True Patriot Love - Why Does Toronto Feel Like It’s Falling Behind？ ft. Anthony Furey

00:00:00.000 So today, Anthony, I got a question for you. Is Toronto living up to its potential?

00:00:07.820 No.

00:00:13.360 Good night, everybody. One word answer. There we go. One word answer, but of course we can speak

00:00:19.920 for hours about its ramifications. Unfortunately, it is not, which pains me to say because this is

00:00:27.920 a city that i've lived much of my life in i'm raising my kids here i'm invested in the city

00:00:32.020 i've ran for mayor in this city of course so i'm i'm passionate about it but uh it's it's an

00:00:36.400 underperforming city which is uh which is heartbreaking well we picked up on this so

00:00:41.480 and thank you for spending the time anthony fury spending the time today with me we we picked up

00:00:47.460 on this it was an ipsos uh survey it was done for the toronto region board of trade um july 20th to

00:00:55.900 august 4th and it came up and it said 55 say the city's prosperity is on the wrong track

00:01:03.580 37 say toronto is falling behind 57 say it's harder to get ahead 37 are likely to leave within

00:01:13.180 five years rising to 52 percent of gen uh gen z jelly food bread uh counted 4 million 124 000

00:01:25.180 food bank visits in 2025 up 340 on pre-pandemic um with one in ten torontonians relying on food

00:01:37.020 banks so lots of stats and then we started reading and we're thinking wow is it is that how we all

00:01:42.380 really feel about toronto and um so you know i wanted to get you in and i wanted to have the

00:01:47.660 discussion but it's interesting i i notice it from uh from a builder's perspective as i talked

00:01:54.540 to you about before yeah so when i look at declining home values i look at vacant condos

00:01:59.660 so that's really what i pick up in toronto right now is okay you know could i could i build or

00:02:05.980 develop in toronto and the answer is uh categorically no right right so would i buy a

00:02:11.980 would i buy a home back in toronto would i try to build something in toronto no no i wouldn't yeah

00:02:17.260 so i look at it from that perspective i don't really um think about whether i uh would be able

00:02:24.380 to be on the wrong track or move ahead but i guess part of it is because um property you know property

00:02:30.540 tax has gone up I think compounded over the last like five years 28 percent yeah since 2023 it's

00:02:40.560 gone up quite a bit it's harder to build by law wise so those are the things that come into my

00:02:46.600 mind when I think you know is it living up to its potential well it's not living up to its potential

00:02:51.500 because I can't really work and do what I love to do there a very quick favor before we continue

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00:03:25.460 So thank you. Now back to the show.

00:03:27.540 from a food bank perspective uh that's a whole other story you know you you hear about it you

00:03:34.400 constantly hear food drives and lack of food and lack of funding you know i don't know if that's

00:03:40.100 the current immigration status that's going on or i don't know if it's quite frankly the people that

00:03:46.040 are been in toronto for decades um your thought on any of that yeah i think there's a bit of

00:03:52.460 everything going on there with the food bank statistics. I think, Paul, decline is a choice

00:03:58.000 and decay is a choice. And unfortunately, our policymakers and our leaders have made those

00:04:05.020 choices. And it takes time to set in, but the mighty ship of state moves very slowly and pivots

00:04:11.460 slowly. So it also takes a lot of time to turn it around. So when we look back in past decades and

00:04:16.820 we see the decline of New York, and they've made a comeback, the decline of Detroit, and Detroit

00:04:21.520 has been making a comeback great and then seattle san francisco and other cities that are currently

00:04:28.280 declining worse than we are those are choices they continue to go in that direction and one thing we

00:04:36.200 need to do is is say let's stop the decline so let's stop making choices that worsen the situation

00:04:42.060 i'm going to give one example i have long said that we shouldn't be having these uh these concrete

00:04:49.060 block bike lanes on major streets they call them segregated bike lanes because they're not conducive

00:04:54.500 to the flow of traffic that is vital for the economic flourishing of of canada's largest

00:05:00.820 nation it's that simple right i'm someone who who bicycles around periodically i take my kids

00:05:07.140 cycling sometimes i use the very bike lanes that i say should be dismantled because if it helps me

