July 27, 2025 • 33 mins
John Lindsay – Community Builder | Episode 19 | Sudbury Interviews | July 27, 2025 | Host: Dani Star | Find us on Sudztown and join the conversation | Want to be aguest on the show? Contact us | Listen on: YouTube | Sudztown | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | iHeart Radio | PocketCasts | Amazon Music | Overcast | RSS Feed | Website: https://sudburyevents.com/interviews/| #sudburyinterviews , #sudztown , #iheartsudz |
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hi everyone, welcome to Sudbury Interviews.
Today we have John Lindsay, a long time community builder here
in Sudbury and he was has founded festivals and and has
done a very lot for the community and we're going to be
talking about all of that today.Before we begin, you can find us
(00:20):
on Sudstown and join the conversation.
Hey John, how you doing? Hey, just great for an old guy,
you know, I'm, I'm thinking I was, you know, reach this point
where you look back and you say,how long have you been around?
And well, I've been around since1937.
And it's incidentally, you know,those of us who were born just
(00:41):
before the war, during the war only make up 5% of the
population now. So we are people who are here
now. We're probably not going to be
here for too much longer. So 1937 lived through the
through the war. I was just a kid, but, you know,
we did, you know, the paper drives and collecting toothpaste
tubes and, you know, when fighting off the Germans and the
(01:01):
Japs and that sort of thing, as we were kids in the playground,
you know, going, I gotcha, I gotcha, you know, But we weren't
really quite aware of what was going on when my dad went
overseas. And we were, I know when he came
back, you know, like I could hardly recognize him because
he'd been gone for a while. But anyway, those are things
that we can remember from, from those, from those days.
(01:24):
And then of course, time moved on.
I was basically raised both in Canada and the States and dual
citizenship for a while. And, but most of my high
schooling took place in Oakville.
I grew up there and I wasn't well back then.
Only a very small percentage of people went on to to university.
(01:47):
We only had one Community College, Ryerson, in Toronto.
That time I didn't do that. I just went out and tried to get
a job. And I had taken some electronics
in high school and I thought, OK, I've got to be electronics
technician. Unfortunately, I'm color blind,
so I got turned down by Bell andWestinghouse and some of the
larger firms. So I went to our local radio
(02:08):
station and said, you know, you got a job, you know, I can be an
engineer. What's they called the technical
people there? And they said, no, we don't have
that. But you know, you have a pretty
decent voice if you're allowed to becoming an announcer.
And no, I hadn't, but I thought,hey, a job's a job.
So I work there and I went to teachers college part time and I
got my experience in teachers college, a director, a few plays
(02:32):
and had some fun there. I actually taught in the one
room school, but I found out I really didn't like kids.
So I decided that maybe I shouldtry that other occupation and
and become an announcer. And I went and did an audition
and and I got hired. They sent me to Timmons and
Timmons Great, great spot. My friends, my relatives, anyone
(02:56):
in Oakville didn't know where Timmons was.
Neither did I when I went up there.
Just a great town, you know, more activity at night than
there was during the daytime. It was terrific.
And I, I worked there and then I, then I went out to
Newfoundland, worked out there and TV, went to Kingston, worked
there, came back to Timmons working radio there and TV and
(03:21):
worked in North Bay, a few otherplaces.
I think 13 stations all together.
And then I decided I had to get serious after about 10 years of
doing that. So I applied for the government
and became one of the workers atEmployment and Immigration and I
got hired in Ottawa. But they sent me to Sudbury.
(03:42):
Why did they do that? I mean, I could have gotten a
job in Kingston where I was working at that time, and TV.
But no, no, they sent me to Sudbury, you know, the bleak and
barren Sudbury at that time. I know I used to fly over here
on my way to Timmins when I workthere.
And he'd look down, he'd see this, this blackened landscape,
(04:03):
and that's where they sent me. Anyway, I remember going up near
the Memorial Hospital and looking out over the landscape.
It was all black and and rocky and wow, sort of depressing.
But I thought it, I thought it had lots of potential.
Anyway, I worked there for just for a little while and then I
(04:24):
got a part time job at CHNL Radio back then did some stuff
at CKSO as well. And I got hired.
But I, as I was doing both stations and there were
competitors, had to change my name.
So I changed it to Jack Richmond.
What's interesting enough was John, I changed to Jack and I
was talking to one of the announcers at the time and we're
(04:45):
just joking back and forth and Isaid, well, here I am working in
radio. I'm never going to be a rich
man. And he said, that's it, you're
going to be Jack Richmond. So I thought that's pretty good.
It's it's, it's a good name, though.
Some people said, well, you know, isn't that a Jewish name?
Are you Jewish? And I said, no, I'm nothing.
I'm just a, I'm just a voice anyway.
So that went on for 2530 years doing that sort of thing.
(05:10):
And then I volunteered for cablefor about 15 years because I
always like TV, because in TV, you know that there's people on
the studio floor and there's also people in the control
rooms. You know, they're there when
you're in radio, you're in a little booth by yourself and you
wonder, do people really lie? They really listening.
Well, I knew they were there because the figures show that on
(05:31):
my Sunday morning program, whichI did for about 25 years, I knew
there was about 30,000 people listening.
But you don't know that when you're stuck in your little
booth. So you're, you know, here,
you're there, but you know, you're playing music for
yourself then. But anyway, it's, it, it was
lots of fun. But at the same time, I was very
much involved in, in local activity in Kingston.
(05:53):
I was chair of the safety council.
I was doing other volunteer workbecause that's what they wanted
you to do. And it's something really we
need to get businesses more involved to get to encourage
their employees to become involved because we really need
volunteers. But, but, but that's another
subject. So basically wrapping up this
(06:14):
history, I got involved in in different activities.
I was really interested in politics and I follow politics
and I actually ran for a couple of elections and I did get
elected to school board. I was chair of the school board
for a while. And then I got involved with
things in the community that I thought needed to be addressed.
(06:35):
And so if you run for election, you actually get people to
listen to you because otherwise you're just a voice out there.
But if you put your name forward, then you go to meetings
and they and the candidates speak out in various things and
sometimes, sometimes people listen to you.
So that was basically it. And I worked for almost 30 years
(06:57):
for employment and immigration. And then I went on the school
board for a while and then I became involved with my wife in
a financial advisory firm. And so and then that's where I
am at at the present time. Our, our business deals with
about 5 or 600 clients and we, we help them with their
(07:19):
financial situation, taxes and that sort of thing, which is,
which is good because people need to be more than ever
concerned about their financial state because retirement comes,
comes on. We have, we have 42,000 people
in Sudbury who are over the age of 65.
