Okay, one minor edit. This podcast started as a daily show covering the 2018 Ontario Election Campaign. John Wright and I decided to jump in with both feet and we haven't looked back! Episode 1 kicked off on May 9th, 2018, the day the election writ was issued and the started the campaign that would result in Doug Ford's win.

This is the 233rd episode. Today, we take a look at how much has changed in the province while, at the same time, noting how little things have changed in voting preferences.

John and I are joined by The Queen's Park Observer founder and editor, Sabrina Nanji. Her newsletter, by the way, is two years old on May 10th.

So a collection of anniversary shows today On The Ledge!

In this episode of On The Ledge, your Ontario politics podcast:

Keith Leslie and Dave Trafford wander down a podcast path about podcasts! (You won't believe how much it costs to produce a narrative podcast at CBC!)

Also:

• the Health Minister has no co-ordinated plan to support people living with Long Covid.
• the University of Ottawa bails on Huawei over Chinese security issues.
• Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie's seriously assessing whether to throw her hat into the OLP leadership ring.
• Horse race polls on Toronto's mayoral race are campaign vehicles intended to generate earned media. They don't really mean much in who might be the favoured candidate among nearly 70 names on the ballot!

The OTL gang is assembled! Keith Leslie at CHCH-TV, John Wright SVP Maru Public Opinion and SSN Chief Executive Producer Dave Trafford are around the table.

In this episode:

• We've learned the Therme has landed a 95 year lease at Ontario Place but still no details on the structure of the contract. And Jeff Gray reports in the Globe and Mail, the province is in talks with Ontario LIVE to "lease a prime spot in its Ontario Place redevelopment". Turns out the prinicipal and sole director of Ontario LIVE is a long time "social" friend to the Ford family.
• The Eglinton Crosstown, by every measure, has been a complete failure of the P3 procurement model. Neither the Transportation Minister, Carolyn Mulroney, nor Metrolinx CEO Phil Verster can say when the largest transit project in Canada will be completed. It was supposed to be up and running TWO YEARS AGO. Now, Verster is citing 260 quality control issues that have caused the delays. Where is the accountability? This project was budgeted at just over $9 billion. The projected budget is now well over $13 billion - a nearly 50% overrun.
• And is Ford's $112 million dollar commitment to track violent offenders who are out on bail an admission of failure? Why has it taken five years to come up with this program?

The OTL gang is assembled! Keith Leslie at CHCH-TV, John Wright SVP Maru Public Opinion, Sabrina Nanji, Publisher and Editor of the Queen’s Park Observer and SSN Chief Executive Producer Dave Trafford are around the table.

In this episode:

• The Ford government made it "official" this week, unveiling fancy new renderings of the Ontario Place park that now includes a new and improved Ontario Science Centre. But beyond colouring inside the lines, there isn't a great deal of detail about the overhaul plans. We still don't know what's in the Therme Spa deal, how the parking garage worked its way into the deal AFTER the winning bid was announced.
• Toronto's "plan" to allow multiplex housing in ALL areas of the city will have to be a province-wide requirement. It will create more supply but there's nothing to guarantee any of these initiatives will make housing more affordable.
• AND the Ontario Liberal Party have set a date for the leadership vote. The party's third leader in three years will be chosen December 2,2023.

The OTL gang is assembled! Keith Leslie at CHCH-TV, John Wright SVP Maru Public Opinion, and SSN Chief Executive Producer Dave Trafford are around the table.

In this episode:

• The Globe and Mail has exclusive reporting on the state of Long Term Care homes in Ontario. The Globe has discovered several for=profit LTC operators have opted to sell their properties to housing developers rather than pay for legislated upgrades.
• The province knew this was coming! Where's the plan to make up the shortfall of beds that will hit in 2025?
• It sure sounds like the Ford government is preparing to move the Science Centre from Don Mills to Ontario Place and the price tag to subsidize the Therme Spa and Live Nation's Budweiser Stage is something north of $650 million!
• And John Wright gets all nostalgia about his student days, working at Ontario Place.

The On the Ledge crew is taking the week off for the Good Friday holiday. But, we've got a great panel assembled to talk about the need for some form of a basic, guaranteed income.

