00:00:00.000Hey, Juno News. Welcome back to another episode of Not Sorry with Alexander Brown.
00:00:10.000I'm your host, Alexander Brown. I'm the director of the National Citizens Coalition.
00:00:14.000I am a writer, campaigner, sort of jack-of-all-trades communicator.
00:00:20.000Thrilled to have you back here, thrilled to be a part of this audience.
00:00:23.000If you have not taken advantage of our exclusive offer, go to junonews.com slash not sorry for 20% off.
00:00:29.000Should have appeared where I was pointing right there, the nice button for you.
00:00:33.000We are thrilled this week to have Matt Spoke of Project Ontario on the episode.
00:00:40.000Matt is a conservative thought leader, solving for the housing crisis.
00:00:44.000He's a developer and a serial entrepreneur, works with the Canada Strong and Free Network.
00:00:49.000And he is putting together a great movement and a great project to hold the Ford Conservatives to account,
00:00:56.000who have been, let's be honest, a disappointment to many.
00:01:00.000And Project Ontario, you know, points out that when Conservatives lose their principles, Ontario loses its way.
00:01:07.000Let's change course. Because if Ontario were an American state, it would rank as the third poorest.
00:01:12.000Ontario's GDP per capita now trails every G7 country except Italy.
00:01:16.000And a decade of flat productivity growth ranks at last among Canada's provinces,
00:01:21.000routinely now seen as Canada's sort of sick man economically.
00:01:25.000So not getting much better. You know, Ford is, you know, a heck of a populist, but not always, you know, that the rubber doesn't often meet the road when it comes to policy results.
00:01:37.000He's great at being relatable. He's great at apologizing for mistakes.
00:01:42.000He's not so great at governing as a conservative, even as a centrist.
00:01:47.000There, there increasingly are very few principles there.
00:01:50.000And that's disappointing because there are great people in that building.
00:01:55.000I believe Chris Sims pointed this out well today, who does, who does great work with Juno as well.
00:01:59.000She's with the CTF that it's like, Doug loves like a, a sort of scarecrow.
00:02:04.000Like he's always good at blaming Trump or, or leaning on the bank of Canada or, or, or, or, you know, blaming somebody else when, you know, we still see that Ontario is like the largest subsovereign debt.
00:02:16.000Um, when that cozy relationship with Carney has, has yet to bear fruit where youth unemployment is just soaring to, to record highs, you know, housing isn't getting better.
00:02:36.000And so there are some really important issues to talk about and to, to hold the Ford government to account, to hold, you know, so-called conservatives to account, because I think ordinary families deserve better.
00:02:48.000I think, you know, this government should stop being some market tested exercise to always be at 50% in the polls.
00:02:55.000You could be at 40% in the polls and still do good work and still not lose a bunch of these Ontario liberal voters and, you know, make Ontario's towns more cohesive and its economy more productive because it is not.
00:04:11.000And so I should, I should have matched you today, but anyways, it's going to be on.
00:04:15.000Um, yeah, I mean the, the, the backstory behind project Ontario is, is pretty brief.
00:04:20.000Um, you, you mentioned, um, I'm involved, um, politically in, in Canada, the Canada Strong and Free Network, which, you know, for the most part is a federally focused, um, networking organization of conservatives across the country.
00:04:35.000Uh, unaffiliated to the federal conservative party, but often sort of like right alongside the party in terms of like creating space for policy conversations.
00:04:45.000Um, shifting the Overton window if, if necessary to, to make mainstream ideas that we think should be sort of prioritized within the federal sort of arena.
00:04:56.000Um, and you know, the Canada Strong and Free Network has been around for a long time.
00:04:59.000I think coming up on 25 years, uh, originally started by Preston Manning, um, under the name of the Manning Foundation.
00:05:05.000Um, so I, I don't want to, I don't want to equate project Ontario to that.
00:05:09.000But one thing that I came to realize in my time focusing on federal politics is that, um, there was no equivalent at the provincial level.
00:05:17.000There was nobody outside of the mechanism of the PC party, um, coming up with policy ideas, holding, um, our party and our government to account if they were straying from a set of principles.
00:05:30.000Frankly, there was no clear definition of principles as to what it didn't mean to be a conservative in Ontario.
00:05:35.000Um, you know, I think for the, for the most part, we've always sort of relied on our political leaders to, to create that definition for us.
