# Don't Read the Dearborn Independent

An episode of [Rose City Politics](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1247337855), 12 Jul 2023, 1 h 09 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/56076472/don_t_read_the_dearborn_independent.mp3

Jon, Melinda and Doug look at a request for transparency around the use of strong mayor powers and the idea of a dedicated phone line for social services. 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

[0:24] Good evening everyone, Welcome to Rose City Politics. It is July the twelfth.
[0:29] Regular panel tonight includes Doug Star Tory, Melinda Monroe, and myself,
[0:33] John Lidkey. Head to patreon dot com, forward slash Rose City Politics,
[0:37] or pick up a business magazine. Just know that Rosity Politics broadcast live on
[0:41] tape thanks to the kind support of Lena six two five Building better Communities.
[0:46] Good to be here, albeit on a rainy afternoon. We checked in with
[0:50] lately that if that's still the branding, UM, I would hope, so
[0:54] they should let us know if they changed it. Okay, guys, we
[0:57] broadcast past this every week. They they should know we might might not be
[1:00] on the top of the list, so we should check in. Okay,
[1:03] make a note. Rosty Politics is brought to you on live on tape thanks
[1:07] to the thanks thanks to Lena six two five. There you go. Community.
[1:14] Ye maybe it could be anything. Maybe not. I don't They're not
[1:17] going to be going the opposite way, so we can at least be sure
[1:19] and I'm building worst community. Yeah, I mean we can at least be
[1:23] sure and better. Their values are remaining the same, although they might change
[1:26] up. You know, the slogan and the tagline yeah, who knows.
[1:30] Yeah, it's a better sensory deprivation tanks that was perfected in like nineteen seventy
[1:38] nine, Milinda, I've seen Altered States. Doesn't get any better than that.
[1:42] What did I see recently? A funny thing about that. It's like,
[1:45] we're not we're not in the bubblegum industry anymore. We now make desks
[1:49] and chair based products. And it was just like some kind of comic or
[1:55] something, but it was just the idea of a corporation just completely flipping to
[1:59] something that of it from chewing gum to defice successories. Yeah, I don't
[2:02] know. I've seen how some of the office successories are made, like the
[2:06] particle board and chewing gum. It's a lot like double bubble. I really
[2:09] like how you're looking at all my office for an instance, much appreciated.
[2:15] This stuff is the finest bass of would available, not like the stuff that
[2:21] you'd find inside of a mayor's office these days, especially not one with strong
[2:27] or powers. Oh Rich mahogany leather bound books just like you know, just
[2:30] the smell that is of a scholarly type place. That's what I imagine that
[2:36] Windsor's Mayor's office. Inside of it, all I know is a giant map
[2:40] that he points to show where the hospital is going to be. There is
[2:44] a map, and I mean once that hospital is there, they're gonna have
[2:46] to rip down that entire map print out the new one because the Google satellite
[2:51] view will be vastly different. You're not gonna want to not have the parking
[2:53] lots on that field where you gotta I mean square meter parking strategy has got
[3:01] to be a big part of what happens with the big map. Right we
[3:05] got we got a parking deficit over here in ward four. We got to
[3:07] do something about that well, and I mean, we actually do have some
[3:12] news right now about parking. We weren't gonna be talking about yet, but
[3:15] it's going to be costing us more money for Windsor to continue our outsourced parking
[3:19] enforcement for the for the budget. Ear reason being is inflation is coming back
[3:23] to bite us. And the you know what, Counselor Mackenzie has actually come
[3:27] out and you know, he's beaten the drum that you would expect him to
[3:30] be beating on. Not completely from the labor camp, but you know,
[3:35] veering into it going. Why are we spending more and more here when we
[3:38] could be, you know, at least spending more and more in our own
[3:40] community and not out of our community. And we all know that there's other
[3:45] issues that have to do with parking. Thatt are just always fun. We've
[3:49] got to do a parking show. We haven't done a parking show in a
[3:51] while. We should do a parking show while looking for parking. Put all
[3:54] of us, okay, all of us in the back of a van,
[3:58] someone driving sober. We won't be right and we'll just I don't know.
[4:01] Do you think the folks at home are getting the sense this isn't a thick
[4:04] show, Well, now they are. It would be short though, because
[4:10] the reality is there's so much parking. It would take us fifty five seconds
[4:14] to find a place to park. Yeah, but do you can you find
[4:15] the spot that's ideal? Right, we'd have to put in some challenges,
[4:18] like find a spot directly in front of a restaurant in the next five minutes.
[4:21] Any restaurant works, no problem. You have to find a part parking
[4:26] spot on a second floor in a garage as close to the elevator as possible.
[4:30] No, the parking challenge would be find free parking downtown. Yeah,
[4:34] that's that is that's that that would be there there, it's out there.
[4:39] It exists, but like can nobody's saying a word on this show. That
[4:45] would be a good one. You'd have to put in some benchmark rules,
[4:46] like you can be on a residential street, but it can't be more than
[4:50] like six blocks away from where you are. So if you can hit like
[4:54] Victoria for the downtown core, congratulations, because there's like three and some places
[5:00] and Casino Parking Lot is doing it on easy mode that's not allowed either.
[5:02] That does not count Anyways. That was fun. Yeah, it doesn't expected
[5:08] to do a little quick hit there on a parking Let's go to where the
[5:12] conversation was going to be heading, always where it was going to be heading
[5:15] after the big news of Mayor Dilkins receiving the strong mayor powers. Of course,
[5:19] Doug, Melinda, you sat with Frasier fathers not too long ago and
[5:24] chatted about these strong mirror powers and what they would look like while here we
[5:28] are now. City Council agreed on Monday to seek more transparency and accountability around
[5:34] these new powers. Counselor Francis word one brought this issue up. The reason
[5:40] being is that administration called up all the counselors and went, hey, the
[5:44] mayor. He leveled up, he evolved, He's at his next form,
[5:48] the final form. Presumably he's going to reach in the mayor. He's a
[5:51] blastois now he's no. I'm not going to go make him fun changing dilkins
[5:58] name to a different Pokemon name. Oh no, or any Pokemon name for
[6:01] that matter. But City Council did meet with the mayor last week to discuss
[6:05] Strongmare powers. I can only imagine that he raised his seat a couple inches
[6:10] to make sure that the height differential was observable. Administration is going to be
[6:15] reporting with a framework though to counsel on communication, education, transparency, and
[6:19] accountability options for the city relating to strong Mare power usage. You can hear
[6:26] me laughing through it. Accountability for a system that's called strongmor powers that's designed
[6:31] to suppress the democratic process, that's just rich. Any Strongmare Powers though or
[6:39] decisions will be posted on a dedicated city web page and then emailed to City
[6:44] Council was actually pretty happy to hear that. Of course, there won't be
[6:47] that much of a difference in the timing one will be occurring directly after the
[6:51] other. But Doug, if we get the RSS feed set up, it's
[6:55] possible that we might find out before counselor finds out absolutely alert, just like,
[7:00] what though, do we know? So that's how Toronto and Ottawa do
[7:03] things Already, they've had the Strongmare powers for a number of months now again
[7:10] Strongmare powers hire and fire the CEO, some department heads, reorganized departments,
[7:14] create committees of council, appoint the chair people and the vice chair people.
[7:17] Propose budgets, veto by laws, forward matters of counsel, forward matters for
[7:21] council consideration if the issue can advance a provincial priority. Mayors can also propose
[7:27] housing related by laws and then pass them with the support of just one third
[7:31] of council. Mayor Dilkins used his powers for the first time this week before
[7:35] council's meeting. It was to sign off on the city by laws. So
[7:40] the mayor is able to buy law veto by laws he thinks interfere with provincial
[7:44] priorities. He has to sign off on a document if he agrees with the
[7:47] buy laws. By signing off, he's indicating he won't veto, although it
[7:53] does stand to question if he's still able to veto even though he has already
[7:57] signed out. I would presume that he is. Hey, maybe we'll see
[8:01] one of those that would be like, that's the big news if that ever
[8:03] happens, if you get a sign off and then go the other way.
[8:07] Hot, damn, we've got ourselves in episodes. Has the vitail power been
[8:11] used yet anywhere else? I'm sorry to do this to you. I don't
[8:16] know. I haven't heard anything that question. Don't. I don't think so,
[8:18] but it's a good question. Sorry to do show prep during the show.