They're either in retirement or soon.
(07:40):
We have 5050% of our population is over the age of 50.
So we're an aging population. And you know, our, our city
officials, staff and council have to look at that demographic
because everybody's moving, getting older.
This means your tax base is not growing.
We know the mayor wants to increase our population is
(08:01):
200,000. That is an enviable goal.
However, you got to consider thefact that we have 42,000 of us
who are over 65 who aren't goingto be here forever.
One of the, one of the most active businesses in town is the
funeral business because we're, we're dying out and, and that's,
that's a fact. How do we, and our birth rate is
(08:22):
not great. So are we going to be saved by
immigrants? Hard to say.
We've had a surge of immigrants,but that's when brought in
students largely. And we can see what's happening
now. The government's cutting back on
the immigrants. Community colleges and
universities are are complainingthat they're going to have to
lay off staff because they don'thave the number of students.
(08:46):
So we faced a housing crisis in large part because we brought in
a lot of people that we didn't have housing for.
So, you know, you wonder why, why don't our political leaders
analyze the results of what theydo?
(09:07):
I mean, it was obvious by, OK, we're going to open up
immigration to all these students, all these well, which
is not a bad idea except for thefact that they're bringing them
in, in the thousands without theproper facilities.
We had to Cambrian College itself set up a strip mall,
education stores, almost you might call them down South where
(09:31):
they taught immigrants such exotic subjects like creative
marketing. You know, I mean, you and I can
teach creative marketing, but this was so, so, so basically
they were teaching a lot of immigrants coming in, no fault
of their own, but they came in hoping to get some sort of
(09:51):
education, which in theory they should take back to their home
countries and, and, and do theirwork back there to help their
own countries. But basically their ultimate
goal for many of them, of course, is to stay in the
country. So we really need to look at
that situation. The government has looked at it
and they have put a bit of a choker hold on it.
(10:11):
So we're going to see what happens there.
But in the meantime we're looking at our homeless
situation, particularly in Sudbury, and unfortunately
looking at what can be done for the homeless on a short time
frame. Not looking at 2030 but doing it
relatively soon like Peterborough, Kitchener,
Waterloo have done where they have created homeless hubs where
(10:36):
the homeless I looked after in amore humane manner than they are
here in Sudbury. So you know, why aren't we doing
that? Councillor Duke made a motion at
the last council meeting to let us look at what Peterborough has
done or other communities have done and it got turned down.
Only 5 councillors voted in favor of looking at it.
(10:56):
Even so, and the and the staff at the city and some of the
higher ups on the council say no, no we're doing OK.
We're not doing OK or otherwise we wouldn't have people in tents
all over the city on private land and the public land.
Or I walked downtown the other day and I was 15 homeless.
(11:17):
I saw in three blocks, includingone that was in the hallway of
the YMCA and there were about four or five underneath.
Others were I were in doorways when I walked along, there was
about 5 or 6 who were in the near the provincial building at
199 large. So we're not looking after the
(11:39):
problem, you know, and we're saying, well, we're going to do
something in, in, in the future.We're going to do something
well, the future is here, so, solet's do it now.
So this is, and we talked originally and then introduced
me as a, as an advocate. I'm an I'm an advocate for the
homeless. I'm not an activist.
An activist is someone who goes out with signs and says, let's
(12:03):
do something for the homeless. Well, you know, I really applaud
people who do that. But I'm more along the lines of
let's see what we can do actually immediately or was in a
relatively short time. And I'm sure that businesses I
know of my little business here and my my wife's business and my
business and, and our daughter. We're the three principles here
(12:25):
that we have other staff. But we have said these little
tiny homes, so tiny homes that they have in Peterborough in a
Kitchener Waterloo that they're,they're, they're they're
constructed for about $20,000. Our little business is willing
to put out $20,000 to build one of these homes.
And I'm sure I'm a member of theChamber of Commerce.
(12:45):
I'm sure that a number of other businesses, the chamber, we, we,
we might, we, we could do that ourselves.
We don't even need the city to put out money.
The city's gotten money for the homeless, but they seem to be,
we don't know what they're doingwith it exactly.
They have the Lorraine St. project, which is apartments,
which is transitional housing, which is more like a halfway
house for those homeless that need a little more help.
(13:09):
Now for most of the homeless, just give me a spot where I can
lay my head. The people aren't going to steal
my stuff and I'm not going to freeze in the winter time.
You know, I'm not, I'm not goingto get too hot in this in the
summertime. So, you know, this is, I hate to
use that term, rocket science, but this is not rocket science.
This is basic human caring. But we don't seem to be doing
(13:32):
that. And you know, it's very
upsetting. Have I given you some idea?
Yeah, yeah, that's a really nicehistory for sure.
So I think the first time I met you, John, I was around 20 years
old and I was playing just. I just a kid, OK?
I was playing at the Blueberry Festival downtown.
It was at Memorial Park. Do you remember those days?
(13:55):
Oh, yeah, yeah, We had great ones.
We had Brian Koosman did a lot. Of yeah, Brian Koosman, more
entertainment and you had the Sudbury Bear mascot with Sud
Marina. Yeah, yeah.
Where? Did those come from those
mascots? Well, the Sudbury bear is is
that's the second reincarnation,you might say, of the sudden.
We had an original Sudbury bear,Janine, who was the blueberry
(14:21):
lady, we called it. She had a little blueberry house
on Morris St. I think it was.
And she, along with Peter Wong, actually started the Blueberry
Festival. The whole history, by the way,
is on blueberryfestival.ca. It's a very simple blueberry
festival at CA. You can look up, there's the
history there, the, the, what's happened over the years, the
(14:43):
climbing up Blueberry Hill, blah, blah, blah.
And yeah, everything is on that website, the whole history.
And of course the, the Blueberrybear, the costume is, we had a
little fan inside the costume. You know, the fan kept breaking.
Yeah. So it was a little, it was a, it
was a little chore to get somebody to go in the I will say
(15:09):
as a chore to get them in, it was to get them to stay in
because it got pretty hot in there.
But we had a, we had a number ofa really great bears, I mean
bear inserts over the years and 1st Sabrina bear as well too.
But yeah, so that they worked. And of course the in the, in the
park there we had a number of organizations who did the
(15:30):
pancake breakfast. Whereas we had we had many
activities going on. We had the dinosaur park out in
the out in the valley. We had skied had their pancake
breakfast. Of course, the famous Ukrainian
of, of like, I guess I don't want to call it all pancakes
because they had crepes and theyhad blueberry pie and they have
(15:52):
blueberry perogies and they had entertainments.
