July 29, 2025 • 50 mins
Tonight on The Brian Crombie Hour, Brian interviews John Lorinc. John is a journalist and editor who reports on urban affairs, politics, business, technology, and local history. His work has appeared in The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, The Walrus, Maclean’s, and Spacing, where he is a senior editor. He won the 2019-2020 Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy for his reporting on politics and governance of smart cities and the 2022 Balsillie Prize for Public Policy for Dream States: Smart Cities, Technology, and the Pursuit of Urban Utopias.
John discusses his views on sixplexes and urban density, emphasizing the need for adding density in a way that is acceptable to homeowners while allowing others to live in neighborhoods. He argues that small apartment buildings have historically existed in older parts of Toronto without significant issues and that the city has regulations to manage concerns like parking and tenant behavior. John criticizes suburban councillors for overreacting to exaggerated claims about problematic sixplexes and highlighted the importance of providing housing options for the city's many tenants. Together John and Brian also discuss transit, tunnels, highways, and how to build a great city.
John discusses his views on sixplexes and urban density, emphasizing the need for adding density in a way that is acceptable to homeowners while allowing others to live in neighborhoods. He argues that small apartment buildings have historically existed in older parts of Toronto without significant issues and that the city has regulations to manage concerns like parking and tenant behavior. John criticizes suburban councillors for overreacting to exaggerated claims about problematic sixplexes and highlighted the importance of providing housing options for the city's many tenants. Together John and Brian also discuss transit, tunnels, highways, and how to build a great city.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
Saga nine sixty am or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Good Even Dinner One, Welcome to the Brian Cromby Radio Hour.
It's a real pleasure of mine to have John Lawrence
with us. And he's a freelance writer and editor. He
writes for the Toronto Starr, he writes for Spaces magazine.
He's a frequent commentator of what's going on in Toronto
and the GTA, and I really enjoy reading him because
he's very provocative and often has some interesting points of view,
(00:38):
and his articles are prolific. And so there's lots of
different topics that we could discuss tonight. We're going to
go through a few of them. I'm going to start
with an article that you wrote about a week ago
about six plexes and why we shouldn't be so worried
about them. And you know, we've got these downtown counselors
that have written and voted in favor of six plexes,
but the rest of suburban Toronto that has voted against
(00:59):
six boxes. Tell me what's your take, sir.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
So I think generally we have to we have to
find ways of adding density to residential areas in a
gentle way, right, in a way that you know that
people who are homeowners can tolerate, but who but you know,
in ways that allow you know, other people to come
(01:24):
into the neighborhoods even if they can't afford to buy
a home. And you know, in many parts of Toronto
and the older parts of the city, you could find
you know, small apartment buildings in you know, triplexes, duplexes,
you know, all sorts of things in older neighborhoods and
they just pop up and then they kind of they
(01:45):
just kind of fade into the woodwork. They're just there.
People live there.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
But aren't people worried about you know, rooming houses and
too much parking on their street and undesirable people living
there and changing the faber fabric of our neighborhood, et cetera,
et cetera.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Well, those are the those are frequently the kind of
reasons that are put forward against you know, these kind
of multiplex buildings. And what I'd argue is the following,
I live in an area with lots of multiplexes. It's
a residential neighborhood with lots of homes you could fix,
you could solve how the parking problem. You could also
(02:23):
assume that not everybody who's going to rent one of
these things is going to have a car, and we
have a lot of that kind of urban form in
the city. This is dependent on where you are, right
so if you're in a remote corner of Agent Court,
you're going to need a car, But if you're closer
to transit or near a made arterial, maybe not so much. So,
(02:45):
you know, providing a parking space for everybody is probably
an overkill. And the other thing is is that we
live in a city where you know, almost half the
residents are tenants. There are people who rent their apartments
and so this is just part of our the urban
fabric of the city. And there's no reason that you know,
(03:06):
tenants shouldn't be living in residential neighborhoods with houses, and
in fact they always have, but it's not a matter
of official policy. A lot of the time it was,
you know, it was basement apartments that were illegal, but
you know perfectly fine. Or you know people who would
you know, cut up a house into a couple of
pieces and are just sharing it. None of these are
(03:28):
inherently problematic. Sometimes you get problems where you have a
rooming house and legal rooming house, but there are by
laws around the you know, the regulation of those and
the inspection and property standards and so on, and so
I would argue that you know that the city basically
has discovered you can't you can't ward off everything. You
(03:50):
can have an next door neighbor who makes a holy
racket in a privately owned home, and you could have
a next door neighbor where you've got two apartments and
you never hear from them. So you know, that's the
that's the way cities are.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
But what most of the former Metro Toronto, other than
the City of Toronto, the old City of Toronto, voted
against it and it wasn't implemented. So what's your answer
to those councilors.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Well, so I was watching that council meeting. There were
a very small number of examples put forward by the
city and by a couple of the councilors, claiming that
they were dealing with applications for multiplexes that had you know, six, seven,
eight bedrooms in one case. This was something that Shelley Carroll,
(04:41):
who's the former Deputy mayor of Toronto said or sorry,
she's not the former deputy mayor. She's the head of
the budget committee. You know, claimed that there was a
project with eight bedrooms per unit, but it turns out
it didn't exist. So there are these kind of phantom
zon is right there, these boogeymen, the you know houses
(05:02):
that are filled with you know, students, and we don't
like them. And you know, as I said before, they exist,
they don't exist in profusion. I mean, they're you know,
so it's not a good reason to you know, to
kill the whole policy. And I think that a lot
of the suburban councilors kind of overreacted because you know,
(05:24):
they have constituents who are very used to just having
you know, single family home after single family home after
single family home, and you know, and let the tenants
live somewhere somewhere else.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Now we've already approved what is it triplexus or quadplexes, correct,
So this isn't a major change.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
It's not a major change. The driver of this initiative
is that the the cost for building is high, as
we know, and the you know, some of the there's
a sort of an emerging market of small contractors who
are specializing in these multiplex units, and what they were
telling the city, you know, when it was kind of
(06:03):
sounding out the market, was that it makes more financial
sense for them to be able to add that one
extra unit, and that makes the project viable financially. So,
as you say, you know, the difference between four and six,
it's actually five and six because you can put a
garden unit to the back. A garden suite is not
(06:24):
that great from the experience of the surrounding neighborhood, but
it does make a difference in terms of the investment.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
So you in your article said that there was a
goal the city had to add two hundred and eighty
five thousand new dwellings in the next five years, which
is actually I was surprised how small it is, given
that CMC says we need to add I think it's
three point one million homes in the next ten years.
They used to say it was three point five. It's
now down to three point one because they're going to
(06:53):
a level of affordability of twenty nineteen versus the prior
level of affordability being two thousand and four. But beas
as it may, two hundred and eighty five thousand new
homes by twenty thirty one, and this would create one
hundred and sixty four thousand of them according to a
report you mentioned produced by City Planning. That's a significant
(07:13):
that's like almost that's over half of what you need.
And you also point out in the article that this
past year we've only created four five hundred units. So
how the heck are we going to create these units
if we don't do something like this.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
So I'm pretty sure that City Planning articles a time
horizon was twenty forty, not twenty thirty. The city has
these goals for adding housing that are based on a
formula that the provincial government has set right, so they
allocate a certain amount per individual municipality. And then what
(07:47):
the city did was they projected the take up of
multiplexes in residential neighborhoods around the city and they came
up with a number which kind of ramps up because
as the market matures and the you know, the model
becomes something that's more standard, the you know, more people
(08:08):
will kind of get into that space. But it's not
a huge amount.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
You know.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
We have to remember that there are like one point
two million homes in the city of Toronto, Right, So
some of them are apartments and condos, and many of
them are single family homes or duplexus. You know, I
live in a semi so you know, we're talking about
a difference. We're talking about adding five, eight, ten percent,
(08:36):
you know, over the course of fifteen years. And I
don't think that that's a huge ask in you know,
in most parts of the city.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
So you quote in the article that the you actually
call it the elephant in the room, that the condo
real estate bubble has burst and and it isn't coming
back time soon. How are we going to get these
homes built if we don't have condos and if we
don't have this kind of a proposal produced and approved.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
So my critique about condos is the following. The way
condos land in the city of Toronto and in many
other places, this is true of Mississauga and in Vaughan,
is that they are clusters. They're clumps that are built
on you know, former car dealerships or former you know,
malls that have been converted and they're very sort of
(09:26):
isolated from the rest of the urban fabric. Right, They're
on major streets, they're you know, so they're these protrusions.
And if you're you know, if you've seen photographs of
Young Street area of photographs, you see the sort of
you know spine down Young Street, and what the city
has done over the last you know, five or six
(09:47):
years is said, Okay, we're going to add gentle density
in all of these residential neighborhoods. We're going to make
it allowable under certain conditions you know, setbacks and you know,
heights and so on, and so what you're doing essentially
is you're you're spreading around the housing instead of clumping
(10:08):
it up and creating very large buildings that are essentially
not that well built. They're under resourced in terms of
things like elevators, and they you know, they have these
sort of financial shocks which are the you know, the
condo fees and the you know, the capital the capital
(10:29):
improvement fees. So in my argument, I mean, this is
just my view that it's a better way to add
housing is to spread it around, right, you know, the
old saying many hands makes for light work rather than
just clustering. Clustering. These a lot of housing on tight
sites that are on major streets.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
But neighbors will object and do object and Obviously, these
suburban councilors objected to the idea that you're doing exactly
what you're doing, that you're taking that development off of
the major streets, and they seem to be supportive of
of only development on the major intersections and as soon
as they get into residential areas that you're not allowed
to do that development. So how do you convince them
(11:12):
they're wrong? We haven't been able to do it, obviously,
So I think that there are a couple of arguments
to make.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
One is that the evidence that this kind of housing
detracts from, you know, home value, like the market value
of your home doesn't exist. There are many parts of
the older city where there is exactly this kind of
diversity of housing, and it's the most expensive part of
(11:40):
the city. So just to say that. The second is
that the you know, going back to my argument about
the phantom the phantom objection. So where I'm sitting, I
have a home office, and I'm looking at a house
that has four units. You used to have one unit.