[8:22] Hey, no, it's fine. People get to see how the sausage
[8:24] is made. It's usually done in the Rose City politics chat, not live
[8:28] on tape thanks to Lena sixty five. But building better communities, buddy,
[8:31] we still hope. So let's keep going. So Dilkins used these powers,
[8:39] as we said. Mayor Dilkins said to the Windsor Star that he can't recall
[8:45] a time on council that when counsel itself acted so unreasonably quote unquote, the
[8:50] mayor would have to have had vetoed. We'll dive into that a little bit
[8:54] later now, Ward nine Counselor Kieran Mackenzie, one of our two Mackenzie's on
[9:00] council, called the powers atrocious and says greater layers for transparency and accountability are
[9:05] necessary. Now, this is what I found to be most interesting. Word
[9:07] six Counselor Joe Angeniac asked administration, Hey, is there any ability that these
[9:15] powers could be rescinded by senior government if they're abused? And City Solicitor Askin
[9:22] Hagar said yeah, the senior government can get rid of them if they want
[9:26] to to which councilor Geniac said, well, I'm comforted by the fact that
[9:30] there will be oversight in terms of municipalities that seem to struggle with it that
[9:35] have been given these powers. So there's no oversight that we've been told whatsoever.
[9:41] And that's not at all what was told by the city solicitor who just
[9:45] said, yeah, they can take them away that they want, just like
[9:48] they gave them to you, you municipalities or creatures of the province. Rhetoric
[9:52] blah blah blah blah blah. So I just I love the Joe Angeniac coming
[9:56] out and being a shield right now for Mare Dilkins and saying, hey,
[10:00] look, look, it's completely fine. It's completely transparent. There's oversight,
[10:03] there's accountability, nonsense, there's absolutely none. He can do what he wants.
[10:07] And why why is it that she's deciding that she needs to be a
[10:11] meat shield to be deployed right now? Well, so I did not watch
[10:16] this council meeting because it's summer, and I love myself. If you,
[10:20] if you folks out there would like me to attend council meetings, you can
[10:24] email me at work and I'll tell you my rates. Otherwise, will continue
[10:26] to do it this way. But looking at the way that it was presented
[10:31] here in your summary, and thank you for that, John, it looks
[10:37] to me like there is a there is a concerted effort in the political theater
[10:41] of the council chambers to defuse a potential political liability for the mayor. You've
[10:48] got Fred Francis making emotion and then Joanne Janiak asking the question that she knows
[10:56] the answer to and being comforted by something that everybody who understands the separation of
[11:00] powers in the Municipal act is is going to understand. But she was comforted
[11:05] by something she already knew. So it seems to me that that this little
[11:09] bit of theater was designed to um was designed to protect the mayor because his
[11:18] new powers perhaps create a political liability. What do you think about that,
[11:24] Melinda, I think I think you're right, and I thought it was kind
[11:26] of interesting the councilor Genia felt that she had to ask that, And maybe
[11:30] the other piece of calculation that's going on is that they recognize that the public
[11:35] might not be one hundred percent on side with this idea of having a strong
[11:37] mayor, and so she needs to be seen as not, you know,
[11:41] completely cheerleading the parade here. I think what's kind of interesting. We've heard
[11:46] from Karen, We've heard from Fred, We've heard from Joanne. Were really
[11:50] and maybe that you know, the media weren't going to interview every single councilor
[11:54] Gary cash Act. You have a call on the previous administration. Gary Cashak
[11:56] had asked administration for a report back to explain what they powers were going to
[12:01] be because counselor Borderland councilor Hold had said we are opposed to this. They
[12:07] had actually asked the counsel to a vote on emotion opposing the strong mare of
[12:09] powers and the same the Wizard didn't want them. Counselor cash Act was asked
[12:15] for a report back, which I don't believe we've ever really seen, and
[12:18] there's nothing to me. They didn't go to Counselor cash Acts say well,
[12:20] are you satisfied with how this is going to look? So we don't know
[12:24] from him, and the other person we don't know from. And I don't
[12:26] mean to be unfair, but we have counselor at the other Counselor McKenzie,
[12:30] who has been somewhat allied to the Freedom Caucus, if you will, and
[12:33] certainly the People's Party and places that are talking about you know, gatekeepers and
[12:37] overriding authorities and people having too much control. And we haven't heard from Counselor
[12:43] Mark McKenzie what his view is on his role as a counselor diminishing in its
[12:48] power since the time that he ran and was elected. So John, if
[12:54] you don't mind like where I think this thing is going to go. I
[12:58] don't think that sort of the abstract notion of a shift in power between mayor
[13:05] and council is going to have much of a political impact in Windsor. For
[13:11] the reason that we have already stated, because I think that this is more
[13:16] or less business as usual in terms of the way things actually operate on the
[13:20] ground. The mayor runs this city, and I don't think that these the
[13:26] new powers do anything except formalize the kind of the arrangement that we already had,
[13:31] and I think windsor Rights probably understand that to a great extent. I
[13:35] think where the potential challenge will come is when these powers are used and how
[13:43] they are used, and what the perception of that will be now are I
[13:48] think there are some things that must be done. The mayor now is responsible
[13:54] for the budget, so there are certain elements of these powers that he will
[13:56] have to exercise. I don't think that any of those are are going to
[14:01] particularly create opposition or create concern among the population. If Mayor Dilkins were to
[14:11] veto a bye law, I think that that would be that would be a
[14:16] potential moment for that. But do you get the sense that he is intending
[14:20] to go wild with strong mayor's formal powers like I wouldn't. I don't.
[14:24] I don't see why he would. Well, And if you look to what
[14:28] with counselor geniac says like she's happy there's going to be oversight, which there
[14:33] isn't going to be. Premier Ford indicated pretty well that there isn't any oversight
[14:37] other than the citizen read themselves through the you know, the mechanism of voted,
[14:43] and he said, if a mare goes and acts crazy and rough shot
[14:46] and does stupid things, well then they'll be held accountable. And I think
[14:50] that that's fair. Again, I think it's pretty funny that we've heard that
[14:52] directly from the Premier and here you have councilor geniac trying to go another way
[14:56] with it. But yeah, I don't think that Dilkins has an intention to
[15:00] go doing anything outlandish because quite frankly, he doesn't need to. As you've
[15:03] said, things are, they're going to remain status quo here. If people
[15:09] we've said this for the town of the past a year and a half,
[15:11] while we've watched this file evolve, If any other municipality wants to see what
[15:16] a city with strong mayor powers looks at like, just look to Windsor over
[15:20] the last fifteen years and that's what it is. And if you wanted to
[15:22] any justification, Dilkins is quoted saying I expect very little will change at the
[15:28] end of the day, coming to the budget, it's one of the most
[15:30] important things we do. In the past seventeen years, it's generally the mayor
[15:33] and the treasurer announcing the budget to the public, taking question and then going
[15:39] to city council. So I mean, he's right there saying like, nothing's
[15:41] going to change for us. Well, I got these new powers, but
[15:46] it's not going to change the things in Windsor Run. I've always been a
[15:48] strong mayor. The last mayor was a strong mayor. Heck, the mayor
[15:52] before that was a strong mayor and he actually had a ninety three percent voter
[15:56] support under Mike Hurth. That has been you know, decreasing steadily throughout the
[16:03] administration since then. But that was the nineties in the Internet didn't exist,
[16:06] So it's not really a fair comparison. So I think, um, just
[16:11] to add a wrinkle here, I think that, um what could make these
[16:17] powers challenging? And I guess a possible scenario that is that was perhaps being
[16:22] cleaned up at Monday's council meeting, is a council trying to judo the strong
[16:30] mayor powers against a mayor. UM. I certainly think that it's interesting to
[16:34] me to think about um the the genesis of this which which is widely assumed
[16:41] to be Rob Ford's challenges as mayor in Toronto, having his powers stripped from
[16:48] him, uh, you know, being being basically batted around a little bit
[16:53] by his counsel. But what you know, what I think is that if
[16:59] rob had had and used strong mayor powers, it would have emboldened his opposition.
[17:04] It would have made things that would have made a circus out of what
[17:08] was already So I guess it would have been more a three ring circus instead.
