True Patriot Love - Canada’s Cities Are Becoming Ungovernable ft. Anthony Furey

00:00:00.000 And a lot of the statistics come from the fact that a murder rate may be down,

00:00:04.280 which may speak to better policing of gangland activity and so forth.

00:00:08.520 Okay, like I'm glad the murder rate is down,

00:00:10.700 but generally exposure to that is not what's been making the general public feel safe or unsafe.

00:00:16.100 It's general public disorder.

00:00:22.300 Today on True Patriot Love, I'm lucky enough to have friend of the show, Anthony Fury,

00:00:27.260 and to talk about municipal elections hey anthony how are you hey paul good always good to be here

00:00:33.080 with you yeah man thank you hey so bc and ontario the big ones coming up in the fall um that's on

00:00:39.740 the municipal side and then provincial side you know we have alberta coming up uh next year so

00:00:47.000 we have and then quebec so quebec and alberta uh but let's talk about municipal elections you know

00:00:53.620 hot topic here in Ontario right now, of course, and the mayor and all the mayors up for election.

00:01:00.800 What's your thoughts and what are the key issues that you think we're going to hit and people are

00:01:04.960 going to be talking about? Yeah, thanks, Paul. I think it's a really exciting time and a really

00:01:09.740 important time to reflect and to really talk about what we want out of our cities and where

00:01:16.920 we want our cities to go. What's going on in LA right now is you have this unexpected candidate,

00:01:22.440 Spencer Pratt. He was a big reality TV star. I think we're around about the same age. I remember

00:01:27.920 back when I was 20, and this was a guy who was seen as a bit of a hooligan, but he's grown up,

00:01:31.700 he has kids. And then he's seen the city fail, prioritizing a woke agenda, free drugs on the

00:01:38.460 streets, no law enforcement. Meanwhile, the LA wildfires burnt down so many people's homes,

00:01:44.500 including his own. And he found out he couldn't even rebuild because bureaucracy and corruption

00:01:48.600 is so immense. And he's looking at the city going, this is ungovernable. Like they've really

00:01:53.040 dug themselves a hole. I got to clean this up. And he's this sort of insurgent candidate. I think it

00:01:58.420 would be great if he won. I don't know if he's going to. He's up against quite a machine, but

00:02:02.200 it's a really compelling story that's captured a lot of people's attentions. How does that relate

00:02:06.680 to what's going on in Canada? And those are the things that we need to talk about. When I ran for

00:02:11.740 mayor of Toronto a few years ago, one of my main campaign discussion points was cities go through

00:02:20.560 cycles. And we have Detroit, we had New York City back in the 80s. They rise and fall, the rise and

00:02:26.860 fall of great North American cities. It happens. And you don't want the fall. You want the rise.

00:02:32.060 You want to be good. You want to cherish your cities. And I saw in Toronto, we weren't. And

00:02:36.200 we were on a steady decline. We're still on a steady decline. I don't think we look as bad as

00:02:40.860 the extreme scenarios on the streets of LA and Seattle, which is good. You know, I don't want

00:02:44.640 things to be bad here, but we're not going in the right direction. And that applies for Toronto,

00:02:49.840 for Ottawa, for BC, for those cities you mentioned that have elections during this important year.

00:02:55.360 Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know, trust me. And I've mentioned to you many times, I've lived in the

00:02:59.280 US, so I know what the cities are like. I know how bad some of the cities are. So we're not at

00:03:03.980 that decline and you know spencer pratt uh going around the city uh taking photos of uh or videos

00:03:10.940 of playgrounds that had been happened by inhabited by drug lords and talking living out of a motor

00:03:17.100 home on his property that he can't rebuild because they actually stole all the uh refurbishment fund

00:03:24.060 for the area it just it's it's terrible when you hear his story and you know he's picking up some

00:03:29.920 steam and he's picking up some steam because he's talking about the common everyday issues that

00:03:34.800 people have and this was I think will bubble up into what our elections are now you know I did

00:03:40.900 a show earlier on today and then one of the part of the show that I was talking about how the

00:03:45.940 election process is changing so and I wanted to talk to you about that so the election process

00:03:51.600 is evolving and I think it has a lot to do um with where we were kind of in the 80s and the 90s

00:03:58.880 and how, you know, really people running for public office were doing it out of the goodness

00:04:06.800 of their heart. You know, it wasn't a highly paid position. It was more of a, you know,

00:04:11.480 you're going to run for mayor or counselor because you want to do something good for

00:04:15.660 your community. If you were doing well in those days, you used to put your stocks and your company

00:04:20.780 into trust, and then you'd run your four years out and you'd do your public service. And I remember

00:04:26.880 like my dad's era that was you know you had people who were business people but they were usually at

00:04:32.620 the end of their career about to hand their businesses over to their kids now it's kind of

00:04:37.600 evolved into it's a much better paying position so you know the salaries of politicians today

00:04:44.160 on the municipal side almost match the salaries on the provincial and even the federal side so

00:04:49.560 you're seeing kind of that you know councillor making 200 plus thousand mayors making 300 000

00:04:55.500 some more some a little less depending on the region so it is actually becoming more attractive

00:05:02.040 as a career for people who got into it from a political science perspective and from that you

00:05:08.100 know it's interesting to watch like the platform you get and when I'm watching Spencer Pratt you

