Full Comment - Paul Godfrey wants to make Toronto pretty good again

00:00:00.000 bank more encores when you switch to a scotia bank banking package

00:00:06.460 learn more at scotia bank.com slash banking packages conditions apply scotia bank you're

00:00:13.680 richer than you think when i found out my friend got a great deal on a wool coat from winners

00:00:18.500 i started wondering is every fabulous item i see from winners like that woman over there with the 1.00

00:00:25.200 designer jeans are those from winners ooh are those beautiful gold earrings did she pay full price 0.85

00:00:31.360 or that leather tote or that cashmere sweater or those knee-high boots that dress that jacket

00:00:36.660 those shoes is anyone paying full price for anything stop wondering start winning winners

00:00:43.300 find fabulous for less

00:00:44.980 in my line of work i meet a lot of interesting people who have had fascinating careers few

00:00:58.220 perhaps quite as fascinating as our guest today hello welcome to the full comment podcast my name

00:01:02.740 is brian lily your host and if you don't know full comment is part of post media post media owns the

00:01:09.720 toronto sun the national post dailies and regionals and weeklies across the country and we've got a

00:01:16.720 it's not really a retrospective because he's not retiring but he is leaving an official role with

00:01:23.160 the company paul godfrey was the ceo and founder of post media for many years then he was chair of the

00:01:28.920 board and now he is just off on his own as a private citizen doing his own thing we'll hear a bit about

00:01:34.020 that but paul i wanted to take time and chat with you because you and i have chats at the office in

00:01:40.720 the background when we see each other at social events and i think you've had a fascinating career

00:01:45.180 i think you're a fascinating guy but you're not in the media too often so people don't get to hear

00:01:50.280 about it so this is why i thought let's for the end of the year as you're officially leaving post

00:01:56.100 media in an official capacity let's let's sit down and have a chat absolutely so before we uh get into

00:02:05.500 you know way back in time uh let's talk about the founding of post media because um you are you've had

00:02:14.320 a career in politics you've had a career in in business you helped bring the blue jays to toronto

00:02:20.040 back in the 1970s all these things but just other than a time where you ran the sun and sun media

00:02:28.520 you weren't really a media guy and then you you did that for a while for rogers and then you show

00:02:34.200 up and you you create a brand new media company how did you put together and and tell me about the

00:02:40.940 the starting of of post media taking all these different outlets putting them together distressed

00:02:47.320 assets and founding a new company that well let's face it a lot of people read and a lot of people

00:02:53.300 love to hate there's no doubt about that well if people aren't hating you you're probably boring

00:02:59.880 i i felt i felt the arrows so tell me about the the start of that and pulling this all together

00:03:06.000 well it seemed that um there was an opportunity to uh put a group together a group of uh newspapers

00:03:13.060 across the country and uh you may remember that uh that the uh a number of the uh organizations

00:03:22.420 were were held by uh families in the west the uh mostly in manitoba and uh it seemed that uh they

00:03:32.640 wanted to uh get out of the newspaper business and uh do other things and it felt like a good opportunity

00:03:39.820 for us to sort of uh put them all together and knit them all uh the edmonton uh area the calgary

00:03:47.900 uh ones in the british columbia um and it seemed like a natural fit and uh we decided to uh visit all

00:03:57.380 the uh areas speak to the uh of the communities uh in those areas and uh tell them that uh we're going

00:04:04.480 to build something called uh post media and uh it seemed it seemed to work and in the year 2010 we

00:04:12.040 really had it all to uh together there was ups and downs and trying to put it together there was

00:04:17.640 disputes uh we had a deal with uh a lot of the uh people that uh had some concern about uh will this

00:04:25.760 be giving uh toronto uh too much power and the rest of the city and uh i tried to tell them that a lot

00:04:32.420 of the news uh that is covered in all those cities uh the generated was all generated in toronto to

00:04:39.580 begin with so we we were uh we were able to get it together and uh i think uh 2010 uh we created uh

00:04:48.520 post media i felt that that was um uh one of my uh victories in the in the newspaper era and uh we

00:04:58.140 were quite proud and i think today well when you look back over your shoulder and uh see what what

00:05:04.900 happened i think the columnists that we have you and others that uh helped make post media the great

00:05:12.000 success uh right now things have changed dramatically uh in all newspapers and uh you um you have to be

00:05:20.160 very careful uh on how the future is going to look like well it's going to say i mean the media

00:05:26.800 landscape has changed tremendously uh from 2010 uh would you do it all again if you had to do it

00:05:33.700 over it's it's been a lot of ups and downs it's the company by the way uh folks don't realize this