[17:12] I just don't think that that would have been would have ended up a
[17:15] political win for the mayor of Toronto. Now, sure he would have gotten
[17:18] certain things passed that he didn't want pass before, but I don't think that
[17:23] that. I really think there's a lot of room for maneuvering if you are
[17:27] going to challenge a mayor from that from the position of a unified council who
[17:33] doesn't like it. So you're defending Frasier's position on this now, No,
[17:37] I'm saying it would have been in Melinda. Why you got to do that?
[17:41] I'm not defending anything, Okay, I'm also not condemning anything that Frasier
[17:45] had to say. What I'm saying is that I think that there's, um,
[17:48] there are interesting political opportunities there. It's not a one way street.
[17:53] See. What I find most interesting about this all is Doug Ford as a
[17:56] guy who has spent a lot of his adult life, a lot of his
[18:00] adult working life in Chicago, a city known for its strongmair powers. Um,
[18:07] a city notorious for mayors that sort of, you know, go their
[18:11] own way against the will of the people, at times against the will of
[18:12] council. But that's the way the system. You've been in the bit on
[18:15] the correct side. No, dare you say, um, dare you say,
[18:19] I'm not gonna allow any type of that suggestion or commun Chicago has ward
[18:25] funds. Hey, they give every councilor a million bucks. Oh wow,
[18:29] that sounds familiar. That sounds really familiar. Where you're pulling that from.
[18:33] My point being is, you know, the strong mayor system doesn't inherently work.
[18:36] I mean, it will work, don't get me wrong, but it's
[18:38] so antithetical to Canadian democracy. It's just it's not the way that we do
[18:45] things here. You know, it's we're small d democracy m and strongmair powers
[18:52] run completely against that. And I think a lot of it has to do
[18:56] with just the culture of, you know, our country versus America. In
[19:00] America country based on individual freedoms and go west and build your own life and
[19:04] manifest destiny and all that fun stuff. Strong layer powers make sense because you
[19:10] know, you get elected, and shouldn't I be the one to do all
[19:11] of this, whereas you know, we've evolved out of a monarchy into a
[19:17] constitutional monarchy. The way our country was founded wasn't just go west and do
[19:22] your best. It was a lot of we're going to build a city here,
[19:25] and we're going to build a city here, and we're going to build
[19:26] a city here, and it's just our system of government. And I think
[19:33] Populace's lack of interest thereof makes these things look just so shit Sandwich on face
[19:41] level that I'm with you one hundred percent that if you try to use these
[19:45] things in a negative way, it'll probably be the first and last time you
[19:49] ever get a chance to. So you reminded me of a friend of mine
[19:53] who is from Germany, a German immigrant who came to Canada and became a
[19:59] middle manager. You're in the tech industry, and we were on the golf
[20:03] course one time and he was venting to me, as you tend to do
[20:06] in those circumstances, and so he was venting about Canadians and what do you
[20:11] think his objection was? Consensus seeking? He said. You know, he
[20:15] told me it made him crazy that you had in a meeting everybody had to
[20:21] agree before you left the room and made the decision. He says, no,
[20:26] you know, the manager decides and everyone else does. So I think
[20:30] there's something to that. I think there is something to the idea that Canadians
[20:36] are consensus seeking, and I think that that's that is a potential counterbalance to
[20:42] strong mayor powers. So we're telling quickly though German stories. I've got an
[20:47] Austrian story. So when Red Bull showed up, one of my friends worked
[20:52] as part of a setup crew, and Red Bull brought all of their managers
[20:56] in and they were all Austrians, and they were the ones who got to
[20:59] oversee all the ball and tears. It wasn't our people overseeing our volunteers.
[21:02] And so the Austrian Red Bull manager walks over and all the people are lined
[21:06] up getting ready to go to their shot and he goes vane two three,
[21:08] four, five, six, seven, eight nine, ten eleven. He
[21:15] looks for his clipboard. It's one two three, four, five, six,
[21:18] seven eight nine down nine You gone. I don't want to see you
[21:22] begun? Get you gone? Now? Well, my friend went. It
[21:26] was the most terrifying thing in the world. Half that happened, Thank too
[21:32] much, Red bull Man. Yeah, and early cultural differde nineteen three forty
[21:37] five governments, I guess so. And we were talking about Toronto and not
[21:44] about Germans now. So it's really interesting that today, no, yesterday,
[21:48] Olivia Chow got sworn in and a couple of things that we're kind of interesting
[21:53] about this. So there's been a lot of speculation. Is she gonna get
[21:56] to have the strong error powers? How is that going to work? She
[21:57] gonna have to negotiate with those with Doug Ford. But she rode to City
[22:02] Hall with a cavalcade of other people on their bikes, and so there was
[22:07] a parade of cyclists to City Hall with Olivia Chow at the helm, and
[22:11] then in her swearing her oath of office, there was an interesting phase which
[22:15] I don't know what John Tory's oath of office was but the phrase was that
[22:21] she was she was not receiving income from any other source and that was clearly
[22:27] a job at John Tory who was being paid at least we know by Rogers
[22:33] and who knows buy who malse and so it was kind of an interesting comment.
[22:37] So it was like, there's been a change of the guard at City
[22:40] Hall in which I'm not in the pockets of the corporations expressly. And oh,
[22:45] by the way, here are all my friends with bicycles, So let's
[22:48] don't be talking about taking by glance off the Young Street. It would be
[22:51] quite interesting. There's also a really good video going around that someone mashed up
[22:55] of Don Cherry that either it was robbed or John Torry's inauguration one of them,
[23:02] and he says, all you pinko's who wanted to be riding your bikes,
[23:06] it's not going to be happening. That it's a hard cut to Olivia
[23:08] Chow riding your bike to work, and it was like, well, nine
[23:11] years later, here we are. That was that was the Rob Fords inauguration.
[23:14] And I remember there because it was before a councilor Hole got elected to
[23:17] city council and he used to have a baseball cap that said pinko commie socists.
[23:22] You know it's uh. I don't really miss uh Don Cherry, Thanks
[23:29] thankfully. Like wherever he's going to go and be an old guy, stay
[23:33] there. It's good. Yes, it's through whatever. The rants are now
[23:37] confined to the wait staff and caregivers and they're being paid. I guess,
[23:44] um, well, I think that we've taken the strong mare than yeah.
[23:47] I'd say so. Yeah, let's move on here ward. Three councilor when
[23:52] Aldo Augustino has an interesting idea. We were chatting about it a bit earlier
[23:56] in our chat today and I brought it up one hundred CKLW word three Council.
[24:02] Ronaldo Augustino wants a dedicated phone number to deal with social service issues and
[24:06] has asked administration to report back on the feasibility and cost of establishing one similar
[24:11] to three one one. He says that there are gaps and social services because
[24:15] organizations are there to help but not during all hours, and the general public
[24:19] isn't aware of that. Augustino says residents and business owners don't know what resources
[24:25] to use, and he wants to work with the city to address those gaps
[24:29] in service. He asked if after hours services can be established to help those
[24:33] in need and what it would cost again, and he says that there are
[24:37] a lot of things and attention after hours that organizations other than the police can
[24:41] deal with. He was specifically mentioning people who might be sleeping on a bench,
[24:45] or someone who might be found unconscious in the downtown corps, or somebody
[24:49] who is in mental distress, a situation where dialing nine one one and having
[24:53] police respond isn't necessarily the first step that needs to occur. His hope is
[24:59] that the report can come back before Council deals with the next budget, so
[25:03] it can be included in the discussion process. I found that to be a
[25:07] bit interesting to just put like a time frame on it right now. That
[25:11] seems pretty far down the road. I don't know how long it takes generally
[25:15] for administration to report back, but the idea of it going from their I
[25:18] twelfth through till sums January sometimes years. I believe. I believe that I
[25:26] could be getting the details not quite right. But Chris Holt made ask for
[25:32] some information in his first term and didn't get it till a second term,
[25:34] so I think this sort of thing can happen. Yeah, but what makes
[25:37] you think that councilor Augustino would see such a delaying nothing at all. I
[25:42] think that he'll receive his problems. So is Agostino kind of picking up the
[25:45] baton from Geniac here? Who you know? We may remember a couple of
[25:51] weeks back, was making some comments around social service organizations needing to pull up
[25:56] their socks and be open at different times and so on and so forth,
[26:00] and I think essentially to stop you know, wasting police resources. Is this
[26:04] is this sort of is Agastino picking up from that? Do you think?