00:05:41.000And depending on the political leader and the, the, you know, the, the version of the party at any given point in time, um, that might look a little bit different, right?
00:05:49.000Like conservatism in Ontario under Bill Davis looked very different than under Mike Harris, and it looks very different under Doug Ford.
00:05:56.000Um, and I think, you know, myself, along with a few others, you included, who have, who have gotten involved, um, started realizing that there wasn't enough active conversation in Ontario around what should a conservative, you know, uh, quote unquote, small C, um, policy agenda looked like, uh, particularly after seeing a, you know, conservative government in office now for coming up on eight years.
00:06:22.000Right. So, you know, it was, it was both a, a, uh, uh, the result of frustration seeing just like, uh, not enough getting done.
00:06:31.000Um, if anything along the, you know, the path that we thought the government should be focused.
00:06:35.000Um, and also just a lack of creative policy thinking.
00:06:38.000I, I went, you know, for context last year, I'm a member of the PC party.
00:06:42.000I have been, you know, most of my adult life.
00:06:44.000I went last year to the PC policy convention thinking, you know, in good faith, I'm going to engage within the party apparatus to have policy conversations.
00:06:52.000And I realized pretty firsthand that what they call a policy convention is really nothing to do with policy.
00:06:58.000It's really them just parroting their, uh, their, their sort of like predefined talking points.
00:07:02.000There's no room for members of the party or members of the movement to propose or challenge or criticize.
00:07:08.000Um, and, and I think that, that is, you know, ultimately a weakness in the province of Ontario and within the PC party itself.
00:07:14.000Um, so project Ontario was sort of born out of that.
00:07:17.000And now there's a group of us, uh, putting ideas on paper and, and, and trying to use those to start conversations in or around government.
00:07:25.000And it, it certainly fills a need because I think these last few years I've heard from so many people in government behind the scenes who have been really frustrated, really frustrated by what they have seen as an abdication on principles.
00:07:38.000This is the same group that even through three consecutive majorities, um, you know, strong mandates, you know, kept Sir John a boarded up for, for years too long, never should have been boarded up at all.
00:07:50.000And, and it's finally sort of come to a head.
00:07:52.000It's come to a head that, that yeah, we're, if the concern remains among many is that it it's, you know, congratulations, you keep winning, but this is looking a whole lot like the group before you and the 14 years of winning McGinty before you.
00:08:07.000You know, that largest sub sovereign debt is, is still a thing.
00:08:11.000There's still a questionable delivery of services.
00:08:14.000I, I've been very outspoken about this.
00:08:16.000I think if I tried to have gone to that policy convention, I might've been, you know, the door might've been slammed in my face at this point.
00:08:24.000So I'm on my best behavior today, but I want to, when it comes to, what would you say to the argument?
00:08:32.000And this comes up a lot, you know, to me when I'm talking to people or when I'm talking about this project or holding the Ford conservatives to account for missing a few things.
00:08:43.000Um, but they win, Matt, they, they were like, you know, three, three consecutive, you know, strong majorities, you know, what's the, what's the counter to that?
00:08:55.000I mean, I think it's, it's a different, it's a different perspective on what is the role of politics.
00:09:01.000I mean, um, some view, and I think this is, this is natural.
00:09:06.000You, you get close to sort of the halls of power and you start to view that your purpose in government is to stay in government.
00:09:17.000It is to, is to always have an eye on the timeline to the next election.
00:09:21.000Um, and some view politics as a means towards reform, a means towards the implementation of ideas.
00:09:30.000Um, and I think you need to find a balance there because I don't want to be naive to think that only ideas and no recognition of the practicality of politics.
00:09:43.000Um, and, and the reality of, of sort of facing the electorate on some cycle is, is real and political parties need to position themselves in a way that increases their odds of getting elected.
00:09:55.000Um, but if, if in your time in office, you don't implement things that reflect your ideas, then it sort of brings into question, what's the point?
00:10:05.000What's the point of, of being in office?
00:10:08.000Um, and, and I, I, you know, I'll say one of my criticisms of this government has been a sense that they follow the polls as opposed to leading them.
00:10:19.000And what I mean by that is if you were to take, you know, public opinion polling, uh, on any major issue facing the province, whether it be healthcare or education or housing, or, you know, name your issue.