00:05:39.500 but the company's in in good hands and and in a good position now our detractors would like to say

00:05:45.460 otherwise but you know it's uh um we're not going out of business anytime but it is a very different

00:05:52.700 landscape than it was when you started this there is no doubt about that uh since 2010 uh google and

00:06:01.820 facebook and others came in to be major competitors there's no doubt trying to hide that

00:06:08.020 because a lot of people went to the digital world and exist things in the digital world exist today

00:06:15.340 and uh it's taken a lot of business away from uh the newspaper uh business um i think that uh you

00:06:23.180 got to look back to 2010 or even the year before that and 80 percent of their revenues came from

00:06:30.560 advertising advertising in new and into on newsprint since that the old dead tree edition that's right and

00:06:39.200 since that time things have shrunk to a an unbelievable level and a lot of a lot of those

00:06:46.480 uh newspapers are uh gone or on are on a slippery slope at the present time and i don't think there's

00:06:53.940 any way of hiding that well i mean to give people an idea of how things changed when the toronto sun

00:07:00.740 and uh the sun by the way has always for a long time been bigger than just the toronto sun you've got the

00:07:08.260 the papers in calgary edmonton winnipeg uh ottawa but also all the old osprey papers the london free

00:07:14.680 press the kingston wick standard that was all part of the sun and in the late 90s the sun got sold

00:07:22.600 were you still at the sun when it got sold to quebec or um no you know i i i got bought out as one

00:07:30.280 okay by by the sun uh i had the pleasure of dealing with pure carol pelado so that pelado buys

00:07:38.140 the sun to stop a a takeover from the toronto star pelado pays about a billion dollars or just

00:07:44.840 over a billion dollars when post media buys the sun and all those other papers basically pelado's

00:07:51.140 english media empire in 2015 the price was 300 million that is correct i mean we bought our paper

00:07:59.160 back we sold it at a huge price and it was it was what you call a lovely deal at the time to sell it

00:08:08.220 and and um and basically they got tired of it and we bought it back a very great dollar at the time

00:08:17.060 let's talk about how um one of the criticisms that i've heard more um in my days with quebec or in

00:08:26.360 uh helping run the ottawa bureau up there uh you would hear from people and say well there's too

00:08:33.220 much media concentration and we used to have a local paper that was all local and it would be doing

00:08:37.960 great if these guys hadn't bought it without the consolidation i would say and that the argument i made

00:08:45.020 to them back at the time for the a lot of the smaller regional dailies was if it wasn't for the

00:08:51.020 consolidation you wouldn't have a newspaper in your town of 20 000 there's no doubt about that there was

00:08:57.060 a slippery slope it started we have to reckon we had to recognize that newspapers were in trouble

00:09:04.500 and that's why some of them did disappear and some of them were merged with others to make sure that they

00:09:12.460 had uh an opportunity to get their community covered with news and our responsibility was to

00:09:20.820 spread that news that took place whether it was in montreal or toronto or ottawa uh or their communities

00:09:27.740 and uh there was a big story that took place in calgary or edmonton or vancouver we ran that across

00:09:34.800 the country because that was essential that was news and a lot of people recognize that uh even though

00:09:41.700 they won't admit that the big news uh starts in toronto uh that that's reality well it is and and

00:09:51.480 also um you know if you're if you're getting the product uh from uh of what happens in toronto or

00:09:58.860 montreal or vancouver sent to your local paper then you can focus on local and you know i would argue that

00:10:05.280 we've done that successfully uh under both iterations of the company that i've worked for

00:10:11.240 uh because otherwise these these papers would long be gone do you have a view as you leave the media

00:10:17.380 world of of where things are going obviously it's digital digital digital but um do you see

00:10:26.220 things changing or how do you see things changing in the coming years well i think like everything else

00:10:35.400 it's it's going to be a slow change it's going to be a slow change and has been a slow change to date

00:10:39.320 but i still think that um there is uh room for major stories uh international stories i think for

00:10:47.980 instance the toronto sun and the national post are two of the uh major uh operations that cover

00:10:57.960 really cover north america for us and um you have to be proud and i think that uh from um from an

00:11:06.320 interest point of view i think the national post is the most sought upon sought out paper in canada

00:11:13.000 today we break stories all over the sun breaks stories and i think the fact that they both operate uh

00:11:21.020 in in the same building and sure lots of news comes in in days like uh today from ottawa because

00:11:28.720 things are you can bet that everybody's reading news about ottawa all over canada and probably many

00:11:37.540 much of the world well i would uh would definitely argue that we've got uh the strongest stable of