[26:08] Um, I don't know if picking up or if being fed or if you
[26:14] know, just running with it himself. Those are the three options that are
[26:17] available there. I think it might be a little bit of picking up and
[26:21] having it being handed to him. Quite frankly, this is a pretty fleshed
[26:25] out council question ask to get for someone who is, you know, still
[26:29] relatively new in term. It feels like this had a bit of direction coming
[26:33] from it. I don't think that there's anything wrong with it. I think
[26:37] it makes a lot of sense in most cases here on any one hundred,
[26:40] a lot of people were texting and saying, hey, why not just roll
[26:41] it into three one one. And the only thing I could think of is,
[26:45] maybe we don't want this to be a unionized position right at the outset
[26:48] having its own number. I don't I don't know any about how that would
[26:52] work. I just don't know why it needs to be its own number,
[26:55] and three one one it could just be a first point of contact. I'm
[26:59] ord of struggling with idea that it was if it was veegroom. It wasn't
[27:02] by anybody on the inside of the City Hull only because this is expensive and
[27:07] we've already you know, had all the complaining about the budget and anything that
[27:11] sort of social being caught like that, trying to have the extra support workers.
[27:15] That was such a fight to get those added to the budget. And
[27:18] then maybe it wasn't even what people wanted. So this is expensive, This
[27:19] isn't coming from inside the you know, the inside the building. I think
[27:25] the difference is that what we've seen since the election, it has nothing to
[27:29] do with the election. It just has to do with time and place and
[27:32] situation where we're at, the instances of mental health distress calls that are occurring,
[27:37] the amount of shit that we're seeing not just in the downtown core anymore,
[27:42] but increasingly throughout the city. I think it is demanding a response from
[27:48] the powers at b Again. You know, we lost two very progressive voices
[27:53] in Chris Holt and Reno Bordelin, and with Ronaldo coming in, I think
[27:59] there was a need to be able to showcase at all bona fides of I
[28:03] can be the fiscal conservative, but I can also be a social progressive,
[28:07] because that's what the windsor Works Report quite frankly calls for. But I think
[28:12] that the general perception right now among the community is that the situation's getting worse
[28:18] and that there is an appetite to actually see something being done. I don't
[28:21] think that you're going to see squabbling if it comes back and they say,
[28:25] look, if you want to do this, you want to have one person
[28:26] working dedicated on it at all times. You need a staff of three people
[28:30] to run at twenty four hours a day. That's three hundred and forty thousand
[28:33] a year after taxes. I think you would see that past. Yeah,
[28:37] but that's useless. There's absolutely no point in doing that. You call two
[28:41] in the morning, you get the camp, you already have three button one
[28:42] and you have two on one, but three you call it three call two
[28:47] and two on one is available, you know, technically all hours because it's
[28:51] you're supposed to be able to, you know, type your stuff into the
[28:52] website. But so you call it three in the morning and you get you
[28:56] know, John Lidkey work in the call, and he's got no one to
[28:59] refer because no one else is a way through. It's always he supposed to
[29:02] go on himself to take the person at get him a sandwich. But remember
[29:04] we've got this the nurse police team now, and there's been conversations. Isn't
[29:10] that a call to the non emergency line, call the police non emergency line,
[29:12] But a lot of them aren't the police not emergency line. One of
[29:15] the issues, we need to create an emergency one number six one one.
[29:18] I don't know. Hey, I'm not here to defended. I'm just no,
[29:21] no, I think to be as like some of the justification for it.
[29:23] We're work shopping, yeah, John, No one no one's asking you
[29:26] to defend it. No, no, no, exactly. But they except
[29:30] to perspect that I don't see how this helps at all. Well, we
[29:33] just it's just another phone number. You already have two one on to take
[29:37] two one. Two one one is supposed to be this, And if you
[29:41] look at the two on one Ontario website, they talk about how people someone
[29:45] called in and she was completely distraught and the navigator was able to put her
[29:48] on the phone with the people she needed to talk to and then called her
[29:52] back ten days later and after she was okay, that is this? Why
[29:56] is two one one? Winds are not doing that? And if they need
[29:57] to do that, they can avoid the whole union thing. Is two one
[30:00] one is supposed to be being pushed out through the United Way, except I
[30:03] think, actually, sorry, it's been rolled into three one one. So
[30:07] does two on one have windsor employees? It has a windsor day face,
[30:14] but I don't. It may actually have been rolled into three on one matter.
[30:17] I think it was. Sorry. This is me like digging out of
[30:19] my Rolodex memory that in order to pay for three one one in the early
[30:25] days, they took the money that was supposed to go to the United Way
[30:26] for two one one and said through on one would do the two one one
[30:30] job. I see, So they need to make two on one b two
[30:34] on one and maybe have a twenty four hours a day, but if the
[30:37] social service agation she's are not open at three in the morning, all it
[30:41] happens is you just talk to persons and off the ledge God forbid, and
[30:47] maybe you can get them into a shelter bed at three in the morning or
[30:48] maybe not. But you're basically referring them tomorrow at two o'clock you're going to
[30:52] get a call from some Well remember eight two years ago we saw sorry it
[30:55] really quick Mental Health Association looking at changing their hours of operation to be able
[31:00] to help with it. So what I think we're seeing here as a strategy
[31:04] that's being teased out in multiple components, whereas what they should have done is
[31:08] just come out and say, hey, here's what we're gonna be doing.
[31:10] Guys. If you tried to build consensus around anything like this among windsor social
[31:15] service or not for profits, it's very difficult. Yeah, So I think
[31:18] just trying on an idea. It could be that this is establishing a twenty
[31:26] four hour two one one could be like stone soup, right, No one
[31:30] is going to extend their hours if they're not going to see increased traffic,
[31:33] if they're not going to see actually deliver service, it's just wasting money.
[31:37] But if you have a service that is essentially a community dispatch that is offered
[31:44] twenty four hours a day, then it might be rational to increase your hours
[31:48] of service if you thought you were actually going to be able to deliver something.
[31:52] I'm not saying that's what's happening. It's just, you know, it
[31:53] does seem to me that creating the clearing house first, if you are in
[31:59] an invite erman with a lot of perhaps touchy and difficult to move partners,
[32:05] which could be windsor then it might make sense as a strategy. Yeah,
[32:09] and I think it's I think it's a good idea, Don't get me wrong.
[32:13] I just can't see. We just got off the topic of the strong
[32:15] mayor having total control over the budget, and one of the things I forgot
[32:19] to add to that was that the abolishment of the operating Budget committee. So
[32:22] this is a gong who has never yet shown a single ounce of interest in
[32:27] actually having the actual services. So he might agree to have to spend three
[32:30] hundred thousand dollars on having the phone line, but the agencies who need to
[32:35] be funded to have people get paid over time and the kind of and add
[32:39] the workers and workers who are willing to be the poor midnight person that's strolling
[32:44] up and down the back lanes. That's that's really expensive. If he's prepared
[32:49] to pay for those services going in place at funding them or get the funding
[32:52] from the province, great, but you know there's no if you have the
[32:55] line without all those other supports. And I just don't see where this,
[33:00] particularly a sterity focused mayor, brings in a budget that allows for them.
[33:06] It's a great idea, we should have it. Yeah, I'm I'm confused
[33:12] as to why it would need to be its own dedicated to number. That
[33:15] doesn't make sense to me. I mean, if we've got three one one,
[33:17] you could hire some extra people just to work there and turn it into
[33:22] a twenty four seven, three sixty five operations. I mean, if you
[33:24] have a twenty one one, you could streamline the calls coming in so that
[33:28] two three two one one calls bounce three. The three one one person is
[33:30] phoning to complain that I have weeds in the back lane, they get bounced
[33:35] because a two one one call always gets priority in the queue. There could
[33:38] be things like that, and you know that people and they could, they
[33:44] could text for help, and that's set up to be able to do all
[33:46] that stuff. That would be great. But and so I can see why
[33:49] maybe having a two a different number than three, one one, But you
[33:53] again, I see, I think what's going to happen? I think,
[33:55] Doug, you're right. Maybe if you create the call center, then you
[33:59] drive the traffic and that got the agencies going. But who's paying the agencies
[34:02] to take people off the day shift and put them on a night ship.
