Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Bernie McNamee: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1482

Episode Date: May 6, 2024

In this 1482nd episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Bernie McNamee who retired from CBC Radio after a 30+ year career in broadcasting. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, The Advantaged Investor podcast from Raymond James Canada, The Yes, We Are Open podcast from Moneris, The Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball Team and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail]

Come on man, feel the burn, feel the burn! Yeah, yeah, feel the burn, hit the burn, the burn! Yeah, yeah, hit the burn! What up Miami? Toronto! VK on repeat, uh-huh, check, uh-huh I'm in Toronto where you wanna get the city love I'm from Toronto where you wanna get the city love I'm in Toronto like you wanna get the city love I'm from Toronto where you wanna get the city love

I'm in Toronto like we wanna get the city love My city love me back, put my city love I'm in Toronto where you wanna get the city love Welcome to episode 1482 of Toronto Mic'd Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery A fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times times and brewing

amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. The Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team. The best baseball in the city outside the dome. Join me on May 12th. That's next Sunday, 2pm, first pitch. It's the home opener at Christie Pitts. RecycleMyElectronics.ca, committing to our planet's future means properly recycling

our electronics of the past. The Advantage to Investor podcast from Raymond James Canada. Valuable perspective for Canadian investors who want to remain knowledgeable, informed and focused on long-term success. Season six of Yes We Are Open, an award-winning Monaris podcast hosted by FOTML Grego. And Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921. Today making his Toronto Mike debut is Bernie McNamee. Welcome Bernie. Thank you very much Mike, great to be here. It's great to meet you. I just recorded

with a gentleman you know, Simon Dingley. Oh yes, yes, yes. So since he's listening right now, say some nice words. Tell me about Simon. Well, I was just at his retirement bash. I guess that was what, two weeks ago? So what was that like? I wanna know the story of what went down at Simon's retirement bash. Were there lampshades on heads?

What was going on there? I didn't get that because these are TV types, right? I'm radio and that's what we do. We do the lampshades and the dis roving and all of that kind of stuff but you know but no it was fun it was fun Simon had a great turnout he was so popular and everybody wanted a piece of Mike I only got a chance to talk to him for a very short period of time I was with another former colleague Donna Tranquata and we we were at CKO together, all three of us. So we went and it was fun.

We're right across from the CBC. But as I said, it was mostly television types and I knew a few of those even though we were integrated with TV news quite a while ago. But it was fun and Simon was having a great time. So they now intermingle now. You radio people are now like, like spending time associating, fraternizing with the TV people. Well, yeah, yeah. It happened a few years ago. Yeah, as you can see, I've got some disdain in my voice.

We used to be separate years ago. It was national radio news, national television news, and you know, cost cutting, cost saving, that kind of thing. We all came together in one big happy family. Not so much, but it was what had to be done. It was what had to be done. Well, that's the real talk, right, Bernie? Like, I wanna know, Canadians need to know,

like, what was that like? You meant not so much, but was there like resistance? It's like when radio, like I can tell you locally that when, I can't remember who it was, Chorus, I guess, bought like bought like they had CF and why, and they had Q and 07 and historically these stations hated each other, like arch rivals, like that really, like really, really in the eighties, hated each other. And then suddenly they're in this thing,

down the hall from each other and it's tough at first, right? It is tough. And, and, and, you know, when I started at CBC in, in, uh, I guess it was 89, 90 it was completely separate national radio news, television news as well and separate buildings too at that time before we moved into the broadcast center. I think CBC was in something like 25, 26 different locations throughout the city of Toronto. I mean they were on Parliament Street, they were on Sumac Street, they were up on Young Street, you know the front page challenge studios and that kind of Toronto. I mean, they were on Parliament Street, they were on Sumac Street, they were up on Young Street, you know, the front page challenge studios

and that kind of stuff. So, and we were on, the National Radio News was on Jarvis. You know, the old, I guess it was an old, was it Brank some, a girl school. It had something to do with the, during the war as well. And that was our headquarters there. TV was on Church Street, the local TV was on Church Street. The National was in a building behind us on Jarvis Street.

