one question. Wait, I got thirteen more
[13:52] minutes. Hang on this question again. It was about how what kind of
[13:58] support does Windsor need to ensure increase population growth and paving over this farm land
[14:01] and over this land doesn't cause flooding. So Mary Delkins said, you know,
[14:05] we're flat as a pancakes running by water, and he acknowledges that it's
[14:09] a problem. But he said, and there's what we've been talking about,
[14:11] when he takes it to the hyperbolic extreme that we consistently see from Mary Delkins.
[14:16] But when you look at the city, unless you start knocking down neighborhoods
[14:20] and going up, there's only one place left where you can really build.
[14:26] I love this idea that the conversation is, if we don't develop Sandwich South,
[14:30] we are going to have to pave over Walkerville or maybe it's Sandwich Town
[14:35] or Ford City. We're gonna come in with the bulldozers in this place.
[14:39] I'll tell you what, everyone who lives here, what part of Walkerville I
[14:41] do want them to pave over and wanting But I live in South Walkerville and
[14:46] me and my neighbors, who are all starting to have bad knees and bad
[14:50] heads, we are looking for. We did not want to lose a hospital.
[14:54] Everyone in South Walkerville had to do, not close our hospital sign in
[14:58] their lawn. However, now that the hospital is moving, we are looking
[15:01] forward with great anticipation for some nice high rise, low rise townhouses to go
[15:07] on that hospital, probably because we want to stay in our neighborhoods, but
[15:11] we can't actually walk upstairs. We're really looking forward. You could I don't
[15:15] know how many hundred perhaps more than you could put on that piece property.
[15:18] Sure, and that's the plan, isn't it. Yeah? I hope that.
[15:22] I thought that was the latest beacon in the city to a healthcare.
[15:26] We're an be bringing in a lot of old tiny ambulance trolley, a lot
[15:28] of ambulances across the whole area. Mary Dilkins was then asked after this,
[15:35] isn't this all farmland? His response, it is farmland. Is then follow
[15:41] up, how do you deal with the tradeoff? In his response, you
[15:45] don't usually find farmland in the city. That's usually found in rural municipalities.
[15:48] We have to grow. I have no other real industrial land in the city
[15:52] available, so I want to make this the closest industrial park to the US
[15:58] Canada border on the Canadian side. You're going to turn Windsor into an industrial
[16:03] park. Wow, excellent, Thank you, Mary Doulas. But you find
[16:06] farmland in Ottawa has a farm Edvmonton has a farm. Every municipality around the
[16:10] GTA, some of which are bigger than Windsor, all have farmlands. The
[16:12] only reason we have farmland in the city is because because we actually annexed the
[16:18] farmland and brought him into the city. What a dumb answer. Well,
[16:23] it's I'm the defender of the mayor today. So look, I told you
[16:29] guys this, and I guess I can say in public because it's not really
[16:32] confidential information. There are two or three companies from South Korea who are planning
[16:37] on moving to Windsor. One of them has signed a lease already. I
[16:41] don't know where because none of my business, and if I knew, I
[16:44] couldn't tell you anyway. Now, the only reason those companies are coming,
[16:48] well there's a few reasons obviously, because the battery plant is going to be
[16:52] here. So if these companies are coming and they're signing a two or three
[16:56] years and I know this is exactly what the mayor's talking about because I know
[16:57] he has all this information. Look, these companies are gonna want to build
[17:00] factories and if you don't have serviced industrial, we'll call it green space.
[17:07] But property available for these companies to come and build their plants. They're not
[17:11] going to and that's what he's looking purely at. We need service industrial land,
[17:15] and I kind of agree with them, to be honest, and because
[17:18] that's the only way you're going to attract these basically sub factories that are going
[17:23] to deal with the battery plant. And the question you have to ask yourself
[17:27] then is Okay, if we do not want to develop farmland as service industrial
[17:33] sites, that's fine, We're gonna where those people are going to go somewhere
[17:37] else. They're gonna go. You know where the VDWA. Why why wouldn't
[17:38] they go to the GM plant service? It's got railroad tracks, It's why
[17:42] it's it's easy access the highway. GEM site, easy access to the highway
[17:47] already service. Why wouldn't they go there? Well, I don't know what
[17:51] the footprint is they need, and I will tell you what little I know
[17:53] about this, because this is industrial real estate that certainly isn't my expertise.
[17:59] Any company coming in is gonna much Rather, so, the only way to
[18:03] make the GM site and work is as a manicipality. We'd have to buy
[18:07] it, do all the remediation that needs to be done, and basically make
[18:11] it ready to go indust more. Right, would that cost more or less
[18:17] like the ge forget the GM site for four hundred million dollars, I got
[18:19] my sights on zalevs like and this is what this is the thing that I
[18:23] want to focus on is how we are are getting this debate is being framed
[18:30] for us like we only have one fucking option. There are many options.
[18:37] There was a Brownfield report taking inventory of all the brown fields and windsor and
[18:41] their status and all that in twenty ten? Have we updated it? Has
[18:45] that been? Is a g I genuinely don't know. I don't think there
[18:48] has been because that was the most recent document I found when I looked for
[18:52] it. Um we we Once upon a time, former Mayor Francis promised that
[18:57] that Zalebs would be no more war and that Zelibs would be expropriated remediated.