00:11:43.540 columnists and the most interesting columnists uh uh within the company let's um

00:11:48.660 let's talk about your career though because you didn't start out as a business guy um you were

00:11:56.540 you were a good boy who decided that he had to go get a degree and something that you've never

00:12:03.580 practiced so how did a guy who started out studying chemical engineering at it was u of t wasn't it yes it

00:12:11.700 was okay so how does a how does a good jewish kid from toronto who starts out studying chemical

00:12:16.740 engineering end up um becoming a politician uh a baseball commissioner and uh and then eventually

00:12:24.560 a media magnet well that's that's uh quite interesting i i should and i openly admit a lot

00:12:31.040 of people say why do you tell people that you weren't a good student in school i said because i wasn't

00:12:35.940 a good student in school and i wasn't going to make up things about it that uh gave me i i struggled

00:12:41.880 through school um i i think i probably started school um several months before i should have

00:12:50.080 started school and it slowed down my growth and as time went on i began to worry i said what am i

00:12:58.260 really going to do in life and i used to wander around university of toronto uh figuring out geez what

00:13:05.960 what am i going to ever take and it seemed that the best place for me was to take a to get a degree

00:13:13.700 in chemical engineering because chemistry seemed to be the best of some bad products that uh i uh i was

00:13:22.260 studying was it kind of like the graduate where somebody just took you aside and said plastics boy

00:13:27.600 plastics that's the future that's pretty well thingy that seems to be the easiest one to get into

00:13:34.620 and be at the but at the end of it i remember uh sitting around uh writing my final exam

00:13:42.220 and gazing into the future and one of the supervisors asked me are you okay are you having

00:13:49.500 trouble with the exam i says no somehow i worked my way through it but i'm really not sure i want to

00:13:55.940 be a chemical engineer and that was after four years last and i think i shocked a lot of people at the

00:14:03.120 time i i for years afterwards i came back to speak to uh students who were going to take

00:14:10.580 chemical engineering and i told them what i was going through and um the i think the best thing that

00:14:18.380 ever happened to me was um having a a mother that um was interested in local politics and i even said

00:14:27.080 i said you know mom i know you helped me through school and being an engineer but i don't think i'm

00:14:33.540 going to last that way so we my family switched gears i got the opportunity of having a mother who

00:14:41.200 knew how to run a political campaign and i got elected for my first shot how old were you 25 25 okay

00:14:50.700 so that's it's just a bit older than pierre polyev the conservative leader when he got elected when i

00:14:55.480 first met he was 24 uh just out of school and and somehow was i a little nervous yes i had to stand

00:15:04.500 up and give speeches as a guy that had a little confidence in themselves at the time that was tough

00:15:10.120 to believe paul and well you know what it's it's an app people have asked me to write books about that

00:15:15.780 and i said you know what at one time i will write a book but right now too many of those people are still

00:15:21.460 alive and so what what did you get elected to uh at age 25 uh i got elected to the north york council

00:15:30.480 and to one of the local wards in the uh in the uh bathurst uh wilson area and uh i sort of uh after

00:15:39.860 spending about uh two months there i'd be sort of got a lot more confidence of dealing with people that

00:15:46.380 were significantly older than i was and um i sort of became north york's angry young man at a very

00:15:52.740 young age and um i was i was very fortunate um i i got so this is pre-amalgamation toronto by decades

00:16:01.500 way pre what what year is this uh that would be 1965 66 okay so you get elected to to north york council

00:16:11.860 you are the the angry young man for the area uh i remember when i was that age and i'd be going into

00:16:17.920 meetings with people and they would look at me and and you know they'd be kind of dismissive because

00:16:23.280 you're so young and i remember i was in a meeting with my boss we're doing a presentation somewhere

00:16:29.580 and they said oh it's so nice that you hire such young people and i thought okay i'm growing a beard

00:16:34.420 did you do anything like that to look older because once i grew the beard nobody commented on my age in

00:16:40.200 meetings oh i i was um i became the chairman of metropolitan toronto when i was 34 years of age which was

00:16:48.380 a few years after my first uh and i seemed to um uh get better as time went on in the eyes of the public

00:16:57.620 and i be though i became outspoken and i you know took on the things that maybe i shouldn't have taken on

00:17:05.520 so well let's remind people what uh metro uh toronto council was because it's it's been several

00:17:12.360 decades since it was around um correct so you were first elected to north york council and back then

00:17:19.780 the city was not amalgamated and so there was this regional government on top it was like a

00:17:25.580 a super council above all the local councils right that is correct there was so how how did you go from