This is an episode of The 2030 Project - a podcast series produced for the Daily Bread Food Bank in Toronto recorded in May 2022 and was released November 9, 2022.

This week, Daily Bread released the latest stats on food bank visits in Toronto. They have hit an all-time high since the Daily Bread opened its doors forty years ago.

There were more than 270 thousand visits to Toronto food banks in the month of March 2023. That's more than four times the number of monthly visits prior to the pandemic. Daily Bread CEO Neil Hetherington is calling on the province to reinstate the emergency income supports that were extended to Ontarians on social support in the early months of the pandemic.

It occurs to us that this is a good time to revisit a serious discussion about the need for a basic, guaranteed income.

The COVID experience made it abundantly clear that the federal CERB program rescued millions of Canadians from the economic disaster brought on by the pandemic lockdowns. Yes, there were problems, considering the speed with which the program had to be rolled out. But it is undeniable that $2000 a month for those in need kept families and businesses afloat in the face of an economic disaster.

Why waste a good crisis? How has the COVID experience affected the narrative about a stable income “floor” for all Canadians?

Joining us around the table for this episode of the 2030 Project are John Wright, SVP at Maru Public Opinion. Sheila Regehr chairs the Basic Income Canada Network and Evelyn Forget is an economist and professor in community health sciences at the University of Manitoba.

The OTL gang is depleted!

John Wright SVP Maru Public Opinion and Sabrina Nanji, Publisher and Editor of the Queen’s Park Observer are on the IRL, using up their portion of our healthcare dollars.

That just gives Keith Leslie at CHCH-TV, and SSN Chief Executive Producer Dave Trafford more elbow room around the table.

In this episode:

Keith and Dave run down the longer than usual list of items on last week's FRIDAY DUMP list.

The OTL gang is assembled! Keith Leslie at CHCH-TV, John Wright SVP Maru Public Opinion and SSN Chief Executive Producer Dave Trafford are around the table.

It's the morning after the latest Ford government budget. It represents the largest spending in the history of the province. It's also the largest revenue numbers. All BIG numbers but to what end? Will it have any ripple around kitchen tables across the province?

Meh.

But it will resonate in municipal assemblies. The province keeps kicking the can down the road on its promise to "make municipalties whole" now that Queen's Park has eliminated development charges for new construction condo and housing builds. That leaves cities and towns billions short when it comes to paying for the infrastructure to support that expansion.

Oh ya, and was Queen's Park right to sidestep the City of Toronto's billion dollar shortfall?

Have a listen. Share!

The OTL gang is assembled! Keith Leslie at CHCH-TV, John Wright SVP Maru Public Opinion, Sabrina Nanji, Publisher and Editor of the Queen’s Park Observer and SSN Chief Executive Producer Dave Trafford are around the table.

In this episode:

• Ana Bailao has made it official. She is running for Mayor of Toronto. Bailao is a former city councillor and served as Deputy Mayor during John Tory's first term in office. Bailao told John Moore on Newstalk 1010 it's time for the province to pay for the upkeep and maintenance of the Don Valley Parkway and the Gardiner Expressway. She says that would free up cash to spend on upgrades to transit and other city services.
• You can hear the entire interview here.
• The NDP win in Hamilton Centre. No surprise. But voter turnout was around 22%!
• The provincial accountability officers are a joke. The Integrity Commissioner all but admits he hasn't gpot much clout when it comes to holding government to account.
• And don't expect too many surprises in the upcoming budget.

Welcome to the first EVER edition of On The Ledge EXTRA!

In this episode, we feature a sit down interview with former Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne. It ran as the March 7, 2023 episode of Now and Next.

• How does she view the state of the Liberal movement and Ontario.
• Wynne admits she prefers the delegated convention.
• She doesn't think she'd have won the OLP leadership in 2013 if it had been a one-member-one-vote convention.
• She thinks Trudeau mishandled the question of whether China has meddled in Canadian elections.
• Toronto's next mayor will have to be a consensus builder but needs to be more of a risk taker than John Tory.
• She's not endorsing anyone, but says Bonnie Crombie would make a great leader of the Ontario Liberal Party and Premier of the province.
• Above all, Kathleen Wynne is enjoying her private citizen life after politics spending more time with her family and grand kids.