So we were all pretty separate. And it was a different approach to journalism as well. Radio is a lot different than TV. Radio is sound. Radio is very rich in writing, whereas TV is pictures. Not to denigrate television, but it's a different approach. Go ahead and denigrate it. That's what you're here for, Bernie, real talk.

Yeah, so we had our own announcers, we had our own reporters, we had our own documentary unit. It was separate. But then as a matter of cost, we integrated. And of course the broadcast center was built down on Front Street. And even when we were on Front Street, we're on different floors. Television was on the fourth. We were on the third. And then we combined.

Then it became, you know, one big happy family. And yeah, I mean, it was just the way of the world. That's the way things went. But I think television being the beast that it is, it's a large animal, whereas radio, we kind of considered ourself or our small unit. And we just, we were all about sound. Theater of the mind.

Theater of the mind. You can do great things with radio. It's all done with the imagination. It's all sound. Theater of the mind. Theater of the mind, you know, you can do great things with radio. It's all done with the imagination. It's all sound. Whereas TV is pictures. You gotta have the pictures. If you don't have the pictures, you don't have television. Impact is powerful.

The television impact is probably sometimes a lot greater than radio. I mean, I would be probably the first to say that maybe that's not necessarily the case. But yeah, so everybody came together, but just getting back to Simon's. Yeah, of course, because he's got a nice comment about you. You better say nice things. Well, he actually sent me a little blurb because I knew I was coming on. He said,

he sent me a little bird that Mike, you had written it said former what former well-known CBC radio news anchor Bernie Mackey is going to be on the show and I'm thinking no longer former former is that a direct quote though I want to know I that's what I saw and you know it kind of reminded me of that great line from Sunset Boulevard when William Holden said to Norma Desmond, you know, you used to be big. And she said, I am big. It's the pictures that got small. Right. But you know what? It's been nine years since I left the corpse. I always say there's still life after the corpse. Um, and, uh, you know, it's, so I guess you're right. Well, listen, that's bad phrasing, but that is a tweet, right? I spent about

two seconds composing a tweet where it's like, it's off the cuff of stream of consciousness. So thanks Simon for writing me out on that one. But I have so much ground I want to cover with you, but what took so long for you to make your Toronto mic debut and drop by for your exit interview? So Simon Dingley, okay, for example, and I'm going to read his comment a minute, it is the Simon show, but so he reached, I guess he's in Mexico now. He is in Mexico. Yes. What a lucky guy. Okay. So, but he recorded with me on, I think it was, I can't remember now, like Monday or Tuesday. And then maybe it was, I can't remember, but Monday, Monday or Tuesday last week. And then we agreed,

this is very unusual for Toronto Mic'd. On Toronto Mic'd, we record and we drop the episode like right after we take our photo by the tree. So before you get on the highway to go home, your episode is going to be in the feed. But with Simon, he's like, please drop this. When I'm in Mexico, basically, like let me have my last day and escape the country and then drop it. And I was thinking, oh, he's

gonna drop some, like he's gonna spill some tea, like he's worried about the blowback. What's Simon gonna say? But Simon was very, he didn't say anything controversial. No, and he always said he knows where the bodies were buried and Simon was always a great guy to go to for good gossip. You know, he'd come by my desk and as I said, you know, we're on the radio side of things, Simon would come by, he's always had these earbuds in his ear. I think he told you that on the, on your podcast, you know, he's always listening to radio. He's always listening to news.

And he'd come to me at about maybe three minutes before the top of the hour. I'm getting ready to go in the studio and said, burn, burn. I got to tell you, this is the buzz. It's happening across the wall over there in television. Simon Simon, I've got two minutes. I've got to get into the studio. The tea that man could have spilled, but then I realized, oh, his wife still works at the CBC. So when she retires, maybe then Simon comes back and just spill the tea. Let's go. Canadians need to know these things. So I'm glad you're here, but it did take nine years for your exit interview, and I guess I was just comparing and contrasting with Simon, who literally recorded his exit interview his last week on the job

So you're nine years late, but better late than never better late than ever and it's my brother He is a huge fan of yours. What's his name? His name is mark mark. Like this guy. Yeah, mark Magnum B He's up. He's up on the Rideau the big Rideau just down from Rideau fairies He and his beautiful wife have a home there and he is a huge fan so he was the one that turned me on to your podcast. This was probably maybe three or four months ago and he said you've got to listen to this guy. You're a new listener. I am a new listener and so he sent me he sent me all the details and whatever and I heard your fantastic interview with Lloyd Robertson. Oh yeah. Former colleague of mine. I don't think he's former.