00:17:32.300 bathurst and seals guy to chair of metro council well you know what um i it was kind of a lucky

00:17:42.600 situation being in the right spot at the right time uh one of the um one of the counselors

00:17:48.420 unfortunately passed away uh on a heart attack and i was chosen by the rest of the council to move

00:17:56.820 into that position which gave me a position on the uh upper upper level so so you became both a local

00:18:04.080 counselor and a regional counselor that's right at the same time which still happens in places that

00:18:09.780 have that form of government that that is correct and um uh i then um became um um very involved in

00:18:19.620 major issues affecting the city of toronto and uh when um ab campbell who was the chairman of metro

00:18:28.800 toronto um unfortunately passed away um i decided this was an opportunity to uh to try and do it all

00:18:39.780 and i was fortunate of winning uh there we there was uh 24 members of the council north york the city had

00:18:50.120 12 of them and the rest of the municipalities that made it had one each and i was able to convince them

00:18:58.380 to give me a shot at running the major uh operation of toronto and i was 34 at the time and um i know

00:19:09.240 that was kind of young um but um everything seemed to fall the right way for for me i

00:19:16.180 34 and and running what was effectively back then the mega city that's that is pretty impressive um

00:19:25.880 it was a lot of fun things to do and toronto was growing by leaps and bounds at the time this and

00:19:31.780 the city was changing rapidly so you're you're in there at the time when uh basically toronto was not

00:19:41.160 canada's premier city at that time it was still montreal but that is true the the whole separatist

00:19:49.480 movement was taking off uh and you know that's uh it it is before my time but i'm old enough to to

00:19:58.620 remember uh growing up down the road in hamilton you had all these areas that grew dramatically as

00:20:05.640 people especially the english community fled quebec fled montreal and burlington grew dramatically

00:20:13.800 oakville but toronto did as well and became the hub what what was it like uh having all these

00:20:19.640 companies like bank of montreal suddenly building first canadian place and and and you know having

00:20:26.260 their name secretly changed to first canadian bank in case quebec separated things like that i mean

00:20:31.600 what was it like uh running the city back then well you know what it was quite challenging because um

00:20:37.940 everybody wanted to have a say in it and um and i think the fact is that the way the provincial

00:20:43.480 government put uh toronto together um and uh said there's going to be uh one uh super mayor we're

00:20:51.260 going to call him the chairman of metropolitan toronto and we're going to have uh six municipalities

00:20:57.200 um it was start they started off at 12 and uh common sense said too many municipalities too many

00:21:05.060 politicians too many delays and uh too much false spending and um when it became um uh closer to the

00:21:14.160 time in the 1970s um uh the ab campbell who was the super mayor of the time uh called the chairman of

00:21:23.080 metropolitan trauma unfortunately had cancer and uh he died after he served uh uh one uh one term

00:21:33.680 and uh i was fortunate enough to be appointed by the colleagues you've got to remember i was not

00:21:40.020 appointed by the public the counselors um that made up metro the the municipalities um gave me the

00:21:50.960 opportunity did you ever get elected uh chair by the public or did they decide they'd had enough of

00:21:56.960 you well i've to be quite honest here i've only had two um elections by the public and both of them

00:22:05.440 were in north york and when i got when i got to metro and the um the province decided to uh uh go from

00:22:15.080 big daddy gardner who the gardner expressway uh is still named after um and uh finally um when ab

00:22:23.960 took over um as the chairman i became his successor afterwards and uh i had the the privilege

00:22:32.580 of uh running toronto for 11 years and um it was great great fun i i i had a lot of people that

00:22:42.540 were critic uh would criticize me of the things that i would do uh but uh i could always uh stand in

00:22:49.300 front of them and basically defend what what i was trying to including trying to bring major league

00:22:56.740 baseball to trauma okay well this is a good time to take a break and when we come back i want to hear

00:23:01.120 about bringing the blue jays to toronto because it's quite the story paul godfrey with us here on

00:23:07.260 full comment back in moments

00:23:08.960 did you lock the front door check close the garage door yep installed window sensors smoke sensors and

00:23:17.840 hd cameras with night vision no and you set up credit card transaction alerts a secure vpn for a

00:23:23.000 private connection and continuous monitoring for our personal info on the dark web uh i'm looking into

00:23:28.640 stress less about security choose security solutions from telus for peace of mind at home

00:23:33.940 and online visit telus.com total security to learn more conditions apply wait i didn't get charged for

00:23:43.140 my donut it was free with this tim's rewards points i think i just stole it i'm a donut stealer