It used to be a single family home, and then
(12:02):
the owner's aged moved away, sold as somebody turned it
into four apartments, and you know, the sky didn't Fall.
And this example exists all over the city, and it
exists in older parts. It exists in the older parts
of the city as well as newer parts of the city.
(12:22):
And so the point I try to make with this
is that the fears of introducing tenants and introducing you know,
renters and you know, buildings that have more than just
one dwelling unit are overblown. And for evidence of that,
you could look at all sorts of neighborhoods in the
(12:44):
old Toronto, the Old City of York, the old City
of East York, parts of North York. These forums exist,
and they've existed for many generations. I'll give you an example.
There's a pocket I actually this was my third apartment
where my parents lived well after I was born. It
(13:06):
was an area, it was a street called fraser Wood
and it's around Marley and Lawrence. And so for your readers,
for your listeners who are outside the four one six,
that's basically around the base of the Allen and it's
an area with a lot of post war kind of
back splits and you know, bungalows and then they're you know,
they're interspersed with that are six plexes, which are you know,
(13:29):
it's like three stories. I think that there's a sort
of a half basement to up top to up top
on that and a center staircase. And they've been there.
They've been like they've been there since the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
So one of the reasons why the city was interested
in passing this new regulation was it was a requirement
by the federal government to get some infrastructure funding. And
Merchau and Council effectively allowed the policy to go ahead
only for the City of Toronto, the old city of Toronto,
(14:05):
and not for all these suburbs, and so this infrastructure
money is at risk. Was that the right decision that
Marrichau made.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
I think they came up with a nonsensical compromise. And
let me just take you in an imaginary trip to
the following spot. There are places where the ward boundary
is on either side of a residential street, and so
in this scenario, we could have somebody building a multiplex
(14:33):
on one side of the street and somebody on the
opposite side of the street who says, Okay, well I'd
like to do that as well. Is not allowed, even
though they're you know, you know, they're a few dozen
meters apart doesn't make any sense. And I think that,
you know, like I don't have I don't have access
(14:53):
to the cabinet deliberations around the Housing Accelerator Fund, but
I cannot imagine that what they were envisioning was a
half loaf right. It's like the city should do it.
The city is getting the money, so the city as
a whole should be doing it, or not take the
money right, or not be given the money. Like this
is a kind of a it's sort of neither fish
(15:16):
nor fowl, and it's just very strange, you know.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
It's interesting. I interviewed Joe Barrage of Urban Strategies at
one point time, and he said that it's ironic that
our zoning regulations make it really easy to build single
family homes, which is typically three or four maximum houses
per acre, and very easy to build towers which are
often you know, seventy to one hundred or more units perreaker,
(15:39):
but very difficult to build anything in the middle. And
yet on survey after survey, people say they like the beaches,
they like Bluris Village, they like you know, poor credit,
they like areas that are typically between twenty and forty
units breaker which is the missing middle that you describe
in your article. Why is that? Like It's just it
seems like the cities that we built or the village
(15:59):
that you built historically the people like the most are
the ones that we're making it most difficult the building
in today.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
I mean, I think it's an excellent question. I think
Joe is exactly correct. I think that there was a
time when we understood how to make apartment buildings that
were not you know, these monuments, you know, these monoliths
that were perfectly humane and good to live in, and
you know, put them in all sorts of places. And
(16:27):
so part of that has to do with sort of
overthinking the you know, zoning and land use. Part of
it has to do with, you know, acknowledging that you know,
not every family can afford a single family home, and
the city has an obligation to provide for a you know,
wide range of housing types. And you know, since you know,
(16:50):
I mean really since the nineteen sixties, it's taller sprawl.
And that's taller sprawl. Taller sprawl is this phrase. I
don't know if Joe used it, but it's a commonly used
praise and it you know, it I mean, the point
of that expression is that there is all that missing
kind of form, all these different types of housing that
(17:14):
aren't being built, and the reason that they are being
built is because they've largely been outlawed.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
You say in your another article that you wrote in
Spacing magazine that meyr Chow is playing a very risky
game with the federal government.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
Yeah. Well, she sort of dared them to to kind
of I mean, she's kind of daring them to call
her bluff, right she you know, she said she wasn't
worried about the you know, but the fact that they
didn't do six plexes across the whole scope, like the
whole city, as they were requested to. And you know,
(17:52):
we've seen subsequently that the you know that the federal
government is you know kind of you know, it's shuffling
its feet about this. They're not you know, they're not
loving this compromise that city council has you know, has passed.
And the other thing I would note is that the
you know that the Conservatives, who are you know, they
(18:13):
have a lot of seats in Parliament. They have a
Housing and Municipal Housing Minister or sorry, a Housing shadow
Cabinet member Scott Atchison, who has been really hammering away
at this in the last two weeks, like they're putting
pressure on the Liberals to not give Toronto that money.
(18:36):
And I think that they're correct.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
And if they decide not to give Toronto the money,
do you think Toronto when those suburban councilors will change
their mind.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
I don't know. I mean, I think that the suburban
councilors are perfectly happy with the compromise. And you know,
truth be told, thirty million dollars is a kind of
a round air in the City of Toronto's budgets, so
they can sort of they can kind of figure it out.
It's like it's enough money that it you know, it
causes a twinge, but it's not something that needs abandoned.
(19:13):
And I think that, you know, unless there's some major
external source of pressure to kind of push them away
from these very long held views that are not really
very well grounded in the way neighborhoods function, they're not
going to want to change. And that's too bad. And
let me just say one more thing, please, which is
(19:35):
that our neighborhoods, our residential neighborhoods, are aging. And the
reason that they're aging is because younger people, unless they
have intergenerational wealth, cannot afford to buy a home. So
you and I have children who are young adults and
for whom it takes six seven, eight years to say,
(19:56):
for just a down payment on a house that you
and I could never have afforded on our current incomes
when we were that age. And so the big picture
in all of this is that the next generation, which
is so important to the vitality of a city, right
they bring new ideas and new you know, new professions.
(20:17):
All of these things are priced out of the market
in a very troubling way. And this is why we
need to expand all of the types of housing that
are available. You know, this is just one type, but
it provides a kind of way of living in the
city that doesn't require a massive downpayment, but gives them
(20:42):
the ability to live close to work, you know, take
advantage of what neighborhoods have to offer, and so on.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
CMC and Status Canada did a major analysis and reportant
that said there's something wrong with our governance system. They
called it the Anglo sphere that is very bad at
approving projects, very good at creating regulations and that we
have given too much voice to the to the to
the existing residents that you know, can influence what comes
(21:09):
into their neighborhoods. There's another book that's popular right now
in the United States called Abundance that talks about how
progressives are very good at saying no to things and
creating rate type and regulations, but terrible at actually building
things that are going to move society forward. Do you
think part of the problem is the probalance of nimbism
and know, yes, in my backyard.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
Well, I think that for a lot of people, and
I include myself in this, that the value of their
home is incredibly important to their future well being, right,
you know, it's a retirement plan. Most of your listeners
probably do not have a defind benefit plan. You know,
the days of those great pensions they're gone, and so,
(21:52):
you know, so homeowners depend on the value in their
homes and I totally get that, like I, and I
don't think that that's a concern that should be dismissed
at all, because you have to look here, you have
to take care of yourself, you have to take care
of your kids, aging parents, all that stuff. But if
there's no evidence to show that adding this kind of housing,
(22:18):
very modest housing in a neighborhood, undermines the value of
your largest asset, then there's not really a good reason
to pose it. Mostly then you're just opposing it because
you don't like those kind of people, and you know
there's no way of really gaming out who's going to
live next to you.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
We're trying tonight with John Lawrence, but a whole bunch
of different issues in regards to what's going on in Toronto.
He's written about housing. He's also written about transit. So
when he come back, go and ask him what's gone
wrong with transit because he's written an article suggesting we
need a royal commission or some sort of a commission
to figure out what's going on with metrolinks and they
have them Crosstown and other transit projects where they take
too long and they go way over budget and they're
(23:01):
far more expensive than almost anywhere else in the world.
Stay with us, everyone, we'll be back in just too minute.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Stream us live at SAGA nine sixty am dot CA.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Welcome back everyone to the Brian Crumby Radio. I've got
John Lawrence. He's a freelance writer, commentator. Great great article,
writer for the Toronto Star. For Spaces magazine, he writes
on a whole bunch of city issues, transit issues, housing issues,
et cetera. And John, you wrote a really article saying
that we need to have a big commission to study
what's going wrong with Metrolinks. Tell me about it. What
(23:47):
do you think went wrong and why and how on
what that blank can we do about it?
Speaker 3 (23:52):
So I think that where I want to start answering
your question is to go back a couple of decades
when the Province of Ontario created Metrolinks to kind of
build out a big transit network around the city, around
the region, excuse me, and recognizing that we needed to
start investing in higher order transit. And you know, as
(24:15):
this plan sort of got kind of moving, the province
also embarked in another parallel policy, which was to find
private sector investors in these major transit projects so they
could be public private partnerships. And they called it they
had the provincial liberals changed the name they called it,
(24:38):
they had a different acronym, but basically it was finding
private sector investors to jointly build these projects and then
you know, kind of do a deal with the regional
governments to kind of operate them. And originally the way
that was sold was that the these private sector investors
(25:02):
would use their own self interest to kind of deliver
these projects on time and on budget, right so that,
you know, so we wouldn't be suffering from these kind
of chronically late infrastructure projects that you know, everybody knows
about and that you know, seem to hold up the
you know, the development of the city. So two decades on,
(25:24):
here's where we are. All of these projects, all of
these major transit projects are late and dramatically over budget.
Not a little bit over budget, dramatically over budget, orders
of magnitude over budget. And when we're talking about budget,
we're talking about billions, sometimes tens of billions. And so
(25:46):
the question I'd posed in that article is where has
all this money gone? And why are we pursuing an
approach to funding major infrastructure that is creating precise the
opposite of what we set out to create twenty years ago.
And I do think that there's I mean, I have
(26:08):
no idea if there's corruption going on or just incompetence
or what. But you know, we're talking about a great
deal of money, and nobody should ever forget that, you know,
when you're wasting money on one thing in the public sector,
you're not financing something else that might be just as important.
And so I would argue that we need to kind
(26:29):
of understand why this got off the rails if you
pardon the pun, and think about how to you know,
how to get transit construction done, you know, in a
way that's sensible, that's not doesn't drag out interminably. I mean,
just a couple of days ago, we had yet another
announcement for Metrolinks that the Eglington crossdown could be further delayed,
(26:54):
delayed again again.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
And then I saw a report that you probably saw
that came out that said that we build our transit
for a multiples of what other people build a transit
for elsewhere in the world. And that's even before we
go over budget. That's just the original budget.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Right.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
What why are we so expensive? Is it red tape?
Is it regulation? Is it the private public partnership? Is
it all of the above? What?
Speaker 3 (27:22):
So I don't have I don't have answers to those questions.
But this is why I would argue that we need
a public inquiry to kind of get you know, not
to like charges or anything like that, but to say,
how did we get here and how do we get
out of this mess? Right? You know the old cliche, Right,
the first thing to do if you're in a hole
is to stop digging. And the problem is is that
(27:46):
Metrolinks and it's partner agency, which is Infrastructure Ontario, keep
letting these deals. They keep putting out these massive deals
to private sector funder private sector consortia and then meant,
much time passes, much money gets spent, and you know,
(28:07):
we don't get anything, or we get something, but we
have to wait an incredible amount of time. And you know,
I think this is not a it's not going to
be you know, this is not an exercise about you know,
sort of counting the angels on the head of a pin,
Like these are real dollars. You and I pay for this,
(28:27):
right like we You know, all your listeners pay for
these capital expenditures through their taxes. They work hard for it,
They work hard for that money, and I think it's
perfectly reasonable to expect that it be spent in the
most effective and efficient way, which we are not doing.
(28:48):
I mean, there's nothing but evidence now to show that
this is not a theoretical thing project after project after
project is delayed and goes over budget and is subject
to like the type of thing that the Crosstown experience
where there's like fighting among the among the proponents and
(29:09):
fighting with metrolinks and you know, you know, mission creep
right where they could just keep adding to the contract
and it's just not good.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
So I think the electon Crosstown was finished like more
than a year ago, and it's still in testing and
still being delayed. I've been told that it's the procurement
process that's the problem. I've been told that it's litigation
between a whole bunch of the different proponents. I've been
told that it's because we separated out into so many
different contracts that the rail didn't meet, the electricity didn't
(29:40):
serve the rail, or you know, et.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
In any more reasonable private sector kind of a scenario,
there would have been heads would world, there would have
been firings that would have happened. You can't be that
much over budget and that much delayed, and yet well
people are making comments about it. There doesn't seem to
be a whole bunch of you know, other than your
article and a few other articles. There's not a hue
(30:04):
and cry about this from the taxpayers where we're wasting
a huge amount of money and a huge amount of time.
What do you think is the problem? Like, why aren't
people more upset?
Speaker 3 (30:15):
I think part of it is the law of large numbers.
I mean, I think that most people understand, you know,
how big their mortgage is Scott six numbers, maybe seven,
probably six? What's a billion? Right, what's two billion? What's
five billion? It's very hard to conceptualize those things. Also,
these stories just kind of roll on and on and on, right,
(30:36):
They just go on and on, and so you get
kind of, you know, inured to it, and you know,
like the Crosstown has become a joke.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Right.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
It's like when it was started, it was the largest
municipal infrastructure project in all of North America. Right, That's
the way it was being sold. It was a point
of pride. It's not a point of pride anymore. It's
a joke. And you know, someday it'll open and people
will be riding it and so on. But I would
(31:08):
say that it's very important for policy makers and for
the general public to understand what the opportunity cost is
what did we have to give up in order to
get that investment that thing built. And what's very clear
is that with all these big projects, we're giving up
a lot in order for this public private partnership model
(31:33):
to you know, to deliver these projects. And you know,
I'll just say one more thing, which is that the
underlying assumption is that the traditional way of building infrastructure,
which is that you know, ministry or government department ran
these projects. They hired the contractors, they did the work,
(31:54):
they passed it back to the agency and then they
started running it is a bad model. I don't know
was it a bad model? I mean that's how we built.
You know, we built the Bloor dan Ford subway line
and the Young subway line in ten years just that way.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
And you know, you go across Eglington there's beautiful stations,
like gorgeous stations, you know on the Young line, they're
just like holes on the sidewalk where you go downstairs.
So we we we seem to have and you know,
you take the University line up to Downstreet, which you
wrote another interesting article about, and we've got gorgeous stations
(32:36):
at the top of that line. Why did we decide
that we needed to build these incredibly beautiful stations on
major corners all across Eglington and take valuable land away
from other other potential land users rather than just building
a stairway into the sidewalk. I think that's you know,
one one issue. But then you know, we decided that
(32:57):
we're going to use trains that were l rts versus
subways versus more go train oriented trains that were using
for the Ontario line. So we've got sort of different
technology that can't be used on other lines, needs separate
repairs and maintenance operations, et cetera. Like there's a whole
bunch of things that went differently, are there not in
(33:18):
the design of the exit and crossdown that there were
a bunch of questions about.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
Yeah, and some of those questions kind of traced back
to a period you know, really in the early nineties
when you know, when government funding was very scarce and
so there were difficult decisions made about, you know, whether
to build a subway full subway, which had been originally envisioned,
or an LRT which was considered to be less expensive.
(33:44):
So that was driven by fiscal considerations. The you know,
the thing about the subway stations, which are always very expensive.
Is that those decisions date back to a time when
there was a lot of discussion about you know, sort
of eye concept design in the public realm. And it's
a good thing to have. But I mean, I think
(34:05):
your point is absolutely correct. Right on a busy stretch
of the downtown, why are we not building you know,
purple buildings over those sites?
Speaker 2 (34:15):
Right?
Speaker 3 (34:15):
You know, most major cities, you know, access to the
subway station is just a portal. It's a door and
some stairs down. There's nothing wrong with that. That's the
way cities work.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
I had a consultant tell me that the stations cost
just as much as all the rail in between, and
so that as you build these grandiose stations, you double
the cost of the rail. We're going to take a
break for some messages. We've chatted about housing, we've chatted
about transit. You've also written about highways and the and
the four oh seven, the four oh one, the tunnel,
et cetera. When we come back and ask you about that,
(34:47):
stay with the said one back in two minutes.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
No Radio, No problem. Stream is live on SADAY nine
six am dot CL.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Welcome back, everyone, to the Brian Cromby Radio War. I've
got John Lawrence. He's a commentator on what's going on
in Toronto. He's a writer. I'm freelance writer with the
Toronto Star with Spaces magazine. I love reading him because
he's always provocative and always makes you sit up and
wonder what the blank is going on. And you wrote
a really interesting thing about Premiere Forward's proposal to tunnel
(35:32):
underneath the four to one, and you were very negative
toward the idea about tunneling, and then you came up
with an interesting idea that sort of goes back to
where we were like a generation ago. Tell me tell
us all about that if you could.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
So, the idea about tunneling under the four oh one
will bankrupt the province forever. Right, It's like it's a
you know, it's an amount of money that you just
can't even think about. It will take generations to do, right.
It's just a bad idea for all sorts of reasons.
And the argument that I was making is why not.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Use just a.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
Fraction of the capital cost that would go into a
project like that and provide absolutely like gold plated bus
rapid transit service along the four or one corridor and
the you know, have the dedicated lanes, just have those
buses are constantly at hand, so people don't think twice
(36:33):
about using them. And the you know, bus rapid transit
is sort of not very well used in most parts
of the GTA. I mean, there's some examples in Mississauga
and some examples in York region, but it's not a
it's not a very common type of transit, partly because
the service is kind of slow, and you get this
(36:54):
kind of chicken in the egg problem about you know,
how much service you put on and how much people
are willing to wait and so on. But the you know,
the sort of the the thought experiment that I was
posing in that column is, well, instead of paying one
hundred million or two hundred billion, one hundred billion or
two hundred billion for this giant tunnel, let's pay you know,
(37:15):
ten billion or some much smaller number and create like it,
absolutely unsurpassed BRT service. And the the argument I just
want to add is that Toronto's traffic congestion problems are
all about east west. The decisions were made in the
(37:37):
nineteen sixties, in the nineteen fifties focused transit like well
or Go train and the subways on the downtown core
because that's where the future was. And so you have
this kind of radio service that brings people into the
downtown core, but you have a relatively scarce amount of
East west service east west transit service. There's the Young
(38:01):
there's the Blue or dam Forth subway line. There are
these heavily used bus trunk lines. You know a little
bit more, but you know, there's the new there's the
the York Region Bus Rapid Transit line, which is very
new relatively speaking. But the heavily used corridors, which are
of course the four oh one and the sort of
(38:24):
sort of the major arterials, they have very little transit
right before when it has some go bus service. So
that's the problem we need to solve, right, is that
East west connectivity. And if you want to make it interesting,
spend some money on it, like, spend some real money
on it. Get those buses in their own lanes and
(38:46):
see what happens.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
There was a report that came out just a week
or two ago that suggested that buses actually have a
far faster delivery than streetcars and and other you know
wrap transit that we've got in the Greater Toronto area,
and that buses are potentially a solution. Also that the
redundant that if a subway breaks down, it's really difficult
to move another subway in behind it. The same thing
(39:09):
with an l RT, same thing with a Go train.
But buses you can bring another bus and and load
people from the old bus into a new bus. So
it's it's it's fast, it can be very frequent, and
it's redundant. The only negative is obviously the smaller capacity.
Speaker 3 (39:26):
Yeah, I mean there was there was a time when,
I mean, I think there's some legitimacy to this where
the thinking was that if you put in rails right
subway or l RT or street cars, that that would
draw development, right, it would attract developers, and so you
would get the density along those corridors, and the density
(39:47):
would help pay for the rapid transit. And that's true
in some parts, but it's not true everywhere. And I
think that the lack of flexibility is you know, kind
of under minds that. And there are lots of parts
of the city where you need a lot, a lot
more flexibility. I mean, there are office parks near you know,
(40:09):
you know, in Brampton, and in you know, in you know,
large parts of Vaughan and so on, which are you'll
never get rapid transit to those places, but you could
get great bus service there. And but you have to
invest in the buses and you have to invest in
the drivers. So, you know, if we're going to spend,
like if we're going to bankrupt the province on a tunnel,
(40:32):
why not do something else that is, you know, provides
more service to more people.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
You also had an interesting proposal to get trucks off
the four one. You wanted to do something with the
four seven. Tell me about tell us about that.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
I mean, I think that four seven is the four
seven is such a weird thing. The you know, it's
a it's the bypass right and it was always intended
is the bypass going back thirty plus years? And who
needs the bypass? Well, there are people who drive past Toronto,
of course, but there's a lot of long haul trucking
(41:04):
that's bypassing Toronto. But because it's told and because you
know truck you know, truck operations are you know, you know,
it's a commodity and the margins are slim that you know,
trucks are going to stay on four a one because
it's a lot cheaper. And you know what I you know,
what I would argue is that the province can in
(41:27):
the next budget cycle zero rate trucks on the four
oh seven, right, just pay the consortium owners the amount
of money, calculate what the foregone revenue would be, pay
that money, let trucks travel free, get trucks off the
four oh one, and that will definitely improve the congestion
(41:48):
on the four to one and the experience of driving
on the four to one. It won't, it won't and
traffic jams on the four to one, but it can
work at the margins, and it provides a benefit to
the long all truckers, right, who are essential to our
you know, our industrial economy. To allow them to get
to where they're supposed to be going in a more
(42:11):
you know, in a more efficient way. It's just a
no brainer to be. I so I rent a cottage
up northwest of nor northeast of the city, and so
when we go up to this cottage, I take the
four to seven because you know, I have a limited
amount of time at the cottage. I don't want to
waste it in traffic. And so what I've noticed recently
(42:31):
is that, you know, the four oh seven tolled part
is always you know, it's always empty. But now the
premier remove the tolls on the most eastern most part
of the four oh seven. So you're driving along no traffic,
no traffic, suddenly traffic because people are taking advantage of
the toll free part, and then there's no traffic again
(42:55):
because they go back to tolls. It's again, it's like
the multiplex decision. It's sort of nonsensical.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
Is there any justification for building four thirteen?
Speaker 3 (43:05):
I don't think so. I mean, it's I don't know
why you would do that, Like, it's just to me,
it's a you know, it just it turbo charges sprawl
and it goes through perfectly, you know, I mean we
forget that. You know, the really high quality agricultural land
(43:26):
is a you know, it as a non renewable resource, right,
we depend on it. You know, that's part of Ontario's
breadb basket. Why would you you know, why would you
pave that over? And you attract you know, you attract
all sorts of development, right, so you're basically squandering all
of that excellent farm land.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
I was at a party we were talking about this
topic that you raise in regards to the uh the
trucks on the on the four to one, and that
they should get off in the four seven. This one
person suggested, well, New York has it right. They have
some highways that are for everyone and other highways that
are just for cars, and so the solution is to
not allow trucks on the express lanes. What do you
(44:08):
think of that makes any sense?
Speaker 3 (44:13):
Well, I mean, I think I'm not an expert on
on traffic law, but I think trucks are basically prevented
from being on the express lanes generally.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
No, they're not. They're not supposed to be on the
left lane, but they're allowed on the express lanes.
Speaker 3 (44:30):
Oh, I see what you're saying. They Oh, well, I mean.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
To force them to stay on the collector lanes on
the four one, You know.
Speaker 3 (44:40):
I think it's just it's just moving the problem from
one column to the other.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
It would certainly slow down the collector lanes, that's for sure.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
We're going to take a break for some messages and
come back with one last tough question for our guest.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
John Lawrence.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
Tonight, bec stay is everyone back in two minutes?
Speaker 1 (45:00):
US live at SAGA nine sixty am dot C.
Speaker 2 (45:03):
A Welcome back everyone to the Brian Crombie Radio where
I've got John Lawrence, a columnist, freelance writer with Toronto
Starr and Spaces magazine, A frequent commentator on what's going
(45:23):
on in Toronto and the greater Toronto area with US tonight, John,
You've written about a whole tche of different things in
regards to housing, in regards to transit, regards to transportation,
in regards to governance. You've commented about about Donald Trump,
about Mark Karney, about climate change, et cetera, et cetera.
If you had a chance to sit down with Olivia
(45:44):
Chow and Mark Carney tomorrow and you had a couple
of minutes to tell them what they should do, what
would your what would your priorities be?
Speaker 3 (45:55):
Well, I would say to Olivia Chow that she should
be in bolder, right. She she's been quite a timid mayor.
She she plays it safe. I get why she plays
it safe, but you know she I think she has
this reluctant to spend her political capital. And you know
(46:15):
we saw that with a MULTIPLEX debate and a few others,
so you know, be true to yourself.
Speaker 2 (46:21):
Right.
Speaker 3 (46:21):
She was a she was a bold member of the opposition, right,
she called for bold things. I think that people had
a lot of expectations for her when she replaced Mayor Tory.
I mean, she did kind of make some tough decisions
around the budget, but I think that she shouldn't be
coasting on those and with the Prime Minister, I you know,
(46:46):
I just finished writing a column today about the you
know about you know, what the federal government can and
you know might do about housing and what it shouldn't do.
And I really do hope that he, uh, he remembers
some of the hard lessons that he you know, he
(47:07):
saw when he was the head of the Bank of
Canada right where you you know, he was dealing with
the you know, the fallout from the subprime mortbige mortgage crisis,
right and he was you know, he had to make
difficult decisions about you know about you know, big economic policies.
And so when he's the head of the federal government,
(47:28):
he has a lot of you know, fiscal power. He
has power to regulate do all sorts of things. That's
what they want to do with the you know, these
big projects. And I think that. I hope that he
doesn't get too seduced by the ability to, you know,
wheeld fiscal power without thinking about the consequences. I don't
(47:52):
think that's a big risk. But you know, it's different
being the prime minister than being the head of the
Bank of Canada, right. You know, there's an old joke
that they that the head of a central the head
of a central bank, their job is to take away
the punch bowl when the party is getting getting going, right,
so they you know, that's the mode that I think
that is probably best for him to.
Speaker 2 (48:14):
Take the punch bowl away, or at least not spike it.
Speaker 3 (48:17):
Yeah, definitely not spike it. That's what Donald Trump wants
to do with the Jerome Powell.
Speaker 2 (48:23):
Well, I think that this massive deficit that he's created
in the United States and the biggest debt that we
could ever imagine with tax cuts and and everything else,
is probably exactly what you're talking about, particularly on top
of low unemployment and UH and the pressures for inflation,
and so I worry about what's going to happen. I
think that your your comments of a being bolt for
(48:44):
Olivia child makes a lot of sense, particularly given the
economic situation in the housing sector that you've outlined in
some of your articles in four and a half thousand
housing starts so far this year is atrocious. I think
that we are in an ace age in housing in
the greater Toronto area at the same time as we've
got this housing crisis of affordability. And I think that
(49:04):
you know, your comment about your children, my children can't
afford homes, can't afford even a down payment, is true.
And I think we risk our kids all moving to
Calgary and Edmonton U and or you know, you know
so far out that they're gonna be stuck for an
hour and a half on the four one getting to
h two reasonable jobs. People have called it the manhatanization
potentiality of Toronto. We're saying out migration from Toronto from Mississauga,
(49:27):
et cetera. And I think that that's a that's a
risk and it's a concern. I also think it's an
intergenerational inequity between people that have got homes and have
got that networth versus the young people that are that
are looking for that opportunity. So I congratulate you for
your articles and thank you for them, and uh and
I hope that Olivia Child, the mayor of Toronto, listens
to your B. B. Bold suggestions, because I'm convinced that
(49:49):
she needs to. And I think that housing right now
is probably the issue of the day. And uh and
it's it's a it's multifaceted because we've got this need
for lot more housing that's not being built at the
same time as we've got this massive affordability issue. And
so somehow kickstarting the housing business has got to be
one of the biggest challenges for our Prime Minister, for
(50:11):
our premier and for our mayor. Otherwise, you're gonna have
a lot of laborers. They're going to be moving to
Calgary and Edmonton as well, so you get a job
laying bricks and knocking in nails. John Lawrence, thank you
so much. I really appreciate you joining us tonight.
Speaker 3 (50:24):
Okay, thanks so much.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
That's our show for tonight. Everybody, Thank you for joining.
I remind you I'm on every Monday through Friday at
six o'clock on nine to sixty am. You can stume
me online all the way around Toronto at Triple W
Saga nine sixty am dot col. My podcast and videos
go off on my website Briancrimby dot com, on YouTube
and on social media as soon as the radio show
goes there. Thanks for joining us, good Night
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
Saga nine sixty am or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Good Even Dinner One, Welcome to the Brian Cromby Radio Hour.
It's a real pleasure of mine to have John Lawrence
with us. And he's a freelance writer and editor. He
writes for the Toronto Starr, he writes for Spaces magazine.
He's a frequent commentator of what's going on in Toronto
and the GTA, and I really enjoy reading him because
he's very provocative and often has some interesting points of view,
(00:38):
and his articles are prolific. And so there's lots of
different topics that we could discuss tonight. We're going to
go through a few of them. I'm going to start
with an article that you wrote about a week ago
about six plexes and why we shouldn't be so worried
about them. And you know, we've got these downtown counselors
that have written and voted in favor of six plexes,
but the rest of suburban Toronto that has voted against
(00:59):
six boxes. Tell me what's your take, sir.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
So I think generally we have to we have to
find ways of adding density to residential areas in a
gentle way, right, in a way that you know that
people who are homeowners can tolerate, but who but you know,
in ways that allow you know, other people to come
(01:24):
into the neighborhoods even if they can't afford to buy
a home. And you know, in many parts of Toronto
and the older parts of the city, you could find
you know, small apartment buildings in you know, triplexes, duplexes,
you know, all sorts of things in older neighborhoods and
they just pop up and then they kind of they
(01:45):
just kind of fade into the woodwork. They're just there.
People live there.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
But aren't people worried about you know, rooming houses and
too much parking on their street and undesirable people living
there and changing the faber fabric of our neighborhood, et cetera,
et cetera.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Well, those are the those are frequently the kind of
reasons that are put forward against you know, these kind
of multiplex buildings. And what I'd argue is the following,
I live in an area with lots of multiplexes. It's
a residential neighborhood with lots of homes you could fix,
you could solve how the parking problem. You could also
(02:23):
assume that not everybody who's going to rent one of
these things is going to have a car, and we
have a lot of that kind of urban form in
the city. This is dependent on where you are, right
so if you're in a remote corner of Agent Court,
you're going to need a car, But if you're closer
to transit or near a made arterial, maybe not so much. So,
(02:45):
you know, providing a parking space for everybody is probably
an overkill. And the other thing is is that we
live in a city where you know, almost half the
residents are tenants. There are people who rent their apartments
and so this is just part of our the urban
fabric of the city. And there's no reason that you know,
(03:06):
tenants shouldn't be living in residential neighborhoods with houses, and
in fact they always have, but it's not a matter
of official policy. A lot of the time it was,
you know, it was basement apartments that were illegal, but
you know perfectly fine. Or you know people who would
you know, cut up a house into a couple of
pieces and are just sharing it. None of these are
(03:28):
inherently problematic. Sometimes you get problems where you have a
rooming house and legal rooming house, but there are by
laws around the you know, the regulation of those and
the inspection and property standards and so on, and so
I would argue that you know that the city basically
has discovered you can't you can't ward off everything. You
(03:50):
can have an next door neighbor who makes a holy
racket in a privately owned home, and you could have
a next door neighbor where you've got two apartments and
you never hear from them. So you know, that's the
that's the way cities are.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
But what most of the former Metro Toronto, other than
the City of Toronto, the old City of Toronto, voted
against it and it wasn't implemented. So what's your answer
to those councilors.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Well, so I was watching that council meeting. There were
a very small number of examples put forward by the
city and by a couple of the councilors, claiming that
they were dealing with applications for multiplexes that had you know, six, seven,
eight bedrooms in one case. This was something that Shelley Carroll,
(04:41):
who's the former Deputy mayor of Toronto said or sorry,
she's not the former deputy mayor. She's the head of
the budget committee. You know, claimed that there was a
project with eight bedrooms per unit, but it turns out
it didn't exist. So there are these kind of phantom
zon is right there, these boogeymen, the you know houses
(05:02):
that are filled with you know, students, and we don't
like them. And you know, as I said before, they exist,
they don't exist in profusion. I mean, they're you know,
so it's not a good reason to you know, to
kill the whole policy. And I think that a lot
of the suburban councilors kind of overreacted because you know,
(05:24):
they have constituents who are very used to just having
you know, single family home after single family home after
single family home, and you know, and let the tenants
live somewhere somewhere else.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Now we've already approved what is it triplexus or quadplexes, correct,
So this isn't a major change.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
It's not a major change. The driver of this initiative
is that the the cost for building is high, as
we know, and the you know, some of the there's
a sort of an emerging market of small contractors who
are specializing in these multiplex units, and what they were
telling the city, you know, when it was kind of
(06:03):
sounding out the market, was that it makes more financial
sense for them to be able to add that one
extra unit, and that makes the project viable financially. So,
as you say, you know, the difference between four and six,
it's actually five and six because you can put a
garden unit to the back. A garden suite is not
(06:24):
that great from the experience of the surrounding neighborhood, but
it does make a difference in terms of the investment.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
So you in your article said that there was a
goal the city had to add two hundred and eighty
five thousand new dwellings in the next five years, which
is actually I was surprised how small it is, given
that CMC says we need to add I think it's
three point one million homes in the next ten years.
They used to say it was three point five. It's
now down to three point one because they're going to
(06:53):
a level of affordability of twenty nineteen versus the prior
level of affordability being two thousand and four. But beas
as it may, two hundred and eighty five thousand new
homes by twenty thirty one, and this would create one
hundred and sixty four thousand of them according to a
report you mentioned produced by City Planning. That's a significant
(07:13):
that's like almost that's over half of what you need.
And you also point out in the article that this
past year we've only created four five hundred units. So
how the heck are we going to create these units
if we don't do something like this.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
So I'm pretty sure that City Planning articles a time
horizon was twenty forty, not twenty thirty. The city has
these goals for adding housing that are based on a
formula that the provincial government has set right, so they
allocate a certain amount per individual municipality. And then what
(07:47):
the city did was they projected the take up of
multiplexes in residential neighborhoods around the city and they came
up with a number which kind of ramps up because
as the market matures and the you know, the model
becomes something that's more standard, the you know, more people
(08:08):
will kind of get into that space. But it's not
a huge amount.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
You know.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
We have to remember that there are like one point
two million homes in the city of Toronto, Right, So
some of them are apartments and condos, and many of
them are single family homes or duplexus. You know, I
live in a semi so you know, we're talking about
a difference. We're talking about adding five, eight, ten percent,
(08:36):
you know, over the course of fifteen years. And I
don't think that that's a huge ask in you know,
in most parts of the city.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
So you quote in the article that the you actually
call it the elephant in the room, that the condo
real estate bubble has burst and and it isn't coming
back time soon. How are we going to get these
homes built if we don't have condos and if we
don't have this kind of a proposal produced and approved.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
So my critique about condos is the following. The way
condos land in the city of Toronto and in many
other places, this is true of Mississauga and in Vaughan,
is that they are clusters. They're clumps that are built
on you know, former car dealerships or former you know,
malls that have been converted and they're very sort of
(09:26):
isolated from the rest of the urban fabric. Right, They're
on major streets, they're you know, so they're these protrusions.
And if you're you know, if you've seen photographs of
Young Street area of photographs, you see the sort of
you know spine down Young Street, and what the city
has done over the last you know, five or six
(09:47):
years is said, Okay, we're going to add gentle density
in all of these residential neighborhoods. We're going to make
it allowable under certain conditions you know, setbacks and you know,
heights and so on, and so what you're doing essentially
is you're you're spreading around the housing instead of clumping
(10:08):
it up and creating very large buildings that are essentially
not that well built. They're under resourced in terms of
things like elevators, and they you know, they have these
sort of financial shocks which are the you know, the
condo fees and the you know, the capital the capital
(10:29):
improvement fees. So in my argument, I mean, this is
just my view that it's a better way to add
housing is to spread it around, right, you know, the
old saying many hands makes for light work rather than
just clustering. Clustering. These a lot of housing on tight
sites that are on major streets.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
But neighbors will object and do object and Obviously, these
suburban councilors objected to the idea that you're doing exactly
what you're doing, that you're taking that development off of
the major streets, and they seem to be supportive of
of only development on the major intersections and as soon
as they get into residential areas that you're not allowed
to do that development. So how do you convince them
(11:12):
they're wrong? We haven't been able to do it, obviously,
So I think that there are a couple of arguments
to make.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
One is that the evidence that this kind of housing
detracts from, you know, home value, like the market value
of your home doesn't exist. There are many parts of
the older city where there is exactly this kind of
diversity of housing, and it's the most expensive part of
(11:40):
the city. So just to say that. The second is
that the you know, going back to my argument about
the phantom the phantom objection. So where I'm sitting, I
have a home office, and I'm looking at a house
that has four units. You used to have one unit.
It used to be a single family home, and then
(12:02):
the owner's aged moved away, sold as somebody turned it
into four apartments, and you know, the sky didn't Fall.
And this example exists all over the city, and it
exists in older parts. It exists in the older parts
of the city as well as newer parts of the city.
(12:22):
And so the point I try to make with this
is that the fears of introducing tenants and introducing you know,
renters and you know, buildings that have more than just
one dwelling unit are overblown. And for evidence of that,
you could look at all sorts of neighborhoods in the
(12:44):
old Toronto, the Old City of York, the old City
of East York, parts of North York. These forums exist,
and they've existed for many generations. I'll give you an example.
There's a pocket I actually this was my third apartment
where my parents lived well after I was born. It
(13:06):
was an area, it was a street called fraser Wood
and it's around Marley and Lawrence. And so for your readers,
for your listeners who are outside the four one six,
that's basically around the base of the Allen and it's
an area with a lot of post war kind of
back splits and you know, bungalows and then they're you know,
they're interspersed with that are six plexes, which are you know,
(13:29):
it's like three stories. I think that there's a sort
of a half basement to up top to up top
on that and a center staircase. And they've been there.
They've been like they've been there since the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
So one of the reasons why the city was interested
in passing this new regulation was it was a requirement
by the federal government to get some infrastructure funding. And
Merchau and Council effectively allowed the policy to go ahead
only for the City of Toronto, the old city of Toronto,
(14:05):
and not for all these suburbs, and so this infrastructure
money is at risk. Was that the right decision that
Marrichau made.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
I think they came up with a nonsensical compromise. And
let me just take you in an imaginary trip to
the following spot. There are places where the ward boundary
is on either side of a residential street, and so
in this scenario, we could have somebody building a multiplex
(14:33):
on one side of the street and somebody on the
opposite side of the street who says, Okay, well I'd
like to do that as well. Is not allowed, even
though they're you know, you know, they're a few dozen
meters apart doesn't make any sense. And I think that,
you know, like I don't have I don't have access
(14:53):
to the cabinet deliberations around the Housing Accelerator Fund, but
I cannot imagine that what they were envisioning was a
half loaf right. It's like the city should do it.
The city is getting the money, so the city as
a whole should be doing it, or not take the
money right, or not be given the money. Like this
is a kind of a it's sort of neither fish
(15:16):
nor fowl, and it's just very strange, you know.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
It's interesting. I interviewed Joe Barrage of Urban Strategies at
one point time, and he said that it's ironic that
our zoning regulations make it really easy to build single
family homes, which is typically three or four maximum houses
per acre, and very easy to build towers which are
often you know, seventy to one hundred or more units perreaker,
(15:39):
but very difficult to build anything in the middle. And
yet on survey after survey, people say they like the beaches,
they like Bluris Village, they like you know, poor credit,
they like areas that are typically between twenty and forty
units breaker which is the missing middle that you describe
in your article. Why is that? Like It's just it
seems like the cities that we built or the village
(15:59):
that you built historically the people like the most are
the ones that we're making it most difficult the building
in today.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
I mean, I think it's an excellent question. I think
Joe is exactly correct. I think that there was a
time when we understood how to make apartment buildings that
were not you know, these monuments, you know, these monoliths
that were perfectly humane and good to live in, and
you know, put them in all sorts of places. And
(16:27):
so part of that has to do with sort of
overthinking the you know, zoning and land use. Part of
it has to do with, you know, acknowledging that you know,
not every family can afford a single family home, and
the city has an obligation to provide for a you know,
wide range of housing types. And you know, since you know,
(16:50):
I mean really since the nineteen sixties, it's taller sprawl.
And that's taller sprawl. Taller sprawl is this phrase. I
don't know if Joe used it, but it's a commonly used
praise and it you know, it I mean, the point
of that expression is that there is all that missing
kind of form, all these different types of housing that
(17:14):
aren't being built, and the reason that they are being
built is because they've largely been outlawed.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
You say in your another article that you wrote in
Spacing magazine that meyr Chow is playing a very risky
game with the federal government.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
Yeah. Well, she sort of dared them to to kind
of I mean, she's kind of daring them to call
her bluff, right she you know, she said she wasn't
worried about the you know, but the fact that they
didn't do six plexes across the whole scope, like the
whole city, as they were requested to. And you know,
(17:52):
we've seen subsequently that the you know that the federal
government is you know kind of you know, it's shuffling
its feet about this. They're not you know, they're not
loving this compromise that city council has you know, has passed.
And the other thing I would note is that the
you know that the Conservatives, who are you know, they
(18:13):
have a lot of seats in Parliament. They have a
Housing and Municipal Housing Minister or sorry, a Housing shadow
Cabinet member Scott Atchison, who has been really hammering away
at this in the last two weeks, like they're putting
pressure on the Liberals to not give Toronto that money.
(18:36):
And I think that they're correct.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
And if they decide not to give Toronto the money,
do you think Toronto when those suburban councilors will change
their mind.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
I don't know. I mean, I think that the suburban
councilors are perfectly happy with the compromise. And you know,
truth be told, thirty million dollars is a kind of
a round air in the City of Toronto's budgets, so
they can sort of they can kind of figure it out.
It's like it's enough money that it you know, it
causes a twinge, but it's not something that needs abandoned.
(19:13):
And I think that, you know, unless there's some major
external source of pressure to kind of push them away
from these very long held views that are not really
very well grounded in the way neighborhoods function, they're not
going to want to change. And that's too bad. And
let me just say one more thing, please, which is
(19:35):
that our neighborhoods, our residential neighborhoods, are aging. And the
reason that they're aging is because younger people, unless they
have intergenerational wealth, cannot afford to buy a home. So
you and I have children who are young adults and
for whom it takes six seven, eight years to say,
(19:56):
for just a down payment on a house that you
and I could never have afforded on our current incomes
when we were that age. And so the big picture
in all of this is that the next generation, which
is so important to the vitality of a city, right
they bring new ideas and new you know, new professions.
(20:17):
All of these things are priced out of the market
in a very troubling way. And this is why we
need to expand all of the types of housing that
are available. You know, this is just one type, but
it provides a kind of way of living in the
city that doesn't require a massive downpayment, but gives them
(20:42):
the ability to live close to work, you know, take
advantage of what neighborhoods have to offer, and so on.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
CMC and Status Canada did a major analysis and reportant
that said there's something wrong with our governance system. They
called it the Anglo sphere that is very bad at
approving projects, very good at creating regulations and that we
have given too much voice to the to the to
the existing residents that you know, can influence what comes
(21:09):
into their neighborhoods. There's another book that's popular right now
in the United States called Abundance that talks about how
progressives are very good at saying no to things and
creating rate type and regulations, but terrible at actually building
things that are going to move society forward. Do you
think part of the problem is the probalance of nimbism
and know, yes, in my backyard.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
Well, I think that for a lot of people, and
I include myself in this, that the value of their
home is incredibly important to their future well being, right,
you know, it's a retirement plan. Most of your listeners
probably do not have a defind benefit plan. You know,
the days of those great pensions they're gone, and so,
(21:52):
you know, so homeowners depend on the value in their
homes and I totally get that, like I, and I
don't think that that's a concern that should be dismissed
at all, because you have to look here, you have
to take care of yourself, you have to take care
of your kids, aging parents, all that stuff. But if
there's no evidence to show that adding this kind of housing,
(22:18):
very modest housing in a neighborhood, undermines the value of
your largest asset, then there's not really a good reason
to pose it. Mostly then you're just opposing it because
you don't like those kind of people, and you know
there's no way of really gaming out who's going to
live next to you.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
We're trying tonight with John Lawrence, but a whole bunch
of different issues in regards to what's going on in Toronto.
He's written about housing. He's also written about transit. So
when he come back, go and ask him what's gone
wrong with transit because he's written an article suggesting we
need a royal commission or some sort of a commission
to figure out what's going on with metrolinks and they
have them Crosstown and other transit projects where they take
too long and they go way over budget and they're
(23:01):
far more expensive than almost anywhere else in the world.
Stay with us, everyone, we'll be back in just too minute.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Stream us live at SAGA nine sixty am dot CA.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Welcome back everyone to the Brian Crumby Radio. I've got
John Lawrence. He's a freelance writer, commentator. Great great article,
writer for the Toronto Star. For Spaces magazine, he writes
on a whole bunch of city issues, transit issues, housing issues,
et cetera. And John, you wrote a really article saying
that we need to have a big commission to study
what's going wrong with Metrolinks. Tell me about it. What
(23:47):
do you think went wrong and why and how on
what that blank can we do about it?
Speaker 3 (23:52):
So I think that where I want to start answering
your question is to go back a couple of decades
when the Province of Ontario created Metrolinks to kind of
build out a big transit network around the city, around
the region, excuse me, and recognizing that we needed to
start investing in higher order transit. And you know, as
(24:15):
this plan sort of got kind of moving, the province
also embarked in another parallel policy, which was to find
private sector investors in these major transit projects so they
could be public private partnerships. And they called it they
had the provincial liberals changed the name they called it,
(24:38):
they had a different acronym, but basically it was finding
private sector investors to jointly build these projects and then
you know, kind of do a deal with the regional
governments to kind of operate them. And originally the way
that was sold was that the these private sector investors
(25:02):
would use their own self interest to kind of deliver
these projects on time and on budget, right so that,
you know, so we wouldn't be suffering from these kind
of chronically late infrastructure projects that you know, everybody knows
about and that you know, seem to hold up the
you know, the development of the city. So two decades on,
(25:24):
here's where we are. All of these projects, all of
these major transit projects are late and dramatically over budget.
Not a little bit over budget, dramatically over budget, orders
of magnitude over budget. And when we're talking about budget,
we're talking about billions, sometimes tens of billions. And so
(25:46):
the question I'd posed in that article is where has
all this money gone? And why are we pursuing an
approach to funding major infrastructure that is creating precise the
opposite of what we set out to create twenty years ago.
And I do think that there's I mean, I have
(26:08):
no idea if there's corruption going on or just incompetence
or what. But you know, we're talking about a great
deal of money, and nobody should ever forget that, you know,
when you're wasting money on one thing in the public sector,
you're not financing something else that might be just as important.
And so I would argue that we need to kind
(26:29):
of understand why this got off the rails if you
pardon the pun, and think about how to you know,
how to get transit construction done, you know, in a
way that's sensible, that's not doesn't drag out interminably. I mean,
just a couple of days ago, we had yet another
announcement for Metrolinks that the Eglington crossdown could be further delayed,
(26:54):
delayed again again.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
And then I saw a report that you probably saw
that came out that said that we build our transit
for a multiples of what other people build a transit
for elsewhere in the world. And that's even before we
go over budget. That's just the original budget.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Right.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
What why are we so expensive? Is it red tape?
Is it regulation? Is it the private public partnership? Is
it all of the above? What?
Speaker 3 (27:22):
So I don't have I don't have answers to those questions.
But this is why I would argue that we need
a public inquiry to kind of get you know, not
to like charges or anything like that, but to say,
how did we get here and how do we get
out of this mess? Right? You know the old cliche, Right,
the first thing to do if you're in a hole
is to stop digging. And the problem is is that
(27:46):
Metrolinks and it's partner agency, which is Infrastructure Ontario, keep
letting these deals. They keep putting out these massive deals
to private sector funder private sector consortia and then meant,
much time passes, much money gets spent, and you know,
(28:07):
we don't get anything, or we get something, but we
have to wait an incredible amount of time. And you know,
I think this is not a it's not going to
be you know, this is not an exercise about you know,
sort of counting the angels on the head of a pin,
Like these are real dollars. You and I pay for this,
(28:27):
right like we You know, all your listeners pay for
these capital expenditures through their taxes. They work hard for it,
They work hard for that money, and I think it's
perfectly reasonable to expect that it be spent in the
most effective and efficient way, which we are not doing.
(28:48):
I mean, there's nothing but evidence now to show that
this is not a theoretical thing project after project after
project is delayed and goes over budget and is subject
to like the type of thing that the Crosstown experience
where there's like fighting among the among the proponents and
(29:09):
fighting with metrolinks and you know, you know, mission creep
right where they could just keep adding to the contract
and it's just not good.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
So I think the electon Crosstown was finished like more
than a year ago, and it's still in testing and
still being delayed. I've been told that it's the procurement
process that's the problem. I've been told that it's litigation
between a whole bunch of the different proponents. I've been
told that it's because we separated out into so many
different contracts that the rail didn't meet, the electricity didn't
(29:40):
serve the rail, or you know, et.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
In any more reasonable private sector kind of a scenario,
there would have been heads would world, there would have
been firings that would have happened. You can't be that
much over budget and that much delayed, and yet well
people are making comments about it. There doesn't seem to
be a whole bunch of you know, other than your
article and a few other articles. There's not a hue
(30:04):
and cry about this from the taxpayers where we're wasting
a huge amount of money and a huge amount of time.
What do you think is the problem? Like, why aren't
people more upset?
Speaker 3 (30:15):
I think part of it is the law of large numbers.
I mean, I think that most people understand, you know,
how big their mortgage is Scott six numbers, maybe seven,
probably six? What's a billion? Right, what's two billion? What's
five billion? It's very hard to conceptualize those things. Also,
these stories just kind of roll on and on and on, right,
(30:36):
They just go on and on, and so you get
kind of, you know, inured to it, and you know,
like the Crosstown has become a joke.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Right.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
It's like when it was started, it was the largest
municipal infrastructure project in all of North America. Right, That's
the way it was being sold. It was a point
of pride. It's not a point of pride anymore. It's
a joke. And you know, someday it'll open and people
will be riding it and so on. But I would
(31:08):
say that it's very important for policy makers and for
the general public to understand what the opportunity cost is
what did we have to give up in order to
get that investment that thing built. And what's very clear
is that with all these big projects, we're giving up
a lot in order for this public private partnership model
(31:33):
to you know, to deliver these projects. And you know,
I'll just say one more thing, which is that the
underlying assumption is that the traditional way of building infrastructure,
which is that you know, ministry or government department ran
these projects. They hired the contractors, they did the work,
(31:54):
they passed it back to the agency and then they
started running it is a bad model. I don't know
was it a bad model? I mean that's how we built.
You know, we built the Bloor dan Ford subway line
and the Young subway line in ten years just that way.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
And you know, you go across Eglington there's beautiful stations,
like gorgeous stations, you know on the Young line, they're
just like holes on the sidewalk where you go downstairs.
So we we we seem to have and you know,
you take the University line up to Downstreet, which you
wrote another interesting article about, and we've got gorgeous stations
(32:36):
at the top of that line. Why did we decide
that we needed to build these incredibly beautiful stations on
major corners all across Eglington and take valuable land away
from other other potential land users rather than just building
a stairway into the sidewalk. I think that's you know,
one one issue. But then you know, we decided that
(32:57):
we're going to use trains that were l rts versus
subways versus more go train oriented trains that were using
for the Ontario line. So we've got sort of different
technology that can't be used on other lines, needs separate
repairs and maintenance operations, et cetera. Like there's a whole
bunch of things that went differently, are there not in
(33:18):
the design of the exit and crossdown that there were
a bunch of questions about.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
Yeah, and some of those questions kind of traced back
to a period you know, really in the early nineties
when you know, when government funding was very scarce and
so there were difficult decisions made about, you know, whether
to build a subway full subway, which had been originally envisioned,
or an LRT which was considered to be less expensive.
(33:44):
So that was driven by fiscal considerations. The you know,
the thing about the subway stations, which are always very expensive.
Is that those decisions date back to a time when
there was a lot of discussion about you know, sort
of eye concept design in the public realm. And it's
a good thing to have. But I mean, I think
(34:05):
your point is absolutely correct. Right on a busy stretch
of the downtown, why are we not building you know,
purple buildings over those sites?
Speaker 2 (34:15):
Right?
Speaker 3 (34:15):
You know, most major cities, you know, access to the
subway station is just a portal. It's a door and
some stairs down. There's nothing wrong with that. That's the
way cities work.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
I had a consultant tell me that the stations cost
just as much as all the rail in between, and
so that as you build these grandiose stations, you double
the cost of the rail. We're going to take a
break for some messages. We've chatted about housing, we've chatted
about transit. You've also written about highways and the and
the four oh seven, the four oh one, the tunnel,
et cetera. When we come back and ask you about that,
(34:47):
stay with the said one back in two minutes.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
No Radio, No problem. Stream is live on SADAY nine
six am dot CL.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Welcome back, everyone, to the Brian Cromby Radio War. I've
got John Lawrence. He's a commentator on what's going on
in Toronto. He's a writer. I'm freelance writer with the
Toronto Star with Spaces magazine. I love reading him because
he's always provocative and always makes you sit up and
wonder what the blank is going on. And you wrote
a really interesting thing about Premiere Forward's proposal to tunnel
(35:32):
underneath the four to one, and you were very negative
toward the idea about tunneling, and then you came up
with an interesting idea that sort of goes back to
where we were like a generation ago. Tell me tell
us all about that if you could.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
So, the idea about tunneling under the four oh one
will bankrupt the province forever. Right, It's like it's a
you know, it's an amount of money that you just
can't even think about. It will take generations to do, right.
It's just a bad idea for all sorts of reasons.
And the argument that I was making is why not.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Use just a.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
Fraction of the capital cost that would go into a
project like that and provide absolutely like gold plated bus
rapid transit service along the four or one corridor and
the you know, have the dedicated lanes, just have those
buses are constantly at hand, so people don't think twice
(36:33):
about using them. And the you know, bus rapid transit
is sort of not very well used in most parts
of the GTA. I mean, there's some examples in Mississauga
and some examples in York region, but it's not a
it's not a very common type of transit, partly because
the service is kind of slow, and you get this
(36:54):
kind of chicken in the egg problem about you know,
how much service you put on and how much people
are willing to wait and so on. But the you know,
the sort of the the thought experiment that I was
posing in that column is, well, instead of paying one
hundred million or two hundred billion, one hundred billion or
two hundred billion for this giant tunnel, let's pay you know,
(37:15):
ten billion or some much smaller number and create like it,
absolutely unsurpassed BRT service. And the the argument I just
want to add is that Toronto's traffic congestion problems are
all about east west. The decisions were made in the
(37:37):
nineteen sixties, in the nineteen fifties focused transit like well
or Go train and the subways on the downtown core
because that's where the future was. And so you have
this kind of radio service that brings people into the
downtown core, but you have a relatively scarce amount of
East west service east west transit service. There's the Young
(38:01):
there's the Blue or dam Forth subway line. There are
these heavily used bus trunk lines. You know a little
bit more, but you know, there's the new there's the
the York Region Bus Rapid Transit line, which is very
new relatively speaking. But the heavily used corridors, which are
of course the four oh one and the sort of
(38:24):
sort of the major arterials, they have very little transit
right before when it has some go bus service. So
that's the problem we need to solve, right, is that
East west connectivity. And if you want to make it interesting,
spend some money on it, like, spend some real money
on it. Get those buses in their own lanes and
(38:46):
see what happens.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
There was a report that came out just a week
or two ago that suggested that buses actually have a
far faster delivery than streetcars and and other you know
wrap transit that we've got in the Greater Toronto area,
and that buses are potentially a solution. Also that the
redundant that if a subway breaks down, it's really difficult
to move another subway in behind it. The same thing
(39:09):
with an l RT, same thing with a Go train.
But buses you can bring another bus and and load
people from the old bus into a new bus. So
it's it's it's fast, it can be very frequent, and
it's redundant. The only negative is obviously the smaller capacity.
Speaker 3 (39:26):
Yeah, I mean there was there was a time when,
I mean, I think there's some legitimacy to this where
the thinking was that if you put in rails right
subway or l RT or street cars, that that would
draw development, right, it would attract developers, and so you
would get the density along those corridors, and the density
(39:47):
would help pay for the rapid transit. And that's true
in some parts, but it's not true everywhere. And I
think that the lack of flexibility is you know, kind
of under minds that. And there are lots of parts
of the city where you need a lot, a lot
more flexibility. I mean, there are office parks near you know,
(40:09):
you know, in Brampton, and in you know, in you know,
large parts of Vaughan and so on, which are you'll
never get rapid transit to those places, but you could
get great bus service there. And but you have to
invest in the buses and you have to invest in
the drivers. So, you know, if we're going to spend,
like if we're going to bankrupt the province on a tunnel,
(40:32):
why not do something else that is, you know, provides
more service to more people.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
You also had an interesting proposal to get trucks off
the four one. You wanted to do something with the
four seven. Tell me about tell us about that.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
I mean, I think that four seven is the four
seven is such a weird thing. The you know, it's
a it's the bypass right and it was always intended
is the bypass going back thirty plus years? And who
needs the bypass? Well, there are people who drive past Toronto,
of course, but there's a lot of long haul trucking
(41:04):
that's bypassing Toronto. But because it's told and because you
know truck you know, truck operations are you know, you know,
it's a commodity and the margins are slim that you know,
trucks are going to stay on four a one because
it's a lot cheaper. And you know what I you know,
what I would argue is that the province can in
(41:27):
the next budget cycle zero rate trucks on the four
oh seven, right, just pay the consortium owners the amount
of money, calculate what the foregone revenue would be, pay
that money, let trucks travel free, get trucks off the
four oh one, and that will definitely improve the congestion
(41:48):
on the four to one and the experience of driving
on the four to one. It won't, it won't and
traffic jams on the four to one, but it can
work at the margins, and it provides a benefit to
the long all truckers, right, who are essential to our
you know, our industrial economy. To allow them to get
to where they're supposed to be going in a more
(42:11):
you know, in a more efficient way. It's just a
no brainer to be. I so I rent a cottage
up northwest of nor northeast of the city, and so
when we go up to this cottage, I take the
four to seven because you know, I have a limited
amount of time at the cottage. I don't want to
waste it in traffic. And so what I've noticed recently
(42:31):
is that, you know, the four oh seven tolled part
is always you know, it's always empty. But now the
premier remove the tolls on the most eastern most part
of the four oh seven. So you're driving along no traffic,
no traffic, suddenly traffic because people are taking advantage of
the toll free part, and then there's no traffic again
(42:55):
because they go back to tolls. It's again, it's like
the multiplex decision. It's sort of nonsensical.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
Is there any justification for building four thirteen?
Speaker 3 (43:05):
I don't think so. I mean, it's I don't know
why you would do that, Like, it's just to me,
it's a you know, it just it turbo charges sprawl
and it goes through perfectly, you know, I mean we
forget that. You know, the really high quality agricultural land
(43:26):
is a you know, it as a non renewable resource, right,
we depend on it. You know, that's part of Ontario's
breadb basket. Why would you you know, why would you
pave that over? And you attract you know, you attract
all sorts of development, right, so you're basically squandering all
of that excellent farm land.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
I was at a party we were talking about this
topic that you raise in regards to the uh the
trucks on the on the four to one, and that
they should get off in the four seven. This one
person suggested, well, New York has it right. They have
some highways that are for everyone and other highways that
are just for cars, and so the solution is to
not allow trucks on the express lanes. What do you
(44:08):
think of that makes any sense?
Speaker 3 (44:13):
Well, I mean, I think I'm not an expert on
on traffic law, but I think trucks are basically prevented
from being on the express lanes generally.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
No, they're not. They're not supposed to be on the
left lane, but they're allowed on the express lanes.
Speaker 3 (44:30):
Oh, I see what you're saying. They Oh, well, I mean.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
To force them to stay on the collector lanes on
the four one, You know.
Speaker 3 (44:40):
I think it's just it's just moving the problem from
one column to the other.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
It would certainly slow down the collector lanes, that's for sure.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
We're going to take a break for some messages and
come back with one last tough question for our guest.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
John Lawrence.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
Tonight, bec stay is everyone back in two minutes?
Speaker 1 (45:00):
US live at SAGA nine sixty am dot C.
Speaker 2 (45:03):
A Welcome back everyone to the Brian Crombie Radio where
I've got John Lawrence, a columnist, freelance writer with Toronto
Starr and Spaces magazine, A frequent commentator on what's going
(45:23):
on in Toronto and the greater Toronto area with US tonight, John,
You've written about a whole tche of different things in
regards to housing, in regards to transit, regards to transportation,
in regards to governance. You've commented about about Donald Trump,
about Mark Karney, about climate change, et cetera, et cetera.
If you had a chance to sit down with Olivia
(45:44):
Chow and Mark Carney tomorrow and you had a couple
of minutes to tell them what they should do, what
would your what would your priorities be?
Speaker 3 (45:55):
Well, I would say to Olivia Chow that she should
be in bolder, right. She she's been quite a timid mayor.
She she plays it safe. I get why she plays
it safe, but you know she I think she has
this reluctant to spend her political capital. And you know
(46:15):
we saw that with a MULTIPLEX debate and a few others,
so you know, be true to yourself.
Speaker 2 (46:21):
Right.
Speaker 3 (46:21):
She was a she was a bold member of the opposition, right,
she called for bold things. I think that people had
a lot of expectations for her when she replaced Mayor Tory.
I mean, she did kind of make some tough decisions
around the budget, but I think that she shouldn't be
coasting on those and with the Prime Minister, I you know,
(46:46):
I just finished writing a column today about the you
know about you know, what the federal government can and
you know might do about housing and what it shouldn't do.
And I really do hope that he, uh, he remembers
some of the hard lessons that he you know, he
(47:07):
saw when he was the head of the Bank of
Canada right where you you know, he was dealing with
the you know, the fallout from the subprime mortbige mortgage crisis,
right and he was you know, he had to make
difficult decisions about you know about you know, big economic policies.
And so when he's the head of the federal government,
(47:28):
he has a lot of you know, fiscal power. He
has power to regulate do all sorts of things. That's
what they want to do with the you know, these
big projects. And I think that. I hope that he
doesn't get too seduced by the ability to, you know,
wheeld fiscal power without thinking about the consequences. I don't
(47:52):
think that's a big risk. But you know, it's different
being the prime minister than being the head of the
Bank of Canada, right. You know, there's an old joke
that they that the head of a central the head
of a central bank, their job is to take away
the punch bowl when the party is getting getting going, right,
so they you know, that's the mode that I think
that is probably best for him to.
Speaker 2 (48:14):
Take the punch bowl away, or at least not spike it.
Speaker 3 (48:17):
Yeah, definitely not spike it. That's what Donald Trump wants
to do with the Jerome Powell.
Speaker 2 (48:23):
Well, I think that this massive deficit that he's created
in the United States and the biggest debt that we
could ever imagine with tax cuts and and everything else,
is probably exactly what you're talking about, particularly on top
of low unemployment and UH and the pressures for inflation,
and so I worry about what's going to happen. I
think that your your comments of a being bolt for
(48:44):
Olivia child makes a lot of sense, particularly given the
economic situation in the housing sector that you've outlined in
some of your articles in four and a half thousand
housing starts so far this year is atrocious. I think
that we are in an ace age in housing in
the greater Toronto area at the same time as we've
got this housing crisis of affordability. And I think that
(49:04):
you know, your comment about your children, my children can't
afford homes, can't afford even a down payment, is true.
And I think we risk our kids all moving to
Calgary and Edmonton U and or you know, you know
so far out that they're gonna be stuck for an
hour and a half on the four one getting to
h two reasonable jobs. People have called it the manhatanization
potentiality of Toronto. We're saying out migration from Toronto from Mississauga,
(49:27):
et cetera. And I think that that's a that's a
risk and it's a concern. I also think it's an
intergenerational inequity between people that have got homes and have
got that networth versus the young people that are that
are looking for that opportunity. So I congratulate you for
your articles and thank you for them, and uh and
I hope that Olivia Child, the mayor of Toronto, listens
to your B. B. Bold suggestions, because I'm convinced that
(49:49):
she needs to. And I think that housing right now
is probably the issue of the day. And uh and
it's it's a it's multifaceted because we've got this need
for lot more housing that's not being built at the
same time as we've got this massive affordability issue. And
so somehow kickstarting the housing business has got to be
one of the biggest challenges for our Prime Minister, for
(50:11):
our premier and for our mayor. Otherwise, you're gonna have
a lot of laborers. They're going to be moving to
Calgary and Edmonton as well, so you get a job
laying bricks and knocking in nails. John Lawrence, thank you
so much. I really appreciate you joining us tonight.
Speaker 3 (50:24):
Okay, thanks so much.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
That's our show for tonight. Everybody, Thank you for joining.
I remind you I'm on every Monday through Friday at
six o'clock on nine to sixty am. You can stume
me online all the way around Toronto at Triple W
Saga nine sixty am dot col. My podcast and videos
go off on my website Briancrimby dot com, on YouTube
and on social media as soon as the radio show
goes there. Thanks for joining us, good Night
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!