00:10:30.000Um, you'd probably find that the PC party is quite closely aligned to public opinion on major issues because they've, they've effectively crafted their political, um, their, their political strategy around just like being popular to the most number of people.
00:10:44.000Um, but I think, you know, a real leadership in politics is often, um, pulling people towards your ideas.
00:10:51.000So, you know, whether an idea is popular today or not, um, I think strong political leadership is making the case for an idea that may not be popular and popularizing it.
00:11:01.000So I think we saw this most recently, uh, in the lead up to the last federal election with Pierre Polyev.
00:11:05.000I think there's a lot of ideas that Pierre Polyev was talking about that would not have been consensus popular issues four years ago that became consensus popular issues in the process of talking about them and convincing people of the merits of these ideas.
00:11:18.000Um, we don't get that right now out of, out of our, out of our government in Ontario.
00:11:23.000So it tends to just be sort of like the tail wagging the dog for lack of a better term.
00:11:27.000And, and I think that leads to bad outcomes.
00:11:30.000I mean, it's, it's, I gonna reference an Eric Lombardi tweet from today where we even now have sort of small L liberals.
00:11:38.000Eric is like an urbanist and a planner and, and a bright young guy.
00:11:42.000Uh, I'm sure you guys have, have crossed paths where he's, it's even a small L liberal is asking for, uh, for tax cuts is asking a, a sort of a provincial conservative to get out of the way, which tells you that there has been, you know, something's gone awry here.
00:11:56.000Like I, that, that always looking for consensus that that's not leadership.
00:12:02.000Well, let alone Eric Lombardi, who, who I do know well, uh, Doug Ford was out this week telling Mark Carney that we're being taxed to death and the federal government should do something about it.
00:12:11.000As if he doesn't in his control, have some levers there that he can sort of, and, you know, he does this all the time when, when there's, when there's a problem facing the province, it's sort of like pointing the finger to the interest rates that the bank of Canada is setting or to some federal policy or something else other than looking at his own sort of set of policy instruments that he could, you know, use to, to make changes.
00:13:16.000I mean, what, what is like at the core of this issue is sort of the, this question of like jurisdiction, like whose problem is this to solve?
00:13:23.000And, and I think what's been convenient for politicians is that there's enough ambiguity that they can all point the finger to each other.
00:13:28.000Right. So if you're Olivia Chow in Toronto, you can point the finger to the province or the feds, if you're the feds, you can point the finger to the province or the cities and vice versa.
00:13:35.000Right. So, but the reality is that the majority of this issue sits within the authority of the provincial government.
00:13:42.000I mean, some of that has been delegated down to municipalities, but municipalities are creatures of the province, meaning the province can supersede municipal bylaws, municipal planning acts by, by decree.
00:13:54.000I mean, this is not the same thing as the province and the federal government having sort of constitutionally defined jurisdictional boundaries.
00:14:01.000The city of Toronto, the city of Ottawa, the city of Kingston, London, you name it, where there are issues with our housing market.
00:14:08.000The province decides to allow them to continue the way they've been operating in a way that frankly has created a lot of the issues facing the housing market in Ontario.
00:14:20.000But they could just as easily decide to pull some of those levers back.
00:14:23.000I mean, you, this would have happened most recently in the 1990s when divisions of responsibility between municipalities and the provincial government were sort of redefined.
00:14:35.000You know, what is a municipal responsibility?
00:14:38.000What is paid for at a municipal tax revenues versus provincial tax revenues?
00:14:41.000And, and the Harris government did a lot to sort of rejig those, those lines of responsibility on housing.
00:14:47.000A lot of this is delegated to the cities to what we call the housing and planning departments of the cities to just find what can be built, where it can be built, what taxes should be levered against those, those or levied against those types of developments.
00:15:01.000And all of that adds up to a very, very restricted and frankly strangled housing market that can't seem to do anything because there's too many policies restricting or there's too many taxes making these things cost prohibitive.
00:15:14.000And so one place to go and put pressure is on the cities to say, hey, reverse some of these policies.
00:15:18.000The reality, though, is that cities and city councilors are beholden to the types of people that vote in municipal elections.
00:15:25.000And for the most part, these are older homeowners in older and more established neighborhoods.
00:15:30.000What we, you know, we've come to call NIMBYs.
00:15:32.000These not in my backyard sort of constituents.
00:15:34.000And so it's very difficult for a city councilor short of, you know, suiciding their political career to come out very strongly in favor of massive housing reforms.