00:05:11.700 get from a to b i'm going to actually do that but i'm also aware that we are in a city that has a

00:05:16.740 a lot of competing demands so we need to deal with that so bloor and young street the two flagship

00:05:21.440 streets of toronto and of of canada really uh they are one lane roads now in canada you look

00:05:28.080 at major cities like paris and manhattan and so forth they're like six lane roads and they have

00:05:33.520 bike lanes because they have the space for it we don't so i say we got to take these bike lanes

00:05:37.820 out and then people uh descended as culture war and went oh you hate cyclists and guys we're just

00:05:45.060 trying to have an adult conversation here about how to move forward as a city because i'll never

00:05:49.140 forget a conversation i had a few years ago with one of the leading executives speaking of food

00:05:53.100 banks of one of the large food distribution companies in north america in the western world

00:05:58.380 and he was telling me that their trucks just can't get shipments into places at blore and

00:06:04.320 young anymore because you can't reverse a truck because of how those bike lanes are set up what

00:06:08.960 what does that mean what does that mean for the economy that you've created a road work system

00:06:13.280 where you can't deliver the thing that people need to survive, food, and that you need to

00:06:18.420 flourish in the economy. So this is one small example of why we need to tinker these policies,

00:06:24.500 not have these bike lanes designed this way. And yet we can't handle that conversation. And people

00:06:28.920 descend into vilifying people like myself for wanting to speak responsibly about this. So I

00:06:34.300 know I kind of spoke at length about the bike lane situation, but that's to give an example of how

00:06:40.080 all these small things do add up to an issue of decay oh yeah well transportation big issue so

00:06:47.380 you know probably when you when people and i wish they were in this poll they would have went a

00:06:52.260 little uh further and i'm sure they have done on other polls but you know it's harder to get ahead

00:06:57.380 well it's hard to get ahead because you know uh and i remember the 80s when we were in a similar

00:07:03.320 situation we are in today where we used to have to and i worked downtown we used to have to start

00:07:09.080 for downtown uh if we were going by car by at least 5 30 in the morning to make it through

00:07:15.320 traffic to get to work so if we were six o'clock or onward we weren't unable to really get into work

00:07:23.000 by eight or nine depending on our start times so i remember you know pre-planning getting to work

00:07:29.160 and i remember working these crazy hours because i had to hop over i couldn't leave at four and i

00:07:35.160 couldn't leave at five so i had to wait for till seven to get out of the city so we're almost back

00:07:39.880 into those times where quite frankly if you're living in the suburbs you work downtown and you

00:07:44.440 can't take the go or you've got to work extended hours you have to either leave super well you have

00:07:49.480 to leave really early in the morning and come home really late just to avoid all the traffic jams

00:07:54.360 and loss of productivity because there's no point there's only so much you can do sitting in a car

00:07:59.320 for hours now with with gas being so expensive you know it's a challenge so that is you know

00:08:06.280 that is really coming to bear to your point now all the decisions we've made to actually make

00:08:11.560 transportation harder within the city that's a whole other thing so you know uh you talk about

00:08:19.080 rail or you talk about ttc um then you get into another thing which is crime so you know we say

00:08:26.520 the the crime index is going down in toronto and you know you'll get the argument from people that

00:08:32.840 okay so you know and you made it earlier murders homicides uh some of the major crimes are going

00:08:40.440 down you know car thefts in toronto going down but you know get on a subway and homeless people

00:08:46.360 you know the drug addicted all the people that are living on the subways and causing

00:08:51.240 you're not feeling like you want to take public transit anymore because you're feeling safety

00:08:55.720 issues so you know when they did they do the studies they say people's perception of the

00:09:00.360 crime levels in toronto are higher than what is actually happening i'm not sure that's totally

00:09:07.160 correct because if you take a look at the assaults and the you know the the what you call the the

00:09:13.080 non-life-threatening crimes um they're probably higher or they are higher than maybe murders i

00:09:20.360 get it but right but quite frankly that still causes the issue of if you can't deal with those

00:09:26.680 issues you can't get the people's comfort uh levels to the point where they want to start

00:09:32.200 using public transit to get off the roads so we're in this conundrum now where the city is getting

00:09:37.960 and you're seeing it in this poll you're seeing people not feeling like they can get ahead

