Bob, what did you think? Do you think that's a fair assessment of Olivia Chow needing to maybe stop pivoting and telling anecdotes about something when the question wasn't that?

She was trying to deflect questions.

She was way too scripted by her staff.

And when she had a tough question, she would go for a long blowhardish answer to try to prevent answering it.

I get it.

I've done prepared people for these sort of things before, but I don't think it showed well last night on a number of things.

And I'm sorry, but I thought Bradford's answers were generally crisp, generally within the period of time he was supposed to do it.

And, you know, so a half dozen, a dozen, I think that's fine.

But, uh, you know, um- We were at a wonderful event which you hosted on the weekend, and interesting, full of political people, and, uh, someone was making the point that that these days most people get their information in snippets, a lot on social media, and that kind of changes the way they're perceived in terms of the spin afterwards and everything else

I, I think that's very true, Libby.

I, I agree with Lorne.

It...

This is kind of the kickoff of the election.

Um, uh, it's, it's o- on a very specific topic with a very specific o- organization.

Um, uh, it's an important topic, but there's a bunch of stuff when you're running for mayor that are re- really important, and I, I'm not sure that they'll be fully addressed in this first, uh, debate: taxes, crime and safety, uh, better services, uh, good management of the city.

What's your take on that?

Could there be an interesting result in that the Liberals still win, but by quite a different, in fact, even less than 50%, but just happen to come out ahead of the other teams?

I suppose it's a possibility.

I think the numbers in the beaches and I think the numbers in North Vancouver will be quite strong.

I think in Chicoutimi, it's not traditional Liberal turf there.

It's more block turf.

Conservatives held the seat.

The Liberals, I believe, ran third.

I really hate that.

Bob, how do you see this?

Well, there's a lot of unanswered questions.

Welcome to a trade negotiation.

It's going to remain like that for the next while.

I mean, I think the prime minister has got a lot of support at the moment.

I think he did a very good job on the weekend.

I think he was strong.

Bob, what's your view?

So Bob Richardson, your vote.

A, a great question by the great, uh, Bob Reid here.

Uh, number one, it's touchdown.

[upbeat music] Keep your powder, keep your powder dry.

Uh, you know, uh, you know, uh, we, we, we employed this guy to be our prime minister, uh, to put it bluntly.

He- he's put a team in place He's negotiating.

He's gotta deal with allies, and businesses, and companies.

That's the opposite of private, so I don't have an expectation of privacy on the street.

And these tariffs are aimed at the heart of our economy, small and medium-sized businesses.

Well, look, just in terms of the negotiations, I think there's probably about a 25% chance we'll get an agreement by the deadline.

I think there's probably a 50% chance there'll be an extension of the deadline in some way or other.

And probably about a 25 percent chance that it goes south.

He imposes tariffs and then there's a Canadian response.

So those are the three things that could happen.

I tend to think there'll be an extension.

Most people are shocked that there's no money involved in bail

Uh, uh, I mean, but these are by-elections.

Yeah.

Look, uh, he hasn't had a great summer.

That, uh, that happens in politics.

Uh, he's also been in, uh, seven or eight years, and you tend to, a- accumulate some baggage after a period of time when you've been in government.

I don't care who you are.

Uh, I still think, uh, that, uh, these are very competitive, uh, uh, by-elections, and very competitive for all three parties.

I mean, he seems to be speaking out of both sides of his mouth, Bob.

You can start with Mayor Chow, or you can start with, uh, with Bradford, and then I think we'll pick up the, the Chris Alexander baton as well in, in a beat.

Y- yeah, I, I agree with your analysis.

It's a bit of the phony war at this date, and Labor Day is sort of the official k- kickoff, if you wanna call that.

Uh, I think, uh, I think Chow's had a decent two months overall.

Uh, she's had good events, World Cup, uh, as an example.

Uh, her council has been relatively quiet, and that's always good news when you're mayor.

Uh, you know, she's had the island airport, which is not unhelpful to her, so she's, so she's had a number of things like that, uh, uh, have been good.