00:15:45.000But the province could upload some of these responsibilities back to themselves.
00:15:49.000They could say, hey, we're going to take some of this back because let's say we have a better sense as to like where growth is happening across the province, what immigration patterns look like, you know, what birth rates are looking like in various parts of the province.
00:16:00.000And so we can plan more effectively for where growth needs to happen from a housing and infrastructure perspective.
00:16:06.000So, you know, very simply put, some of this responsibility should be transferred back to the province in terms of how planning is decided.
00:16:13.000This is things like what can be built where and things like development charges and other taxes related to housing and development that right now are municipal taxes could also be controlled and dictated by the province.
00:16:26.000Yeah, we see like these cheap wins with him where it's, you know, he'll go at an easy target because it pulls well.
00:16:32.000But then like the way you just laid out like pretty incredibly and like thankful, thankful for the insight is that like, no, there are there are hard levers to pull, but you can pull them.
00:16:41.000Like he's talked about strong mayor powers and such.
00:16:43.000It's like, yeah, well, you could put in some strong housing powers, too, right?
00:16:47.000Well, and then like, you know, I think it was a week or two ago he was announcing the extension of one of the subway lines north to Richmond Hill.
00:16:55.000And during that press conference, he made the comment that like development charges are just too high.
00:16:59.000It would be really good if people started looking to reduce development charges.
00:17:03.000And, you know, all the commentary on this, you know, myself included was sort of like, Doug, you you have the pen.
00:17:20.000I mean, I do think that there are people within this government that recognize these issues and that would like to reform the things in the right direction, but often are are held back by the powers that be.
00:17:31.000So, you know, I don't want to paint the entire government and the entire PC party with the same brush.
00:17:36.000I think there are good principled people within this movement and within this party.
00:17:40.000But I do think with with a lack of of a very well defined and principled agenda, you end up just getting pulled towards wherever the winds are blowing.
00:17:48.000Right. So and there's nothing really anchoring you towards the types of reform that we think are needed.
00:17:53.000And, you know, obviously, I talk about housing a lot because of my business.
00:17:56.000But what stands out to me is the most obvious missed opportunity in the province is coming out of COVID and not realizing that for the first time in a generation, there was popular support for massive reforms in education and health care.
00:18:12.000Yeah, because people were sick of having their kids kept at home.
00:18:15.000They were sick of the you know, they completely overwhelmed health care system that didn't have enough beds where surgeries were being canceled and things like that.
00:18:22.000And you had a moment in time, which is very rare in Canada, where people would have very open to the idea of very significant structural reforms in our health care system, in our education system.
00:18:32.000And we had a majority conservative government power that ostensibly should be pro reform in these two domains did nothing. Right.
00:18:40.000They effectively did nothing. So and that these are very frustrating things when you like care about the outcomes on all these policy files that ultimately add up to the standard of living that we all enjoy or don't enjoy in the province.
00:18:52.000So and I know that's been touched on as well in the hub through the project and some of the contributors.
00:18:57.000I think of the education piece and it's you know, there's been all these these all these things just sitting there.
00:19:03.000And you're right. There are great people in in Queens Park like I I know MPP staffers consultants, you know, that sort of great wall of GR professionals we have now who are all just kind of pulling their hair out and they mean well and they want to do well.
00:19:18.000But when you have these sort of insular, you know, premier's offices, much like the PMO, it's hard to get anything by them because if it's just run as this risk management assessment, you know, you're not going to you're not going to cover sort of any conservative principles.
00:19:33.000Yeah. And so what is success look like to you? Let's say Project Ontario and it's growing list of contributors.
00:19:39.000I'm one there are far greater experts than I let's say let's do like a perfect day exercise here, Matt, like it's a it's a couple of years from now, you wake up, you know, you know, your family's all happy.
00:19:49.000The sound of kids playing coffee's brewing, you know, you're in Ontario. What does it look like?
00:19:56.000Well, I'll say like a big part of this in my mind comes down to Doug Ford himself as as as a leader when he was elected in 2018.
00:20:05.000And frankly, before he was elected, when he was at City Council and when Rob was still around, I was excited by him, his brand of politician and the Ford brand and and and the idea that they knew what they stood for.
00:20:16.000And they didn't they they wouldn't hesitate to, you know, be a bull in a china shop and ruffle feathers and do the right thing regardless of sort of pushback and public opinion.