00:23:49.460 earn points so fast it'll seem too good to be true plus join tim's rewards today and get enough

00:23:55.500 points for a free donut drink or tim bits with 800 points after registration activation and first

00:24:00.680 purchase of a dollar or more see the tim's app for details at participating restaurants in canada for

00:24:04.460 a limited time

00:24:05.100 ontario the wait is over the gold standard of online casinos has arrived golden nugget online

00:24:14.340 casino is live bringing vegas style excitement and a world-class gaming experience right to your

00:24:19.840 fingertips whether you're a seasoned player or just starting signing up is fast and simple and in just a

00:24:25.980 few clicks you can have access to our exclusive library of the best slots and top tier table games

00:24:31.340 make the most of your downtime with unbeatable promotions and jackpots that can turn any mundane

00:24:36.500 moment into a golden opportunity at golden nugget online casino take a spin on the slots challenge

00:24:42.560 yourself at the tables or join a live dealer game to feel the thrill of real-time action all from the

00:24:48.160 comfort of your own devices why settle for less when you can go for the gold at golden nugget online

00:24:53.960 casino gambling problem call connects ontario 1-866-531-2600 19 and over physically present

00:25:01.680 in ontario eligibility restrictions apply see golden nugget casino.com for details please play

00:25:06.980 responsibly it's tough to imagine toronto without the blue jays now or the raptors the leafs or any of

00:25:13.640 these big sports teams that helped define the city in so many ways but they didn't always exist

00:25:18.180 and paul godfrey you were there for bringing the blue jays to toronto montreal already had a team

00:25:24.740 in the expos how did this come about was it an idea of the city was it an idea of the original owners

00:25:33.240 labats you know take us through that the the founding of a major league baseball team well when i became

00:25:41.820 chairman of metropolitan toronto uh the uh the expos did exist and uh jean drapeau and uh his his group

00:25:49.980 there did a fabulous job and um in making montreal the dominant city in in the in canada and i figured

00:25:59.460 gee we're look we're not chop liver and i'm gonna try and get something to happen i said well we've got to

00:26:08.040 get a baseball team because um uh we both got hockey teams and uh and other teams will come

00:26:15.060 will come forward and uh i started uh on my own volition to uh go to major league baseball meetings

00:26:24.080 that the existing teams um met with once or twice a year and uh i went so you're just showing up at

00:26:34.120 like the winter meetings in florida or something that's right i wasn't invited

00:26:38.700 down i bought beer for some of the uh people who were uh hanging around the uh uh hotels and uh i

00:26:49.220 remember uh saying to people like i said look my name is paul godfrey i represent toronto uh at that

00:26:57.540 time i really didn't represent toronto i represented north york and um i um said look i want to get a

00:27:07.580 major league baseball team and they said to me where are you where are you going to play and um

00:27:13.740 i bumped into bowie coon who was the commissioner of baseball at the time and um we met uh and i went

00:27:22.180 up to him and i said to him commissioner i said my name is paul godfrey i want to get a major league

00:27:28.500 baseball team in toronto and he looked down and he was about six foot five i think at the time

00:27:34.260 and i was felt quite a bit shorter than him and he said to me um well where are you going to play

00:27:40.740 oh i said don't worry about that i'll get it built if you're going to give us a team i will get the

00:27:47.640 stadium built and he put his hand on my shoulder and he said son let me tell you the way baseball

00:27:53.200 works first you build the stadium and then come back and see me then we'll decide if toronto should

00:28:01.580 get a team or not i said that was so deflating to me and there were a lot of people who are listening

00:28:09.640 and watching i came back to toronto and i said to them look we've got to do something we we've got

00:28:17.480 to build a better stadium than we have doesn't have to be the biggest day but we've got to have

00:28:22.620 something which we can call home and um i what i got the municipal council metro uh to give me 15

00:28:32.280 million dollars i went to see bill davis at queen's park and uh i knew that he he loved the expansion of

00:28:40.980 for it of of of uh um a team in toronto and he basically said to me um look it's hard for me to

00:28:49.860 give you money when you don't have a stadium and you don't have any recognition that there there will

00:28:56.360 even give you a a a a charity here so i kept hammering him and hammering him at the time

00:29:06.540 and finally he got uh tired of uh he got annoyed listening to you to listen to me when you go knock

00:29:13.140 on somebody's door but you're polite at the same time and said oh trouble's here again and um he said

00:29:20.460 look i can't give you another 15 million dollars that your city council gave you but i'll tell you

00:29:28.320 what i'll give you a loan and i want you to sign something that will indicate that you're going to