00:05:14.140 know his his wife is a reality star a tv show star and he's you know had lots of media online

00:05:22.100 training. So they're kind of using this platform, you know, as to get their issues across, but also

00:05:29.060 as a profile, it becomes something that people are doing to profile. Are we going to see that

00:05:34.100 in Ontario and BC in the next little while? Well, that's, yeah, that's an interesting question. I

00:05:41.220 mean, one of the, one of the good things, I guess, about a municipal campaign is there's machine

00:05:48.420 politics everywhere, like you said. And we know they used to talk about the Chicago machine,

00:05:52.820 and then in New York, they called it Tammany Hall and so forth, all that stuff. But I think why they

00:05:58.100 talk about that less now is just because there's a machine everywhere now. It's just one giant

00:06:02.660 machine. We're desensitized. Yeah. I mean, it's very different than before, to your point.

00:06:08.340 It's less someone who's been accomplished in a field for decades says, well, I've now learned,

00:06:13.860 I'm an elder statesman, not a political statesman, just an elder statesman in terms of being the

00:06:19.700 person who ran this company and hired hundreds of people. Now I'm semi-retired. I'm going to give back

00:06:26.180 and bring my knowledge back in. I'm not saying only older people should be running for office.

00:06:30.980 I think you need fresh blood and young perspectives, but yeah, it's definitely

00:06:34.740 become an industry. And what are the pros and cons of that? I've always found the New Hampshire

00:06:40.820 legislature is an interesting place. They have tons of state representatives, and they're not

00:06:47.300 paid a lot, and they're part-time jobs, and they each represent, I'm going to say it wrong, but

00:06:51.300 each represent like 5,000 people. Whereas here, an MPP will represent like 100,000 people. So it's

00:06:57.520 much more direct democracy. There's pros and cons to both. But to your point, Canadian politics

00:07:04.060 has moved in one direction, but municipally you can break out, um, because there's less of a party

00:07:11.200 involvement and there's more of an opportunity for breakout ideas to come from, which is where

00:07:15.120 Spencer Pratt came from. And, and I was a bit of a upset candidate a few years ago. I didn't win,

00:07:20.160 but I, you know, like to, like to maybe flatter myself saying I helped get some ideas, you know,

00:07:24.600 on the table and get some traction. So you can kind of emerge and, and, and, uh, and, and make

00:07:29.520 noise it's a bit less of a closed shop municipally yeah and for you know for young people starting

00:07:35.600 out which i think is a great point it is a well-paying job and it is a high profile job so

00:07:40.720 you know i think we're going to in my opinion i think you're going to start seeing more people

00:07:45.840 coming out of the woodwork to participate in this i think it's been a kind of a closed shop

00:07:49.680 you know across canada only certain people looked at it you know the only profile but i think now

00:07:56.560 with the ability to do it in an online presence i think you're going to see more and more people

00:08:01.520 start to look at it as as a career and i think that's a positive thing um so let's hope you

00:08:07.200 know and i'm hope i hope you consider running again i've always said that to you but um you

00:08:12.880 know i the key issues let's talk about that for a minute so the big issue on i think everyone's

00:08:19.440 mind from a municipal perspective homeowners and such are number one affordability yeah right

00:08:25.520 so if i'm running for a mayor whether it be bc you know anywhere in ontario i'd be really trying

00:08:31.760 to address the issue of affordability for my citizens and the big thing that came up this

00:08:37.120 year in the budget process which we talked about on previous shows is everyone kind of dumbed down

00:08:42.800 property tax right so interesting idea a risky idea because they went into their reserve fund

00:08:50.000 so a lot of the existing mayors going into this election said i'm only going to have a minimum

00:08:54.880 property tax increase because it's election year yeah but they dipped into their reserve funds in

00:09:01.280 their government for those of you who don't know a lot about municipal politics the government

00:09:05.600 municipal governments have they keep a reserve fund they get money from the feds they get money

00:09:09.840 from the province they have their own tax base that comes from property tax and fees and such

00:09:16.080 but then they also have a big reserve fund they keep for rainy days now they're dipping into those

00:09:20.320 affordability you now have to run on an election framework where you're going to say to citizens

00:09:26.880 i'm going to keep your taxes the same i'm going to reduce your fees what do you run on affordability

00:09:34.880 from a municipal perspective that will get you re-elected or get you even consideration from

00:09:40.560 the voter base yeah and that's the big challenge there because we create all these new government

00:09:44.720 programs and departments and every decade there's more of them they all require money to be funded

00:09:50.000 Some of them are core services. We need the core services. Some of them are these bells and

00:09:53.600 whistles that if you would have asked our parents or grandparents, should the government be doing

00:09:58.080 this? They'd be like, what? Absolutely not. The government should not be doing that.

00:10:03.040 For instance, the free drugs, it just boggles the mind that we're giving out taxpayer funded

00:10:08.800 crack pipes. That's a low hanging fruit. That's an easy one. That's only a few million dollars.

00:10:12.960 I can't believe we spend a few million dollars on that, but still, that's one of the easy ones.

00:10:16.560 but there are many other examples of that. I think one of the big ones is value for money

00:10:22.320 and talking about that. And when you talk about value for money and when you talk about doing

00:10:26.880 audits of departments and audits of programs, oh boy, the establishment does not like that.