00:09:41.960 like they can't move forward which ties to i think your issue your example of bike lanes anthony

00:09:47.720 we made all these decisions at city council provincially over the last decade that have

00:09:54.920 got us to this point yeah yeah and i think the little things matter and that's something that

00:10:01.160 we've been trying to to hide and something that we haven't been addressing but by which i mean

00:10:07.160 and you're you're a business leader you've been an entrepreneur for decades and you know

00:10:11.240 if if the employees stop showing up on time if the product is looking a little shabby if the

00:10:16.600 washrooms aren't cleaned at the store all those kind of things if you let all that happen if you

00:10:21.160 if you stop uh with your invoicing you let something slip you do all of that well that's

00:10:26.200 something that's slowly falling apart yeah well that's what's happening in government right now

00:10:30.840 in terms of just not addressing all these different little things and having a rigorous

00:10:36.200 effective management and people who are real taskmasters and on top of things and that's

00:10:40.440 seen as oh we can't be doing that or that's mean or i mean give me a break these are the little

00:10:44.920 things we have to do like you said with with the crime public disorder is the major issue murder

00:10:50.320 rate it's a tragedy for anyone to be murdered but a lot of this is gangland activity that doesn't

00:10:55.740 really affect the day-to-day life of regular people not a part of the criminal nexus uh you

00:11:01.120 know domestic disturbances are awful things but if you're not in that situation it's it's not

00:11:05.820 affecting you whereas public disorder issues are affecting everyone uh litter all over the place

00:11:11.140 is affecting everyone uh one thing that's changed a lot in toronto is it used to be uh the yellow

00:11:16.740 light goes a couple people turn left red light it's done now three people turn on the red light

00:11:22.100 which is just making uh life so much more frustrating increasing road rage safety issues

00:11:27.940 for for kids all these little things are worsening and no one's on top of the little things yeah and

00:11:33.780 the little things would i know the little things uh matter and quite frankly because we haven't

00:11:40.820 been doing you've seen this culmination of impacts going on it's interesting because you know we we

00:11:46.660 touch on another show we have an election coming up and people are so uh focused on which rightly

00:11:55.300 so on tariffs they're focused on the u.s trade they're focused on all these things but they've

00:12:00.260 kind of taken their their eye off the ball i feel a little bit whether it's uh you know transit

00:12:06.660 whether it's crime you know and if you are trying to give advice to people to focus on what to elect

00:12:14.100 or who to elect quite frankly it's you know you gotta the the issues of the day you have to kind

00:12:20.260 of park for a minute and you have to go back and look at what's been going on for the last

00:12:25.460 four five six seven years in your municipality and you know what i thought you were maybe gonna

00:12:31.140 say decades because you can do that too as well yeah you could go back decades but i you know

00:12:35.540 honestly in this case i would just go back and say okay take a look at the last five years and

00:12:39.860 do you feel you know do you feel transit is better do you feel uh a crime is better do you know what

00:12:45.940 is your feelings on those uh and that'll give you your instinctually who you should be voting for

00:12:50.820 and what you should be doing um you know when i see this poll i look at it and i think to myself

00:12:55.940 okay torontonians you know they've went through this huge growth you know the for those of you

00:13:02.740 who grew up in toronto um you'll go there now and you'll say to yourself constantly wow look

00:13:07.780 at that building popped up look at that skyscraper look at that condo look at that um so you know

00:13:13.540 you've seen this huge infrastructure push um you know went through covet quite frankly we had bumps 0.99

00:13:20.100 the city was very quiet now it's starting to i mean people are coming back with the immigration

00:13:24.420 policy um you know we've kind of managed it uh i'd say organically it's kind of taken off on its own

00:13:33.540 and you know going back to people and saying how do we manage this city under the same

00:13:42.820 fiscal constraints or the revenues that we currently have it's going to be tough right

00:13:48.420 now because quite frankly our infrastructure has grown so large so we've gone through this huge

00:13:53.140 development push to build all these buildings to get all this in place and now we're sitting there

00:13:58.420 and we're saying okay we have to manage it with a budget a budget of 20.5 billion dollars so you

00:14:05.540 know when before the show i mentioned i said every time i look at it i think to myself my goodness