00:20:25.000I think that version of Doug Ford is long gone. So, you know, I'd say one positive outcome is that version of Doug Ford finds himself again, you know, and you know, to not frame this as a direct challenge or hostility against his leadership.
00:20:38.000You know, let's say he finds his way back to the right path.
00:20:43.000And I don't think that's going to come from him because I wouldn't consider him in any way and I don't think he'd consider himself an ideologue of any sort.
00:20:51.000I don't think he really knows where he stands on major policy files, but he does listen to the people around him.
00:20:56.000So if we can influence the people around him such that they influence his agenda, then I think that's a very positive outcome.
00:21:02.000I think and that I think that will look like compromising or sacrificing, I should say, popularity for doing the right thing.
00:21:11.000I think, you know, relying on the fact that you're at 50% in the polls as if that is the measure of success versus what have you accomplished as the measure of success?
00:21:20.000I'd much rather see him sitting at 40% in the polls, but doing hard things.
00:21:25.000That's it, right? And that's been like an argument that I've made before, too, where it's like he could still have majority governments if he sat at 40% in the polls and then everyone would feel happier, safer.
00:21:35.000Rent would be cheaper. Things would be a little bit more cohesive, right?
00:21:38.000Like it doesn't does it have to be just this absolute low calorie, just sort of empty crowd play?
00:21:46.000Or like, could we not like keep a little bit of principles while also being popular and boxing out some some really lousy opposition that just like just can't get out of the blocks?
00:21:55.000Well, I think that's, you know, the reality in Ontario is that it's a very different brand of politics than places like Alberta or other parts of the country.
00:22:02.000Right. So I don't think to try to pretend that this is Alberta is the answer.
00:22:06.000I think you still need to live within the reality of Ontario.
00:22:09.000But I do think that to rely on 50% popularity just means that you're you're polling within the Liberal Party base, which means you're you're you're pushing policies that are favorable and popular within the Liberal Party base.
00:22:22.000Right. So it so, you know, to your answer on like, what does life look like?
00:22:26.000I think life looks like more choice in education.
00:22:28.000I think life looks like shorter wait times and more access to options in health care.
00:22:33.000I think life looks like better access and lower cost of housing.
00:22:37.000You know, I think youth unemployment among, you know, within the broader context of unemployment in general comes down.
00:23:05.000And, you know, starts with me sending you like an offensive meme or something and be like, hey, you know, let's get a beer.
00:23:10.000But yeah, so so, gee, you know, this project sounds pretty interesting.
00:23:13.000Do you have any kind of events coming up?
00:23:17.000Like, like how can people help grow, you know, this pushback and how can they support Project Ontario?
00:23:23.000Yeah, I mean, it's still finding its its footing in terms of like what do we want to be when we grow up, let's say.
00:23:29.000But for the for in the immediate term, people can check out Project Ontario dot CA.
00:23:34.000There's a you know, a few of our publications in terms of like policy ideas that we've been writing about the contributors that are involved in the project.
00:23:41.000You'll find them there at Project Ontario dot CA.
00:23:43.000We are also about to launch the details of an event that we're going to be hosting at the end of September, September 30th in Toronto.
00:23:50.000The venue to be to be to be announced, but it'll be quite central and close to Queen's Park where we're hoping to pull together a group of people.
00:23:59.000Let's say 200 or so people that are enthusiastic about these ideas, enthusiastic about driving change in the policy conversations that surround the conservative government in Ontario.
00:24:11.000And then beyond that, it's probably too early to tell. But I do think that the types of people involved in this are very policy minded.
00:24:19.000So I think a lot of this will will bear out in the depth of policy and the prescriptions that we bring forward to say we are not radical in our proposals.
00:24:29.000We are we think what we are proposing and bringing to the table is extremely, you know, common sense policy.
00:24:35.000And what we would love to do is engage with people that are within the realm of influence of this government to actually start looking at what we're putting out there and taking it seriously.
00:24:45.000So we're always looking for supporters. We're looking for people to, you know, one, show up to our event to sign up on our website to hear more about what we're up to.
00:24:53.000And I think it'll it'll it'll evolve over the course of the rest of this year and into 2026.
00:24:58.000But that's sort of what we have in front of us right now. All right. You heard it there, folks.
00:25:02.000If you share our alarm, you know, head to ProjectOntario.ca.