That was something great. We had the activities down there
at the market. So there is up to upwards of
about 20 different activities happened all the time during the
Blueberry festival. And we're glad to see that the
Red Oak Willow has taken it overand they did a great job.
It just finished and we had the famous pie eating contest.
How come you never entered our pie eating contest?
(16:14):
I was never asked to. Oh darn.
Well, next year you're going to have to stick your face on the
pie. Well, you know, I interviewed
the winner of that just a coupleof days ago, Chad Rivette.
Oh, yeah, He's, he's a star. He's done it, Yeah.
He said, you know, I knew I was going to win because you invited
a £300 guy who loves food to to,to be a part of a part of it.
(16:39):
So which it can be, I know, I think that that was I, I, I did
it once and that was, that was enough.
Believe me, that one time I did it, they had a lot of meringue
on top of it. And it was, it was a pretty
sickening experience. The only other experience I can
think of that sort of equaled in, in, in being messy was I
know in the Valley they had a, they had a greased pig contest
(17:05):
and the, the, some of us from the media at that particular
time were invited to to wrestle the greased pig.
Yeah, that, that was an experience that I, I wish I
could forget, but anyway. So John, who has the mascots
now? Like who?
Well, the mascots say, yeah, themascots are both in in, I guess
(17:28):
under the control. I don't know if they could get
out and and do rampage anywhere but but but the Red Oak Villa
Autumn wood is the they have they have taken over all the
material that we had for the Blueberry Festival and next year
they are just talking to Janine who's who is I guess one of the
(17:51):
coordinators there at the Red Oak Villa.
She told me just on the weekend that they are going to they're
going to print up T-shirts next year with a blueberry bear on it
so you'll be able to buy T-shirts.
So the Blueberry Bear and said Barina, only make an appearance
once a year. Yeah, well, they're.
(18:11):
Somehow 'cause they used to be at the market on the weekends
when I play there. Yeah, yeah.
Well it, it, it now they are outfor loan.
We used to loan them out for activities and we did of course
have them married officially on the Cortina or the William
(18:31):
Ramsey the boat and it was Rob the skipper there.
He he's. Yeah, Captain Rob.
Yeah, he went to the 12 mile limit in Lake Ramsey and married
the bears. We have the I think the ceremony
is on. The is on is on the Blueberry
festival.ca website too. Yeah, yeah.
(18:53):
So we were thinking of having a baby bear, but yeah.
But unfortunately the the two bears sleep during the winter
time and don't do anything else so.
Right. We never got a bear.
That's good. Yeah.
That's why we never see them in the winter.
They're hibernating. Of course, yeah.
(19:14):
That's why I think that I've always thought that we know we
are we people. US people should have considered
being bears instead, because when you think about a bear, a
bear can swim like crazy. A bear can run us, outrun us.
A bear can climb trees. You know, a bear can get some
fun out of life by chasing humans occasionally or just
(19:35):
appearing, you know, and you sleep all winter when the enemy.
What's the matter with that as as, as as a lifestyle.
So we should be bears instead ofpeople.
I just thought I'd throw that in.
And I have to give you credit for something is another thing,
John, because do you remember when we were talking about that
new website project that I was developing, it's called Suds
(19:57):
Town. Well, it was called Square at
the time Sudbury Square. Oh yeah.
Well, you, you helped me understand something fundamental
about it that I wasn't thinking about.
And it was the fact that you, you had mentioned that it was
all the same feed. Everybody looks at the same
feed. And when we're on other social
(20:19):
media, everybody has their own feed.
But on Saidstown, it's all the same feed.
So everybody's looking at the same thing.
And you had mentioned something about the last time we had that
was on old TV programs when we were all looking at the same
thing. So a light bulb went off in in
my head because I never thought of it that way.
(20:40):
And I was like, he's absolutely right.
It's it's, it's a way to dissectit in a way that I never even
considered. So.
Well, we have a very, you know, fractured universe with respect
to media entertainment. At one time, you know, when I
worked in Kingston, I worked in Newfoundland, Saint John's and
(21:02):
Grand Falls and Simmons and North Bay.
What did we have for entertainment?
Visually? One TV station, 11.
So everybody watch the same thing.
Obviously, you know, if it it, it, it was it, you know it is.
So the next day, if you're talking to people, what did you
(21:23):
say? Did you see the nature of things
last night? Did you see Bonanza?
For people who remember back that far, we all watch the same
thing. Now the chances of somebody
watching the same thing the nextday, when you say you know what
you watched last night, the chances are them seeing the same
thing that you watch. Yeah, very remote Now I don't
(21:45):
know about. And if you go on YouTube, look
at the look at the look at the choices you have on YouTube, I
got it goes on forever and you can spend your whole life
watching everything. So, yeah, so that, so getting
this, the message out even here in Sudbury where he got 7 radio
stations, right. So even trying to communicate,
(22:07):
if you're an advertiser, you know, it's, it's, it's very
difficult. You got a certain budget at the,
at the one time you, you had CHNO&CKSO and that was it for
the radio, you know, and we lobbied for years to get CBC
here and finally got it here. And then we had to lobby to get
CBC, both CB CS feeds. So it's very sort of architects
(22:32):
of our, of our own current situation, I guess.
But so, so how do you know, Likeif you're running a good morning
show here in Sudbury now, I guess if you're really lucky, we
have 5 or 6000 people listening out of out of 160,000
population. Is that, do you think our
population is still that becauseI was, I was meant to ask you
(22:55):
what do you think is an accurateestimate of our population now
here in Sudbury, Greater Sudbury?
Well, you know, it depends who you talk to.
If you're talking to Summit CityHall, we're closer to 180,000,
right? If.
You're talking to others. If you have, you have to go back
in time, like I've been here since 1966.
(23:18):
When I came here, I was in the Benvenuto apartments, the
Commodore apartments across the road.
The Commodore apartments were empty, empty.
There was no one in them becausethey had overbuilt.
So we went from population swings from 170 to 150,000.
So those swings back and forth. So we really don't know until an
(23:42):
actual census takes place and wecan see.
But in, in, in, in in a sense you can't totally rely on let's
say housing statistics because of the fact that we have not
only in Sunbury but across the country, our divorce rate is
(24:02):
pretty close to 50%. So when people divorce, you have
you split one household into twoand generally that means that
there's two homes or there used to be one or the need for two
apartments instead of 1 or whatever, right?
So you could just can't look around and say, well, golly,
Gee, look at the population. You know, there's such a housing
(24:23):
crisis. You know, people can't find a
house to live in. Well, maybe it's because the
number of people who are not living together need a place of
their own and they have absorbedthe available housing.
So it's hard to figure that equation exactly, right.
So are we are we 150? Well, we're nowhere above that.
(24:46):
We won 60 maybe. Are we above that 160 or 170?
I don't know. This year is going to be a sense
this year. So it's going to be interesting
to tell. Also, if you bring into your
community upwards of 5000 students, well then you begin to
count them as your residence. Well, that inflates the figures
(25:07):
well too. So, you know, I wouldn't like to
go out on a limb and say, OK, this is what our situation is.
We have 167.5 people, you know, and it's, I, I'd, I'd just be
guessing too, but, but people use population figures to their
own advantage as well. You know, do we have, when you
(25:28):
look at some of the major industries, we know that our
major, two major industries are,are civic employees, people
working for the government, people working in healthcare.
Mining is still up there probably #3 you have a large
number in the educational area. So you have these various
sectors that basically since thetime that we had a loss of about
(25:55):
15,000 in the mining sector, thehealthcare and education and,
and government employment has picked up.
You know, they've absorbed a lotof that retail very, very
active, but that's and, and, andthe hospitality as well.
As for businesses, Sudbury is a strip mall economy when it comes
(26:20):
to business. What does that mean?
Well, all you have to do is drive along any one of our any
one of our streets and what do you see?
Strip mall after strip mall after strip mall, most of them
full. You don't see anybody.
You don't see retail downtown. No, you don't.
But where do you see it? I know I I didn't dawn on me
until I saw some new strip mills, strip malls being built
(26:43):
in the last few years. I'm saying, what are these?
What are these entrepreneurs doing?
What what are these builders doing?
They're building, you know, strip malls.
Well, you know, there's there's no businesses.
Yes, there are within sometimes even before they're finished,
people have signed up to be in the strip mall.
Why are they in a strip mall? Very simple.
Why aren't they downtown? Because of 3/3.
(27:04):
I call it the three CS, the three CS content, cost and
convenience. One, there has to be a content.
There has to be a reason why yougo someplace.
There's an entertainer like Danny Starr entertaining and
some people want to see him and otherwise they're going to go
there, right? Or and there has to be.
(27:25):
The second factor is cost. How much is it going to cost me
to get there? The distance and what's it going
to cost when I get there for parking?
And the other is convenience. So how is that solved by going
downtown? Not very much because well,
first of all, you got to find the content.
A lot of us disappeared. But then you have to look at the
cost. You go downtown, you're
(27:46):
obviously going to have to pay for parking except on the
weekends and after six O clock or convenience.
How convenient is it going to be?
Well, with the strip mall, you drive right to the door.
The cost is nothing and you're gone there because you know, you
can get watch repaired, you can get a meal, you can get burrito,
you can get whatever. Strip malls have basically
everything. Just go to Andy's.
(28:07):
He's in a strip mall, right? You know, so the strip malls
have basically and then the rentis a lot cheaper than it is even
even going into the mall. Malls are very expensive if
you're a retailer. Plus the fact if you're going to
a mall like me, I'm using a canenow because I, my back went out
with arthritis. So I got to go to the mall and I
(28:29):
got to park. Oh my God, I got to park this
far away. I got to hobble into the mall
and I got to hobble around there.
Whereas I go to the strip mall. I just drive right in or I can
go to mix restaurant on Vulcan Bridge Road, drive right in my
dentist downtown. My OK, let's say Papa Joe moving
out of downtown. Why?
Because they can't stand being harassed by individuals who want
(28:53):
to hand out or just want to bug you or Bill Crumplin.
Now Bill's leaving downtown because it's that plus a number
of other oh. You mean the the Nowhere public?
House the nowhere place that's movement out right yeah, my
dentist is moving they're looking for a a a spot outside
(29:14):
of the downtown. My my my Barber same thing they
want to get out because it's thedowntown is dirty.
I'm I'm I'm president of the CARP organization in Keynesville
Chase retired persons also friendly seniors.
None of our members want to go downtown.
He talked to some people in Chelmsford talk about Zelda
(29:36):
lively. We've been downtown lately.
No, I never go downtown. Why for those reasons.
It's dirty. They don't think it's safe and
there's nothing no reason to go downtown now at night time.
You have restaurants down there and it.
But I know that Bill and his when he was quoted in the paper
the other day, he gave he told the story of one one lady, I
(29:59):
guess downtown with her with hergang.
We went for dinner and there's ahomeless person urinating in
front of their in front of theirtable on the street.
OK, They're not going downtown again, are they?
You know, so you have these now.Downtown will never have a
chance until they build that homeless hub over an energy
(30:20):
court, a spot for the homeless to go.
So they're not wandering around downtown.
Other cities have done it. Why aren't we doing it?
Ask the mayor. The mayor is saying, well, once
we move the arena over there, it's it's going to change the
downtown completely. I know we have, you know, people
on on who are working for the city now on that development
(30:44):
saying the developments going ahead, but there won't be any
parking. Well, so how does that satisfy
your three CS? Convenience and normally no
convenience. We don't have any parking.
You're going to have to find theparking.
The same parking I found before,only there's going to be less of
it. Yeah.
So, I mean, I mean, don't these people open their eyes and see
(31:05):
the reality of the situation they're facing?
First of all, let's look at the arena.
I've gone into the arena many times over the past couple of
months. I've been looking for the
cracks. I've been looking for the seats
that are damaged. I've been looking for the
hospitality area that's no longer hospitable.
I'm looking at the special seatsthat Burgess put in and they're
all in pristine condition. So we're tearing what is
(31:28):
probably the best hockey arena in the NHL or the OHL.
And matter of fact, NHL players were there a couple of months
ago. They said it was great.
So we're going to tear that downand build an Event Center.
We are averaging about 3500 people going to the Wolves
games. If you how much, what's, what's
the percentage we'd have to bring in for the Wolves to bring
it up to 5800 to fill those 5800seats, you'd have to increase
(31:53):
the attendance by 82% to fill the Event Center.
And as it's considered for, and you know, arenas are pretty much
past day now because as you know, the big acts don't come
anymore because, well, the big acts, you know, Taylor and and
Shania and the, and the, and theRaptors don't, don't, don't come
(32:17):
to arenas like Sudbury, that's for sure.
Hey John, we've we've run out oftime for this episode.
I'd love to have you back. I want to thank you sincerely
for for coming on and we can do another one.
I'd I love talking to you. Your voice to me is very
soothing and. Well, I hope I haven't put you
to sleep. No, no, not at all.
(32:38):
It's just that I like to keep them at half an hour.
That's like the. Main.
Oh yeah, definitely. Well, you know, the, the
average, one of the things we should mention just before we
end is the attention span of people nowadays is extremely
limited. So, you know, we hope that we've
said enough controversial thingsor there's a degree of awareness
and may have kept them awake forthis half hour anyway.