00:14:10.100 and it has a 59 billion dollar capital plan over 10 years the city of toronto so it's a lot of

00:14:16.580 money anthony like it's a lot of money but now it's a lot of money for a big city that's seen

00:14:21.620 a huge infrastructure push to get it to where it is to develop it almost overdeveloped the city

00:14:29.060 what do they do next and how do they rebalance the budget that's you know that's my concern

00:14:33.300 where would i put that 20.5 billion to make the concerns of ontarians or and torontonians

00:14:40.500 to feel better you know to alleviate them yeah you want to put it in core services you want to

00:14:45.860 put it in actual priorities you want to look at what's in the back office that that maybe doesn't

00:14:51.220 need to be there in terms of the bloat. There are major departments that go unaudited. Social

00:14:56.960 services is a phrase that we look and we go, oh, I'm in support of helping people and giving people

00:15:02.820 the support they need. So I support social services. Great. But in a lot of governments,

00:15:08.140 the social services pot is a very large amount of unaudited money. Can we go in there and

00:15:13.300 see that we're getting value for money so that we're actually helping the people? Because part

00:15:18.780 this is is about finding a way to to best help people it's like in health care and education

00:15:23.660 are we giving people health care are we educating the kids what's going on with these these major

00:15:28.540 expenses there and those audits you know really haven't been done a lot of the time yeah well

00:15:33.740 that's you know and that's why we're seeing the impacts you know you just mentioned uh you know

00:15:39.100 some of the social service we we've seen food banks you know the food banks uh four million

00:15:44.540 people going to food banks um you know that's at all levels so that is impacted by um things that

00:15:52.220 are happening both in the world happening on locally and happening in our governments and

00:15:57.340 policies they're making that's uh helped create it but you know you think to yourself you know

00:16:04.380 what is the plan to get people off of food banks and in back into the community and back working

00:16:11.820 and and thriving again it's tough to see and when you're seeing the numbers grow at 340

00:16:19.340 you say okay there's got to be a problem here right there's got to be addressed like a core

00:16:23.500 root problem that needs almost a pandemic solution to start working to get out of it but you don't

00:16:29.980 see that you don't see the and you know every year you know at thanksgiving's coming up now

00:16:35.580 we're going to be hearing you know food banks are short then your christmas is going to come

00:16:39.900 and you're going to hear food banks are short again so you know you're going to constantly be

00:16:43.180 hearing they need more money they need more money okay i understand that but how do you kind of work

00:16:49.340 backward and as a community as a you know a municipality as toronto how do you start working

00:16:54.940 back to to get people who are using those food banks off of those food banks into their communities

00:17:00.860 with their families and thriving again well that's that's a very important point to make paul and we

00:17:06.060 We don't talk about that enough and we need to have a whole of society conversation about this.

00:17:10.460 I do think we are moving towards the socialization of food, by which I mean the mayor of New York

00:17:16.160 City, Zara Mamdani, says they're going to create publicly owned grocery stores. I don't think

00:17:20.600 that's a very good idea. But Olivia Chow says she wants to do a bit of it here in Toronto.

00:17:24.620 Olivia Chow is also doing a school food program. She says a certain number of kids come to school

00:17:29.560 hungry. I want to feed them at face value. Well, we obviously all support giving children

00:17:34.340 nutritious meals. But hang on a second, what's really going on here? Are we going to be giving

00:17:40.360 this to rich kids and middle-class kids in addition to low-income families? It sounds like

00:17:44.780 we will because it's going to all kids. Does that mean we're saying to otherwise wealthy people or

00:17:51.680 middle-class people, oh, don't worry about feeding your kids. The state's going to take care of it. 0.98

00:17:56.460 Psychologically, what does that do for us? We're not going to want to, to your point, say, oh,

00:18:00.940 let's get people off of this support. No, it's actually about not just getting low-income people

00:18:05.200 on the support, but getting everyone on the support. When we look at the food banks, you

00:18:09.280 reference to what degree is this international students there? Is it because, you know, should 1.00

00:18:14.940 we be having students come to Canada who are not able to feed themselves in the economic way we

00:18:21.800 bring them here in the structure? And to what degree are they being lied to and misserved

00:18:26.620 about what situation they're going to be facing in Canada,

00:18:29.780 where they can't even acquire food?