Yeah

Here is consultant Bob Richardson, followed by former Toronto Councillor Karen Stintz and pollster Lauren Bozanoff.

I think that a serious candidate, first of all, we're 88 days away from the election.

If you're a serious candidate for mayor of Toronto, I've run six of these campaigns in one capacity or another, you're in a year ahead of time.

And I think a former candidate on the panel would probably agree with that.

So that's one of the standards of being a serious candidate.

Serious candidates build an organization, serious candidates raise money, serious candidates are involved and put time and effort into the community and committees and events and they go all over the city.

This is a big city to cover all the space and serious candidates know the issues.

Anybody have a theory there?

Is his tone deafness, if I can call it that, Bob, is it indicative of just his approach generally? Or do you think it was just that he was thin skinned at the end? Because, you know, FIFA's criticisms by all quarters on all counts, quite frankly, of everything they do have been pretty widespread.

Yeah, I think the criticisms have been widespread.

Some of them are fair.

Some of them aren't, but some of them definitely are fair.

I've done work on big projects like this with the IOC, with FIFA, with the Pan Am Games, and I find sometimes the people in the most senior leadership posts in the international federations tend to get a little removed from reality a bit.

and are not necessarily used to the rough and tumble that comes with dealing with the press or comes with dealing with members who have concerns about different issues and then can be curt and dismissive of them.

So I would say that he's not the first person who's acted like this, and I suspect probably not the last leading a major international federation.

Any criticism that you thought really was fair game?

Bob, what's your take on that?

Yeah.

I, I'm not in favor of doing that either.

Uh, look, uh, it, it was inappropriate.

He, uh, apologized and resigned.

Um, the premier's, uh, uh, obviously, uh, uh, made comments on this topic, too, as well.

Uh, I, you know, uh, uh, uh, uh, what we need is really, really clear rules and some actual transparency.

And we have Doug Ford, uh, taking a tough approach, Bob, which is correct.

Does that surprise you?

No.

Actually, I, I'm not surprised at this.

I...

We've kind of had the status quo for the last year, and we've been off of, uh, Trump's radar s- screen, so, uh, things have calmed down a little bit.

I've noticed an increase just on Instagram and talking to friends and others of people, uh, uh, going on, uh, going on some trips.

So I'm not hugely, uh, I'm, I'm not hugely surprised.

You can't just say we're gonna cancel street festivals in Toronto because of a couple of thugs who shot at each other.

Right.

But, uh, none- none- nonetheless happy to be here, uh, Libby.

Look, in terms of, uh, Bonnie Crombie, uh, full disclosure, she's a friend of mine.

Uh, she's smart, she's talented, she's fun.

Uh, she, she, you know, she would do the job well.

Uh, I do think if you're gonna get back into politics, and, uh, perhaps the other two could talk, uh, uh, um, more, more personally about this, you gotta have a really compelling reason to return.

And I, I think she, she's gonna have to articulate that 'cause it's tough going back.

Mm.

How are you feeling after the loss, two days after the loss, Bob?

Well, nobody likes to lose, but it happens.

Look, I joined the board of Canada Soccer 10 or 12 years ago, and we were rated 122nd on the FIFA rankings.

That was Canada's ranking.

We just last week were in a battle in the final 16 of the World Cup.

That is a spectacular improvement in 10, 12 years.

And I think it's a real reflection on the team, on Canada soccer, on lots of folks like Wally, who put in all the time for years and years, decades, to help build soccer in the country, and to the fans, and particularly our most loyal fans, the Voyageurs.

What did you see in this 122nd ranked team to make you sign on? And I mean, this really bodes well for your membership as well.

What about you, Bob?

I was...

This is a gigantic win for, uh, Team Canada.

I, uh, uh, I served for 10 years on the board of Soccer Canada, went off, uh, just a couple years ago.

Uh, this has been in the works for about 10 or 12 years.

I give, uh, credit to, uh, f- former Soccer Canada president Victor Montagliani, who went on to be president of our region, CONCACAF, and others, for having the vision to kind of push this forward, uh, push a multi-country, uh, bid, uh, together, uh, and to really, uh, get Canada to, uh, a s- a step up, uh, in, uh, in the world of soccer.