(33:00):
Yeah, great talking to you today, John.
You do, Danny. Take care.
Bye, bye. Thanks.
Hi everyone, welcome to Sudbury Interviews.
Today we have John Lindsay, a long time community builder here
in Sudbury and he was has founded festivals and and has
done a very lot for the community and we're going to be
talking about all of that today.Before we begin, you can find us
(00:20):
on Sudstown and join the conversation.
Hey John, how you doing? Hey, just great for an old guy,
you know, I'm, I'm thinking I was, you know, reach this point
where you look back and you say,how long have you been around?
And well, I've been around since1937.
And it's incidentally, you know,those of us who were born just
(00:41):
before the war, during the war only make up 5% of the
population now. So we are people who are here
now. We're probably not going to be
here for too much longer. So 1937 lived through the
through the war. I was just a kid, but, you know,
we did, you know, the paper drives and collecting toothpaste
tubes and, you know, when fighting off the Germans and the
(01:01):
Japs and that sort of thing, as we were kids in the playground,
you know, going, I gotcha, I gotcha, you know, But we weren't
really quite aware of what was going on when my dad went
overseas. And we were, I know when he came
back, you know, like I could hardly recognize him because
he'd been gone for a while. But anyway, those are things
that we can remember from, from those, from those days.
(01:24):
And then of course, time moved on.
I was basically raised both in Canada and the States and dual
citizenship for a while. And, but most of my high
schooling took place in Oakville.
I grew up there and I wasn't well back then.
Only a very small percentage of people went on to to university.
(01:47):
We only had one Community College, Ryerson, in Toronto.
That time I didn't do that. I just went out and tried to get
a job. And I had taken some electronics
in high school and I thought, OK, I've got to be electronics
technician. Unfortunately, I'm color blind,
so I got turned down by Bell andWestinghouse and some of the
larger firms. So I went to our local radio
(02:08):
station and said, you know, you got a job, you know, I can be an
engineer. What's they called the technical
people there? And they said, no, we don't have
that. But you know, you have a pretty
decent voice if you're allowed to becoming an announcer.
And no, I hadn't, but I thought,hey, a job's a job.
So I work there and I went to teachers college part time and I
got my experience in teachers college, a director, a few plays
(02:32):
and had some fun there. I actually taught in the one
room school, but I found out I really didn't like kids.
So I decided that maybe I shouldtry that other occupation and
and become an announcer. And I went and did an audition
and and I got hired. They sent me to Timmons and
Timmons Great, great spot. My friends, my relatives, anyone
(02:56):
in Oakville didn't know where Timmons was.
Neither did I when I went up there.
Just a great town, you know, more activity at night than
there was during the daytime. It was terrific.
And I, I worked there and then I, then I went out to
Newfoundland, worked out there and TV, went to Kingston, worked
there, came back to Timmons working radio there and TV and
(03:21):
worked in North Bay, a few otherplaces.
I think 13 stations all together.
And then I decided I had to get serious after about 10 years of
doing that. So I applied for the government
and became one of the workers atEmployment and Immigration and I
got hired in Ottawa. But they sent me to Sudbury.
(03:42):
Why did they do that? I mean, I could have gotten a
job in Kingston where I was working at that time, and TV.
But no, no, they sent me to Sudbury, you know, the bleak and
barren Sudbury at that time. I know I used to fly over here
on my way to Timmins when I workthere.
And he'd look down, he'd see this, this blackened landscape,
(04:03):
and that's where they sent me. Anyway, I remember going up near
the Memorial Hospital and looking out over the landscape.
It was all black and and rocky and wow, sort of depressing.
But I thought it, I thought it had lots of potential.
Anyway, I worked there for just for a little while and then I
(04:24):
got a part time job at CHNL Radio back then did some stuff
at CKSO as well. And I got hired.
But I, as I was doing both stations and there were
competitors, had to change my name.
So I changed it to Jack Richmond.
What's interesting enough was John, I changed to Jack and I
was talking to one of the announcers at the time and we're
(04:45):
just joking back and forth and Isaid, well, here I am working in
radio. I'm never going to be a rich
man. And he said, that's it, you're
going to be Jack Richmond. So I thought that's pretty good.
It's it's, it's a good name, though.
Some people said, well, you know, isn't that a Jewish name?
Are you Jewish? And I said, no, I'm nothing.
I'm just a, I'm just a voice anyway.
So that went on for 2530 years doing that sort of thing.
(05:10):
And then I volunteered for cablefor about 15 years because I
always like TV, because in TV, you know that there's people on
the studio floor and there's also people in the control
rooms. You know, they're there when
you're in radio, you're in a little booth by yourself and you
wonder, do people really lie? They really listening.
Well, I knew they were there because the figures show that on
(05:31):
my Sunday morning program, whichI did for about 25 years, I knew
there was about 30,000 people listening.
But you don't know that when you're stuck in your little
booth. So you're, you know, here,
you're there, but you know, you're playing music for
yourself then. But anyway, it's, it, it was
lots of fun. But at the same time, I was very
much involved in, in local activity in Kingston.
(05:53):
I was chair of the safety council.
I was doing other volunteer workbecause that's what they wanted
you to do. And it's something really we
need to get businesses more involved to get to encourage
their employees to become involved because we really need
volunteers. But, but, but that's another
subject. So basically wrapping up this
(06:14):
history, I got involved in in different activities.
I was really interested in politics and I follow politics
and I actually ran for a couple of elections and I did get
elected to school board. I was chair of the school board
for a while. And then I got involved with
things in the community that I thought needed to be addressed.
(06:35):
And so if you run for election, you actually get people to
listen to you because otherwise you're just a voice out there.
But if you put your name forward, then you go to meetings
and they and the candidates speak out in various things and
sometimes, sometimes people listen to you.
So that was basically it. And I worked for almost 30 years
(06:57):
for employment and immigration. And then I went on the school
board for a while and then I became involved with my wife in
a financial advisory firm. And so and then that's where I
am at at the present time. Our, our business deals with
about 5 or 600 clients and we, we help them with their
(07:19):
financial situation, taxes and that sort of thing, which is,
which is good because people need to be more than ever
concerned about their financial state because retirement comes,
comes on. We have, we have 42,000 people
in Sudbury who are over the age of 65.
They're either in retirement or soon.
(07:40):
We have 5050% of our population is over the age of 50.
So we're an aging population. And you know, our, our city
officials, staff and council have to look at that demographic
because everybody's moving, getting older.
This means your tax base is not growing.