00:10:32.560 Speaking from experience, they come for you and you go, wait, hold on a second. Isn't this the

00:10:36.960 most basic thing? Like a guy says, I just want to clean up the books. I want to see where the

00:10:41.360 the money's going to. And then they vilify you. They say all these names about you. So we must

00:10:47.320 stop this guy at all costs. I'm just talking about bringing an auditor in here. What's the

00:10:51.200 big problem? I think a lot of the wins are there. Because when you see budgets are growing

00:10:59.840 greater than the rate of inflation and greater than the population base, you go, what's going

00:11:05.280 on? Something isn't right here. The metric is not right in all of this. And you can see that

00:11:11.140 at all levels of government. You can definitely see it municipally and at the city of Toronto,

00:11:15.800 where I'm quite familiar with the budget process. Absolutely. There are entire black holes of

00:11:20.900 budgets where you get a massive chunk of a line item and you go, I don't really understand

00:11:26.560 where that goes. So one big example is social services. And it's pretty savvy how you do this

00:11:33.540 because social services means predominantly helping people with some sort of deficit that

00:11:40.260 they have it in their life, like, you know, food or child care or whatnot, and who doesn't want to

00:11:45.920 help people out in their time of need? So obviously, we, you know, we broadly supportive of that. But

00:11:50.680 then you call for an audit of that and they all they're trying to take away money from, you know,

00:11:54.680 the services to help needy families. No, I'm not. I'm actually trying to strengthen the program

00:11:59.100 to make sure the families get the support they need and we're getting value and make sure the

00:12:04.600 money is actually going to the people who need it. And where else are things going? And general

00:12:08.860 managerial efficiencies. How many people does it actually take to deliver this or that program?

00:12:15.660 And as Spencer Pratt talks about, there's definitely corruption, a lot of consultancy

00:12:21.260 stuff, contractor stuff. Where's this money going to? But it's also just the inertia

00:12:25.420 of the state. I read a lot of business books, business podcasts, people who have run General

00:12:31.100 Electric and those companies. It's hard. And these are for-profit entities that are cracking the whip.

00:12:36.620 they have a problem managing cost control.

00:12:38.620 So it's going to be way harder at the public sector level even than that.

00:12:42.140 Oh, yeah.

00:12:42.940 You know, it's interesting when you talk to social programs,

00:12:45.780 we we were getting ready for a show a couple of days ago.

00:12:48.860 This is a really wild story and I won't go too far into it.

00:12:52.340 We're getting ready for this show and we were trying to it was on immigration

00:12:56.740 and we were trying to figure out between EI and social programs

00:13:02.500 what the number of people were on both.

00:13:04.380 and it's interesting not published anywhere no and they probably they probably don't fully know

00:13:11.780 I don't think those lists are cross-referenced no they're not cross-referenced and when we actually

00:13:16.700 so I even put my AI guys here in the back studio and the research team I put them on it at the end

00:13:22.680 I said you guys got to scour this for me because I'm not finding it anywhere they came back to me

00:13:27.260 and they said it doesn't exist yeah so there is no accountability with respect so you know when

00:13:32.560 someone says they want it when mark carney or whoever says guys we should maybe get to the

00:13:35.780 bottom of this oh boy barriers are going to come up yeah oh yeah big time right so so it is a really

00:13:42.100 good scene so now i'm sitting there and i'm trying to figure out programs that i can get affordability

00:13:47.220 for my citizens in my my my city and my area i'm going to look at property tax now this is a big

00:13:54.340 conundrum so now they got to figure out okay what's my property tax scenario so if i'm a citizen

00:14:00.120 voting the first question i'd ask is okay what are you gonna do about property tax and programs and

00:14:05.320 you know program fees what do they do now because quite frankly and this is where i was saying and

00:14:12.280 you and i know because uh anthony anthony by the way he's a great writer that's where i actually

00:14:17.800 picked up on anthony years ago writing different articles through covid and and it was amazing

00:14:23.240 stuff so i really enjoyed his his writing and that's when i got an opportunity to meet him

00:14:28.360 it was through the through his writing skills and through his uh craft you know we wrote an article

00:14:34.840 on uh recently in a local paper and i did it and it was on making sure that your municipal budgets

00:14:41.640 were austerity budgets they didn't do that right so they came back and a lot of these existing

00:14:47.640 mayors came out and they actually put pretty nice budgets out and i said to them i said you need

00:14:53.880 to make sure that you don't set up for an election and you don't set up this small property tax

00:15:00.440 increase and then something goes wrong lo and behold anthony i'm not i'm not going to say i

00:15:05.640 predicted it because i didn't predict it but i know i've been on the earth long enough to realize

00:15:10.040 you got to be careful iran the iran war happened oil prices shot up and now they're sitting here

00:15:17.480 with all these increased costs right they're trying to tell their citizens they're going to

00:15:21.240 to help them with affordability they are going to come up on october they're going to have the

00:15:26.220 election it doesn't look like this is a short war no so for those you know it doesn't so now

00:15:31.700 we're going to go through the election globally and this is going to impact us they're going to

00:15:36.540 have to come to the table in the fall and talk to us about what they're going to do with fees and

00:15:42.060 taxes and what do they do now so now they're now they're going to be forced into so if i'm citizens

00:15:48.100 now, and I'm about to vote for a mayor anywhere in BC and Ontario, I have to ask them, okay,

00:15:53.620 what's your, what's your strategic plan to build with this, to build on this? And what do you do?