[19:03] So it's not like it's impossible, and it's not like it's unconservative or or
[19:08] completely outside the realm of things that Drew Dickens or or Eddie Francis would consider,
[19:15] because they considered it enough to talk about it in public. So but
[19:19] instead of spending the last decade looking at these options, making plans, figuring
[19:26] out what the footprint of brown fields and windsor would be and planning for an
[19:30] industrial renaissance that that actually makes the existing footprint of the urban environment better and
[19:38] more viable. Instead, we spent ten years telling everybody that there's only one
[19:44] option and that Sandwich Seth, it's bullshit. I'm not disagreeing with you at
[19:48] all. I think the only differences I really don't think, and even including
[19:55] myself, and I would guess even everyone around the table here is I don't
[19:59] think an anyone really expected any kind of major industrial commercial company like the LG
[20:06] plant to ever be built here. Again, we were losing auto factories like
[20:11] crazy, and I don't think we saw that far in the future and planed
[20:15] board. So I think, then why did we spend the last decade and
[20:18] a half pursuing manufacturing if we didn't think manufacturing was ever going to come here?
[20:23] Those junk kids, when Eddie Francis flew all around the world and when
[20:26] Drew Dilkins fool all around the world. Were they flying around the world to
[20:30] bring a data center here? Were they flying around the world to bring software
[20:33] jobs here? They were flying around the world to bring fucking factories here.
[20:37] So how could they be doing that? And not planning for it, not
[20:40] doing the work. I don't disagree with you. I think they have always
[20:44] been planning on developing Sandwich South, whether we like it or not. I
[20:47] mean, that's been in the work since early two thousands, late nights.
[20:49] So I just think this was always the plan. But it's not the people's
[20:56] plan. It's the plan that's been imposed on the people. Yeah, I
[21:00] don't know, you know, I don't know the temperature of the city and
[21:02] windsor if the people care or don't care. I don't know that people.
[21:06] People care when they're informed and when they understand. So if you if you
[21:11] use your media control and your political tools to narrow to the debate and to
[21:15] frame it around the only possible option, then the date debate becomes I like
[21:21] jobs or I hate jobs. That's not what's been interesting about the response to
[21:25] this is that it's actually been remarkably not picked up by local media. We
[21:30] haven't seen a CBC story on it or it was a Star story on it,
[21:33] but we have seen it spread all through Twitter. It's been a kind
[21:36] of more about national response and certainly GTA response and the province because they're looking
[21:41] at a mayor Jolkins is being the head of this housing Planning Action Planning Implementation
[21:47] Committee, and so they are looking at him saying he's prepared to pave over
[21:51] floodplains in his own city, what's he going to do to our city?
[21:55] And so there's been this actually quite big response, and you're starting to see
[21:59] some of the commentarians social media, from people who were super pro hospital looking
[22:03] at this like hold the phone what because it suddenly occurred to them that this
[22:08] is that was a bait and switch. The bait and switch is becoming more
[22:11] and more evident between the four hundred million dollars and this story. I don't
[22:17] know why you guys are all conspiring to raise my blood pressure tonight. I
[22:22] just don't understand why that's happening. But the just because you mentioned the lack
[22:27] of media uptake on this narwhale thing, which does it mystifies me it.
[22:33] Meanwhile, the local media, we're setting their goddamn hair on fire about a
[22:37] garbage pile survey, a garbage pile piece of data, with all due respect
[22:42] to the people who made the garbage pile. This this stupid happiness thing that
[22:47] we talked about last week that that merited endless media coverage, but the mayor
[22:53] going and speaking in a national outlet about how floods happen doesn't matter at all,
[23:00] Like, come on, guys, why would you not cover this because
[23:03] one's easy? Yeah? And John, I think, what so this?
[23:11] I don't like any of this, but I think this is just the reality
[23:15] we have to deal with right now. Is as far as worldwide development things
[23:18] like that, these facts like these, a company like LG can walk into
[23:22] any community and say I want X, Y and Z or we're not going
[23:26] to build it here. And what the mayor's doing, what the city's doing
[23:30] right now, is just doing everything they can to acquience to these corporations who
[23:34] are obviously going to be building this up. The VW plant that's going up,
[23:37] I think St. Thomas Way, I think it's like three times the
[23:41] size of the one we're getting. And communities are fighting with each other and
[23:45] all these companies, and we've seen it a million times, like especially with
[23:49] the when everything went to hell and am Basket mid two thousands, we were
[23:53] just throwing money at companies just to keep them. We throw with money at
[23:56] companies all the time just to get them to bring one hundred jobs or something
[23:59] like that. So I think these companies know. So I don't know if
[24:02] the LG Stlantis people said, look, we're willing to build this plan here,
[24:04] we need eight trillion dollars worth of subsidies from the governments, and we
[24:08] want an unused, brand new site that's going to be I don't I forget
[24:12] how many acres is one hundred, two hundred acrears, whatever it is,
[24:15] And we just said fine, because that's just what everybody's doing now. So
[24:19] in a way, it's blackmail by these companies. But that's the way North
[24:25] American the world has been working this thing. And I don't disagree with you,
[24:30] but I want to go back to a dog said, which is that?
[24:32] Knowing that that's how it works and has always worked, and seeing the
[24:37] mayor's flying around the world for the last twenty years to try and attract this
[24:41] very type of thing, why were we not increasing the stock options that we
[24:47] had to offer them, like making and saying what's in our best interests our
[24:49] best interest to get rid of Zalist and make it ready. So the analogy
[24:52] comes, it's perfect for that, right, And what's the worst case scenario?
[24:56] We replace Salis with a park with a park, a nice park.
[25:00] I'm going to replace the GM plan with an ice park and make it ready
[25:03] for potentially housing way. But what's the downside? None? Right, So,
[25:07] as a community or a city or a municipality or a region, why
[25:11] would you expropriate property which is always a very expensive matter because we know what
[25:17] the whole hockey arena bs downtown when you don't have to well look the Zalib
[25:22] thing, you know. I agree that Zalis is a shit show that should
[25:26] disppeared years ago. But from talking I think Kieran was the guy I was
[25:30] talking to, and this was years ago before the city councilor trying to get
[25:33] them to leave is it's literally almost impossible unless you just you know, burned
[25:37] that place down. I have a lot of faith in what a city,
[25:41] with all the resources and legal tools that it has, can accomplish and the
[25:47] public will. How many people, how many people would stand up in this
[25:49] town and say hands off Zalebs. I don't think anybody, but I have
[25:53] to assume and maybe that this is where I'm wrong, that this has been
[25:57] looked at. They've been wanting to do that. They didn't want to rise
[26:00] as France has talked about it. Yeah, so and when that was going
[26:03] on, because I believe Karen was working with Brian at that time, maybe
[26:07] they were involved in this. And again, I'm sorry, Karen, I'm
[26:10] making you out to be the guy. I'm getting all my information wrong.
[26:12] I could be completely wrong. I just think it was pretty much impossible to
[26:15] do that. They weren't going to play ball at all. Maybe, so
[26:18] we don't know, and I don't want to I don't want to sit on
[26:21] that specific site they. I think that the point has been abundantly made that
[26:26] not enough effort was made to even consider or look at alternatives or place the
[26:32] alternatives in front of the public. When to Melinda's point, this was either
[26:37] windsor was going to die or it was always going to go here. Yeah,
[26:41] I don't know. I don't know if it's if it was feasible,
[26:42] I don't know. You know, maybe the GM people on the site now
[26:45] said screw it, we're not we want to use it for our own purposes.
[26:48] We have plans that beautiful parking lot, but it's making the money right
[26:52] Like, Look, I don't understand what their business decision is yet, because
[26:56] that is a prime piece of industrial land that should be used for something.
[27:00] Maybe they're making a fortune as a park on maybe they're just sitting on it
[27:03] for one day. The problem is when we have these discussions is and especially
[27:08] what the public is If you don't own the land, you can't You can't
[27:12] say Zeale's GM the site over by my office that was going to be the
[27:18] hospital site, that's not publicly owned land that they gave to Sure, and
[27:23] how did we assemble the land by the airport for industrial lands we have appropriated?
[27:27] Shit, dude, I understand, Like, come on, but that's
[27:30] farm land. It's easy. Oh, not all of it was farmland.
[27:34] And and like like, I guess, I guess your you chose this.
[27:38] You chose to all of Mayor Dulkins defender. I don't know why you did
[27:41] that, but but um there The point I think that we're all trying to
[27:48] make here is that there were many options that that what I object to is
[27:52] even even more than the specific policy choice is made, is the intimation that
[27:57] there is no other choice. That is it, that is an unacceptable way
[28:02] to do politics. This is the only option. And you know what,
[28:04] I kind of rigged things so it would be the only option. That's a
[28:07] pilot. Shit, I don't disagree with you at all on that. I'm
[28:11] just saying I understand the show title. What is that? I don't disagree
[28:15] with you at all on that. That's the third time you said. All
[28:19] I've been saying is I understand the thought process and why they're doing this.
[28:25] Whether I agree with it or not as a whole other topic, but I
[28:27] understand why it's happening. And I think the problem we have in Windsor is
[28:34] even the people who and I'm not pointing at us an individually, the people
[28:38] who were opposed to all of this. Now, this is an argument you
[28:42] should have been fighting fifteen years ago, because this didn't start yesterday. The
[28:48] Sandwich Southlands didn't start yesterday. If you never want a development out there,
[28:52] and it used to be a floodplane back then too, you should the environmental
[28:55] groups and everybody who's pushing this. Now you're starting too late. Oh my
[29:00] god. They started fifteen years ago. When do you think Camp gontformed twenty
[29:03] twelve. It obviously didn't work, Oh my god. But these decisions were
[29:11] made and yeah they yeah, well that is precisely the point. It was
[29:15] already in the can and all of this has been performance art jobs or fifteen
[29:22] years. That's politics, man, it's all been performance art. Yeah,
[29:26] count yeah, you know. Let's just take a look at the rest of
[29:33] his responses. Mayor Delkin said, I don't think anyone wants to buy a
[29:37] house if it's on a flood floodplane and not treated properly. There has to
[29:41] be common sense to this. He was then asking a follow up, but
[29:45] you're still building on floodplanes because using your own words, there's nowhere else to
[29:48] go. His response, correct, follow up, that's direct response. We've
[29:55] been building on floodplints for well, maybe they'll do it kind of like the
[29:56] Mekong Delta. They'll all be built on Stilton there you go. I mean,
[30:00] we just deal with the income and time. Actually, he really didn't
[30:03] want to answer that, by the way, but how are they going to
[30:07] make the houses flood group? He really did not want to have a juicy
[30:11] quote on that. So if you want to see a subdivision that's built on
[30:14] a floodplane with remediation, go to Kingsbridge South in Amsburg. There's a giant
[30:18] trench running right through the middle of that. We build on floodplanes all the
[30:22] time, so follow up to that question from the author, wouldn't common sense
[30:27] say to avoid building on a floodplane? Mary Delkin's response, how well a
[30:37] full response, Yeah, but look at a floodplane map, a windsor se
[30:41] like, let's not get ourselves. This whole area is a floodpline. He
[30:47] then goes on moving through it. Someone says, how do you market a
[30:51] house built on a floodplane. You have to build it up. Asked it
[30:55] sounds like a lot of money. Response it is a lot of money and
[30:57] a lot of time and lot of effort to make the land ready. Next
[31:03] question, will you be getting provincial support to ensure that all of this is
[31:06] protected against flooding? Answer? I don't know that we ever got provincial support,
[31:11] but it would be a developer's responsibility that that actually really puzzled me,
[31:15] because we got federal money to pay for the flood retention tanks that we have
[31:19] down the river. We wasn't there just a massive fight and the whole poodle
[31:23] stuff was all yelling at Erica's marichick he because he wanted flood money, demath
[31:27] money, all of that, Like, of course we've gotten flood support money
[31:32] from different can't he can't go guarantee money from the province though, if there's
[31:36] next provincial money flooding, I see what I don't like. What he said
[31:41] was actually correct. Again, I'm gonna get beat up for being the mayor
[31:44] spokesperson today. It depends what he was referring to. If he's referring to
[31:48] the industrial land in the hospital, that's a whole other story. But he's
[31:51] just talking about subdivisions. Yeah, it is the developer's problem. It's not
[31:53] the mutest valley's problem. I think he just highlighted a really interesting point.
[31:56] And I mean I think it's useful to bring up right now. Is when
[32:01] you read through this interview, it seems like there's multiple interviews going on at
[32:07] times. I think he's answering questions that they're not asking, and vice versa.
[32:12] Yeah, because in my view, what I the overwhelming impression I got
[32:16] from this piece is of Mayor Dilkins, half dressed, running around his right
[32:23] running around his mental wardrobe, trying to find the right parasocks and the right
[32:29] tie. What I'm saying is like I get the impression that he was not
[32:32] prepared and he's falling back on stock phrases. He's falling back on pat like
[32:37] stuff that he's got ready, and altogether it paints a kind of incoherent mishmash
[32:45] of a picture. It seems like he's at times having an interview and answering
[32:50] questions about Windsor's specific circumstances with floodplains specifically and the need that we have to
[32:57] develop on this one industrial parcel that could be used for these purposes, whereas
[33:02] it seems like the author, Fatima, is asking more specifically about the province.
[33:08] So it seems like maybe they're talking over each other at different points and
[33:12] again, and if not, and Fatima understood exactly what was happening during this
[33:16] interview, kudos to her because at the end of the day, these are
[33:19] the words that are coming out of his mouth. Can you read the best
[33:22] quote now, John, Yeah, you know what, This is the money
[33:24] quote from this interview. So he says, when we look at Windsor,
[33:29] we know we're part of Canada and of course and part of Ontario, and
[33:34] we're creatures of the province and we always look to Toronto as well, but
[33:38] our region here is really Detroit. It's Windsor Detroit as a broader region.
[33:45] He went on to say in the office as a desk on top of a
[33:50] staple or next to it, a light turned on, reading the things I
[33:54] see in front of me now contextualizing what the hell is that? Oh,
[34:00] it's just he really set the basis to someone who didn't know how they got
[34:04] here down the one frigging road from Gronto. You said it yourself, John,
[34:08] the guy has the skills to be a radio a radio talk show host
[34:15] and m have you ever had a talk show kind of get away from you
[34:19] and you have to bring it back or your your handle caught on fire and
[34:23] you have to get You have to get to the outro while you're putting out
[34:27] the fire on your pant leg. Like That's kind of why I think is
[34:30] happening. We've done many shows where I just wanted everything to end really quick.
[34:32] But what happens to me all the time is I get halfway through a
[34:36] point and forget what the hell I was talking about, and then I just
[34:38] kind of meander around a little bit and then I find an exit. I
[34:40] hope it comes back. I've done that's got to figure out a way to
[34:45] put this one to bed and move on to the next point. There.
[34:46] I love this one, because it's either May Dilkins's brain breaking in a real
[34:52] time for us all to observe, which is perfectly fine on air it happens
[34:54] Lord no oh yeah, or it's him actually being really really smart about this
[34:59] one and just sitting back and go in twenty minutes left of this interview,
[35:05] okay, when we look at windsor we know we're a part of Canada,
[35:12] could be part of Ontary, and we's just just spinning wheels and burning out
[35:17] the clock their very Donald drump style on things. This was just, you
[35:22] know, it's such a weird interview. There's really not much more that we
[35:25] have to we go. I want to burnto one thing that you talked about
[35:30] the first question, and then I completely lost the plot the issue about the
[35:34] ring of fire, and I wouldn't want to bring up to kind of things
[35:36] to do with the ring of fire because it is important. So, first
[35:38] of all, anyone hasn't been paying attention to the Robinson Huron treaty is around
[35:43] to Saint Marie and North Bay that's currently in court, many billions of dollars
[35:49] and unpaid money that was supposed to So the problem that when the Crown bought
[35:53] bought that land or created the treaty. They were supposed to pay money every
[35:55] year for the use of the resources, and they never paid more than four
[35:59] dollars a year for one hundred years. There are many billions of dollars on
[36:02] the table in that negotiation and Treaty nine, which is the rest of the
[36:06] land that covers off the rest of where the Ring of Fire is. They're
[36:08] in a there's a ninety five billion dollar lawsuit going on, and they have
[36:13] also said there will be no development of the Ring of Fire without a co
[36:16] jurisdiction treaty. So his comments about the Ring of Fire are important, and
[36:21] they're really important to how we're getting these plants down here. But there's a
[36:23] whole lot of work means to be down about even getting access to those resources.
[36:29] Yeah, I mean, and there's a lot to be said about this
[36:31] government and how they're going to engage directly with First Nations exactly. That's been
[36:37] going on for a while though, hasn't it. Well, there your fire
[36:39] situations, they've been talking about development of that for when he says no one's
[36:45] doing anything, well, because there's like hundreds of billions of dollars at stake
[36:47] in terms of even getting access to the resources level on a dollument that's way
[36:52] over my pay grade. You know, I don't know. I look back
[36:55] to the conversation that we were having preparing for the future, and you were
[37:01] talking about the zealeth Land and the gm Land and should we have looked forward?
[37:07] And I think a lot of the problems is, you know, due
[37:09] to our own insecurities down here that we have just as windsor rights are continual
[37:15] deferral, whether it be at the administrative or at the elected level of you
[37:19] know, we got to always go hire a consultant from out of town to
[37:22] tell us that our ideas are probably the bad ones and we should listen to
[37:25] the ideas that have been crowdfunded from you know, the powers that be that
[37:29] are actually really smart. Well, in their defense, we've come up with
[37:31] a really a lot of bad idea well, and that's fair, and it
[37:34] might be what has brought us to a culture in a place where you know,
[37:37] we don't have vision, we don't have a drive, we don't set
[37:40] our own agendas. We're very much externally propelled upon us. And that's you
[37:46] know, it's not a good thing. It's not a bad thing, I
[37:47] think, though it is worth noting because you know, remember we had the
[37:52] Amazon bid and out of that sort of time was the whole conversation about Windsor
[37:59] work in what kind of city Windsor is going to be. But again,
[38:02] that was a very externally driven conversation about how do we transform this to lure
[38:08] that big one investment? Right, And it's the same thing here with the
[38:13] automotive industry. Of when there was an automotive industry that was shutting down,
[38:19] arguably for a bunch of time, why look to doing anything different because the
[38:22] times were bad. But it's it's left us in this situation where we're having
[38:28] to play catch up. But it would have been nice if there was some
[38:31] kind of an overarching ideology over the other than sit back and wait. And
[38:36] I mean, and this is even from mayor who on election night tore up
[38:39] his speech and said, we have to go do things differently. What is
[38:44] different? Here's here's my concern with all of this. I read a piece
[38:50] a little while ago that was really interesting and it was based off of I
[38:53] believe in NPR broadcast about rust belt cities and what rust belt cities are doing
[39:02] to reinvent themselves. And what was interesting to me is looking at all of
[39:08] these cities, city after city that are, you know, geographically and population
[39:15] wise, very similar to Windsor, and all of these cities are figuring,
[39:21] trying to figure out what's next, what's our pivot, what are we going
[39:23] to jump to. Some of them are investing in technology, some of them
[39:30] are focusing on things like security, some of them are looking into biotechnology or
[39:35] medicine. And in Windsor, we want another car plant. And I find
[39:39] that really interesting because I think that I assume the people running all these Midwestern
[39:45] cities aren't morons, and I assume that they're not, you know, just
[39:51] walking away from a gold mine. And so I wonder, either we know
[39:55] something they don't, or the fundamentals of our situation are somehow different from theirs.
[40:01] And when I when I think about that, and this is just me
[40:05] speculating, I think that the fundamental difference between the auto industry in Michigan or
[40:12] the auto industry in Ohio or whatever, you know, whatever city that you
[40:15] want to talk about in the US and here is that we have a federal
[40:21] and provincial government more than willing to step up and shovel money out the door
[40:25] to sustain manufacturing and in particular the automotive industry. And I'm not here to
[40:32] argue about whether those subsidies or a good idea or a bad idea. But
[40:37] um, governments change and subsidies, and so what I'm wondering about is a
[40:45] decade from now, two decades from now, surely the you know, the
[40:49] willingness of government to pump billions of dollars into windsor in order to um,
[40:53] you know, in order to incentivize and attract manufacturing plants will be done.
[41:00] What's going to happen then? Essentially, I mean, I don't maybe maybe
[41:06] maybe I'm not prepared to say the fundamentals here aren't actually different in some way
[41:08] because of the logistics where we're located, how easy it is to get from
[41:13] one place to another, the cru border opportunities and benefits. So I'm not
[41:16] they may be different, but and I think that deal here are investment in
[41:21] jorass people talking about how I don't agree with them necessarily that the hospital is
[41:25] going to be a catalyst for being you know, having more medical technology going
[41:30] on. And we certainly have seen a great deal of interesting advances in medical
[41:32] and engineering technology being developed here. But I'm not sure that you know,
[41:37] we're not definitely you know, University Hospital London or anything like that. So
[41:42] I don't think we have really focused on saying what would we be if we
[41:45] weren't making cars? And I since I moved here twenty years ago, i've
[41:49] said, you know, and when two thousand and nine happened, I remember
[41:51] thinking like the whole place is having a terrible identity crisis, because if we
[41:54] don't make cars, then what do we do? Try this on the problem,
[41:58] Try this on a Linda, and tell me what you think of it.
[42:00] Um, did we spend a decade under Eddie Francis trying to figure out
[42:05] what we would be if we didn't build cars? And did we come to
[42:08] the conclusion that we can't do anything else? Right? We didn't because we
[42:15] were not successful. I mean, it was a horrible economic headwinds to try
[42:19] to get anything started, to get anybody to invest here back then. And
[42:22] I you know, I'm certainly not actually criticizing Eddie Francis's efforts to drive that
[42:28] stuff and diversify the economy. And he's tried a few things. The airplane
[42:32] refurbishment thing. And we were like even even bringing west Jet as a way
[42:37] to say, okay, go and work at your job in the all stands
[42:39] and then come back and pay taxes in Windsor. I mean tried all kinds
[42:43] of things, you know, frantically trying. We were going to have the
[42:45] electric Chinese electric bus plant. There was There was a lot tried and and
[42:52] I just wonder if maybe the conclusion that this community collectively came to is it's
[42:57] either this or nothing, because this is all we can do. Do you
[43:00] think it's that or what do you do you think upper levels of government and
[43:07] this is probably our own fault. So I understand that part. Do you
[43:10] think that's all they see ss So they're saying, look, if you're an
[43:13] invest anybody in Windsor Essex, it's got to be auto based or the automomotive
[43:16] capital city of Canada. We're right across from Detroit, which is obviously the
[43:21] automotive capital of the United States, and maybe that's all they can see us.
[43:25] So maybe Eddie Francis and whoever the powers would be back then went to
[43:30] them and said, hey, we want to try this, this, this
[43:32] is this. They said, We're not funding that. But then you know,
[43:36] Drew was a perfect example, and I made fun of him for this
[43:37] for years, and I'll do it again because it's hilarious every time. But
[43:40] when they were talking about automobility and electric cars and self driving cars, Drew
[43:45] actually said in the newspaper, we don't want to do any of that stuff.
[43:49] We want to be people who put the cars together. So I think
[43:52] in this community there's definitely that we only see ourselves as an automotive city and
[43:58] we are incapable or have desire to do anything else. I think it's stupid
[44:01] and wrong, but I think that's what they're dealing with now, and I
[44:05] think that it may be the image we give out in the upper levels of
[44:07] government. Say hey, we're going to put one hundred million dollars to build
[44:13] maderna vaccine plants somewhere. Well, we can't build a Windsor. We're going
[44:15] to build and Quebec because Windsor just does cars. So they're building one in
[44:19] Evanton, I think, and so they could have Yeah, that's something they
[44:21] could have done here, but we don't have that kind of university and maybe
[44:23] we don't have the workers to do that, and maybe the hospital will help
[44:27] with that kind of thank you. Guys have all known me long enough to
[44:30] know that my general theory of Windsor is that everything good and interesting and surprising
[44:36] and Windsor comes from the grassroots, and everything that is tedious and useless comes
[44:43] from the elite. And I think you touched on something done because I you
[44:49] know, I happen to have lucked into a couple of those rooms from time
[44:52] to time when I hear Windsor elites talking to high government or political officials about
[44:59] our city, and that's what they tell them. Yeah, this is a
[45:02] car city. If you want to win here politically, if you want to
[45:06] be anything, what you have to do is make sure that that people see
[45:08] a future in the automobile. That's that's what is what that gets repeated by
[45:15] our wonderful elites here in Windsor. Yeah, and if we you know,
[45:19] for years, are we running out of time? Sorry, I've been talking
[45:22] too much, so I was just gonna say, look for years. This
[45:25] is a generational thing too, Like all most of our parents. You know,
[45:30] I'm fifty five years old, so you know my parents are in their
[45:31] seventies and eighties. But people of my generation who I went to like high
[45:36] school with. Most of them worked still work in the auto industry. Their
[45:39] parents worked in the auto industry. They're big union supporters. The union and
[45:45] here was very powerful in this area forever and only wanted us to be seen
[45:49] as autotown. CW is very powerful. They were electing our politicians. They
[45:52] were okay, but things do change done because you and I have been on
[45:57] this show long enough that once upon a time we said the unions are very
[46:01] powerful in this town. Yeah, and now now they were, Things change
[46:07] John is John is having a stroke over here because you know, Big eight,
[46:12] Big eight over there wants us to create our clock. He's got to
[46:15] do sports and weather at the top of the hour. You gotta run the
[46:21] toilet of that the day ads man. No, you know just one word
[46:24] I'd take to find trying to get the dying over there. No, I
[46:28] agree with you. I think that those days are done. But I think
[46:30] it the transition for the people of Winds You're believing that we can be something
[46:35] else that has been pounded into their head for generations is taking a while.