[34:05] Well, I think that is the ultimate challenge. And I think that one
[34:12] possibility would be to take a look at our hundred million dollars police budget and
[34:15] ask ourselves if there's any room to trim the fat in a budget that has
[34:21] only been reduced once in the last fifteen years. Doug wants to defund the
[34:23] police. Folks finally came out, we got we got them on tape,
[34:29] clip them, save, broadcast and share well. And you know, I
[34:34] think I don't know if this point was ever made on OURCP, but that
[34:37] councilor geniac was saying, come on, social services agencies, you need to
[34:39] step up and help. And it's like, really, so if these agencies
[34:43] that get paid you know in the six figures are supposed to step up and
[34:46] help the one that gets paid into right eight and nine figures, the three
[34:51] hundred thousand dollars transfer payment agency that has to seek a Trillium grant so that
[34:54] they can have, you know, a lunch for their staff or whatever,
[34:58] is supposed to more to have police who, unlike the Toronto Police, don't
[35:01] actually have a bar inside of the police department. But these, you know,
[35:05] there's just evidence to everybody we know of how police. You know,
[35:08] I have lots of I looked into it. We don't have a bar here.
[35:10] There's no liquor license. Now that's not to say there's not an unlicensed
[35:15] bar because but I'm not alleging it. There is no license though. I
[35:19] want to just, you know, just pick up on that idea of our
[35:22] social services having to pay for other things, or are not for profits being
[35:27] tapped to pay for other things, because we just saw one of those occur
[35:30] with an affordable housing announcement this week. I'm sure that if you're listening to
[35:36] the show, you're aware of the fifteen new affordable units that's being put into
[35:38] the medical unit old Medical building near Hotel do On Olette Avenue. It's a
[35:46] three point three million dollar investment by the FEDS and the province and it's creating
[35:51] fifteen affordable units, five geared to income, the rest as affordable rentals,
[35:55] with three units barrier free. What I found most interesting about this is that
[36:02] Hotel do Grace Healthcare sold the building to the Community Housing Corporation. And I'm
[36:08] seeing that as updated now because last I saw with one of the stories it
[36:13] was a donation, but so they sold the building to them. But Hotel
[36:16] de Grace Healthcare also contributed three hundred and fifty thousand dollars to the project.
[36:22] I found that one to be pretty interesting, and that you have, you
[36:25] know, the hospital coming forward and making a sizeable donation over a quarter of
[36:30] a million dollars for a housing project, and you know, the CEO of
[36:36] Wins the Essex Community Housing Corps says that the Hotel de Grace Healthcare has always
[36:40] been a tremendous partner. I don't know what do you guys think about this
[36:45] one though, I mean, listen, selling the building makes sense to me,
[36:47] Giving the building away makes sense to me. The added donation on top
[36:52] of it, it's like you've you've already done the good thing if it's what
[36:57] it takes to make it happen though, right, if that's what it takes
[37:00] for this to actually happen, then then you know, why would you not
[37:04] Well, if and so the city is not able to spend three hundred and
[37:07] fifty thousand, we got to three point one million, cities perhaps not willing.
[37:10] Well that's my points. Are they not able? Not able? Not
[37:13] willing? Excuse me? Um? I wonder if you know it probably was
[37:16] a paper transaction in the sense that they made a deal for the purchase and
[37:21] then CMHC or one of the big partners what kind of came in and said,
[37:23] well, this is the cap you have on capital, and so basically
[37:27] Hotel juices, well, well we'll sell it to you for this amount less
[37:30] and we'll treat that amount as a donation. And that's basically in order to
[37:34] make the transaction work. So rather than the city having to say, well
[37:37] we'll auntie up the extra three eighty so that we can give it to Hotel
[37:40] due hospital, because I mean that would have so, you know, it's
[37:45] kind of like, you know, it's a bit of a bit of a
[37:47] shell game. It's always funny money or funny numbers in terms of how you
[37:51] structure things. And if that's the case, like that's fine. But again
[37:53] that's how I when I read it, That's why I thought they just basically
[37:57] it turned out this is the capital cap that you have to pay for the
[37:59] bill. Okay, well, just treat it as a bit of a donation.
[38:02] But I want to congratulations to my own friends over there community housing.
[38:06] There's it's been so nice to see this big shift and we're actually building stuff.
[38:10] They're really committed themselves. But also because of CMAC to repurposing and reusing
[38:16] things and reusing this building so we get all the built in carbon you know,
[38:22] credits for using an existing building. We're not tearing things down, We're
[38:24] not sending a bunch of bricks to the landfill. Like. All those things
[38:28] are really great and I think it's a great opportunity for the community. Notwithstanding,
[38:30] I know it's it's you know, the developers don's not here to say
[38:35] two hundred thousand. Yeah, that's crazy, But you know that's partly because
[38:40] of CMHC's expectations around how the quality that they expect and the you know,
[38:45] the environmental protection stuff that they expect, but congratulations, and you know more,
[38:50] it's only fifteen units. We need another thirty twelve thousand, nine hundred
[38:54] and eighty five. But we're getting one steps on. We're on track.
[39:00] I believe MARYA. Dulkins says that there will be more of these coming forward.
[39:04] It's just it's so interesting because the quote from MARYR. Dulkins is,
[39:06] if you have an underutilized building like this one on a bus route the downtown
[39:09] core, this is an absolutely ideal scenario. Like, yeah, no brainer.
[39:14] And I guess you know, kudos to dug Ford. I don't say
[39:16] that often. And Lord knows, the bigger, better, faster, faster,
[39:22] Stronger Housing Act all of the different components of it have a lot of
[39:25] problems with them in terms of how they're rolled out and what they take powers
[39:29] away from and where they grant more powers too. But do you think we
[39:34] would have seen these fifteen units if there wasn't an impetus to hit that thirteen
[39:37] thousand figure. Look at there's the housing crisis has gotten to the point where
[39:45] it's the number one It's the number one thing on the agenda for anybody under
[39:50] Ford, right, it's gotten to that point. So I think that politicians
[39:55] of every stripe need to be in self preservation mode on this file, whether
[40:00] they believe in it like air quotes, believe in whatever, whatever that even
[40:04] means. So yeah, I think that it is correct to be responsive to
[40:09] the public and to the scope and the scale of the problem. I think
[40:15] that what I'm interested in as we get deeper into this term, this provincial
[40:20] term, and I suppose municipal term as well, as we get deeper into
[40:22] it, the gains are going to be harder to come by. These headlines
[40:27] are going to be harder to find because that that bushel full of low hanging
[40:30] fruit will have been long since gathered and and gain the political benefit from.
[40:37] So I would like to see what kind of announcements we're seeing in twenty four,
[40:42] twenty five, the early part of twenty six. This stuff. And
[40:46] I don't want to take anything away from anybody. This is important. It's
[40:51] important that we're moving on this. But to the point that the mayor was
[40:55] making, it's a low hanging fruit, like this is an obvious play,
[41:00] like the building's already there, we need some money, Okay, let's do
[41:02] this. Let's move this stuff around where the rubber is going to hit the
[41:07] road is when you, oh, I don't know, need to approve an
[41:10] unpopular zoning variance in Roseland that's where I think you start to see whether the
[41:16] political will really exists. And at a provincial level there's going to be issues
[41:21] and items like that as well. So you know, in the short term,
[41:25] in the immediate like in the immediate present, we're seeing some positive signs,
[41:30] but I'm skeptical that we'll see the same level of commitment over time to
[41:35] actually get it done. The strong ware of powers were supposed to be explicitly
[41:37] to overcome nimbism, and so it's going to be So we'd be sort of
[41:42] amusing to watch this over time and see if every other suburban ward gets their
[41:46] towers and their density and everything and ward one doesn't. Yeah, oh yeah,
[41:52] It's it's quite interesting to be, you know, to have this happening
[41:57] in your own neighborhood because I get to you know, I'm on South Winds
[42:01] or Watch, and I'm on the Facebook group for these the condo haters or
[42:06] whatever they call themselves, and I get to watch all these conversations. But
[42:09] I also I know viscerally that it's all a pile of bullshit because I walk
[42:15] these streets every single day and I know what they're talking is absolute nonsense.