00:29:34.620 repay the loan therefore the people of of the province will have some guarantee so i took the

00:29:42.960 the funny thing is nobody said it was going to be the metro signing or paul godfrey signing i just

00:29:50.340 signed it and um lo and behold as time went on um um major league baseball said look we we should be

00:30:01.360 expanding we should be taking on other other cities and we were lucky enough to be to to get us a seat

00:30:10.080 but we had to make lots of commitments and um when i got inducted into the canadian baseball hall of fame

00:30:16.320 uh this year in the last last june um i i told a story about never paying the the loan back that i did

00:30:27.200 all those years earlier but when i got back uh but um got back after the uh induction um i got a call

00:30:38.240 from doug ford and doug said to me word has it that you owed the province 15 million dollars plus interest

00:30:49.220 i said um yeah that that may be true i figure i'll have to find out a way of paying it he laughed he

00:30:55.520 says no look after all this period of time we'll tear up the we'll tear up the uh the amount that you

00:31:03.360 owe if anyone could find the agreement still that that's that's quite true but it it went well because

00:31:11.800 the people of toronto really wanted i did have some people that argued the fact uh the point that

00:31:18.420 why why is godfrey building uh a new uh building and spending all this money and baseball's an american

00:31:29.040 game we don't want an american game and that even gave me more drive and it got proven that the people

00:31:39.000 did want to see a major league team and there's an argument that canadian uh baseball is a canadian

00:31:44.160 game as well st mary's ontario for sure but you know you'll you'll always find people that want to

00:31:49.700 stop you and take shots at you in any event the thing worked out really well we knew we had to build a

00:31:56.840 new stadium and uh there were enough people on business step forward and uh so that was eventually

00:32:04.940 the dome or what's now roger center but they they played for 20 years at exhibition stadium i'm

00:32:11.060 guessing there was a lot of work that went into getting that ready for major league yes so we we

00:32:17.040 didn't have the luxury of uh building something that big but thank goodness to the major corporations

00:32:23.620 uh i knocked on a lot of doors and uh got each each of them to commit five million dollars

00:32:30.880 and we ended up with about 35 of them so how did you find an owner for the team because

00:32:36.660 sure you're going down there lobbying for the uh uh for the city to get a team but somebody has to own

00:32:44.340 it well that believe it or not um it came that there was going to be um number of owners at the

00:32:52.160 beginning um each one was going to own a percentage and get a uh a private box but they all

00:33:00.660 had to come up with uh five million doesn't sound a lot when you consider what baseball chart

00:33:06.620 makes today yeah but back back in the uh 1970s and we finally got a team in 1975 76 um we came

00:33:20.760 through and got picked up five million dollars all the time and it helped us open the door to build

00:33:29.460 what we what we what we now call the rogers center um but and a lot of people got ownership and a piece

00:33:38.200 of of of it so we did it and it became um an effort and we owe a lot of thanks to a lot of people

00:33:47.100 who put the money up and they what they got for it was mcdonald's got the facilities to supply hot dogs

00:33:56.740 food there uh the major league uh uh was um we we got help from um the uh car companies each car

00:34:08.740 company gave us five million dollars and when they they all wanted not be left out we uh we were able

00:34:17.260 to put enough money together to do it and well what if i'm correct one of the original companies in

00:34:24.740 the ownership group was labat right that is correct so tell me about they were right at the beginning

00:34:30.340 tell me about um convincing a brewery to put five million dollars in to be one of the owners and you

00:34:38.840 can't sell beer at the games because that wasn't allowed back then no that that's correct and it went

00:34:44.940 on for about uh four or five years um that no beer could be uh uh used at the stadium at all

00:34:52.480 uh but labats and their ownership at that time you have to congratulate all those people at the time

00:35:00.120 they deserve a big uh big salute um and they're still very much tied to the blue jays now yeah the the

00:35:08.940 the the fact is is that uh people remember remember that but at the time we were raising money we we said

00:35:17.020 to most of the uh corporations they're going to be one of a kind and it seemed that uh when labats

00:35:24.740 moved in molson's complained hey we want to be there as well we don't because they knew eventually beer

00:35:32.460 would be served there and it took us a few years and i had a knock on the doors of the commissioner

00:35:39.160 again and uh buoy coon was the most helpful guy once the doors were open and uh we ended up with 0.88

00:35:47.540 three three the three breweries uh on there and uh it it really caught on like fire and i if somebody

00:35:57.820 would have told me in 1967 that i would be a involved in bringing a major league baseball team

00:36:07.400 i'd be involved in getting a stadium built like that i would have said that that's a dream that's