[46:39] And you're one hundred pon Well, obviously you're hunderdent, right, you were
[46:43] in the rooms. The people that are running these cities don't see us as
[46:46] anything else, and I think realistically, uh, politically and elite wise,
[46:52] if you want to use that term, you know, there needs to be
[46:53] a generational turnover in the city where because I think people like you know,
[46:59] young Johnny over You're probably can see the city is something different where people my
[47:02] age who I went to school with, they really can't. They just can't.
[47:07] And unfortunately, people might get elected. So unfortunate sucks to be you
[47:13] guys. Rosity politics whether brought to you by eight three Bar and Grill.
[47:21] It's twenty three degrees celsius out there, what about man shave? Make sure
[47:28] to also check out the noxious bar and grill. It smells awful and the
[47:31] food is very bad. We're gonna, I think, actually just do a
[47:36] card cut here without diving into the next topic and keep this as a nice,
[47:42] single single topic episode which will allow for us to maybe come back on
[47:47] the weekend to dive into Okay, but Kidney, Doug, I know that
[47:52] you have a for your consideration. All right, this is this is beautiful
[47:57] man. I really appreciate you giving me this opportunity. So this is a
[48:00] slightly self serving for your consideration, deal with it. The Windsor hat Forage
[48:07] is started up their first map Roulette challenge. Okay. Map Roulette is a
[48:13] game that you can play in which you make micro improvements to the map around
[48:19] you. I believe that the first map Roulette task for the city of Windsor
[48:24] is to make sure that we have speed limits. The speed limits of our
[48:30] road identified in open street Map. But why does it matter? Why is
[48:35] it important? Because Open street Map is a tool that is used by applications
[48:40] that are used by literally billions of users worldwide. If you look at a
[48:45] map on Facebook, if you look at a map on Yelp, you are
[48:49] looking at an open street Map map. So improving the quality of the maps
[48:53] will do wonders for our tourism industry. It will help Windsor Rights get around
[48:58] the community, and it will make it easier and more fun to make maps
[49:02] of our community. So checo wins or hackforge, hackf dot org to find
[49:07] out more about how to take part in the map Roulette Challenge for your consideration.
[49:14] Thank you for that. That sounds pretty cool. I mean you,
[49:15] I know that for you, m mapping is something that you do in your
[49:21] spare time. No, I'm not trying to make fun of you right now.
[49:23] I realized it saying it out loud, though, how it sounds this
[49:27] like Sheldon who does his podcast about nation's flags on that TV show. She
[49:32] says, you, guys, but as we look at a map that I
[49:36] made, JUG made for the James Walk on the weekend. But actually,
[49:38] as you saying that, I was reminded of driving down Wine Dot today and
[49:43] dude turns left onto the road and then drives about twenty kilometers an hour for
[49:46] blocks because he has a pickup truck full of refrigerators that are not tied down,
[49:51] and everyone that pulled them behind him immediately turned off at the next solid
[49:55] plan. I know that poor city mapping saw aft. Where is um one
[50:00] of your grapes? Don't get me started. You want to wrap up the
[50:05] show. We're going to talk about that later. My for your consideration,
[50:07] I hope that everyone is dealing okay with this massive change of course, dealing
[50:14] with our new passports that are being rolled out. We saw them. People
[50:17] are having a very very hard time with their their woke passports. Uh.
[50:23] We've we went from having like nothing on the pages to Harper putting in a
[50:28] bunch of stuff on the pages. Now they're being removed and replaced with like
[50:31] generic like sort of coloring book art work. Is like that Terry Fox whining
[50:37] thing I heard in the radios as a whoa, John's the one who went
[50:40] and said, Terry Fox whining on the show, folks, let's make that's
[50:44] the episode type. I just I just hope that people are able to while
[50:50] they still have their passports before they have to be renewed, are able to
[50:53] go and like study the pages before we lose this important part of our history,
[51:00] not the passports, but the history that's embedded on the pages. Because
[51:02] we all know the only way that you can learn Canadian history is by grabbing
[51:06] your passport and trying to read underneath the stamps that we This is how I
[51:09] learned everything government documents and statues, exactly right. I just I find this
[51:15] to be absolutely hilarious. But I guess in our social media led world,
[51:22] everything has to be on outrage to be able to win the most outrageous thing
[51:25] of the day. So how does taking was Terry Fox even on the passport?
