Paul Godfrey wants to make Toronto pretty good again
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Summary
In my line of work, I meet a lot of interesting people who have had fascinating careers. Few are quite as fascinating as our guest today, Paul Godfrey, who is stepping down as the CEO of Postmedia, the company that owns the Toronto Sun, the national post-dailies and regionals and weeklies across the country.
Transcript
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in my line of work i meet a lot of interesting people who have had fascinating careers few
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perhaps quite as fascinating as our guest today hello welcome to the full comment podcast my name
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is brian lily your host and if you don't know full comment is part of post media post media owns the
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toronto sun the national post dailies and regionals and weeklies across the country and we've got a
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it's not really a retrospective because he's not retiring but he is leaving an official role with
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the company paul godfrey was the ceo and founder of post media for many years then he was chair of the
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board and now he is just off on his own as a private citizen doing his own thing we'll hear a bit about
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that but paul i wanted to take time and chat with you because you and i have chats at the office in
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the background when we see each other at social events and i think you've had a fascinating career
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i think you're a fascinating guy but you're not in the media too often so people don't get to hear
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about it so this is why i thought let's for the end of the year as you're officially leaving post
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media in an official capacity let's let's sit down and have a chat absolutely so before we uh get into
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you know way back in time uh let's talk about the founding of post media because um you are you've had
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a career in politics you've had a career in in business you helped bring the blue jays to toronto
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back in the 1970s all these things but just other than a time where you ran the sun and sun media
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you weren't really a media guy and then you you did that for a while for rogers and then you show
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up and you you create a brand new media company how did you put together and and tell me about the
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the starting of of post media taking all these different outlets putting them together distressed
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assets and founding a new company that well let's face it a lot of people read and a lot of people
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love to hate there's no doubt about that well if people aren't hating you you're probably boring
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i i felt i felt the arrows so tell me about the the start of that and pulling this all together
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well it seemed that um there was an opportunity to uh put a group together a group of uh newspapers
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across the country and uh you may remember that uh that the uh a number of the uh organizations
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were were held by uh families in the west the uh mostly in manitoba and uh it seemed that uh they
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wanted to uh get out of the newspaper business and uh do other things and it felt like a good opportunity
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for us to sort of uh put them all together and knit them all uh the edmonton uh area the calgary
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uh ones in the british columbia um and it seemed like a natural fit and uh we decided to uh visit all
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the uh areas speak to the uh of the communities uh in those areas and uh tell them that uh we're going
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to build something called uh post media and uh it seemed it seemed to work and in the year 2010 we
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really had it all to uh together there was ups and downs and trying to put it together there was
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disputes uh we had a deal with uh a lot of the uh people that uh had some concern about uh will this
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be giving uh toronto uh too much power and the rest of the city and uh i tried to tell them that a lot
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of the news uh that is covered in all those cities uh the generated was all generated in toronto to
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begin with so we we were uh we were able to get it together and uh i think uh 2010 uh we created uh
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post media i felt that that was um uh one of my uh victories in the in the newspaper era and uh we
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were quite proud and i think today well when you look back over your shoulder and uh see what what
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happened i think the columnists that we have you and others that uh helped make post media the great
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success uh right now things have changed dramatically uh in all newspapers and uh you um you have to be
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very careful uh on how the future is going to look like well it's going to say i mean the media
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landscape has changed tremendously uh from 2010 uh would you do it all again if you had to do it
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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
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but the company's in in good hands and and in a good position now our detractors would like to say
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otherwise but you know it's uh um we're not going out of business anytime but it is a very different
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landscape than it was when you started this there is no doubt about that uh since 2010 uh google and
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facebook and others came in to be major competitors there's no doubt trying to hide that
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because a lot of people went to the digital world and exist things in the digital world exist today
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and uh it's taken a lot of business away from uh the newspaper uh business um i think that uh you
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got to look back to 2010 or even the year before that and 80 percent of their revenues came from
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advertising advertising in new and into on newsprint since that the old dead tree edition that's right and
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since that time things have shrunk to a an unbelievable level and a lot of a lot of those
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uh newspapers are uh gone or on are on a slippery slope at the present time and i don't think there's
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any way of hiding that well i mean to give people an idea of how things changed when the toronto sun
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and uh the sun by the way has always for a long time been bigger than just the toronto sun you've got the
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the papers in calgary edmonton winnipeg uh ottawa but also all the old osprey papers the london free
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press the kingston wick standard that was all part of the sun and in the late 90s the sun got sold
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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
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okay by by the sun uh i had the pleasure of dealing with pure carol pelado so that pelado buys
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the sun to stop a a takeover from the toronto star pelado pays about a billion dollars or just
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over a billion dollars when post media buys the sun and all those other papers basically pelado's
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english media empire in 2015 the price was 300 million that is correct i mean we bought our paper
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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
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and and um and basically they got tired of it and we bought it back a very great dollar at the time
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let's talk about how um one of the criticisms that i've heard more um in my days with quebec or in
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uh helping run the ottawa bureau up there uh you would hear from people and say well there's too
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much media concentration and we used to have a local paper that was all local and it would be doing
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great if these guys hadn't bought it without the consolidation i would say and that the argument i made
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to them back at the time for the a lot of the smaller regional dailies was if it wasn't for the
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consolidation you wouldn't have a newspaper in your town of 20 000 there's no doubt about that there was
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a slippery slope it started we have to reckon we had to recognize that newspapers were in trouble
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and that's why some of them did disappear and some of them were merged with others to make sure that they
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had uh an opportunity to get their community covered with news and our responsibility was to
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spread that news that took place whether it was in montreal or toronto or ottawa uh or their communities
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and uh there was a big story that took place in calgary or edmonton or vancouver we ran that across
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the country because that was essential that was news and a lot of people recognize that uh even though
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they won't admit that the big news uh starts in toronto uh that that's reality well it is and and
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also um you know if you're if you're getting the product uh from uh of what happens in toronto or
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montreal or vancouver sent to your local paper then you can focus on local and you know i would argue that
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we've done that successfully uh under both iterations of the company that i've worked for
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uh because otherwise these these papers would long be gone do you have a view as you leave the media
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world of of where things are going obviously it's digital digital digital but um do you see
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things changing or how do you see things changing in the coming years well i think like everything else
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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
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but i still think that um there is uh room for major stories uh international stories i think for
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instance the toronto sun and the national post are two of the uh major uh operations that cover
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really cover north america for us and um you have to be proud and i think that uh from um from an
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interest point of view i think the national post is the most sought upon sought out paper in canada
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today we break stories all over the sun breaks stories and i think the fact that they both operate uh
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in in the same building and sure lots of news comes in in days like uh today from ottawa because
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things are you can bet that everybody's reading news about ottawa all over canada and probably many
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much of the world well i would uh would definitely argue that we've got uh the strongest stable of
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columnists and the most interesting columnists uh uh within the company let's um
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let's talk about your career though because you didn't start out as a business guy um you were
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you were a good boy who decided that he had to go get a degree and something that you've never
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practiced so how did a guy who started out studying chemical engineering at it was u of t wasn't it yes it
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was okay so how does a how does a good jewish kid from toronto who starts out studying chemical
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engineering end up um becoming a politician uh a baseball commissioner and uh and then eventually
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a media magnet well that's that's uh quite interesting i i should and i openly admit a lot
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of people say why do you tell people that you weren't a good student in school i said because i wasn't
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a good student in school and i wasn't going to make up things about it that uh gave me i i struggled
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through school um i i think i probably started school um several months before i should have
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started school and it slowed down my growth and as time went on i began to worry i said what am i
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really going to do in life and i used to wander around university of toronto uh figuring out geez what
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what am i going to ever take and it seemed that the best place for me was to take a to get a degree
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in chemical engineering because chemistry seemed to be the best of some bad products that uh i uh i was
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studying was it kind of like the graduate where somebody just took you aside and said plastics boy
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plastics that's the future that's pretty well thingy that seems to be the easiest one to get into
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and be at the but at the end of it i remember uh sitting around uh writing my final exam
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and gazing into the future and one of the supervisors asked me are you okay are you having
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trouble with the exam i says no somehow i worked my way through it but i'm really not sure i want to
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be a chemical engineer and that was after four years last and i think i shocked a lot of people at the
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time i i for years afterwards i came back to speak to uh students who were going to take
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chemical engineering and i told them what i was going through and um the i think the best thing that
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ever happened to me was um having a a mother that um was interested in local politics and i even said
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i said you know mom i know you helped me through school and being an engineer but i don't think i'm
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going to last that way so we my family switched gears i got the opportunity of having a mother who
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knew how to run a political campaign and i got elected for my first shot how old were you 25 25 okay
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so that's it's just a bit older than pierre polyev the conservative leader when he got elected when i
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first met he was 24 uh just out of school and and somehow was i a little nervous yes i had to stand
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up and give speeches as a guy that had a little confidence in themselves at the time that was tough
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to believe paul and well you know what it's it's an app people have asked me to write books about that
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and i said you know what at one time i will write a book but right now too many of those people are still
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alive and so what what did you get elected to uh at age 25 uh i got elected to the north york council
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and to one of the local wards in the uh in the uh bathurst uh wilson area and uh i sort of uh after
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spending about uh two months there i'd be sort of got a lot more confidence of dealing with people that
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were significantly older than i was and um i sort of became north york's angry young man at a very
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young age and um i was i was very fortunate um i i got so this is pre-amalgamation toronto by decades
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way pre what what year is this uh that would be 1965 66 okay so you get elected to to north york council
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you are the the angry young man for the area uh i remember when i was that age and i'd be going into
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meetings with people and they would look at me and and you know they'd be kind of dismissive because
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you're so young and i remember i was in a meeting with my boss we're doing a presentation somewhere
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and they said oh it's so nice that you hire such young people and i thought okay i'm growing a beard
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did you do anything like that to look older because once i grew the beard nobody commented on my age in
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meetings oh i i was um i became the chairman of metropolitan toronto when i was 34 years of age which was
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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
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and i be though i became outspoken and i you know took on the things that maybe i shouldn't have taken on
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so well let's remind people what uh metro uh toronto council was because it's it's been several
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decades since it was around um correct so you were first elected to north york council and back then
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the city was not amalgamated and so there was this regional government on top it was like a
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a super council above all the local councils right that is correct there was so how how did you go from
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bathurst and seals guy to chair of metro council well you know what um i it was kind of a lucky
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situation being in the right spot at the right time uh one of the um one of the counselors
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unfortunately passed away uh on a heart attack and i was chosen by the rest of the council to move
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into that position which gave me a position on the uh upper upper level so so you became both a local
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counselor and a regional counselor that's right at the same time which still happens in places that
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have that form of government that that is correct and um uh i then um became um um very involved in
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major issues affecting the city of toronto and uh when um ab campbell who was the chairman of metro
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toronto um unfortunately passed away um i decided this was an opportunity to uh to try and do it all
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and i was fortunate of winning uh there we there was uh 24 members of the council north york the city had
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12 of them and the rest of the municipalities that made it had one each and i was able to convince them
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to give me a shot at running the major uh operation of toronto and i was 34 at the time and um i know
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that was kind of young um but um everything seemed to fall the right way for for me i
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34 and and running what was effectively back then the mega city that's that is pretty impressive um
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it was a lot of fun things to do and toronto was growing by leaps and bounds at the time this and
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the city was changing rapidly so you're you're in there at the time when uh basically toronto was not
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canada's premier city at that time it was still montreal but that is true the the whole separatist
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movement was taking off uh and you know that's uh it it is before my time but i'm old enough to to
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remember uh growing up down the road in hamilton you had all these areas that grew dramatically as
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people especially the english community fled quebec fled montreal and burlington grew dramatically
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oakville but toronto did as well and became the hub what what was it like uh having all these
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companies like bank of montreal suddenly building first canadian place and and and you know having
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their name secretly changed to first canadian bank in case quebec separated things like that i mean
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what was it like uh running the city back then well you know what it was quite challenging because um
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everybody wanted to have a say in it and um and i think the fact is that the way the provincial
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government put uh toronto together um and uh said there's going to be uh one uh super mayor we're
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going to call him the chairman of metropolitan toronto and we're going to have uh six municipalities
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um it was start they started off at 12 and uh common sense said too many municipalities too many
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politicians too many delays and uh too much false spending and um when it became um uh closer to the
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time in the 1970s um uh the ab campbell who was the super mayor of the time uh called the chairman of
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metropolitan trauma unfortunately had cancer and uh he died after he served uh uh one uh one term
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and uh i was fortunate enough to be appointed by the colleagues you've got to remember i was not
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appointed by the public the counselors um that made up metro the the municipalities um gave me the
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opportunity did you ever get elected uh chair by the public or did they decide they'd had enough of
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you well i've to be quite honest here i've only had two um elections by the public and both of them
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were in north york and when i got when i got to metro and the um the province decided to uh uh go from
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big daddy gardner who the gardner expressway uh is still named after um and uh finally um when ab
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took over um as the chairman i became his successor afterwards and uh i had the the privilege
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of uh running toronto for 11 years and um it was great great fun i i i had a lot of people that
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were critic uh would criticize me of the things that i would do uh but uh i could always uh stand in
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front of them and basically defend what what i was trying to including trying to bring major league
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baseball to trauma okay well this is a good time to take a break and when we come back i want to hear
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about bringing the blue jays to toronto because it's quite the story paul godfrey with us here on
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responsibly it's tough to imagine toronto without the blue jays now or the raptors the leafs or any of
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these big sports teams that helped define the city in so many ways but they didn't always exist
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and paul godfrey you were there for bringing the blue jays to toronto montreal already had a team
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in the expos how did this come about was it an idea of the city was it an idea of the original owners
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labats you know take us through that the the founding of a major league baseball team well when i became
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chairman of metropolitan toronto uh the uh the expos did exist and uh jean drapeau and uh his his group
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there did a fabulous job and um in making montreal the dominant city in in the in canada and i figured
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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
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get a baseball team because um uh we both got hockey teams and uh and other teams will come
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will come forward and uh i started uh on my own volition to uh go to major league baseball meetings
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that the existing teams um met with once or twice a year and uh i went so you're just showing up at
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like the winter meetings in florida or something that's right i wasn't invited
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down i bought beer for some of the uh people who were uh hanging around the uh uh hotels and uh i
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remember uh saying to people like i said look my name is paul godfrey i represent toronto uh at that
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time i really didn't represent toronto i represented north york and um i um said look i want to get a
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major league baseball team and they said to me where are you where are you going to play and um
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i bumped into bowie coon who was the commissioner of baseball at the time and um we met uh and i went
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up to him and i said to him commissioner i said my name is paul godfrey i want to get a major league
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baseball team in toronto and he looked down and he was about six foot five i think at the time
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and i was felt quite a bit shorter than him and he said to me um well where are you going to play
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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
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stadium built and he put his hand on my shoulder and he said son let me tell you the way baseball
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works first you build the stadium and then come back and see me then we'll decide if toronto should
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get a team or not i said that was so deflating to me and there were a lot of people who are listening
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and watching i came back to toronto and i said to them look we've got to do something we we've got
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to build a better stadium than we have doesn't have to be the biggest day but we've got to have
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something which we can call home and um i what i got the municipal council metro uh to give me 15
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million dollars i went to see bill davis at queen's park and uh i knew that he he loved the expansion of
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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
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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
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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
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repay the loan therefore the people of of the province will have some guarantee so i took the
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the funny thing is nobody said it was going to be the metro signing or paul godfrey signing i just
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signed it and um lo and behold as time went on um um major league baseball said look we we should be
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expanding we should be taking on other other cities and we were lucky enough to be to to get us a seat
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but we had to make lots of commitments and um when i got inducted into the canadian baseball hall of fame
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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
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
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