We know the mayor wants to increase our population is
(08:01):
200,000. That is an enviable goal.
However, you got to consider thefact that we have 42,000 of us
who are over 65 who aren't goingto be here forever.
One of the, one of the most active businesses in town is the
funeral business because we're, we're dying out and, and that's,
that's a fact. How do we, and our birth rate is
(08:22):
not great. So are we going to be saved by
immigrants? Hard to say.
We've had a surge of immigrants,but that's when brought in
students largely. And we can see what's happening
now. The government's cutting back on
the immigrants. Community colleges and
universities are are complainingthat they're going to have to
lay off staff because they don'thave the number of students.
(08:46):
So we faced a housing crisis in large part because we brought in
a lot of people that we didn't have housing for.
So, you know, you wonder why, why don't our political leaders
analyze the results of what theydo?
(09:07):
I mean, it was obvious by, OK, we're going to open up
immigration to all these students, all these well, which
is not a bad idea except for thefact that they're bringing them
in, in the thousands without theproper facilities.
We had to Cambrian College itself set up a strip mall,
education stores, almost you might call them down South where
(09:31):
they taught immigrants such exotic subjects like creative
marketing. You know, I mean, you and I can
teach creative marketing, but this was so, so, so basically
they were teaching a lot of immigrants coming in, no fault
of their own, but they came in hoping to get some sort of
(09:51):
education, which in theory they should take back to their home
countries and, and, and do theirwork back there to help their
own countries. But basically their ultimate
goal for many of them, of course, is to stay in the
country. So we really need to look at
that situation. The government has looked at it
and they have put a bit of a choker hold on it.
(10:11):
So we're going to see what happens there.
But in the meantime we're looking at our homeless
situation, particularly in Sudbury, and unfortunately
looking at what can be done for the homeless on a short time
frame. Not looking at 2030 but doing it
relatively soon like Peterborough, Kitchener,
Waterloo have done where they have created homeless hubs where
(10:36):
the homeless I looked after in amore humane manner than they are
here in Sudbury. So you know, why aren't we doing
that? Councillor Duke made a motion at
the last council meeting to let us look at what Peterborough has
done or other communities have done and it got turned down.
Only 5 councillors voted in favor of looking at it.
(10:56):
Even so, and the and the staff at the city and some of the
higher ups on the council say no, no we're doing OK.
We're not doing OK or otherwise we wouldn't have people in tents
all over the city on private land and the public land.
Or I walked downtown the other day and I was 15 homeless.
(11:17):
I saw in three blocks, includingone that was in the hallway of
the YMCA and there were about four or five underneath.
Others were I were in doorways when I walked along, there was
about 5 or 6 who were in the near the provincial building at
199 large. So we're not looking after the
(11:39):
problem, you know, and we're saying, well, we're going to do
something in, in, in the future.We're going to do something
well, the future is here, so, solet's do it now.
So this is, and we talked originally and then introduced
me as a, as an advocate. I'm an I'm an advocate for the
homeless. I'm not an activist.
An activist is someone who goes out with signs and says, let's
(12:03):
do something for the homeless. Well, you know, I really applaud
people who do that. But I'm more along the lines of
let's see what we can do actually immediately or was in a
relatively short time. And I'm sure that businesses I
know of my little business here and my my wife's business and my
business and, and our daughter. We're the three principles here
(12:25):
that we have other staff. But we have said these little
tiny homes, so tiny homes that they have in Peterborough in a
Kitchener Waterloo that they're,they're, they're they're
constructed for about $20,000. Our little business is willing
to put out $20,000 to build one of these homes.
And I'm sure I'm a member of theChamber of Commerce.
(12:45):
I'm sure that a number of other businesses, the chamber, we, we,
we might, we, we could do that ourselves.
We don't even need the city to put out money.
The city's gotten money for the homeless, but they seem to be,
we don't know what they're doingwith it exactly.
They have the Lorraine St. project, which is apartments,
which is transitional housing, which is more like a halfway
house for those homeless that need a little more help.
(13:09):
Now for most of the homeless, just give me a spot where I can
lay my head. The people aren't going to steal
my stuff and I'm not going to freeze in the winter time.
You know, I'm not, I'm not goingto get too hot in this in the
summertime. So, you know, this is, I hate to
use that term, rocket science, but this is not rocket science.
This is basic human caring. But we don't seem to be doing
(13:32):
that. And you know, it's very
upsetting. Have I given you some idea?
Yeah, yeah, that's a really nicehistory for sure.
So I think the first time I met you, John, I was around 20 years
old and I was playing just. I just a kid, OK?
I was playing at the Blueberry Festival downtown.
It was at Memorial Park. Do you remember those days?
(13:55):
Oh, yeah, yeah, We had great ones.
We had Brian Koosman did a lot. Of yeah, Brian Koosman, more
entertainment and you had the Sudbury Bear mascot with Sud
Marina. Yeah, yeah.
Where? Did those come from those
mascots? Well, the Sudbury bear is is
that's the second reincarnation,you might say, of the sudden.
We had an original Sudbury bear,Janine, who was the blueberry
(14:21):
lady, we called it. She had a little blueberry house
on Morris St. I think it was.
And she, along with Peter Wong, actually started the Blueberry
Festival. The whole history, by the way,
is on blueberryfestival.ca. It's a very simple blueberry
festival at CA. You can look up, there's the
history there, the, the, what's happened over the years, the
(14:43):
climbing up Blueberry Hill, blah, blah, blah.
And yeah, everything is on that website, the whole history.
And of course the, the Blueberrybear, the costume is, we had a
little fan inside the costume. You know, the fan kept breaking.
Yeah. So it was a little, it was a, it
was a little chore to get somebody to go in the I will say
(15:09):
as a chore to get them in, it was to get them to stay in
because it got pretty hot in there.
But we had a, we had a number ofa really great bears, I mean
bear inserts over the years and 1st Sabrina bear as well too.
But yeah, so that they worked. And of course the in the, in the
park there we had a number of organizations who did the
(15:30):
pancake breakfast. Whereas we had we had many
activities going on. We had the dinosaur park out in
the out in the valley. We had skied had their pancake
breakfast. Of course, the famous Ukrainian
of, of like, I guess I don't want to call it all pancakes
because they had crepes and theyhad blueberry pie and they have
(15:52):
blueberry perogies and they had entertainments.
That was something great. We had the activities down there
at the market. So there is up to upwards of
about 20 different activities happened all the time during the
Blueberry festival. And we're glad to see that the
Red Oak Willow has taken it overand they did a great job.
It just finished and we had the famous pie eating contest.
How come you never entered our pie eating contest?
(16:14):
I was never asked to. Oh darn.
Well, next year you're going to have to stick your face on the
pie. Well, you know, I interviewed
the winner of that just a coupleof days ago, Chad Rivette.
Oh, yeah, He's, he's a star. He's done it, Yeah.
He said, you know, I knew I was going to win because you invited
a £300 guy who loves food to to,to be a part of a part of it.
(16:39):
So which it can be, I know, I think that that was I, I, I did
it once and that was, that was enough.
Believe me, that one time I did it, they had a lot of meringue
on top of it. And it was, it was a pretty
sickening experience. The only other experience I can
think of that sort of equaled in, in, in being messy was I
know in the Valley they had a, they had a greased pig contest
(17:05):
and the, the, some of us from the media at that particular
time were invited to to wrestle the greased pig.
Yeah, that, that was an experience that I, I wish I
could forget, but anyway. So John, who has the mascots
now? Like who?
Well, the mascots say, yeah, themascots are both in in, I guess
(17:28):
under the control. I don't know if they could get
out and and do rampage anywhere but but but the Red Oak Villa
Autumn wood is the they have they have taken over all the
material that we had for the Blueberry Festival and next year
they are just talking to Janine who's who is I guess one of the
(17:51):
coordinators there at the Red Oak Villa.
She told me just on the weekend that they are going to they're
going to print up T-shirts next year with a blueberry bear on it
so you'll be able to buy T-shirts.
So the Blueberry Bear and said Barina, only make an appearance
once a year. Yeah, well, they're.
(18:11):
Somehow 'cause they used to be at the market on the weekends
when I play there. Yeah, yeah.
Well it, it, it now they are outfor loan.
We used to loan them out for activities and we did of course
have them married officially on the Cortina or the William
(18:31):
Ramsey the boat and it was Rob the skipper there.
He he's. Yeah, Captain Rob.
Yeah, he went to the 12 mile limit in Lake Ramsey and married
the bears. We have the I think the ceremony
is on. The is on is on the Blueberry
festival.ca website too. Yeah, yeah.
(18:53):
So we were thinking of having a baby bear, but yeah.
But unfortunately the the two bears sleep during the winter
time and don't do anything else so.
Right. We never got a bear.
That's good. Yeah.
That's why we never see them in the winter.
They're hibernating. Of course, yeah.
(19:14):
That's why I think that I've always thought that we know we
are we people. US people should have considered
being bears instead, because when you think about a bear, a
bear can swim like crazy. A bear can run us, outrun us.
A bear can climb trees. You know, a bear can get some
fun out of life by chasing humans occasionally or just
(19:35):
appearing, you know, and you sleep all winter when the enemy.
What's the matter with that as as, as as a lifestyle.
So we should be bears instead ofpeople.
I just thought I'd throw that in.
And I have to give you credit for something is another thing,
John, because do you remember when we were talking about that
new website project that I was developing, it's called Suds
(19:57):
Town. Well, it was called Square at
the time Sudbury Square. Oh yeah.
Well, you, you helped me understand something fundamental
about it that I wasn't thinking about.
And it was the fact that you, you had mentioned that it was
all the same feed. Everybody looks at the same
feed. And when we're on other social
(20:19):
media, everybody has their own feed.
But on Saidstown, it's all the same feed.
So everybody's looking at the same thing.
And you had mentioned something about the last time we had that
was on old TV programs when we were all looking at the same
thing. So a light bulb went off in in
my head because I never thought of it that way.
(20:40):
And I was like, he's absolutely right.
It's it's, it's a way to dissectit in a way that I never even
considered. So.
Well, we have a very, you know, fractured universe with respect
to media entertainment. At one time, you know, when I
worked in Kingston, I worked in Newfoundland, Saint John's and
(21:02):
Grand Falls and Simmons and North Bay.
What did we have for entertainment?
Visually? One TV station, 11.
So everybody watch the same thing.
Obviously, you know, if it it, it, it was it, you know it is.
So the next day, if you're talking to people, what did you
(21:23):
say? Did you see the nature of things
last night? Did you see Bonanza?
For people who remember back that far, we all watch the same
thing. Now the chances of somebody
watching the same thing the nextday, when you say you know what
you watched last night, the chances are them seeing the same
thing that you watch. Yeah, very remote Now I don't
(21:45):
know about. And if you go on YouTube, look
at the look at the look at the choices you have on YouTube, I
got it goes on forever and you can spend your whole life
watching everything. So, yeah, so that, so getting
this, the message out even here in Sudbury where he got 7 radio
stations, right. So even trying to communicate,
(22:07):
if you're an advertiser, you know, it's, it's, it's very
difficult. You got a certain budget at the,
at the one time you, you had CHNO&CKSO and that was it for
the radio, you know, and we lobbied for years to get CBC
here and finally got it here. And then we had to lobby to get
CBC, both CB CS feeds. So it's very sort of architects
(22:32):
of our, of our own current situation, I guess.
But so, so how do you know, Likeif you're running a good morning
show here in Sudbury now, I guess if you're really lucky, we
have 5 or 6000 people listening out of out of 160,000
population. Is that, do you think our
population is still that becauseI was, I was meant to ask you
(22:55):
what do you think is an accurateestimate of our population now
here in Sudbury, Greater Sudbury?
Well, you know, it depends who you talk to.
If you're talking to Summit CityHall, we're closer to 180,000,
right? If.
You're talking to others. If you have, you have to go back
in time, like I've been here since 1966.
(23:18):
When I came here, I was in the Benvenuto apartments, the
Commodore apartments across the road.
The Commodore apartments were empty, empty.
There was no one in them becausethey had overbuilt.
So we went from population swings from 170 to 150,000.
So those swings back and forth. So we really don't know until an
(23:42):
actual census takes place and wecan see.
But in, in, in, in in a sense you can't totally rely on let's
say housing statistics because of the fact that we have not
only in Sunbury but across the country, our divorce rate is
(24:02):
pretty close to 50%. So when people divorce, you have
you split one household into twoand generally that means that
there's two homes or there used to be one or the need for two
apartments instead of 1 or whatever, right?
So you could just can't look around and say, well, golly,
Gee, look at the population. You know, there's such a housing
(24:23):
crisis. You know, people can't find a
house to live in. Well, maybe it's because the
number of people who are not living together need a place of
their own and they have absorbedthe available housing.
So it's hard to figure that equation exactly, right.
So are we are we 150? Well, we're nowhere above that.
(24:46):
We won 60 maybe. Are we above that 160 or 170?