[51:30] Yeah, Terry Fox was on it, and Vinny Ridge was on it,
[51:32] and the bloos was on it, and you know, just a bunch
[51:37] of things like just elements of our bunch of boomer stuff. Yeah, I
[51:39] get it, but how does so how does taking that stuff off and going
[51:44] to just Melinda just showed me the picture generic just fancy, Like, how
[51:47] was that woke? It's woke done? Because I don't get it, because
[51:52] we had to go and change the picture of Terry Fox to a maybe it's
[51:58] a boy, but maybe it's a girl and they're jumping into a lake but
[52:00] they got three different skin tones. Which one is it? Don you'd tell
[52:06] me, okay, because I don't know and I'm freaking out. Well,
[52:10] the one critisism I heard that seemed legit was that the person was standing too
[52:15] close to the polar bear. Yeah, you know that could be a safety
[52:19] issue. I will give the PR person though, um for the legion I
[52:23] believe came out today talking about with any Ridge is bad obviously just yesterday we
[52:30] also heard from them as well. So I mean two days of you know,
[52:35] media media coverage there being able to do a one to follow up.
[52:38] But I don't know. It's a passport if if you're screaming about getting your
[52:43] history from passport pages, like come on, yeah, you know. The
[52:45] thing about social media is that I think it makes people feel compelled to weigh
[52:51] in on every stupid thing that comes down the transom. And folks, just
[52:55] because people feel like it's a good use of their time on this earth that
[52:59] cannot be replaced. To complain about a change in the background of a passport
[53:02] doesn't mean that you need to get sucked into it. Just leave it alone,
[53:06] folks. I do wonder every now and then, like if these are
[53:08] just poison pills that are set by the liberals, knowing that like the average
[53:13] person might just see this and go like, I love, but I looked
[53:16] on how you're like the man on the clap of momnibus right now, like
[53:21] the going like, is this is this woke? Well? Right, you
[53:27] roll out stuff that is just woke enough for the general public to accept it,
[53:31] and right too woke for the people who's like you know, walk around
[53:37] and with with spit flipping out of their mouths and canfoil on their heads,
[53:40] because because then you get everything you want. Yeah, but you know,
[53:44] you know what it's serious about this when on the politics side of things,
[53:45] I just had this discussion was with my motorcycle buddies, who are probably very
[53:50] upset about this. Uh. I think the especially the world in general,
[53:54] wile's just a in this situation exactly. They're distracting us with such utter small
[54:00] bullshit because nobody wants to deal with the big problems that are actually out there,
[54:04] and there are big problems in Canada right now that need to be dealt
[54:07] with, and we are so focused. And they all blame my own Conservative
[54:09] party, who I support, about going after these stupid, little woke things,
[54:15] or I'm just oblivious to it because they don't really want to talk about
[54:20] the big issues that they have to deal with, so these insoluble issues exactly.
[54:24] So this is an easy argument to have. It lights everybody's hair on
[54:29] fire on both sides. And then at the same time, there's people who
[54:32] are homeless and have drug problems and mental health problems walking our streets every day,
[54:37] dying. But that's a hard thing to talk about, So let's talk
[54:40] about the stupid bloody passport. Well. And I think too that there's a
[54:45] need for political parties and for political actors to create distance from each other.
[54:54] And I think the truth is on most big issues there is a ton of
[54:59] policy con urgence between all three major parties in Canada on many many issues.
[55:05] But you can, you know, a passport redesign and you know what opposition
[55:08] people did it under Harper too, Sure they did it under Harper. Picked
[55:13] all these little things that were coming down, like not having a long form
[55:16] sensus one year was bad, but it was real bad. It was real
[55:22] bad form you know, our ability to measure this country and whatever whatever.
[55:27] But was it was it the thing that you know that people made it out
[55:32] to be. Probably not. It was a you know, a technical issue
[55:37] in the census. It's not. You know, it wasn't. It was
[55:39] bad and the people who were wanted to use that data who were complaining about
[55:44] it were right to complain, But it wasn't heralding a new ice age,
[55:46] as my point. And you know who it was good for was the hard
[55:51] working census and nirators who were able to go door to door and not have
[55:57] to say you legally have to fill this out, able to just keep walking
[56:00] around subdivision after subdivision. I feel like I was one. I was one
[56:06] of those senses enumerators. Nobody wanted it eighteen dollars an hour and I just
[56:13] walked around knocking on doors getting yelled at going woke it. Well, see
[56:16] you later. The woke census is off to the next house. See you
[56:21] later, folks. All right, we've already broken into Patty Handyside show here,
[56:23] so we better Yeah, we gotta wrap this up. You know,
[56:27] it was really interesting to talk about Mayor Dilkins there in the narwhall talking about
[56:30] how the Ontario housing crisis is demanding developing floodplains and farmland, specifically here in
[56:37] windsor Um with the Sandwich south Lands. Mayor Dilkins saying that he wants to
[56:42] develop the farmland because he's afraid of losing economic development to some of our southern
[56:46] United States states themselves. I guess you could say that our problem here is
[56:52] the grass is just a little bit too green on our side of the fence.
[56:57] Folks. It is Rose City Politics today is May tenth. Our regular
[57:00] panel includes Doug Sartory, Me, Linda Munroe, Don Murray Wifield Junior,
[57:05] and myself John Lidkey. Support us at Patreon dot com, forward slash Rose
[57:07] City Politics. We are in Bizex magazine and Rose City Politics able to broadcast
[57:13] live on tape thanks to the kind support of Luna six two five Building Better
[57:16] Communities will be back next week, if not sooner, folks. Cheers

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