So, uh, uh, just a great job, uh, there.

[laughs]

Um, so that part doesn't surprise me, although I [laughs] do get the optics of FIFA, that's gonna walk away with billions of dollars, coming over and kicking a little bar owner where it hurts.

Yeah.

Uh, there's a couple of things here 'cause, I mean, th- that's, that's the optics that people want in your head.

But the bottom line is these are pretty standard, uh, rules for international organizations if you wanna participate in them.

Uh, I've done a lot of this stuff over the last 30 years, and these, this is the same rules that are in place for the Van, uh, for the Olympics for Vancouver 10.

These are the same rules in place for F1 in Montreal.

These are the same rules, uh, for any, uh, World Cup, men or women, anywhere on the planet.

But the whole program has taken a hit 'cause it hasn't been well-managed of late.

And he just basically said this is the government wasting their time because any teenager knows how to get around that.

Look, I'm not going to argue with Wyatt Sharp, he's smarter than I am on these sort of issues.

But look, the government I think has made multiple attempts on these issues.

They seem to have got it right this time from the sounds of the comments that are coming back.

It's a good attempt to protect Canadians.

It's an attempt to kind of control surveillance pricing.

It deals with deleting your personal information.

So, that's kind of—it's difficult for single people to get good deals on groceries.

Hello.

Your intrepid reporter is right out front of the Princess Gates.

I just took the TTC down here, which, by the way, was perfect.

They did a great job.

TTC employees were great.

Karen, kudos to you.

I know you were a TTC chair, so I'm sure you've heard lots of complaints over the years.

Okay, Bob, anything else you want to tell us about the excitement building? Well, the

You are a Liberal, so what's your thought on this?

Yeah.

Uh, uh, f- first of all, they c- uh, it's up to the, to the Liberals to, uh, make sure that they're, uh, clear and transparent about it.

I know a board is looking into the accusations that, that were made.

They need to get back to people quickly and, and be, uh, a f- a, a fair- fairly, uh, clear, uh, with what they have found.

My problem here, though, i- this isn't an Ontario Liberal p- uh, problem.

This is all political parties' problem because, uh, the federal Conservatives had issues related to their, uh, leadership where Mr. Poilievre, uh, won.

Does it make sense to shut down the Island Natural Science School?

What's your take on this?

Look, she's not the first incumbent to do these sort of things.

Incumbent mayors kind of want to be above the fray.

They want to be perceived as doing the people's business.

Mayor Lassman did that when he ran for reelection.

Mayor Miller did.

John Tory did when he ran for reelection, too, as well.

But that said, isn't there really actually a difference in the way they may operate once they actually declare?

She didn't say if she said when I'm premier, then Doug Ford's going to be in jail.

Yeah, look, the statement was dumb and it was inappropriate, and I suspect she probably regrets making it.

I hope she does, because we don't want our politics to descend to this level.

I actually think she's been doing a good job as leader of the opposition, which is a tough job.

I was many years ago chief of staff to a leader of the opposition in Ontario, so I know how difficult a job it is and how bad a job it is, but I digress.

So look, and I think she's been doing a good job of it.

So I'm not going to feign outrage and get too carried away about this one comment.

Do you think that any city councilor and I don't care what community it's in, that any city councilor has an excuse to miss more than 10 percent of the votes on city council meetings that only take place two, three days a month?

Now, do you think it is possible, um, that the, a party could actually slip into history?

It, it is possible.

Uh, I think the road to extension, uh, extinction for the NDP is probably, uh, a, a, a, a, a bit much.

Uh, there's a resilience to our political parties out there.

All three of our major political parties have taken a whooping, uh, at some time or other in the last 30 years as, uh, ago.

Uh, the f- uh, the federal conservatives did, went down to two seats.

The liberals did when they lost seats in 2006, '8, and then by 2011, they were at a historic low.

Uh, but [laughs] but, uh, but that said, I, I just don't think as liberal as Canada is, there's a real place for the ultra left to take on power.