I don't know. This year is going to be a sense
this year. So it's going to be interesting
to tell. Also, if you bring into your
community upwards of 5000 students, well then you begin to
count them as your residence. Well, that inflates the figures
(25:07):
well too. So, you know, I wouldn't like to
go out on a limb and say, OK, this is what our situation is.
We have 167.5 people, you know, and it's, I, I'd, I'd just be
guessing too, but, but people use population figures to their
own advantage as well. You know, do we have, when you
(25:28):
look at some of the major industries, we know that our
major, two major industries are,are civic employees, people
working for the government, people working in healthcare.
Mining is still up there probably #3 you have a large
number in the educational area. So you have these various
sectors that basically since thetime that we had a loss of about
(25:55):
15,000 in the mining sector, thehealthcare and education and,
and government employment has picked up.
You know, they've absorbed a lotof that retail very, very
active, but that's and, and, andthe hospitality as well.
As for businesses, Sudbury is a strip mall economy when it comes
(26:20):
to business. What does that mean?
Well, all you have to do is drive along any one of our any
one of our streets and what do you see?
Strip mall after strip mall after strip mall, most of them
full. You don't see anybody.
You don't see retail downtown. No, you don't.
But where do you see it? I know I I didn't dawn on me
until I saw some new strip mills, strip malls being built
(26:43):
in the last few years. I'm saying, what are these?
What are these entrepreneurs doing?
What what are these builders doing?
They're building, you know, strip malls.
Well, you know, there's there's no businesses.
Yes, there are within sometimes even before they're finished,
people have signed up to be in the strip mall.
Why are they in a strip mall? Very simple.
Why aren't they downtown? Because of 3/3.
(27:04):
I call it the three CS, the three CS content, cost and
convenience. One, there has to be a content.
There has to be a reason why yougo someplace.
There's an entertainer like Danny Starr entertaining and
some people want to see him and otherwise they're going to go
there, right? Or and there has to be.
(27:25):
The second factor is cost. How much is it going to cost me
to get there? The distance and what's it going
to cost when I get there for parking?
And the other is convenience. So how is that solved by going
downtown? Not very much because well,
first of all, you got to find the content.
A lot of us disappeared. But then you have to look at the
cost. You go downtown, you're
(27:46):
obviously going to have to pay for parking except on the
weekends and after six O clock or convenience.
How convenient is it going to be?
Well, with the strip mall, you drive right to the door.
The cost is nothing and you're gone there because you know, you
can get watch repaired, you can get a meal, you can get burrito,
you can get whatever. Strip malls have basically
everything. Just go to Andy's.
(28:07):
He's in a strip mall, right? You know, so the strip malls
have basically and then the rentis a lot cheaper than it is even
even going into the mall. Malls are very expensive if
you're a retailer. Plus the fact if you're going to
a mall like me, I'm using a canenow because I, my back went out
with arthritis. So I got to go to the mall and I
(28:29):
got to park. Oh my God, I got to park this
far away. I got to hobble into the mall
and I got to hobble around there.
Whereas I go to the strip mall. I just drive right in or I can
go to mix restaurant on Vulcan Bridge Road, drive right in my
dentist downtown. My OK, let's say Papa Joe moving
out of downtown. Why?
Because they can't stand being harassed by individuals who want
(28:53):
to hand out or just want to bug you or Bill Crumplin.
Now Bill's leaving downtown because it's that plus a number
of other oh. You mean the the Nowhere public?
House the nowhere place that's movement out right yeah, my
dentist is moving they're looking for a a a spot outside
(29:14):
of the downtown. My my my Barber same thing they
want to get out because it's thedowntown is dirty.
I'm I'm I'm president of the CARP organization in Keynesville
Chase retired persons also friendly seniors.
None of our members want to go downtown.
He talked to some people in Chelmsford talk about Zelda
(29:36):
lively. We've been downtown lately.
No, I never go downtown. Why for those reasons.
It's dirty. They don't think it's safe and
there's nothing no reason to go downtown now at night time.
You have restaurants down there and it.
But I know that Bill and his when he was quoted in the paper
the other day, he gave he told the story of one one lady, I
(29:59):
guess downtown with her with hergang.
We went for dinner and there's ahomeless person urinating in
front of their in front of theirtable on the street.
OK, They're not going downtown again, are they?
You know, so you have these now.Downtown will never have a
chance until they build that homeless hub over an energy
(30:20):
court, a spot for the homeless to go.
So they're not wandering around downtown.
Other cities have done it. Why aren't we doing it?
Ask the mayor. The mayor is saying, well, once
we move the arena over there, it's it's going to change the
downtown completely. I know we have, you know, people
on on who are working for the city now on that development
(30:44):
saying the developments going ahead, but there won't be any
parking. Well, so how does that satisfy
your three CS? Convenience and normally no
convenience. We don't have any parking.
You're going to have to find theparking.
The same parking I found before,only there's going to be less of
it. Yeah.
So, I mean, I mean, don't these people open their eyes and see
(31:05):
the reality of the situation they're facing?
First of all, let's look at the arena.
I've gone into the arena many times over the past couple of
months. I've been looking for the
cracks. I've been looking for the seats
that are damaged. I've been looking for the
hospitality area that's no longer hospitable.
I'm looking at the special seatsthat Burgess put in and they're
all in pristine condition. So we're tearing what is
(31:28):
probably the best hockey arena in the NHL or the OHL.
And matter of fact, NHL players were there a couple of months
ago. They said it was great.
So we're going to tear that downand build an Event Center.
We are averaging about 3500 people going to the Wolves
games. If you how much, what's, what's
the percentage we'd have to bring in for the Wolves to bring
it up to 5800 to fill those 5800seats, you'd have to increase
(31:53):
the attendance by 82% to fill the Event Center.
And as it's considered for, and you know, arenas are pretty much
past day now because as you know, the big acts don't come
anymore because, well, the big acts, you know, Taylor and and
Shania and the, and the, and theRaptors don't, don't, don't come
(32:17):
to arenas like Sudbury, that's for sure.
Hey John, we've we've run out oftime for this episode.
I'd love to have you back. I want to thank you sincerely
for for coming on and we can do another one.
I'd I love talking to you. Your voice to me is very
soothing and. Well, I hope I haven't put you
to sleep. No, no, not at all.
(32:38):
It's just that I like to keep them at half an hour.
That's like the. Main.
Oh yeah, definitely. Well, you know, the, the
average, one of the things we should mention just before we
end is the attention span of people nowadays is extremely
limited. So, you know, we hope that we've
said enough controversial thingsor there's a degree of awareness
and may have kept them awake forthis half hour anyway.
(33:00):
Yeah, great talking to you today, John.
You do, Danny. Take care.
Bye, bye. Thanks.
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