[42:19] It's a lot of fun, you know. I wonder if we'll see a
[42:24] situation to just build off of that idea. The mayor vetoing a project and
[42:31] saying I'm vetoing because this project, even though it is you know, housing
[42:37] that achieves all of the goals that we want to see him try to you
[42:39] know, spin a yard and saying this doesn't conform to the provincial priorities.
[42:44] This is actually a bad use of housing. It would actually this would affect
[42:49] the neighborhood in a poor way where we'd see an exodus of all of the
[42:52] homeowners and no one would come back and buy these houses afterwards, they'd have
[42:55] to just abandon them. I mean, that'll be like if you see something
[42:59] like that happen, and that's the what the card I could actually see happening
[43:02] for me, That's the one I'll keep an eye for. Hey, we
[43:06] fit an extra topic of nice well done plan on on doing that. We
[43:09] just did a nice little natural segue there. Let's continue the conversation, though
[43:14] we can shift into for your consideration, Doug you had shared with us.
[43:22] There's a new report that is being discussed locally in the community that has to
[43:29] do with tech workforce trends. Do you want to set the stage a bit?
[43:34] Sure? And this is this is a story that is both vitally interesting
[43:39] to me because it is related to obviously the area that I work in and
[43:45] have worked in for many years. But at the same time I don't really
[43:52] have enough information. So an organization, the Tech Councils of North America,
[44:00] have released a report exploring the globalization and migration of tech occupations in Canada.
[44:07] So there's some big headlines here. Canada welcomes more than thirty two thousand tech
[44:13] workers over the past twelve months, and the highest growth in tech workers in
[44:21] the country is Windsor, Ontario, April twenty two to March twenty twenty three.
[44:25] According to this report, and probably not surprisingly, we are also number
[44:32] four on the list of Canada's largest in migration by city. So I'll just
[44:37] say this about the Tech Council report, maybe we can talk a little bit
[44:44] more broadly about the issue. This report is paywald. It is only available
[44:52] to members of the Tech Council. I think it is entirely reasonable for organizations
[44:58] to generate re search that is, for their paid membership, and distribute that
[45:02] research to their paid membership. That is entirely reasonable to do. What is
[45:07] not reasonable, in my opinion, is to communicate headline results from that report
[45:13] without providing any supporting evidence, without providing the underlying data or what your data
[45:21] sources were, or explaining your methodology. So you know, I had a
[45:27] chance to do have some conversations about this today, and I certainly lines up
[45:31] with what I'm seeing, uh, you know, anecdotally in the community,
[45:37] So I don't think that necessarily it's total bunk. But I also can't give
[45:42] you any real detailed analysis of it because I have no idea what is going
[45:45] on. I think there's even some lack of clarity around whether we're talking about
[45:53] workers or jobs. It looks to me based on the language I'm seeing,
[46:00] and again this is you know, this is all stuff where we're only seeing
[46:04] infographics and little tidbits and pull quotes, So who knows what's actually going on
[46:08] there. But as far as I can tell, based on the fact that
[46:13] we are looking at the cities with the highest growth in tech workers being here's
[46:19] one two. Three, You guys ready for this? Windsor kpe Breton Timmins.
[46:23] So, I don't know what's going on in Cape Breton, but if
[46:28] I'm not mistaken, Timmins is the location of a college, and Ontario college
[46:34] that has welcomed a very large number of international students, and as has Windsor.
[46:42] And I think that what we're seeing here, what this report is telling
[46:45] us, is that the available tech workforce is much march larger now than it
[46:51] was five years ago. And that's a good thing. That presents a great
[46:55] opportunity to Windsor employers and to Windsor overall. The challenge is how do we
[47:01] respond to this opportunity. How does Windsor capitalize on this opportunity and retain our
[47:08] share or more than our share of temporarily resident in Windsor tech capable people.
[47:15] How do we do that? What does that look like? What are what
[47:19] is the work that we have to do? So it's my hope that this
[47:21] report will will become public or at least that I'll get a copy to look
[47:25] at and can offer a more detailed analysis. As for right now, all
[47:30] I can say is that what I think it's saying seems to line up with
[47:36] what I observe in the market. You know, it's I was confused as
[47:43] well when we were first chatting about it, because when this was first shared
[47:47] on social media, there was the number thrown around seventy five hundred tech job
[47:53] eco tech jobs in the ecosystem versus twenty four thousand auto jobs ecosystem. So
[48:00] the point being is like, what what are these numbers? I think so
[48:04] in twenty sixteen, Statistics Canada reported that we had twenty nine hundred tech jobs
[48:09] in Windsor. That's five years ago, well more than five years ago,
[48:13] now, man, yea seven years ago, seven years ago, okay,
[48:17] five yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't count those two years.
[48:21] Right. It was like if you don't count the time, you don't
[48:22] count the time you've spent in jail as aging, and you don't count the
[48:24] pandemic years as aging. Right, So there you go. But anyway,
[48:30] seven years ago our universe of jobs was under three thousand. Seven years is
[48:39] a long time. There is no way in hell that the number of available
[48:45] jobs in the sector have more than doubled, and I didn't notice. So
[48:49] I did a bit more digging from the first post to the second post to
[48:52] the actual press release that was put out about it. And there's a bit
[48:57] further methodology that wasn't included in some of the their posts for the purposes of
[49:00] this study tech talent, occupations and workers. So you already got the differentiation
[49:09] right there, workers versus occupations versus tech talent that's defined by a proxy custom
[49:15] group of NOC linked occupation skill clod codes, including roles such as software developers,
[49:22] network and computer systems administrators, and information security analysts. This group of
[49:29] tech workers is sometimes referred to as a tech occupation cluster and tech occupation profiles.
[49:37] So it's hard to say if I'm comparing apples to apples to that workforce
[49:40] wins or ESSEX report from from many years ago, because I don't know what
[49:45] any of those words mean. You know, the knock codes, the occupation
[49:52] classification codes. I understand that, and I recognize some of those as items
[49:58] that are on the list of ICT Information Communications technology workers I set workers,
[50:04] which is what we traditionally would have looked at when we're looking at the tech
[50:08] landscape. Again, I think the moral of this entire story is, if
[50:14] you are going to make a public release of data, or of information,
[50:20] release the report simultaneously with making claims in public, you know, because then
[50:23] we all get to have a great conversation, we get to do some analysis,
[50:28] we get to you know, we get to dig into it. I
[50:30] got no idea, man, I don't know. Never good if there's you
[50:34] know, three people, four people sitting around a table trying to figure it
[50:36] out on the rosity politics side of things, and we're left going. So
[50:42] I'll I've I've made some inquiries and I've got a couple of lines on this
[50:46] on this report. I'm told that a person who has it is going to
[50:50] send it to me. So if that happens, I will I will happily
[50:53] review it and give you my impressions. But you know, in general,
[50:59] I think I want to just, you know, rather than talk about the
[51:01] thing that we're you know, the report and whatever, I want to just
[51:06] talk a little bit for thirty seconds, if you guys will indulge me,
[51:08] about kind of where I see the opportunity and challenge for the sector here.
[51:14] Locally, we have this big mass of and I say this without any kind
[51:22] of negative connotation intended, this undifferentiated mass of graduating or recently graduated talent.
[51:30] You know, students have their particular disciplines or focus, but they have virtually
[51:35] no experience. Generally, when they graduate, they are ready to work in
[51:39] the industry as junior employees, as learners. That's what they're that's what they're
[51:45] prepared to do. We have a huge population of people who are totally green,
[51:50] ready to enter the tech industry. That's awesome. We also have,
[51:53] and I think a growing population of remote workers who have come to this city
[51:59] from other cities or other parts of the world to work wherever, to work
[52:04] for whatever company. And sometimes they're quite large and interesting tech companies. They've
[52:08] come here to work remotely for, you know, not in Windsor. They're
[52:14] spending their money in Windsor. They're paying their rent or their mortgage in Windsor,
[52:16] and that's all great, but they don't work in Windsor. And I
[52:20] think when I look at those two populations, I think that we are not
[52:25] particularly well positioned to take advantage of this. Number one. I have not
[52:32] yet met a remote worker who's come to Windsor and working for you know,
[52:37] a company in a major center who has the slightest interest in working in Windsor
[52:43] for a Windsor Company, and the reason is money. One hundred percent.
[52:46] The reason is money. I spoke to someone, and I know that person
[52:50] as a listener, so I'm definitely not going to out them. But I
[52:52] spoke to someone who has an interest in working locally and has gone on and
[53:00] several interview loops in the local community trying to find a tech job that would
[53:06] have, you know, be not be malpracticed towards his family and his financial
[53:10] future to take that job compared to what that person is earning now and UM
[53:16] and that that has not that search has has been UM not not successful.
[53:22] So so we've got UM, we've got a sector that doesn't pay the way
[53:28] that remote workers with experience are are looking to be paid. And we've got
[53:35] a sector that doesn't know what to do with the green people, primarily because
[53:39] we are kind of starved of experienced people in Windsor. UM. There are
[53:44] only so many uh senior level resources. And the main reason there are only
[53:49] a handful of senior level resources comparatively to other cities is that we don't pay
[53:54] senior resources in this town. So there are some challenges. I think it's
[54:00] good that we're talking about this. I think it's time to start and more
[54:02] than time to have a real conversation about about these issues and how we can
[54:07] how we can move the needle on it. But there are some some pretty
[54:09] wicked problems, like it's good news, but it's good news that comes with
[54:14] about ten asterisks that we have to deal with. Well, for your consideration,
[54:20] thanks for indulging me. I think that was more than thirty seconds.
[54:23] We will leave that one there. Um, Melinda, I know that you
[54:28] had something that you wanted to chat about as well. My first errand my
[54:31] first errand actually it's a bit of shameless self promotion, so it's not just
[54:36] my self promotional your first errand recently, Melinda, Yeah, I did my
[54:42] first. Why don't you let her talk and you'll find out. Man,
[54:44] she's promoting my stuff. That's right, that's right, our stuff. So
[54:50] this is the third year in a series of Monroe's strategy and parallel forty two
[54:55] panel discussions, grassroots discussions about really interesting topics. We need, we need
[55:00] a catchy name for this. I was, you know, we were like
[55:02] putting just putting it out their Summer Policy Party. Summer Policy Party. Yeah,
[55:07] Hey, I mean I like it. I mean I just want to
[55:09] think about like the Laurier Institute or these things, or people just line up
[55:13] to go to Yeah, so we need to kind of you know, get
[55:15] into some kind of name like that. But anyway, the Summer Policy Party
[55:19] this year is happening on July nineteenth. That is happening at Maiden Lane at
[55:22] five thirty pm and you are invited to buy tickets. If you go to
[55:27] Facebook, you can find it there on Facebook Events. There will be some
[55:30] media about it as well. But if you want, there are no tickets
[55:32] at the door. So if you want to go and twenty five bucks gets
[55:36] you, it's cocktail. It gets you some delicious food from cook Up the
[55:40] entrepreneurs that are down there, and it also gets you an absolutely scintilling panelistcuss.
[55:46] So my first errand this is how I found out about this. My
[55:49] first errand was a podcast I listened to you, thank you, Sarah Morris,
[55:52] about a practice in Japan where by the time children are about six,
[55:57] they should have already done at least one errand for the family, like they
[56:00] have a job to do for their family, and it isn't to go by
[56:02] their debts smokes, which is what maybe some of us did when we were
[56:07] that age, and so they So the show, there's a Netflix show that
[56:12] talks about this, but the podcast interviewed a doctor Owen Weigod who is a
[56:15] professor at Montreal Polytechnic. And doctor Weigood is coming and he will be the
[56:21] keynote at our panel on July nineteenth, talking about how do you build a
[56:25] city where it is possible for children to do errands and things for their families
[56:30] independently, not supervised by their parents at all times, not driven there by
[56:36] their parents at all times. So doctor weigo is going to be joined on
[56:39] the panel by bronman Wood, who is a teacher in an alternative high school.
[56:45] It's going to be bringing the perspective of people who are already feeling marginalized
[56:49] in their community and teenagers. How does it how do you build a community
[56:52] with physical infrastructure that supports them. We're going to have Evelyna Batchevskat, who
[56:58] is a disability rights advocas I'm just a blog or who is going to talk
[57:01] about what might it have been like for a kid who has cerebral palsy and
[57:06] who navigates the world in a wheelchair to do that errand when they're six years
[57:08] old. We're going to have Hattie Hyder, who is a parent of two
[57:12] little toddlers, who when I asked him, although he's very much an urbanist,
[57:16] his hair turned white over the idea of his four year old and two
[57:20] year old actually doing errands by themselves. And I'm gonna have doctor Gerald Cradock,
[57:23] who is going to talk about the sociology of this and how it is
[57:27] the children actually form community. It's by children being able to have communities independently
[57:31] of adults that are going to be the community that we have in thirty years.
[57:37] So those kids who are six now, when they're on Rose City politics
[57:39] in twenty fifty three, the community that they want to live in, the
[57:44] one that the social justice issues they care about, they're building those communities now
[57:47] at the age of six. They're already navigating how to relate to other people.
[57:52] I'm also going to send you off if you are interested at all in
[57:54] that. In addition to spending your twenty five dollars and buying a ticket and
[57:57] coming on down to Maiden Lane, I'm also going to recommend because I discovered
[58:01] this today, so doctor Weigo oh and sent me a link to some of
[58:05] his research, and one of the coolest things that I have seen in some
[58:08] time was a piece of work. It's on YouTube and the YouTube account is
[58:13] Umbreon libris, So you m b r e O n l I b r
[58:17] s. The owner of that of that YouTube channel is a gamer and particularly
[58:23] a big Pokemon fan. He did a whole episode on what would Pokemon Journey
[58:29] be like if it was in real life? So not only looking at the
[58:32] graphics and what the characters do on the show, and how the roads look
[58:37] and how the journeys look, but how would that work if it was in
[58:39] real life. So he's interviewing both doctor Wigod and he's also interviewing a psychologist
[58:44] and he's reviewing some academic work about how could we create a world in which
[58:49] Pokemon Journey could be real life for real life kids. It's the coolest thing
[58:53] ever. I recommend it, So you mbreyon libris on YouTube, take a
[58:58] look at it. If you know me on Facebook, kids, I've already
[59:00] posted on my Facebook page, and then come on down twenty five dollars drinks,
[59:05] food and a really fun conversation the Summer Policy Party. I love how
[59:09] outlandish an idea it is just oh, let your kid, you know,
[59:14] six years old, just let them go, you know, run an errand
[59:16] go go pick up some groceries for dinner tonight. Let him come back.
[59:20] It's like a grocery stores five blocks away. So at landish that we have
[59:24] to assemble academics and experts for a cage match. It's the only way that
[59:31] you know, it's the real deal. Well know, Actually the guy who
[59:35] did this little video, he's from BZ, but he grew up in Rio
[59:37] de Janeiro, and he asked his parents, would you have let me do
[59:40] this anyway? Are you kidding? Nope? But then he's asked why,
[59:45] and he said, because you weren't mature enough. We had no idea that
[59:49] you We didn't believe that you could manage your own money, that you could
[59:52] manage your own time to be able to do it. And then he takes
[59:55] that back to Pokemon into a character in Pokemon who actually was like dad and
[1:00:00] who just went off without their parents' permission, and how they figured out how
[1:00:04] to manage by themselves. This is like the grooviest thing twenty five minutes of
[1:00:07] your time, But you can't get eaten by wolves and Pokemon Melinda. You
[1:00:10] real life, though, there's there's like all kinds of scary, mean pokemon.
[1:00:15] Yeah, but they attack other Pokemon. The humans, for the most
[1:00:17] part, are fine. It's not like Team Rockets sitting around the corner You're
[1:00:21] anyways, that's I think that I think that there's there's a whole conversation we
[1:00:25] can have on our video game podcast, John that they will talk about that.
[1:00:30] But the socioeconomics of Pokemon Land, I just I find it interesting because
[1:00:35] I think you know, you'd have to redesign sis here completely, so clearly
[1:00:37] you never got sent out to buy your dad smokes. Oh gosh, no,
[1:00:39] no, no, no no. I couldn't imagine my parents. I
[1:00:43] did ever, for sure, And if I wanted candy, I had to
[1:00:45] pick up pop bottles along the way. You guys all think I'm joking,
[1:00:49] but I'm not. I think I told this. My sister was supposed to
[1:00:52] walk me to school in grade one. She walked me this like completely complicated
[1:00:55] route and involved like cutting through other people's backyards and jumping over fences. And
[1:01:00] I couldn't figure out how to get a home see it for dinner by I
[1:01:05] gotta goa mother's Like why are you late. Well, I was in the
[1:01:10] wrong backyard to start things off. That's good. That's good, big dog.
[1:01:15] I mean horribly mean, but very funny, very funny. I've got
[1:01:20] one here, I've got I've got two quick ones. One. If you're
[1:01:23] running a company, try not to get an endorsement by the Taliban, which
[1:01:28] is what Twitter was able to play writing this down. I definitely I do
[1:01:30] not mean to be cherry picking by any means when I discussed this here.
[1:01:36] Um, I just think it's a really bad thing if you know, a
[1:01:38] terrorist organization comes out and says your company is better than you, you're the
[1:01:44] best of what you do. Especially it's like when PEPSI, when the Symbionese
[1:01:49] Liberation Army endorsed PEPSI, I thought that was a real blow to them.
[1:01:53] I was trying to think of like a historical comparison, and it's hard to
[1:01:58] come up with one that's like, on the knows what this one. So
[1:02:00] I had to make one up. And the only thing I could think of
[1:02:02] that compares to Taliban endorses Twitter would be like Nazis endorsed Dearborn Independent, which
[1:02:09] is the newspaper that Henry Ford bought, and he turned into an anti Semitic
[1:02:14] rag. So just don't do that. Don't get the endorsement, don't seek
[1:02:16] the endorsement of an terrorist group. Dearborn Independent. Yeah, okay, yeah,
[1:02:21] check it out. Well don't but yeah, bad stuff. Don't read
[1:02:23] the Dearborn Independent. Well they went out of business, like you know,
[1:02:28] during World War two and whatnot. The views became pretty bad. The whole
[1:02:30] Limburg thing lasted for a bit and then like America famously went a different way.
[1:02:35] But what I do want to talk about, far more seriously, you
[1:02:37] know, went for my selationism. That's our episode titled by the way America
[1:02:42] wanted to know, don't read the Dearborn Independent. So America went a different
[1:02:45] way. Is also a solid flies often well use that next week. Um,
[1:02:51] this past weekend, I was going for a walk downtown after I was
[1:02:55] working at I think I did live in Local if not, whatever, was
[1:03:00] one for a walk downtown and I started hearing some screaming and I found myself
[1:03:02] walking towards the Downtown Mission. It was about nine am, and there was
[1:03:07] a large police presence that was there, Paramedics were there, fire was there
[1:03:10] probably throughout the course of the hour, and a half that I stood around,
[1:03:15] hanging out and mulling around upwards of probably fifteen police officers, six to
[1:03:20] eight paramedics, firetruck contingent. There was a man in need of in mental
[1:03:28] health, in a mental distress situation and a need of support. He had
[1:03:30] climbed the derelict burned out building directly next door to the Downtown Mission. It's
[1:03:37] a three story building. He was on the very roof, at the very
[1:03:42] perch of it. It was a pretty scary situation. He was screaming obscenities,
[1:03:47] screaming at the police that he would he was going to injure himself,
[1:03:52] He would injure them if he had access to a weapon. This all would
[1:03:54] have been over a lot quicker. And he was also just being like fighter
[1:04:00] man and going from one side of the roof to another. And these are
[1:04:02] like very sloped roofs. There's not a flat part of it at all,
[1:04:05] So it was really scary watching this guy traverse all At the same time,
[1:04:10] the rain was coming in. It was scheduled to be starting at around ten
[1:04:14] o'clock, so there was a very real concern about that the perimeter kept getting
[1:04:18] expanded. There were gawkers that were around. It did all get resolved,
[1:04:21] which is great. Eventually the guy ended up somehow getting into the house,
[1:04:27] got to see some fire tools they were walking around with, like a heat
[1:04:30] gun, obviously looking through the walls to see where the gentleman was. Pretty
[1:04:35] cool. All this to say two hours, let's say there were twenty five
[1:04:41] to thirty first responders that were there. The amount of money that was spent
[1:04:45] on this situation. I was talking with one person on city council as well
[1:04:49] as just running some back of the napkin math. Easily one hundred thousand dollars
[1:04:55] and resources was spent just dealing with this one situation alone. One hundred rand
[1:05:00] obviously, you know, quite a lot of money could pay for the salary
[1:05:03] almost if someone to be working in a three one one call center might be
[1:05:05] able to cover the salary if someone working in a through on one call center
[1:05:09] for a full year. It's easy for us to look at the mental health
[1:05:13] situation, that the addiction situation that exists in our community and you know,
[1:05:18] expect it to resolve itself, because you know it's worked so well for us
[1:05:23] over the past number of years. To look the other way, well,
[1:05:27] maybe we could do it side. Maybe we could do it like jury duty
[1:05:30] and you just get a letter in the mail and now you're a first responder
[1:05:32] for the week. Because we're not adequately funding it, we're going to just
[1:05:35] turn to citizen posses and you've been you've been deputized, so you're going to
[1:05:40] get you know, your first aid training and well ware you go. It's
[1:05:43] funny that you say that on Am eight hundred. Someone texted in today saying,
[1:05:46] why doesn't sink clear College partner with the city and students can have this
[1:05:50] embedded directly or their curriculum. And my response was is like, well which
[1:05:55] program like like it? All of them? All of them? Yeah,
[1:05:59] okay, Well, going to Sinclair College, you're all expected to spend a
[1:06:01] semester downtown dealing as we're going to replace that. That the business elective,
[1:06:06] We're going to take that out and we're going to replace it with you know,
[1:06:10] yes, anything to not raise our taxes. Right. And that's the
[1:06:13] problem that we have is everyone wants the situation fixed. No one's willing to
[1:06:17] pay for I think that is, so let's get some students to do it.
[1:06:21] Is like, this is something that's an irritant for me because very often
[1:06:27] that's the solution to expensive problems in my line of work is let's get some
[1:06:30] students to do it. But this has to be the absolute bottom of the
[1:06:33] barrel. Let's get some students to do it. Let's get some students to
[1:06:38] provide direct service to people needing care in the downtown core right the account,
[1:06:44] And you just make a good point. But the counterfactual too, what we
[1:06:46] can't afford to have the outreach worker. We can't afford to have them whatever.
[1:06:50] The counterfactual is the amount of money it costs you not to have them,
[1:06:56] and we never sort of see that in the budget, Like I mean,
[1:06:58] I think that the you know, we do see when the city ADMINISTERI
[1:07:00] said, not recommended or recommend it. Then they'll say, like, if
[1:07:03] you don't do this, it's going to cost you this much on the back
[1:07:06] end. And the calculus that the counselors make is, well, it'll cost
[1:07:11] us that much on the back end if the risk manifests itself. But we're
[1:07:14] just going to take the bet that the risk doesn't manifest this year. And
[1:07:18] you know, evidently we saw one this year where the risk manifested to the
[1:07:23] tune of whatever six figures before we go. I need to correct an error
[1:07:27] and all mission that in my four year consideration, which was the other sponsor
[1:07:30] of the Summer Policy Party is the Center for Cities, the Windsor Laws Center
[1:07:34] for Cities. They have been a fantastic partner all the way through and they're
[1:07:38] being a great partner again this year as a sponsor. And bring doctor wa
[1:07:42] get in. There's some other things that he's going to do. Well,
[1:07:43] he's here thanks to them, and so I don't want to leave this without
[1:07:46] thanking doctor Annika Smidt and the Center for Cities. Well done. The credit
[1:07:51] whords due right on. Well. That brings us right to the end of
[1:07:56] the show. Folks. Rosity Politics has been going through stuff. It's done.
[1:08:01] We did it. Yeah, started off at the beginning, we got
[1:08:03] to the midpoint, and here we are at the end. I love it
[1:08:05] when we can put a bow on it and just put it to bed.
[1:08:09] Yep, that's it. July twelfth, Regular Panel, Doug Star Tory,
[1:08:12] millenimn Row myself, John lydkey head to Patreon dot com, forward slash row
[1:08:15] City Politics, pick up a business x and go call up Lena six two
[1:08:18] five, ask them what their tagline is these days, because regardless, there
[1:08:23] are our sponsor and we love them, We love them. Thank you Lena. Bye,

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