00:36:14.180 can only come true in the movies and that happened and then you got hired away

00:36:20.920 i believe it was doug creighton from the sun went to you correct that is right after

00:36:27.240 after after being uh doing and completing what i was able to do uh i was a big fan of the toronto

00:36:36.900 sun um and um um when he when he phoned me and said like to have lunch with you and he said how

00:36:45.000 would you like to be the publisher of the toronto sun and i said doug i said i want to tell you

00:36:51.380 something i don't know a lot about the newspaper business and he said to me you didn't know a lot

00:36:55.980 about baseball either but you somehow took that job and that thing was consistent

00:37:05.340 after a time when i went and joined ted rogers and he wanted me to be involved involved in in in his

00:37:14.900 company and i said the same i have no experience he says don't give me this no experience thing

00:37:20.920 he says you had no experience when you took over the city of toronto he says and i want you to come

00:37:28.180 and join me well you've told me before that um you you were at the sun when uh rogers ended up being

00:37:37.360 the owner and rogers of course now owns the the blue jays they're about to own all the other sports

00:37:43.580 teams uh ted rogers son ed running the show now but you said that you've told me that ted rogers was

00:37:51.340 the smartest person you ever worked for and very demanding and and i believe it was the sun was

00:37:58.440 always uh buy it at the subway buy it at the corner store buy it in the newspaper box it wasn't home

00:38:03.860 delivery and he comes to you one day and says i want home delivery and it's going to start uh i forget

00:38:09.360 the timeline you gave me but it was pretty quick a week later a week later yeah well the sun sold

00:38:16.300 their box uh their their newspapers at the boxes we'd go along the street you'd throw in your 25 cents

00:38:23.120 or 50 cents at the time and and take a newspaper and we knew that certain people took the newspaper

00:38:29.120 and didn't deliver anything financially um but doug said look we we got such a good opportunity to make

00:38:38.100 money if if we deliver it every day and i try to convince doug at the time that that that was very

00:38:46.840 expensive and we wouldn't make money and he says don't tell me how to make money he says i've made a

00:38:52.240 lot of money over the years and he says this is ted rogers ted rogers telling me and he says you

00:38:58.120 deliver those papers you got two weeks to get it done and i said ted ted please i tell you

00:39:05.620 you'll fire me if i go ahead with it for not being able to convince you doing it i said give me two

00:39:12.840 weeks i'll write the report we'll get the financial people involved in it and i sent it to him and to

00:39:20.680 this day i never got a reply so he must have thought it was and i gotta tell you um he was a brilliant guy

00:39:28.800 and he was a good guy to work with he had a bad temper but i gotta tell you he had great respect

00:39:35.100 from me and for the people that worked for him because he was strong in his views he stuck as

00:39:43.460 sort of that and he most of the time he had a home run and delivering papers to people at home

00:39:50.320 was not a home run to him and he was always a great guy that would never um disallow you

00:39:59.620 to try and change his mind uh i mean back then newspapers uh made money hand over fist i remember

00:40:07.300 going into the old offices at 333 cane east for the sun and there was this

00:40:13.560 this big leather couch and a couple of matching chairs and when you sat on them it smelled of cigars

00:40:21.900 and and i said to the guy whose office i was in i said how old are these couches where'd they come

00:40:27.800 from and the story that he told me was that creighton back in the 80s was down in washington

00:40:34.200 and he drops by someone who has this couch it was the ambassador at the canadian embassy and he said

00:40:42.280 well where'd you get that he said oh i got it at this shop before he flies out he drops into the

00:40:47.360 shop orders this couch set to be delivered to toronto for forty thousand dollars u.s at the time

00:40:54.080 that's they they couldn't spend the money fast enough back in the day and so even though creighton's long

00:41:00.140 gone and the regime changed multiple times no one wanted to get rid of this couch because it was so

00:41:05.320 expensive and it still smelled of cigars because back then there was a lot of smoking going on in those

00:41:11.200 offices oh there's no doubt about that and i gotta tell you another reason why they didn't want to

00:41:16.280 get rid of that that was ted's gift wow and and and i gotta tell you that uh uh i i did have face-to-face

00:41:29.160 differences with with with ted and there were times i went home and i would say to my wife

00:41:35.480 i'm not sure i'm going to have a job tomorrow morning and and because we would have you know

00:41:42.260 face-to-face arguments and the next morning the phone would ring and my assistant mr rogers is on

00:41:48.900 the phone i said oh here it comes here it really comes and i'd say good morning ted how are you today

00:41:55.780 he says paul wasn't that a great meeting we had yesterday i sort of took a look at the phone and said