00:18:31.680 Or have we changed the acceptance

00:18:34.880 around what qualifies for someone to get support?

00:18:39.220 And very philosophical questions here.

00:18:41.620 If someone says, well, I do have capacity on my credit card,

00:18:44.760 I'm not like dead broke.

00:18:46.520 Well, should we then be saying,

00:18:48.100 okay, don't put the grocery on the credit card bill,

00:18:50.540 go and go to the food bank?

00:18:52.220 And I don't know the answers to that.

00:18:53.960 I imagine the heads of food banks have these conversations.

00:18:56.620 But that, as a whole of society, are things that I think we need to discuss.

00:19:00.880 Hey, before we go any further, please hit the subscribe button right now.

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00:19:16.060 All right, back to the show.

00:19:17.880 Yeah, no, I agree.

00:19:19.000 We started prepping, and we should do this show.

00:19:21.740 Actually, you tweaked me in reminding me.

00:19:24.800 we we started it months ago and we took a look at a food bank show it was a very interesting show

00:19:30.100 and it was we went on the internet and what we were finding on the internet was there were sites

00:19:36.260 where um students or new students to canada would teach other students how to use the food bank

00:19:43.920 so how to access it and then at one point we found a gentleman who wasn't a student who had

00:19:50.200 actually lived here was born here he actually has a site teaching and he went 365 days and never

00:19:57.080 paid for groceries wow um and then we we went even further into it and we found a lady but she was

00:20:05.080 in the u.s she wasn't canadian and she actually has a food bank cooking show where she goes to 0.89

00:20:11.740 the food bank and she teaches you how to put recipes from the food bank and she i think she

00:20:17.040 lives in Virginia but we like the more we delved into it we were like holy cow this is a crazy show

00:20:21.940 it's so much going on there was so much going on and we said you know what uh it was it was really

00:20:26.920 tough to do we we gave up on it we have to go back but we gave up on it because we're like oh

00:20:31.740 this is so disheartening at some point like because the policy around this doesn't seem to

00:20:36.800 be fully working but but again you know these are the things like when we talk about Toronto and we

00:20:41.780 talk about stats for how Toronto's doing whether it be from the development perspective whether

00:20:46.780 be from the social services perspective the perception still seems to be and when you go

00:20:53.020 to these polls that we are declining that we aren't moving forward and you know when you look

00:20:59.580 at it how did we get there anthony because you know i remember and i'm showing my age a little

00:21:05.580 bit i remember uh driving downtown with my family when i was a young man and they bragged right you

00:21:12.380 you know, new to the country, quite frankly, they all grew up here. Driving downtown, they said,

00:21:17.580 look at how clean the streets were. Look at how beautiful. Look at the nice highways. You know,

00:21:22.660 look at the lake. Those things were all we cherished, whether it be cleanliness, whether

00:21:29.060 it be transportation arteries, the access to green spaces. All those things were things that we

00:21:36.000 thought made Toronto the best place in the world to live. And we still are a great place to live,

00:21:42.380 but you can see the you know you can see that changing in people's perception being you know

00:21:48.140 i think we were voted one of the the busiest traffic hubs in the world yeah you know we

00:21:53.740 always constantly hear stories of actors and famous people who don't want to come back here

00:21:59.100 because they can't get into the the hub of the city yeah to to do their movie shoot or to do

00:22:03.980 their interview they spend hours on the road just getting on the gardener getting across the gardener

00:22:09.660 you know we we hear that all the time combine that with you know housing prices which are a

00:22:14.700 disaster right now you know whether they're declining um condo the condo fiasco it does

00:22:22.940 the perception is is starting to lower do we need do we need um not only a set of policies

00:22:30.140 do we need a campaign to remind people of the good things about toronto again do we need to

00:22:36.540 kind of start to highlight because those are the things that i think you know we got to build back

00:22:41.900 and basically figure out a way um to get around a core set of principles for the city so whoever

00:22:49.740 becomes mayor next you know to come out and say okay i like your five things i liked your i you

00:22:55.580 know when you talked about your bike lanes it's really coming back say hey you know what we're

00:22:59.820 going to start again we're going to be the um you know the entertainment hub of north america

00:23:06.540 right so we're going to do all cool stuff you know uh we're going to uh increase uh our

00:23:13.900 the lowest crime rate the safest city you know do we create like five things that we play around

00:23:19.500 uh and highlight uh to people to start to market the city again to make it a place that people

00:23:26.060 want to come to because i can tell you when we did our road show across canada there weren't too many

00:23:32.380 people saying to me they wanted to come to toronto like i wasn't sitting in uh moncton and people

00:23:36.940 were saying oh yeah i can't wait for my next trip to toronto i only have one friend who ever wants

00:23:41.900 to come visit me in toronto and uh quite frankly it's interesting uh that i don't have more they

00:23:48.940 always when i say why don't you come and visit me they're like yeah well you come my way you know

00:23:53.340 i'll entertain you you can stay at my place you know it's that's how it's happening now one of

00:23:57.740 my best friends who lived in toronto all his life he always said i i don't envision being able to

00:24:03.580 support a family to buy a home it's what i'd love to do i just don't see it possible

00:24:07.820 i i you know i'm thinking of leaving he said it for a long time and he finally up and left

00:24:11.900 to japan he's moved to japan he's married with kids he owns a house uh in a in an urban environment

00:24:19.340 and he's happy yeah and it works well and it breaks my heart to hear this because he's a

00:24:23.660 close friend of mine he's a he's a great guy why did we lose someone like that uh that happens all

00:24:28.940 the time we lose the wealthier people in the job creators uh because things are getting tough for

00:24:33.500 them and then we lose the middle class folks too because they can't see the opportunities so

00:24:38.140 we have an outflow a net outflow to alberta for example and then economics are changing so many

00:24:43.100 people are going to alberta so that's right increasing housing prices but we see it going

00:24:47.500 uh other directions you've spoken before about how the east coast is such a beautiful place and

00:24:51.660 you can have a nice life there people people are doing this because they realize it's not

00:24:55.900 in toronto it's not a short cyclical like i said it's it's a long term and as as i began this this

00:25:01.340 episode saying decline is a choice and we've made that choice and oh boy is it hard to get out of

00:25:07.340 it yeah it's interesting you know the leafs uh the leafs kicked off and unfortunately decline is a

00:25:13.660 choice the leaf skipped off their season last night and i was like oh man against you know

00:25:21.100 not good three two they lost right so um you know i was watching the highlights and i was i was

00:25:27.900 thinking about you know uh what's going on in their world right now and just before the season

00:25:33.900 they talked about the fact that it's better to play for an american team than a canadian team

00:25:38.460 because of the tax rate and how much we have to pay to get players to come here because of the

00:25:46.060 incremental tax rate the lower dollar all the things going on right now that's making it tough

00:25:51.340 to attract talent into our uh canadian you know hockey teams uh nhl teams um and you know i was

00:25:59.380 thinking man like um those players so now they come into the city uh you know they're traded and

00:26:07.620 they make it here they have to do their contracts they're saying oh man do i really like think about

00:26:13.140 it if you're chosen to come to toronto do you really want to be in toronto because you think

00:26:18.800 i got i got a limited career left you know i got five years left i gotta make bank when i can make

00:26:25.200 bank now i have to pay more tax i have a higher higher real estate costs um you know i'm hopefully

00:26:34.220 negotiate my contract in u.s dollars because quite frankly i can't do any canadian dollars so which

00:26:39.500 is good because i can actually pay for goods at a lower rate so you're balancing that thing you're

00:26:43.820 saying is it good for me to actually be in toronto or not um you know a lot of them are probably

00:26:49.260 picking not to quite frankly they're going to warmer climates they're playing in better environments

00:26:54.220 because they can prolong their career they don't have to go through full winters

00:26:58.620 you know it we have to kind of take that in consideration if you look at pro athletes and

00:27:03.020 you look at people who are talented they have the options to make those choices and you know when

00:27:08.780 you look at this poll and 37 percent of people are more likely to leave like that's a really

00:27:16.300 compelling story and i know you know even i think i've shared with the with you uh off show um you

00:27:23.660 know we're kind of between homes right now my family and you know my last my last one's about

00:27:30.220 to go to university and quite frankly yeah we're staying flexible right now we're looking at it

00:27:35.260 we're saying okay what's going on like where is this you know where's the city going where's

00:27:38.780 canada like where is it going right now and that's interesting because we're all kind of

00:27:43.340 it's we're all weighing our options and you know when it comes down to you know when it talks about

00:27:48.380 this survey uh gen z they're weighing their options even more right now they're saying okay i'm really

00:27:53.900 staying flexible because i need to bounce and i'm not committing into you know am i going to commit

00:27:58.620 to this city no i'm probably not well and here's a conversation we have at home a similar conversation

00:28:04.300 you know i grew up here loved the city ran for mayor i want to think of myself as a mr toronto

00:28:09.500 type figure you are but then i look at my kids and i look at the future and i go is that actually

00:28:15.100 selfish of me to make the family stay yeah am i doing them a disservice yeah that's a good point

00:28:24.140 you know if i had a younger family right now i probably might be thinking the same thing yeah i

00:28:29.100 definitely would be because you know uh and these polls really make you focus on that like you're

00:28:33.740 starting to look at and say okay can i get uh you know listen let's be serious our school boards

00:28:41.020 the last year hasn't been good like the toronto school board it's been it's been bad it's the

00:28:47.100 worst yeah so if you have a child that has to go to public you know to a public education

00:28:53.020 you know you're looking at saying wow this isn't top-notch so you're you're making that choice

00:28:59.040 you're thinking okay that's one x right there right you know i just like to hear all these

00:29:04.560 anecdotes like how i got 97 in math mom dad it's great oh great job and then they go to university

00:29:09.600 and the professor goes you can't even add yeah exactly how do we have that disconnect well that's

00:29:14.760 about the province found right you know they're taking over these school boards and finding all

00:29:19.080 these monies missing and everything else right there they're saying there's no way this is

00:29:23.480 working so you know education you're looking at it you're then looking at health care

00:29:28.920 and you're thinking okay well you know canadian health care in total is a mess right now

00:29:34.600 so you're looking at that and you're saying okay especially in the cities which is even worse

00:29:38.680 because you have a bigger population so it's harder to find a doctor in different places in

00:29:44.120 the city because you have millions of people who are all questing trying to find that doctor that

00:29:49.480 is like uh you know like finding gold um so you have that and then you know you look at real

00:29:56.840 estate and you think to yourself okay am i setting down here or am i waiting because

00:30:01.560 you know i can't find rental properties can't find i just had a friend of mine he just spent

00:30:06.360 five months trying to find a rental property for he's coming out of orangeville trying to get closer

00:30:11.240 to the city um you know he looked and looked the prices are on the high-end properties still

00:30:17.960 ridiculously for rent and the middle to low-end properties quite frankly they're few and far

00:30:22.680 between so you have to really snap them up when they come up in the market so it's incredible

00:30:26.760 yeah so it you know it's difficult even housing wise to still get in and he doesn't want to live

00:30:32.040 in affordable housing he's not an affordable housing guy so the solution to build more

00:30:35.800 affordable housing the solution to build more affordable housing is is is not the answer in

00:30:41.400 my mind i've said this to you in the past so and i don't think it helps the perception of the city

00:30:47.160 vibrant growing cities don't make it a business plan to build massive amounts of affordable

00:30:53.640 housing right they don't right they don't because you know building row homes or building multiplexes

00:30:58.920 or building units where multiple families live in one unit isn't the flourishing growth plan

00:31:05.480 that people want to gravitate to from a community and i think we've all seen that so you know as we

00:31:12.040 go forward um you know i really do in my you know in my advice because when you said it right away

00:31:18.280 i started thinking is it coming up with even going forward like the the new council the mayor

00:31:26.120 would get by coming up with just a more simplified plan on try to get people's perception of toronto

00:31:33.080 changed so let's try to start working on what do we do well so why are the reasons we you know and

00:31:39.640 do those really well and start to climb back out of this this decline and hopefully we will hopefully

00:31:47.880 Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Anthony. Thanks, Paul.

True Patriot Love - October 03, 2026

Why Does Toronto Feel Like It’s Falling Behind？ ft. Anthony Furey

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