I think he's still popular. He's not formerly popular. Well people probably think he's still on the air, right? That's how it works. Right? Like when you television, I think it's different than radio. Although you probably people hear your voice in line at like a Sobeys or something and they're like, I know that voice. I heard you give the news last week. Oh yeah. It happens all the time. Yeah. Thank you. Just got, yeah, I got to beat them off, you know, no, that doesn't really happen. But, but television, you're right. It's different,

but wonderful interview with Lloyd and especially the, you know, the, his, the early days, you know, brought back a lot of memories. Uh, and uh, yeah. So, so Mark, if I fall on my face, I have my brother to blame. Uh, but if it works and you know, I'll say good good job. Okay. Shout out to Mark McNamee, but you said he has a beautiful wife. Does she listen to Toronto Mike? She sure does. Okay, see They'll be listening later on today. I guess oh now I'm worried again now I'll have to edit this and make sure it's perfect But then it mark will be like this sounds different than all the other Toronto Mike episodes

Did he edit this but no no, no edits on this episode. I have a note from Gare Joyce, who I just drove to Montreal last week and on my way to Montreal, I popped off the 401. I dropped. I popped off at Kingston to meet Gare Joyce for a coffee because Gare Joyce, Toronto guy is now a Kingston guy. This happened during the pandemic. But he was a, he's a great sports writer. He is, I was gonna say he was once a great sports writer. There we go that past tense again.

He's still a great, there's a show I love called The Wire. And there's this, and then Cuddy Wise, Cuddy Wise who became the box, he came out of jail, came out of the cut and that's where he got his name. So Cuddy Wise, somebody said, you know, Cuddy Wise was a man back in the day. And I still remember it was Slim Charles, I think. He looks him in the eye and he goes,

Cuddy Wise is a man now. It's a day. Yeah, like, and I'm like, that's a great line. Yeah, Cuddy Wise is a man now. So Mark McNamee, thank you for listening. Gere Joyce, I mentioned him. He wrote in and said, ask him if he knows a Bernie McNamee

who worked as a tech IT guy at Rogers for years. He was an ex-classmate at what used to be called Ryre something, so there you go. So Gar Joyce went to school with a guy who worked at Rogers in the IT end of things, whose name was Bernie McNamee. Did you ever get confused? Never. I don't know the name. Nobody ever said to you, Hey, can you fix my computer? I hear you're good at this stuff. Oh, yeah. Not so good because we've just had an incident.

I brought in a CD with some highlights of my career and you put it in. You say it doesn't work. Well, here's what, let me tell the story. This is how it went down. I got a note from you just this morning. I'll point out. So I'm all set for you. And you're like leaving St. Catherine. St.

Catherine's right. Awesome. Shout out to a city in color and Alexis on fire. Okay. So you tell me I have some audio clips on a CD. And that's what you said. And I'm like, oh, I've never played audio on a CD live on the podcast before because I'd have to do a thing.

And I said, okay, I'm going to do that thing. It'll be fun with Bernie McNamee if we play his CD stuff live. So this here I'm pointing to as a CD player. All right. It plays CDs, audio CDs. And then I connected this to the board and I have a channel open up. In fact, I see now it's still open. I'll mute it because I think interference. So there's a channel here I opened up and I'm like, yeah,

we can play things on this device live I was literally playing CBC radio one just on the live stream just to test it all out so you would give me the CD I pop it in and it says no CD and I look at the CD it's a CD are not an audio CD so this old CD player cannot play a CD are I need like a computer to do it? But these the damn darn computers we buy today don't come with CD ROMs like there is no ability to slide a CD into this MacBook here So we can't play what's on that CDR. Well, you're lucky it wasn't a reel-to-reel that I brought in I mean I go back

One of those it would work right like I feel like you should have said I have a CD are I know my fault my bad My bad, so the other Bernie wouldn I have a CDR. I know my fault, my bad. My bad. So the other Bernie wouldn't have made that mistake. That's right. That's right. All right. So before I get to it, I want to get you to see KO radio. I also want to find out your origin story.

And I also want to like a very interesting thing when you were at CFTO. So people might not even know you were at CFTO, you know, you're not just a CBC guy. So we'll get you to CBC and we'll cover a lot of ground, but this is a question. I'm wondering Okay, so Bernie McNamee drops by you already have established yourself as a great broadcaster journalist Prior to the arrival of the famous comedian known as Bernie Mac So when Bernie Mac arrives and the Bernie Mac show was very popular shout out to Ridley Funeral Home Bernie Mac no longer with us

But what was it like? Did people start calling you Bernie Mac? Yeah, I got that a lot. I got a lot and Mac is M a C right and I'm in I'm a Mac MC But I did get yeah, I did get some of that Bernie Mac. Oh, yeah, so that's a you're not a McNamee. You're a MC it's spelt. Yeah. Yeah, so I guess your last name for it's M I did get some of that Bernie Mac. So that's a, you're not a Mac Nami, you're a MC Nami. It's spelled. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess. Spell your last name for us. It's M small C capital N A M E E. So it's more of a Mac than a Mac, but.

You're a Mac. Okay. Yeah. But I did get some of that. That'd be a common nickname for you to call you Bernie Mac. I got a few more nicknames too that people call me. What are these nicknames? And I don't know, we won't be going there. Oh, too funny here. So there I was wondering what it was like

to be a famous Bernie Mac when Bernie Mac arrives and then people- Well then there was Bernie Sanders too, of course. Feel the Burn. I played a- Feel the Burn, I bought bumper stickers. I was actually in Buffalo yesterday and saw one of these vehicles had bumper stickers

all over the place and it said Bernie, Bernie, Bernie in 2020. So I did take a picture of it. So here's what Simon did right in before we move on past the Simon segment of this podcast. Bernie Mcdony is awesome. Worked with him at CKO radio when dinosaurs roamed the earth. So your job, Bernie, before I get to his next point, which is a CFTO point, get us to CKO, please. Like, when did you realize you wanted to be a broadcaster? You wanted to be on the radio? Give us the origin story. Well, way back, back. I didn't know Marconi, actually. No, no, we weren't we weren't buddies. But similar to what I heard Simon saying, too, was very early on, I loved radio, I loved

radio. I was a bit nosy, wanted to know what was going on. I am a little transistor radio and rather than listening to, I was born in St. Catharines, raised in St. Catharines, the big station down there was WKBW, Joey Reynolds, I mean it's quite way back before your time. But I was listening to all news stations with my little transistor radio under the pillow, WBZ Boston and Detroit and New York. So I knew that I wanted to get into some form of broadcasting, wasn't sure what at that point, I think it was probably news, not so much into DJing and music and that kind of thing.

So that's way, way back. Then we went to college, a broadcast journalism course. But what college? Tell them Niagara College in Welland, Ontario, not too far from St. Catharines. But going to school, going to college, I was working part-time at several radio stations in St. Catharines.

One was CHSC, which doesn't exist anymore. The other was CKTB, which is still around. So I would go to board of education meetings, city hall, cop stories, that kind of thing while I was still going to school. Uh, great, great education. Uh, and one thing I thought of when coming over here, one of the, uh, I was operating the board, this would probably have been in the early 70s, the sportscaster down there at CKTB,

his name was Tommy Garrick, you know, big sports town St. Catharines with the, you know, the Blackhawks and the Rex Stimers and Jack Gaitcliffe, the big sports columnist, but Tommy Garrick was reading the sports. I was operating the board. He used to come on around 11 o'clock and he would read basically scores.

And it was local. He did some of the national stuff too, but it was mostly scores. Lacrosse, baseball, hockey, I mean, everything under the sun. It would be maybe 15 to 20 minutes of him just reading no clips, just the scores. It was a great, I think he was a, he was a farmer. He had a farm outside of town, but a big sports fan, they have 15 minutes. So I'm behind the board and he's grumping and growing and whatever.

And at one point he looks at me and I can see him across the glass. I'm thinking, Oh, he wants me to turn the mic mic down. I'm trying to get the mic down in time. He lets out this belch. Like you can't believe that went on for a couple of minutes. I didn't, I didn't save him with turning the pot down at the end of his 15, 20 minutes broadcast. He came across the glass and he says, son, that'll be a lesson to you. Never eat an apple before you go on the air. And I said, I'm sorry, Mr. Garak. I'm so sorry. He said, don't worry about it. He says, it's natural.

It's a human thing, but don't eat an apple. And that stuck with me. No apples, no chips, no milk, coating your mouth, all those carbonated beverages. That's what does it to me, man. your mouth all those carbonated beverages oh that's what does it to me man so those are the early days yeah CHSC CKTB 610 was eventually many years later purchased by Bell Media who just sold it that was one of the many many AM stations that were sold by Bell recently. Any thoughts on that? Like Bell has basically come out and said that they don't see radio as like a viable revenue generating.

It's sad. It's sad, Mike. Absolutely. You know, you don't want to live in the past, but radio stations, local radio stations, local newsrooms. I know Simon touched on that as well. At that time, at CKTV in St. Catharines, active, you know, four or five different reporters covering stories. It's gone. It's gone. You know, it's, you know, and I think of students at journalism schools now, like, where are they going to go? I mean, that's where you, that's where you, you know, you learned, you learned the things. You can't start in Toronto. This is a, of course everybody wants to write.

And that just doesn't happen. It does happen every now and then. Kind of a fluke, but yeah, so it is sad. It is sad. And, uh, but it's the way that things are going, right? You know? Yeah. It's a, you know, radio is in trouble and it's partly my fault, right? It's the internet and streaming and with people again, their music on demand streaming curated playlists, right? And then if they want content, they're often opting for podcasts, which have a greater authentic good podcast.

There's a million podcasts out there, but the good ones have a greater authenticity to them. You can hear, you know, Bernie Mac, I'm going to call you Bernie Mac now, is that okay? Bernie Mac long-form conversation. Yeah you know cool is good. So and what about news too? I mean you know I know younger young people are getting the news, TikTok, Instagram, you know they're not reading the papers, they're not getting it on. Well, they CBC, of course, still big, uh, you know, they've got a big proponent news. And some of the older, some of the other private stations as well as they take a stab at it,

but it's, it's, it's, it's different, you know, and then, then it goes on the whole thing of credibility, you know, are you going to be getting your, you know, credible news from sources such as tick tock and, and Instagram, you know, I'm a great promoter of saying, you know, read the papers, you know, credible news from sources such as TikTok and Instagram. You know, I'm a great promoter of saying, you know, read the papers, you know, go online, you know, New York Times, Boston Globe, a Toronto star, Globe and Mail. You know, I mean, it's, it's important to know what's going on. I think. Yeah. What are we going to say then?

I think it's important to know what's going on in the world. Well, it's important that when you do source out your news that it's from a source that has some sort of journalistic standards that are deployed, right? Like, for example, news from torontomike.com, I don't adhere, I don't have, I do have ethics where I need it to be corroborated and I need it to be from a good source,

but at least with CBC, and I do consume quite a bit of, I should just disclose this off the top. I'm wearing my CBC radio shirt. I see that. My daughter bought me because I'm a CBC radio head. Okay. This is my station. It's a great logo too. It's the old, yeah. Yeah, I love it. I love it. That's a radio Canada logo. That's a, yeah, this is a like faux retro, as they say. So, uh, created to look like the old look, but, but I do consume most of my

News now via podcast but it is of course the world at six and all the different CBC news programs that are just podcasts now so I can hear it on demand when I'm on a bike ride basically so and that's great That's that's fantastic, but I'm just not sure I think you're the exception to the rule. You might be right Yeah you know and then I hear this they know the phrase fake news being bandied about now and then that really cuts me to the quick because I think, you know, once you lose confidence in, in, in, in what you're hearing, what you're seeing, if you're not believing it, then yeah, the battle's over. The battle's over. Okay. But we got, we must fight, but we'll talk more later about what,

what lies ahead for CBC and hearing. Cause you've been gone nine years now. So Simon was, he's, he was not even really gone yet when we had the chat, but you having nine years and you can maybe share your thoughts and perspective later on what lies ahead should, uh, you know, the conservative party of Canada form the next government, which by all accounts looks like is an inevitability. I've got one vote, Bernie. So, you know, I'm, I'll do my best over here, but it looks like it's an inevitability and what that will mean for CBC and we'll talk about that but

Please Yeah, get us to see ko. Oh, okay. Okay. So after After college I had a summer stint at CFRS Simcoe, Ontario Cyphers we used to say it's communicable They of course management didn't like that too much and but uh that was a summer stand and i was basically more dj'ing there i realized i wanted to get into news i would used to see them over in the news department doing serious stuff and i thought i'd got to get into news uh so on graduate upon graduation from niagara i my first job, CKNX TV and radio, Wingham, Ontario.

One of my instructors in Niagara basically worked in Wingham and he said, there's an opening there for a newscaster reporter. Yeah, I think you better go for it. And I thought, Wingham, I didn't even know where it was. I mean, Well, where is Wingham? Let's tell people, like me.

It's just, I'd say it's midwestern Ontario, I'd say north of Waterloo, north east of London, but it covered a wide area. It covered basically all of the Bruce Peninsula. Owen Sound was the big city, but a lot of small towns, but a big agricultural area. So that was the big focus. So radio and television. So I went up, did the audition, and they handed me the Hogan Sound report. Like Les Nisman. Yeah.

So I looked at it and I thought, I have no idea what I'm reading here. It was good heavy bologna bowls are selling for, and number of figures. And I'm thinking, are these pounds? Are these dollar figures, whatever lambs without jackets? I thought, those poor little lambs, I mean, gee, they've got no jackets on. But then I got to boners and boners are selling for, and I stopped. And I just thought, okay, is this a joke? Uh, so the floor director came over and he says, Bernie, continue on. And I said, is this right? Is this a boner? And he says, well, you know what a boner is? No. I said, yeah, I do.

But I had didn't get anything to do with the hog and sow report. That's great. We got the job bottom line. I don't know how I got the job. So you don't have that audio by any chance on that CDR. I wish. I want the boner report. Well, that would be on real to real for sure. Yeah. Yeah. We just kind of forgot about the Boner report, but, but that's why I had a great time worked there for a couple of years reading the news and also covering agricultural

stories and traveling the traveling the distance. And of course there was one hotel in town called the Manor Hotel and we're all young and whatever we were basically the unwritten law was do not be drinking at the Manor Hotel because you're on TV you know we can't be having these trusted broadcasters having a few drafts at the Manor Hotel on a Friday night so we used to head down to Teaswater and all these other little towns, Kitchener, because I don't think our signal went to Kitchener, but fun times, yeah.

So, CKNX and then- So you were on television though. It was television and radio. So at this moment in your career, Bernie Mac, are you thinking maybe TV is the path for you? I was kinda, my first love was radio. I really really loved radio and that on the TV side I mean, you know the suit the tie the makeup the whole thing, you know, how you look you do you can't go on camera Looking a little bit long like I feel like

Somebody might have said hey, you know, you're a TV guy. Yeah. Well, it was interesting It was interesting, but no the first love was radio and then after that I went to Ottawa. I hit the big national capital CFRA in Ottawa was the chum station in Ottawa. I think it was 1975 to 78 interesting story my first drove up to Ottawa it was July 1st so went to Parliament Hill, saw this going. So I'm coming from Wingham, Ontario, this small, small, you know, village and then hitting, hitting July 1st, Canada Day, hundreds of thousands of people on Parliament Hill, I thought I'll go into the station, just to kind of say hello

and climb myself, because I was doing the overnight news casts. So I was in the graveyard shift. So I went in, buzzed, went up to the newsroom, met this gentleman who was doing the shift. And I said, hi, my name is Bernie. I'm going to be starting here on Monday. And he said, Oh, you are, what are you going to be doing? And I said, well, I'm actually going to be reading the news on the overnight shift. And he said, I had no idea. It was his job that I was, they had neglected to tell him that I'd be coming in on Monday, his job, and this terrific guy, he trained me. He had to train me for the

next two weeks knowing he's on the way out. So that was a kind of an eye opener, you know, radio, private radio. You're in a cutthroat industry. where you live. Cutthroat industry, yeah. So then you're trying to get to CKO, right? Yeah, but you know, take your time. This is- Yeah, so Ottawa for a couple of years, three years, I think it was 78, left Ottawa and then came to the Big Smoke. Okay, is this CFTO first or no CKO? No, CKEY.

Okay. No, CKEY, 590. Right. Hired as a newscaster reporter, down on number one Young Street. I thought I had died and gone to heaven going down there, going up the escalator. We were on the top floor. Everything was glass and there were people working there like Pierre Burton, Charles Templeton. They used to have the dialogue.

Burton Lewis, Tom Gould, Joe Morgan, Pete McGarvey, Lynn Gordon, Bob Payne, Brad Diamond, Ian Brownlee It was it was I thought gee I hit the big time area you know so I'm going to be in a newscaster as slash reporter and The boss there at the time was a gentleman by the name of Taylor Barnaby Barnaby Hap Barnaby was his nickname. He brought me into the Into his office all covered in glass and looking at I've seen these people running around beautiful view of the CN tower and

He says to me. I got one thing to say to you. He says don't f up Because if you swear on this show Bernie, we need to Let's hear it. Yeah, my poor mother. She'd be looking down saying it can't you can't do it? But basically he said yeah, don't F up. Uh, because you know what? I won't fire you. They will. And he's pointing out to the newsroom. And now talk about confidence. I was confident going into it thinking, I'm just kind of like, I think I just wet my pants, but uh, it was fun. It was fun for you.

Are we in the, uh, where are we in the timelines? Are we in early eighties? Yeah, we're talking. I was, I,, I went to CKUY in 1978. So is Deanie Petty gone? Yeah, oh, Deanie Petty. Deanie Petty had just left. Just left. And of course she was famous, you know, the pink helicopter. But the woman who took over for Deanie Petty after Deanie was Diane Pepper.

And I had a little run-in with Deanie. One day in the news newsroom the phone rang and I was on the weekend doing the weekend shift phone rang. Hi, it's Danny Petty I need to I need Diane Pepper's home phone number. So I did one of those I said I knew the policy was we don't give out home phone numbers unless we check with the person So I said, excuse me. Yeah, okay You know what? I'll call her and I'll let you know that she's trying to get a,

you're trying to get ahold of her. And she did one of those. Did you hear who I, I'm Deanie Petty. Do you know who I am? Do you know who I am? And then of course, that got me. And I said, yeah, I do. I used to fly the pink helicopter or whatever. And I'll call Diana, let you know, clunk phone goes down. And I had subsequently met De Dee Petty after that. And I told her that story. I did not do that, she said. She's a tough cook.

I've had conversations with Dee Dee. She's a tough cookie, right? And I can imagine that would be exactly how that call went down. Yeah, yeah, it was one of those. Yeah, do you know who I am? I'm just some little snotty nosed kid behind the desk doing weekend newscasts, but no, it was a great experience.

She was on her way to, uh, she went to see city TV, of course, where she was and started up first host of a city line. That's right. She did, she did very well. And Deanie's still Deanie's still around. Of course. Yeah. She's an FOTM like yourself, Bernie.