00:42:03.760 was i had the same meeting as ted but he was like that he would challenge he would really challenge

00:42:10.980 what you were doing and he respected you if you had to put it quite openly you had the balls to stand up

00:42:18.360 to him and i i respected him um unfortunately i watched him pass away uh uh and i knew it was

00:42:27.320 he's december several years ago um and he was a difficult guy to work for but a great leader

00:42:36.220 you um as we said at the beginning you've uh you you're leaving uh post media in any official

00:42:44.940 capacity but you're not retiring because well guys like you guys like me like what's retirement

00:42:51.620 you got to keep moving and uh you're gonna you're staying busy you've moved into a new office tell us

00:42:58.520 what you're what you're up to now well you know first of all i've got a great interest in what's

00:43:04.160 happening in the city of toronto and i'm um i'll tell you in a moment exactly what i'm doing now but

00:43:09.720 um i am very troubled by what toronto is going through um i think um uh toronto is a city

00:43:19.200 in decay right now and i hate to say absolutely i really hate to say that because the city that

00:43:27.020 i was involved in and helped build was one that had police police force that we had safety attached

00:43:36.180 to it um city hall had positive things not you know uh bike rate of bike lanes in the in the whole

00:43:44.500 city killing killing killing it the ability to get around having to get calls from guests that

00:43:50.960 come to toronto say what the heck is happening to toronto hi it is it is tear-jerking to be quite

00:43:59.020 honest yeah and people are going to get shocked in toronto when they find out how many people are in

00:44:05.120 the right the the area of moving to the u.s having their kids go to school in the u.s crime that takes

00:44:14.000 place in our in our city we don't have enough police for it so that i i i i have traveled the

00:44:20.680 world this last year i've been to uh glasgow in edinburgh uh chicago la uh palm springs tampa phoenix

00:44:30.460 tel aviv jerusalem none of these cities are as dirty and messed up as toronto and none of them smell

00:44:37.840 like pot constantly we now have a dirty dysfunctional city that reeks of pot no that is absolutely true

00:44:45.820 and you know to hear people and the fear of crime i can't tell you how many days a week that i get

00:44:54.740 stopped when i'm out walking my dog either early in the morning or late at night that people say

00:45:01.000 why don't you go back and think of this politics i said well first of all little age problems in the

00:45:07.060 way of that however there is no doubt there's great fear in the minds of people this is the

00:45:14.140 administration at city hall you know led by the mayor is are not doing the job that the people expect

00:45:22.240 no definitely not now with respect to what i'm doing um uh now is um i'm uh actually i'm i'm working

00:45:31.480 for my son which which is um uh he has uh operates a company called keel um it he's very involved

00:45:42.200 in uh looking after the um um kids that go to school in uh colleges and university he's uh

00:45:52.180 picked up uh training in uh artificial intelligence and um they've done such a superb job in looking

00:46:01.320 after the kids that had covid problems um and have missed two years of their life and he has through

00:46:09.960 him hiring the right type of people they've gone through great project in helping these young people

00:46:19.100 he's also doing uh similar work with uh police officers uh when a police officer uh gets hurt a lot of them

00:46:28.360 won't admit that they're hurt because they need their jobs and and things like that and he's doing the

00:46:34.640 same thing um in with uh keel and i'm beginning to pick up small bits and pieces of it um and help

00:46:45.080 uh open doors for him because uh of my uh profile in toronto throughout the years well as uh i i knew

00:46:55.660 that you wouldn't be uh just sitting back and resting uh you've had an incredible career so far and i'm

00:47:00.580 sure it's just going to continue paul thanks so much for the time today delighted to be with you thank

00:47:05.240 you the full comment is a post media podcast my name is brian lily your host this episode was

00:47:10.520 produced by andre prue theme music by bryce hall kevin liban is the executive producer you can

00:47:15.840 subscribe to full comment on apple podcasts spotify youtube podcasts now wherever you get your podcast

00:47:22.140 hit subscribe leave a review give us a rating and tell your friends about us thanks so much for

00:47:26.740 listening until next time i'm brian lily

00:47:28.860 you

00:47:29.840 you

00:47:30.480 you

00:47:31.480 you

00:47:31.660 you

00:47:32.580 you

00:47:33.800 you

00:47:35.800 you

00:47:38.880 you

00:47:38.900 you

00:47:39.980 you

00:47:42.520 you

00:47:43.960 you

00:47:44.240 you

00:47:46.340 you

00:47:48.400 you

Full Comment - January 13, 2025

Paul Godfrey wants to make Toronto pretty good again

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript