Juno News - Doug Ford’s Ontario Is All Stunts, No Results

00:00:00.000 hi juno news alexander brown here back for another episode host of not sorry i'm the director of the

00:00:10.420 national citizens coalition i'm a writer communicator campaigner means a lot to have

00:00:14.540 you here and while you are here take advantage of our promo code juno news.com slash not sorry

00:00:19.900 for 20 off and i hope you're having a merry christmas even as ontario heads into the holiday

00:00:25.260 season and the ford progressive conservatives hand themselves a christmas break that ludicrously

00:00:30.460 extends into march there's never a dull moment in canada's pretend center of the universe

00:00:35.800 with its have-not economy once touted as the economic engine of canada where the trudeau

00:00:41.400 ford signed auto subsidies are failing at prodigious rates and where and i'm quoting our guest matt

00:00:47.680 spoke today who is a leading developer and the founder of project ontario that doug ford and

00:00:52.340 his ndp buddy olivia chow just approved a new tax on people's primary residence in toronto

00:00:57.200 this is a a poorly thought up point of friction and that it will only aid in a housing market squeeze

00:01:03.340 where a record surplus of assets are currently sitting unsold on the markets and where housing

00:01:08.880 starts are about to fall off a cliff unlike the province has ever seen before they're running a

00:01:15.440 provincial economy on mass immigration handouts and a real estate ponzi and and we're seeing that

00:01:20.020 that could only work for so long that the government was nowhere during the explosion and abuse of the

00:01:26.000 temporary foreign worker program in the foreign student stream during covid it purposely ignored

00:01:31.240 the diploma mills asylum fraud and illegal trucking yards for too long and and now that it's kind of

00:01:37.880 sort of getting its act together this this all still doesn't go far enough and these housing changes

00:01:43.100 aren't going to help ford previously blamed was previously blamed by carney for sabotaging trade

00:01:49.320 talks through this 75 million dollar ad that left many scratching their heads and i'm personally

00:01:56.760 wondering who may have gotten paid out through the party's myriad of conflicts of interest in making

00:02:00.680 that ad and now he's even proudly celebrating what he describes as the best ad of all time which

00:02:08.200 derailed those talks take a look is it your view that if premier ford had not launched that ad in

00:02:14.260 the united states that sectoral tariffs would be lower right now uh it was the case that we were close

00:02:20.940 to an agreement um we didn't get that that agreement number one that was the best ad that's ever been

00:02:26.800 run 12.4 billion views we wanted to bring it to the attention of the american people carney kind of made

00:02:32.400 face when you said it was the greatest ad ever it was um number one that was the best ad that

00:02:37.800 suffered been run 12.4 billion views we wanted to bring it to the attention of the american people

00:02:44.360 backing down are you putting your own interests ahead of people in the sector and in in what what sector

00:02:51.940 i i believe you you just can't roll you can't i'm in a different position i'm not speaking for the

00:02:57.440 prime minister yeah i think even conservatives can admit that carney was pretty relatable there

00:03:04.100 and that we share that eye roll ford has been back to his old pattern of bloviating he's also been

00:03:09.780 busy labeling the president of the united states as a tyrant which surely doesn't help matters

00:03:14.160 and picking fights with florida governor ron de santis there are those in the elbows up crowd who

00:03:19.760 are boycotting u.s travel at present it is down but florida is doing fine it continues to set its own

00:03:26.220 records and that ontario's premier has sought to score more cheap points with tough talk while he

00:03:33.000 holds zero leverage beyond the alcohol he's pulled from the shelves it betrays the continued

00:03:38.640 unseriousness and lack of urgency from canadian leaders and negotiators elections were run on being

00:03:45.300 the men who will immediately get deals done they haven't yet materialized and ford shows little

00:03:50.880 willingness to break a pattern of behavior that has left ontario sputtering and repeating the

00:03:56.020 mistakes of the win mcginty years and then some ford and carney even appear willing to scuttle trade

00:04:02.720 negotiations to protect supply management watch this clip what do you think of the series of conditions

00:04:09.060 that the u.s trade rep says canada has to meet in order to extend kuzma including bolstering market

00:04:15.900 access to u.s dairy we've been clear about our approach to supply management we continue to stand by

00:04:23.560 that we'll continue to protect supply management during the election on multiple occasions you

00:04:28.340 said that supply management will never be on the table in negotiations with donald trump is that

00:04:32.520 still your position and premier on that point are you concerned that saving supply management would

00:04:38.020 mean that sectors like the auto sector would be more negatively impacted in trade negotiations

00:04:42.400 not on the table like i'm unwavering i support our farmers i support supply management and you talk

00:04:58.620 about auto the food and agricultural sector is much larger in ontario than the automotive sector

00:05:05.780 for all the valid criticisms of u.s bully ball canada has very little to be proud of here we're

00:05:12.420 not leading with our best foot forward we're not utilizing our smartest minds or truly protecting our

00:05:17.280 workers and nor are we fixing our economy and returning it to something capable of real growth

00:05:22.840 and opportunity this liberal and liberal light status quo it continues to fail and nowhere more so

00:05:29.560 than in ontario let's talk to matt spoke founder of project ontario this assembly of conservatives

00:05:35.020 and conservative groups who have been a thorn in the side of a government that's lost its way

00:05:39.400 and first a word from our sponsor i want to give a quick word from our sponsor albertans against

00:05:45.320 no fault insurance so did you know the alberta government is overhauling its auto insurance

00:05:50.200 system under a new model called care first coming to effect in 2027 most albertans injured in car

00:05:55.080 accidents will no longer be able to sue the at-fault driver instead decisions about your care and

00:05:59.820 compensation will be made by the insurance company not your doctor not the courts critics say this

00:06:04.520 system puts insurance companies first and removes key rights from victims and their families

00:06:09.680 matt spoke joins us matt is one of the co-founders of project ontario is a housing developer a great

00:06:15.900 common sense commentator works with canada strong and free matt thanks for coming back on thanks alex

00:06:21.540 always fun matt uh before you and i hopped on this call well we had the the fortune or misfortune

00:06:28.140 of watching a video from a press conference today where doug ford just celebrated

00:06:32.400 what he describes as the best ad ever the the ad that derailed trade talks that cost 75 million

00:06:38.620 dollars where where is this bluster getting us uh where is the bluster getting the province of ontario

00:06:44.480 what do you make of of these apparent stunts and and this sort of continued behavior set

00:06:50.280 i mean i think what we've learned with doug ford is that his decisions tend to be optimized towards

00:06:58.840 what is best for my personal popularity and he's definitely been riding this brand of captain

00:07:04.020 canada or at least the sort of perceived brand that he he thinks he has um to an extreme i mean i don't

00:07:09.600 think i don't think the the calculus is is this going to improve trade talks with the u.s i think the

00:07:15.880 calculus is is this going to make me look like a stronger leader is this going to make me more popular

00:07:21.020 within that sort of uh you know definitely older voter base that is very very irritated by the trump

00:07:27.640 situation right now and so i think these decisions are being made for very selfish reasons i think you

00:07:32.500 know probably there was some very strong advice at the time that this was not going to help and

00:07:37.060 probably would hinder the process of trade talks but there was probably some other political advice

00:07:41.220 that said but in the in that process you'll look like a fighter you'll look like you're standing up

00:07:45.120 for the people of ontario and my sense is when you're given those two options and you're doug ford

00:07:49.020 you choose the option that is in your interest not the option that is in the best interest of the

00:07:53.500 province yeah and we can say see the same with a few days ago his comments to ron desantis the this

00:08:01.020 picking a fight with florida where uh many many many ontarians snowbirds spend their holidays and doug's

00:08:08.500 you know claiming some moral high ground well i'm not going this year and so you know maybe you folks

00:08:13.880 shouldn't go down to see this tyrant and and florida's hurting and it's like florida's not hurting like

00:08:18.220 florida florida tourism is doing great american tourism from canada is down but it's it's like

00:08:24.420 the sound bites the point it's this great win for the domestic base maybe the domestic base

00:08:28.740 that is going to snowbird elsewhere this year but can't afford to do so and everyone else is just

00:08:34.040 sitting there going like well now you've made trade talks even more difficult another thing that you

00:08:38.900 wanted to like that i saw that you highlight recently is that the ford government has seemingly

00:08:45.320 given permission to toronto yeah for a new land transfer tax and and their argument is or the

00:08:52.180 argument that's being presented that this is no big deal is because it's on homes over three million

00:08:56.000 dollars but how might that exacerbate this this sort of all canada leading housing crisis in ontario

00:09:03.680 i think what people don't fully appreciate is that one of the most significant impacts to housing prices

00:09:09.920 is the lack of mobility that people have within the housing market and one of the things that slows down

00:09:15.160 housing mobility is the very expensive cost of transacting a home so let's say you sell a house

00:09:21.160 and you buy a house at the exact same price you know by some logic you should come out on the other end

00:09:26.180 having not lost any money i sell a million dollar house i buy a million dollar house i'm in the same

00:09:30.360 position i was when i started but in reality you're going to lose something like 150 to 200 000

00:09:35.040 dollars in the process of transacting that home because of things like that land transfer taxes and

00:09:39.400 realtor fees and legal costs and other things of that nature i mean i've been a very like vocal

00:09:44.260 uh advocate against the land transfer tax period i think it's a very unethical tax i think we you know

00:09:49.960 our provincial and federal leaders like to take pride in the fact that we do not uh tax primary

00:09:55.680 residences with capital gains taxes which has been like a long-standing canadian policy but in parallel

00:10:01.640 to that we apply this relatively expensive land transfer tax toronto is the only city in the

00:10:06.900 country that on top of a provincial land transfer tax levies its own municipal land transfer tax and

00:10:12.620 people need to remember that at least when you pay a capital gains tax it's implied that you're only

00:10:17.580 paying it if you made money if you bought a house for less money than you sold it for a land transfer

00:10:22.300 tax does not care if you made money lost money or any other situation you pay that tax because it is a

00:10:27.700 transaction tax like a gst or an hst might apply to a transaction and so you know the fact that it's

00:10:33.300 applied on three million dollar homes or more obviously that's a politically sellable way to

00:10:38.200 frame it because nobody feels all that bad for rich people quote unquote but you have to bear in mind

00:10:42.760 that a lot of people in today's housing market uh bought a house two three four years ago at price

00:10:48.340 prices higher than today it's very possible that i bought a house three and a half million years ago

00:10:53.300 uh sorry two two years ago for three and a half million dollars um that you know boohoo poor me

00:10:58.460 i'm a rich guy but today my house is only worth three million dollars so in fact i've lost five

00:11:02.820 hundred thousand dollars and i might even have a three million dollar mortgage on that house i might

00:11:07.040 have zero dollars of equity in my house and i'm now being forced to pay an additional land transfer

00:11:11.900 tax this is going to have the opposite effect on our land market and our housing market uh and it's

00:11:17.120 cheap politics and although it's olivia chow's policy uh doug ford has effectively enabled it he was asked

00:11:21.860 about it recently in a press conference he is not going to get in the way of the city of toronto

00:11:25.460 doing this so yeah it strikes me that friction of any kind right now is not what you want that's not

00:11:31.600 going to incentivize any movement in a sector where there is barely movement where we're seeing these

00:11:36.700 these one bedroom sort of dog crate condos aren't moving like we're building all these people need to

00:11:42.120 remember that like the housing market is sort of like a ladder you know people might come in at the

00:11:45.760 bottom of that ladder and i can only afford a small home or a small apartment or a small condo

00:11:49.900 but in order for me to afford that home somebody has to be selling and often the person selling is

00:11:54.480 moving into something slightly more expensive and that person's moving into something slightly

00:11:57.860 more expensive and so obviously three million dollar homes are not accessible to everybody

00:12:01.500 but you need the upper end of the market to be willing to move so that the mid part of the market can

00:12:06.700 move so that the lower part of the market can get access to housing right so these things are all

00:12:10.780 connected and so so how it go ahead no so how is this approach to to these land transfer taxes like how is it

00:12:18.660 contributing to the broader struggles with housing affordability here like with because we see you

00:12:24.500 know we see like rising vacancy rates we we've obviously been building purpose-built rentals which

00:12:29.200 is great i know that you're involved in purpose-built rental projects and the one on geary looks really

00:12:33.340 cool i i lived around the corner there when i was in toronto i i would have signed up to to for a

00:12:38.440 two-bedroom there but are we like is this systemic issue here like are we just bottlenecking it like is it

00:12:45.480 where are the off-ramps where where are the how are we relieving pressure here are we just piling

00:12:51.060 more like onerous decisions on top of one another and and we're just going to have this market that

00:12:56.040 doesn't move yeah i mean it's definitely the latter i mean like you know even the instinct of the city

00:13:01.400 of toronto to add a tax in a sit in a in a market where housing and affordability is top of mind for

00:13:07.000 everybody uh it seems like there's a giant disconnect between the things that are slowing down the housing

00:13:12.280 market and the solutions that are that our politicians are pushing forward um you know the

00:13:16.460 re the reality is that today 30 to 35 percent of the cost of a new home in canada comes from the

00:13:21.560 government in some form of tax charge or levy and so you know adding taxes into that equation in any

00:13:26.900 part of the housing market adds to the average overall cost of delivering housing i mean right now

00:13:32.180 you mentioned that the market is delivering a lot of purpose rental i don't think that's a bad thing i

00:13:36.280 think what's bad is that the government sort of like tips their hat one direction or the other you

00:13:41.020 should really allow the market to decide how much for sale housing do we need how much rental housing

00:13:45.320 do we need because we do need both people come into the market at 22 years old they're more likely

00:13:49.540 to be renters than homeowners at that stage and they need to graduate to the next level of housing and

00:13:53.440 you need to have options at every price level and in both tenures rental and for sale yeah i'm in

00:14:00.240 vancouver at present and and they've done a really good job on the purpose-built rental market i'm in one

00:14:05.600 but it's you know where's the where's the next step like we're sitting around going like okay it's time

00:14:11.340 for us to graduate like let's climb up this ladder but like there's nowhere to climb there is this

00:14:15.640 there's this massive gap here on the leadership front matt that you tweeted um

00:14:21.180 following those terrible attacks in australia that i share your sentiments that you know any country whose

00:14:28.680 leaders are too cowardly to face the reality of growing anti-semitism on our streets this is this is a

00:14:34.160 terrible problem shame on our leaders who stand by and simply repeat platitudes rather than acting

00:14:39.340 to protect our jewish neighbors we can all see ontario's abdication here we we can all see the

00:14:46.880 the weekend protests the the protests of of hanukkah celebrations what more do you want to see as the

00:14:54.520 co-founder of project ontario what more do you want to see uh from the ford government from municipal

00:14:59.840 leaders on on taking charge of this this increasingly dire situation i mean it's become way too easy

00:15:08.720 to say all the right things after a terrible situation happens and obviously what happened

00:15:13.840 in bondi beach in australia is you know an extreme example of that but we've seen significantly less

00:15:20.240 extreme examples but still terrible in our own cities in toronto we've seen synagogues and jewish schools

00:15:26.160 shot at fire bombed we've seen intimidation in jewish neighborhoods and a lot of this stuff is

00:15:31.580 toned from the top i mean our police are telling us that they don't feel empowered to enforce the laws

00:15:37.400 that exist in this country there are laws in this country uh around hate crime hate speech and

00:15:43.120 intimidation and harassment that are being selectively not enforced and that tone is being shared across both

00:15:48.940 the federal and provincial government i mean obviously these politicians are the first to release a public

00:15:53.400 statement after a after a disaster like what happened in australia but if you follow through

00:15:57.720 and you you look into the actions that this government is taking it's really all vapid i mean

00:16:02.040 there's nothing being done of substance to indicate that we care about the safety of our jewish neighbors

00:16:08.200 our jewish neighborhoods uh jewish canadians in general i mean i heard an anecdote of a jewish leader

00:16:14.600 here in toronto who sat down with a politician who said hey i'm really i'm really really pro for the

00:16:19.960 jewish community i really just need you guys to come out against the state of israel and then you've

00:16:24.040 got my support you know and i think people lose track of this the fact that anti-semitism anti-zionism

00:16:30.680 anti-israel these things are so closely linked in the minds of people that are marching in the streets

00:16:36.840 and intimidating these these part these citizens of our country that it's almost impossible to pull

00:16:41.560 these things apart like naturally there's always grounds to criticize a democratically elected government

00:16:46.760 but when when you see it being borne out in our streets the way we have these pro-palestinian

00:16:51.560 anti-israel anti-semitic uh protests that have that have taken over our neighborhoods uh it's it's no

00:16:57.800 surprise to see a country as similar to canada as australia end up in the situation that they have and we

00:17:03.560 know that there have been attempted attacks like that in canada that we are just lucky to have caught

00:17:08.280 before they occurred in as recent history as the last one to two years you know i don't want to be the

00:17:13.560 one who sort of professes uh that there is a dark future in front of us but we should not be

00:17:18.280 surprised if something like this happens in canada and it will be the fault of our political leaders

00:17:22.120 when it does happen it will be and i'd love to see some of that that good old-fashioned ford bluster

00:17:28.840 when uh that he throws at the us or he you know he pours out crown royal but like where where is like

00:17:36.120 a strong stance for for ontario's jewish community like what like i'm from toronto born and raised uh

00:17:43.240 in west now but synonymous with the history of that city is is forest hill and our in our great jewish

00:17:50.440 communities and to the north and and the the fact that they've been completely abandoned while we chase

00:17:57.480 votes or or favor or or union support certain unions who who have some dodgy ties it's been so

00:18:05.000 disappointing what is it it is exactly that i mean this is not just cynicism i think this is reality

00:18:09.560 that you see firsthand if you follow prudential politics in any detail is that there is an

00:18:15.080 electoral advantage to pandering on this issue to the wrong side of the debate uh there are writings

00:18:21.560 that are won and lost based on this issue alone there are unions to your point that are tied to the

00:18:26.280 right left-wing organizations that are won or lost on this issue alone and it is more politically

00:18:31.160 advantageous to say the right thing but do nothing uh to not risk votes than to actually follow through

00:18:37.880 i mean you know you mentioned that we're abandoning these jewish neighborhoods and our jewish our jewish

00:18:42.360 neighbors i will say that i've heard this anecdotally dozens of times talking to jewish canadians who

00:18:47.720 live in toronto they're all starting to look at their options of like are we even welcome in this

00:18:51.480 country should we be looking at a lot of looking at florida too yeah there's it's no i i don't know a few

00:18:58.280 families who don't have their eyes on real estate listings and now they might get hit with that

00:19:01.880 transfer tax it's it's no i wouldn't i wouldn't feel comfortable in a major canadian city right now i

00:19:07.240 i don't think many do for many reasons but it's we're lying to ourselves we think that's not a factor

00:19:14.280 we're dealing with the the usmca talks and blowback and and this continued trade spat right now and yet

00:19:21.080 we're still seemingly putting the dairy cartel first ford and carney it in quotes and clips are

00:19:27.240 defending supply management you've been a leading critic of matters of a centrally planned economy

00:19:33.160 in ontario of some of these subsidy rich non-competitive loss leaders for consumers and taxpayers

00:19:39.640 is this just another indicator of ontario seemingly you know having an unhealthy approach to

00:19:44.440 to managing or running an economy yeah i mean this needs to be said extremely explicitly

00:19:50.200 dairy quotas in in ontario and across the country are a massive reason that we are in this this

00:19:56.360 trade spat with the us and if we don't address that head on we have had cowardly leaders on this

00:20:01.640 both conservative and liberal dating back decades where nobody seems to be willing to take the risk

00:20:06.920 in a couple of ridings around the country particularly in quebec but also in ontario

00:20:11.960 that this issue needs to be revisited and we need to be willing not only because of our trade

00:20:16.760 discussions with the u.s but because that is just the right thing to do for the prosperity of

00:20:20.600 the country i mean you know who benefits from having more expensive dairy farmers

00:20:24.600 or dairy products only only farmers in a certain small number of ridings right at the end of the

00:20:28.920 day we see food price inflation at all-time highs and people are paying for things like milk cheese

00:20:34.760 butter uh at rates that are just too expensive compared to international standards we do this to

00:20:39.480 ourselves in many cases and it's often just politics there's no economic underlying rationale to

00:20:46.360 this policy but politics and votes in certain ridings across the province

00:20:50.120 yeah no it it sure is and so matt you've been you've been terrific on all these files you've

00:20:55.880 been terrific in your commentary thank you for joining us here today thanks a lot alex

Juno News - December 19, 2025

Doug Ford’s Ontario Is All Stunts, No Results

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