00:15:59.600 And what, just from the most basic approach, the fuel service costs for, for fleet services

00:16:04.640 through municipality, there you go. It's gone up by what, 40%? Yeah. One quarter, two quarters,

00:16:10.140 like we're at what, three months now, we'll probably be at six months. There you go. Like

00:16:14.200 there's already millions on the books, just, just from something like that. And that's the most

00:16:17.480 direct uh fuel angle the rest is obviously it works through the system in other ways

00:16:22.760 and they've already dug into their reserve funds and now they've taken

00:16:26.280 to get through this election they've gone and dumped into their reserve funds you really on

00:16:32.200 the federal you know you look at the federal budgets and even the provincial budgets right

00:16:35.880 now they're they're in deficits right so there's not a lot of money flowing back there could be a

00:16:40.360 little transfer money coming down you're really going to be out on an island in the next the you

00:16:45.400 you know, after this election, you're going to be sitting out on an island, double digit

00:16:49.700 property tax increases. I think it's citizens. You have to ask them what you're right. You know,

00:16:54.120 and that's, this is the stuff that erodes public confidence. Cause you even look at, you know,

00:16:58.720 we're using the war in Iran as a thing, but you know, if you run on a platform and then you switch

00:17:04.980 your platform, you know, in that case it was, you know, uh, you don't want forever wars and all of

00:17:10.800 you have a forever war yeah you sure lose credibility with your voter base and this

00:17:16.000 property tax issue has got to be the next one you and i have talked about and i know you've written

00:17:20.720 on it zoning bylaws so now i'm in an eroding housing market i'm in the municipality your

00:17:28.160 municipal politicians and i don't know if you even have had kind of conversation on this i don't know

00:17:32.720 if people realize your municipal politicians have a huge role in your property value like a massive

00:17:40.720 role right and you want to talk about you wrote a great article about no parking in uh buildings

00:17:47.840 recently you want to talk a little about that because it's a crazy issue yeah no i mean it's

00:17:54.240 it's so true counselors having a role in your property values and in your quality of life

00:17:59.840 based on these small decisions so toronto uh wanting to incentivize as many towers as can be

00:18:06.240 be built as possible really rapidly. And we're now coming off an end spell of that where people

00:18:11.980 are having trouble closing on their condos. We've got these micro condos that have been built

00:18:15.380 massively throughout downtown Toronto and major challenges in the market right now. It's been

00:18:21.100 well documented. One thing the city wanted to do, combining a number of philosophies,

00:18:28.060 housing affordability, easier to build, and then also the climate agenda that they have,

00:18:33.340 They allowed buildings to be built without parking spaces in them.

00:18:37.720 So you can have several hundred, um, several hundred units of a condo or an apartment building

00:18:44.120 and only like 30 parking spaces and then like 80 bicycle parking spaces and 20 electric

00:18:50.600 vehicle charger stations, because, uh, the developer says, okay, fine.

00:18:54.860 Then, you know, there's a cost savings to me on all of that.

00:18:57.020 And then the city says, ah, everybody's just going to bicycle or take the subway.

00:19:00.880 Some people will, some people won't.

00:19:03.340 That's also social engineering, because if people aren't there yet, they're not going to do it.

00:19:08.220 When I lived downtown in a condo, and it was me and my wife, and we were just having a family then.

00:19:14.480 We did have one son with us.

00:19:16.260 Did I take the subway a lot?

00:19:17.680 Yeah, because I was close to a subway station.

00:19:19.320 Did I bicycle around sometimes?

00:19:20.540 Sure.

00:19:20.760 I also owned a car, though, because I didn't just live in an eight-block radius.

00:19:25.420 I did other things with my life.

00:19:26.640 We had a little vehicle.

00:19:27.760 We drove the son around, so we still needed that parking space.

00:19:31.960 What happens when you take away the parking space and now suburban councillors are battling downtown councillors in Toronto about this is then it's not the case that everybody says, OK, I've bought a condo in a rural, not rural, but like under a less dense part of Etobicoke or Scarborough.

00:19:51.260 I'm not going to bicycle everywhere.

00:19:52.820 No, they're still going to have their car.

00:19:54.460 They're going to park it on the street or they're going to park it on a residential street two blocks away and walk to it every day.

00:19:59.780 And then the person who lives on that residential street gets ticked off that their street has now become a parking lot.

00:20:06.000 And we can think whatever we want about which planning is right or wrong, but people are going to get frustrated.

00:20:12.080 And we increasingly get in loggerheads with each other.

00:20:15.240 We've got two honest perspectives.

00:20:16.760 A guy who says, I live in this condo, I just need to park my car.

00:20:19.120 Another person saying, what are you doing treating my quiet street like a parking lot?

00:20:23.400 Two very valid views that are butting up against each other because of a councillor decision.

00:20:27.760 that makes the community less livable decreasing your property values and and and decreasing the

00:20:34.440 livability of the city now the interesting thing you know and this is uh we we actually talked

00:20:39.600 about it quite a bit and wrote about it you know we were making this decision to actually do zoning

00:20:44.980 on buildings so for example in scarborough there's 17 projects ready to go zoned with no parking in

00:20:51.080 them that are available i think to be built along eglinton avenue in scarborough um now the

00:20:57.740 interesting part is when we can't get the uh cross train the eglinton cross train going we can't even

00:21:04.180 figure out signaling on it we've made the decision to build uh non-parking space condos before we

00:21:12.360 can't even get a 10 year old project to get going to get it across that's crazy that is so mismanaged

00:21:19.760 and so out of line the timing on that project and we keep doing it now for those of you and i i was

00:21:25.600 lucky no not lucky enough i uh had this happen to me earlier in life when i i went to um annapolis

00:21:34.080 maryland and i got a place in annapolis maryland and i thought it was the most amazing place i'd

00:21:40.720 ever gotten uh it was on a marina it was beautiful it was an old storefront renovated it put a spiral

00:21:46.880 staircase through it i get this this place this home i started living in it i'm happy as heck

00:21:52.720 i going to work my at a project in baltimore so i'm driving into baltimore i'm working every

00:21:57.280 day i'm working late hours i'd come back i couldn't get parked it had street parking only

00:22:02.800 by the time uh i would get home at night i'd have to park six blocks away from the home and walk to

00:22:10.080 my home so i'd have to drive from baltimore to annapolis i'd have to park five to six blocks

00:22:16.080 away from my home had to go to the bathroom every time walk quickly to get to my house

00:22:20.980 right or stop and grab a coffee somewhere to use the restroom and then make it make it to my house

00:22:26.620 and that's how i got to my house if your city planning is faulty it's crazy what happens to

00:22:32.540 your neighborhoods people don't get that like people truly don't understand how some of these

00:22:37.480 cities got just congested and and and uh demolished by bad city planning next thing i wanted to talk

00:22:45.140 about safety so if i'm a mayor and i'm running or a council right now how do i convince my citizens

00:22:52.500 and i notice there's been a lot of police chief standing up lately doing this it's getting better

00:22:58.900 well i can tell you anthony i don't feel it's getting better i've said this on shows i've

00:23:04.340 looked at you know last night i'm sitting there and i'm looking at you know stabbings and i'm

00:23:09.860 looking at people on the loose we do a crime show on friday with all these wacky crimes that are

00:23:16.100 happening how do you convince me that i'm living in a safer city right now yeah and a lot of the

00:23:22.580 statistics come from the fact that a murder rate may be down right which may speak to better

00:23:27.620 policing of gangland activity and so forth okay like i'm glad the murder rate is down but generally

00:23:33.540 exposure to that is not what's been making the general public feel safe or unsafe it's general

00:23:38.900 public disorder so the people who are increasingly going nuts on the toronto subway you know throwing

00:23:46.180 stuff around uh so paul i'm at the subway i laughed as you can only laugh door opens guy

00:23:54.260 runs on with a bunch of snacks that he's clearly stolen from this the new stands upstairs and it's

00:24:00.500 just a bunch of chips and pop and he sits down and he's in really rough shape he's got an addiction

00:24:05.700 problem and he's not mentally well you know sad situation he gets down this is subways packed he

00:24:10.900 gets down there he's just stolen this stuff he sits down he opens them up eats them all drinks

00:24:16.020 all the coke waits for a second i'm sorry to be so graphic vomits it all up everywhere door opens

00:24:23.140 runs out again goes up there as if to do it again and we're left with this mess that he's created

00:24:28.740 everyone's looking around going what just happened it never used to be i grew up i grew up in a small

00:24:32.900 town came to toronto when i was 11 years old so i had a i had a teenage life in downtown toronto

00:24:37.940 where i gallivanted around town not a care in the world i was on the subway yeah you know 13 i was

00:24:42.900 going out late at night coming back on to use the phrase again the vomit comet uh that was just from

00:24:47.940 people getting drunk at the bar that was the all night bus that ran all across the intersections

00:24:52.500 of toronto uh and it was fine i never saw uh situations like that in terms of public disorder

00:24:59.460 So murder rate up and down, better for it to be down, fine.

00:25:03.620 Gang shootings down.

00:25:04.820 That's, you know, kudos to police are doing that or if it's just the gang

00:25:08.700 dynamics that are doing it, the public disorder that makes people go.

00:25:13.140 I don't want to go downtown.

00:25:14.740 I don't feel safe in the city.

00:25:16.460 I don't want my kids to see that.

00:25:18.500 Sure.

00:25:18.900 Maybe the person who's doing something very obscene 0.99

00:25:22.180 at Union Station is not actually going to stab you and kill you.

00:25:25.500 But I think you have a right as a citizen to set your bar higher

00:25:29.140 than, oh, I wasn't killed today. All right. I won't complain. You have a right to complain

00:25:34.720 about the subway smelling like urine. You have a right to expect that the libraries are for checking

00:25:40.320 out books and to take your kids for story time and not as a place to do drugs. And by the way,

00:25:45.280 they basically enable and encourage drug use in libraries. That's where they put the needle bins

00:25:49.420 and all that. You have a right to expect that lower order crimes are policed. If you call the

00:25:56.280 Toronto police right now and say, my bicycle is just stolen. They'll probably start yelling at

00:26:00.860 you for wasting their time. Like they only want to call. And literally I know examples. I know

00:26:06.460 someone who in one neighborhood said there's a person slam hammering away on my door. She's

00:26:10.860 going wild. Like she's violent. I don't know who she is. Anything can break in. Does she have a 1.00

00:26:14.860 gun? What? No. Does she have a knife? Well, no. Why are you calling? What? Like, are you kidding 0.95

00:26:21.860 me it used to be back in you know the 90s my bicycle was stolen well they'll come by and they'll

00:26:27.460 talk to you about it and maybe write it down and so forth and i know it's not the biggest deal in

00:26:31.380 the world but what did it look like yeah yeah like people don't have the right to steal your bicycle

00:26:35.940 now do not even think about calling for anything other than uh serious business and also don't

00:26:41.860 expect that to be dealt with for many reasons uh leadership problems the dynamics of things

00:26:47.460 a general unspooling public disorder one other little example i want to give in terms of traffic

00:26:53.700 it's impossible to get around toronto and many other cities now so people are very they're ticked

00:26:58.420 off they're they're mad all the time they feel like every intersection is the last one and they

00:27:02.900 got to get through it i get it i don't support it and remember back again back in the 90s lights

00:27:08.900 green we're moving it turns yellow oh it turns yellow okay i'm gonna i'm gonna make a left turn

00:27:13.620 maybe one more guy behind me now it turns red four more people turn left and we know when it's

00:27:20.180 green on the other side there's still going to be people turning left that's that's a new

00:27:24.820 phenomenon it is it is of the past however many 10 years my children are just old enough now where

00:27:30.740 they're they're leaving the nest and they're walking around you know i'm worried yeah i'm

00:27:35.620 worried about all of that dynamic and again that's a public disorder issue because there are also

00:27:40.100 times in your life. If you ever looked down at the speedometer and said, I can't, I can't believe

00:27:44.560 I'm going 132. I get like, how did I let this happen? I'm going to take off. I'm going to take

00:27:49.320 it off the pedal now. Well, who cares? Like you, you're not going to get stopped for speeding

00:27:54.180 ticket. You're not going to get stopped for going through a red light. There's no enforcement of

00:27:58.880 basic standards and basic decency anymore. Whether it's a person defecating on the train

00:28:04.020 or people not following basic traffic rules.

00:28:08.240 Right.

00:28:08.620 And those are your policies that come from,

00:28:12.380 and I'll put a little blame where the blame is due.

00:28:16.420 It's all levels of government,

00:28:17.880 but quite frankly, your municipal government

00:28:20.040 has the oversight on the policing side,

00:28:23.880 on the bylaw side,

00:28:25.460 and those are the things that, quite frankly,

00:28:27.460 we should do more.

00:28:28.240 You know, parking's always been an issue

00:28:30.660 in our central course, as we just talked about.

00:28:32.840 you know the tickets the the fines all those things they get to actually enforce those they

00:28:38.200 get to put those in place and those are the bylaws and the the permits and the fines and

00:28:42.980 everything else that they said that change the behavior of people and i agree with you it's the

00:28:48.160 expectation level is sunk so low that when you said it i was i was going to jump in i'm happy

00:28:54.240 i made it home without an incident today yeah yeah yeah really when you take the subway that's

00:28:58.980 you get off like phew i got above ground and i'm okay for now i can walk on my own for a while

00:29:04.100 that's what you think i didn't see i didn't see a guy doing drugs a guy with no clothes on

00:29:08.980 a guy yelling and screaming crazy in the subway today so i feel lucky and even like it's not even

00:29:14.580 okay that person's maybe not going to physically harm you but you'd like to be able to sit there

00:29:18.340 and maybe have a nap so now you know i like to read books when i'm on the subway we can't do

00:29:22.580 that because you have to be on your guard because in case that person who's spazzing out yeah maybe

00:29:26.820 they're not just doing it to themselves in the corner maybe they do get violent so you got to

00:29:30.500 be on guard for yourself or you'd like to you know if they attack an old person you'd like to think

00:29:34.900 you can protect the old person so you got to be on guard you're almost in like uh always you know

00:29:40.660 always looking over your shoulder always in a bit of a fighting stance which is is unfortunate it is

00:29:46.100 um one of the other things i wanted to talk to you about so as a business person i'm always on

00:29:50.820 you know conscious of what would actually entice me to start my business in the city so as i you

00:29:57.860 know my my kids as i move around i say to them you know if you're going to be an entrepreneur

00:30:02.900 you have to land in the right place at the right time because it's hard enough to lift a business

00:30:08.500 if you lift a business in a place where they're not helping you lift that business it's even more

00:30:13.620 hard and i've been in both scenarios i've been in accepting communities that have given my

00:30:18.260 businesses, tax breaks, help me with employment, hiring, recruiting. I've been in municipalities

00:30:25.460 that quite frankly don't care. So, you know, the election coming up, what do these mayors do to

00:30:31.940 sort of talk to business people and businesses to say, I appreciate you're here. Here's what we can

00:30:36.760 do for you and how we can help. So I find that the people who have worldly experience understand

00:30:46.580 the most how Toronto and other cities are underperforming. Because if you've never been

00:30:51.420 anywhere else, you go, well, nothing's perfect and we got to do what we got to do. I wish taxes

00:30:55.300 were lower, but too bad. I wish there weren't this disorder on the subway, but that's too bad.

00:30:59.760 People who have done business in other jurisdictions, people who regularly travel

00:31:03.780 for work, they see how things are done differently. So I do various business consulting projects

00:31:10.720 these days and i've been on calls where uh you know people businesses say oh this american state

00:31:17.120 just called us they know we hire 500 people at our factory they want us to relocate and they told us

00:31:22.800 zero percent state taxes and we say come on what do you mean zero you mean an abatement or no zero

00:31:28.240 like this stuff people don't realize that there are american states zero percent taxes they don't

00:31:33.520 realize that there are states where no uh two month two pardon me two year environmental assessment

00:31:40.080 to build a small warehouse facility. And by which I mean, there's paperwork for two years before you

00:31:46.320 can even start building it. In America, they still have laws and you can't be dumping the

00:31:51.920 toxics. You got to treat the workers with respect and health and safety, but you don't have to do

00:31:56.320 all this rigmarole for three years to no benefit. You just expect the inspector comes by and shuts

00:32:01.840 you down if you are in violation of the rules. So better is possible. And I think we get the

00:32:08.960 governments we deserve as the saying goes and we're talking about how we have public disorder

00:32:13.280 in part i think the electorate allows it to happen they apologize for it or at least they were

00:32:18.320 and then to your point about how do we get mayors to say we need pro-business and pro-investment

00:32:23.200 policies well if they're not feeling it in the in the broader climate they're not going to do it as

00:32:29.600 well i think we need massive tax relief energy rates need to go down tax rates need to go down

00:32:36.320 but a lot of people would be outraged about that which is bizarre but they would so the people

00:32:43.120 would they even support the politician who introduces that and we tell them the trade

00:32:48.220 off is these factories are going to leave right too many people for too long have been okay with

00:32:52.740 that though and that's that's part of the challenge here and i know politicians i speak

00:32:56.720 with who would like to push the envelope more they feel like where is the public support for

00:33:01.200 that it's it's it's too bad i mean people need to get get into the game more and i think that's why

00:33:05.960 you see such a split these days politically between young people and, uh, and people who

00:33:12.300 retired, you know, the boomers, as we call them. I think that, I think they, I think older people

00:33:18.140 perhaps don't really get how bad it's gotten in many respects because they started the company

00:33:24.080 in the eighties. Right. They don't realize just how hard it is now. They think young people are

00:33:28.900 being lazy and a lot of young people are lazy and entitled and don't want to work. But a lot of them

00:33:32.440 are trying to work hard and are told, no, it's going to take you three years just to open the

00:33:36.820 factory. And then this American state says, well, just come here and we'll give you money to open

00:33:43.160 it here. Oh, okay. Done. Yeah. And then they're gone. And that is the sad part, Anthony. And

00:33:48.080 you look at it, you look at a changing environment as we spoke about. And this election is going to

00:33:55.700 be an interesting time in the timing for it so you know in ontario and bc we're just gonna have

00:34:03.080 gone through fifa so that's going to be an interesting one because there's going to be a

00:34:07.760 whole bunch of money a whole bunch of hubbub a bunch of soccer games you know and and hopefully

00:34:12.520 it's entertaining and hopefully it actually pays for itself and hopefully we can say we got some

00:34:16.980 economic benefit the war is still raging on so if that doesn't come to an end gas prices you know

00:34:23.200 all the things that are happening and then we're going to have this municipal election that's going

00:34:27.680 to decide what's going to go on so it's going to be it's going to be interesting from a timing

00:34:31.360 perspective as we're looking at it businesses have a lot of decisions to make because where

00:34:37.920 you're going to locate you're going to locate where like you said the energy prices so if

00:34:42.060 you're paying more for gas you have to pay less for electricity if you're paying more for this

00:34:46.480 you have to balance so are you going to make some strategic decisions where you're going to go that's

00:34:50.780 to accommodate that and to to make it work for you so you can keep your business striving and

00:34:56.060 those are the decisions we actively have to make you know um as we finish off and i just want to

00:35:02.300 just want to hit on this because we have two key provincial elections coming next year in the year

00:35:09.500 after so we have a couple provincial quebec and alberta uh right on the back so we're going to

00:35:13.900 see this municipal election then we're going to see the two provincial elections we also have quite

00:35:18.380 frankly these two provinces that are challenging canada right now they're saying you know the

00:35:24.460 separatist discussion is raging in both you know the legal system is entered in alberta and that's

00:35:30.060 contentious you know you have a very interesting election going on in quebec you look at all these

00:35:35.740 things and i know you know municipal elections there's a little bit freedom they're not tied to

00:35:40.540 a party but it does sort of look at you know if i'm looking at it and i'm trying to figure out

00:35:45.820 my existing uh constituent and my existing group in ontario bc how am i positioning myself for

00:35:53.660 what could happen in canada going forward and then very interesting you know conversations

00:35:59.020 especially now that i'm going down east and i'm talking to atlantic can people from newfoundland

00:36:04.140 and nova scotia on another project it's very interesting now as i'm talking to them

00:36:09.660 they're looking at like a potential opportunity to be happening there based on resources and

00:36:15.500 mining and everything else you know i think ontario and bc need to think the same way

00:36:22.460 no i think it's well said and one thing that's very interesting that ties a lot of this together

00:36:28.300 and when we talk about the decline and fall of great cities people who can leave leave and a

00:36:34.460 lot of times it is the innovators and the job creators and the wealthy people who leave they

00:36:39.100 have the more social mobility we're hearing so many stories about it already people left detroit

00:36:43.980 like massive exodus and people are leaving new york city for florida we hear a lot of people go

00:36:49.580 to texas people are leaving toronto job creators are leaving toronto and people can say well you

00:36:55.900 know fine if they don't want to pay the tax screw them kick them out of here well wait a second

00:37:00.140 they're the ones paying the tax yeah you can't share the wealth if you don't first build and

00:37:04.700 grow the wealth so what are you going to do how are you going to pay for this and that's how the

00:37:07.740 the vicious cycle comes in. And then to your point about the provinces, the reticence with

00:37:12.420 Alberta, Alberta's saying we've been paying the freight with our oil and gas. If we do get more

00:37:17.680 of it turned on in the coming years, turn the pipelines on more, that may, you know, it's the

00:37:23.720 double-edged sword. They want the pipeline to kind of stay in the family. But if they get the pipeline

00:37:28.860 and they get no respect, they may leave with the pipeline because suddenly their asset valuation

00:37:33.780 has gone up considerably. So you've got those wealthy folks who may leave. Quebec, we know

00:37:39.380 what happened in Montreal. Montreal was the financial capital of Canada in the 70s. And

00:37:43.960 then they did not do enough to cherish that situation. They fled and they drove down the

00:37:49.380 road to Toronto. Capital flight is a thing. People can leave. And you have to think about that. And

00:37:56.940 you have to be serious about the incentives. So if it goes on for, you know, people will love their

00:38:01.260 communities where their kids go to school, they'll love their country. They'll stay for whatever

00:38:04.540 reason. But at a certain point, you can't continually go against your own self-interest.

00:38:08.380 So that American state who says, set up shop down here. Well, what am I going to do? Easier life,

00:38:13.460 more affordable, double and triple the money. My kids are going to be safe. Why shouldn't I go?

00:38:18.580 This pains me to say this. I know we're proud Canadians and we love our communities,

00:38:24.060 but at a certain point, you can't keep acting against self-interest. So that's why we persevere

00:38:29.280 and we work together to hopefully change these things and stop the decline before it's too late

00:38:34.000 yeah vote so i want to talk just the last thing so you know the by-election i did a show on it

00:38:40.640 and i was totally down about the voting turnout again you know for those people and anthony i

00:38:46.800 think hit on a lot of a lot of it today and then we talked about it the importance of municipal

00:38:52.240 politics for those of you who don't think municipal politics is is important you're dead wrong you

00:38:57.920 You know, whether it's your own property value, whether it's your own property taxes, whether it's your schooling, you name it, anything you're doing, municipal politics does play a role in it.

00:39:08.300 Very important. Vote. Our voting turnout has been brutal, especially in municipal elections, to the point where we have like mayors in major cities, like with a million people win with less than 80,000 votes.

00:39:23.840 yeah so any any advice on you know voting at this point anything you've seen that you want to share

00:39:31.140 with the listeners today well yeah you got to search out and you got to do your own research

00:39:35.480 because the the mayoral races will be featured in the news and the who's running for premier and so

00:39:40.440 forth big conversation on talk radio the local stuff won't get the media attention but a lot

00:39:45.460 of times to our point about uh the zoning i mean it's where the action is at it's where your daily

00:39:50.100 life most plays out. So take it seriously. Research it. The school board's issue is something

00:39:54.100 I'm so passionate about, having three children in the school system. The schools are a mess.

00:39:59.120 There's no safety anymore. There's no enforcement of standards. I'm really worried about what the

00:40:04.440 next generation is going to look like. All this nonsensical, woke, garbage policies and curriculum. 0.98

00:40:09.920 I mean, they're there for a reason. People put them there and we put those people there in that 0.98

00:40:14.440 place. So everyone would say, oh, I don't even know who my trustee is. Okay, well, we'll learn

00:40:18.900 because it's your community you really should you really should i got a call the other day from a

00:40:23.220 friend of mine and he's a great guy and he said you know my daughter's being taught this and she's

00:40:28.100 only 10. and i said well did you vote no i didn't vote last time i said well you know if you voted

00:40:36.580 and you went out and supported someone and they won and you had those ties you can call me i can

00:40:42.660 call someone for you right because i i'm interested in it and i talk to everyone as i move around

00:40:47.860 toronto but i said i can call probably find someone to help you bend but i said it would

00:40:53.300 have been better if you were active on your own right and so i agree with you i totally agree

00:40:57.940 you got to go in there and fill the space fill the void because if you don't someone else will

00:41:03.060 and someone will take your space and they might take it in a direction that you don't support

00:41:07.060 yeah and then you can't get at that point you shouldn't be complaining because you let that

00:41:10.740 happen and quite frankly that's what a lot of people say to me now i don't i feel powerless

00:41:16.100 You're not powerless. Vote. Thank you, Anthony. Thanks, Paul. I appreciate it.

True Patriot Love - May 25, 2026

Canada’s Cities Are Becoming Ungovernable ft. Anthony Furey

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