And that means friend of Toronto Mike. Yes, of course. Mark could tell you that. But Deanie petty, um, yeah, city line. The interesting thing about city line is just last week, Rogers announced that after 40 years, City Line was toast. No more City Line. See, there you go. You know, I mean, it's sad. It's sad. But let me tell you a quick story about CKEY. Yeah, please. idea. The big thing there was during the wintertime snow desk and Hap Barnaby was the, and he loved it. I mean he was just so excited if there was

going to be a snow and snowstorm whatever and everybody was put into place and there was the snow desk. So I hadn't been there that long and he said okay this is what you're gonna do. You're gonna go out and you're gonna go to trouble spots. You know you're gonna get in the car. He gave me a role. I think maybe two roles of dimes, no cell phones, right? No sad phones, a roll of dimes. And you're going to go to the phone booth and tell us trouble spots. That's where you're going to go and report back in. So I go down. He gives me the key to this, this four wheel drive Jeep. I drive around and I go to, you know, Avenue road. That one part was going up. Sure. Trouble spots.

So I'd go to the phone booth, parked the car. Yes. Bernie Mac to me reporting Avenue Road backed up an alternate route would be this and this. I go to another spot in other spots. So now I do it. It worked out okay for about maybe an hour, an hour and a half, two hours. I went up at Keele in the 401. Remember there used to be, oh there was a hotel up there and I think it was a Canadian tire store. Anyway, get out of the booth, I'm all set to go. I've got no gloves on, it's freezing cold. I put the dime in, the slot, whatever. I dropped the keys. The keys go into a snow drift. So I'm thinking, oh boy, now I'm really screwed. So I do my last report, then I called back to the newsroom.

I said, what a little bit of a problem, you know, I've lost the keys to the cruiser. And the newscaster was on the line. He says, that wasn't our cruiser, that was a rental. And now I'm thinking, I'm blown, I'm out of here. They're gonna let me go. So they finally, I had to call the rental company. Meanwhile, I'm not reporting from trouble spots.

I'm stranded up there with no gloves looking for these keys. So what I did from the, they came back up, they brought the rental company, brought me another set of keys. I picked up all the people that were coming in on the morning shift. Joe Morgan, he gets into the car with his little hat, whatever. He says, well, nice car. How do you, how do you afford this? I said, well, it's, it's a long story. It's not mine. It's a rental car. So that, that was, uh, that was my first shot at the big time, Toronto, trouble spots in the snowstorm. It's amazing that you lasted till 2015.

So what's your stop after CK? So K YKY, then let's see, then CKO. Yes, hit CKO in 82. I guess it was 82 to 84. So CKO, as Simon told you, an all news network, you know, they really, really tried hard. They were working on a dime. Basically speaking of dimes, they were working on a dime, basically speaking of dimes, they were working on a shoestring,

but a lot of people had gone over from CKEY, including Hap Barnaby, Ian Brownlee, a bunch of us had gone over to try to make a go of it, you know, to try to make this, it had been struggling for a couple of years. It was a network, I mean, they had stations in Halifax to Vancouver, all news news all the time, 99.1. So I was hired, and one of the reasons too,

they said Monday to Friday, $30,000. I mean, which was a huge amount of money. What might that be today? I know you don't have your inflation calculator in front of you, but approximately, just to help us out. Maybe, I don't know, it was inflation. Would it be close to 100?

Would it be maybe 80, 90? I mean, it was money would it be close to a hundred would it be maybe 80 90 I mean it was money I'd never never heard of but but we we yeah it was it was an adventure I met a lot of great people there Simon Heather Evans Georgie Banks Donna Triquada Andrew coin was the business reporter Volta Cannes he did a special travel. Do you remember Walter Cannatz? He kind of- He's not ringing a bell.

Well, he was a salesman for the station, but he also did a travel segments. Another thing was Focus on Fish with Ron Gatsby. So, you know, talk about the trout. You know, he would talk about the trout for about five minutes. But we had to fill 24 hours. No boner reports?

No boner reports, but just going back to Walter, he was very interesting. He had this talk, but he had these hums and ahs that he would have in between his pieces. And so he brought me the tape one day. He said, this is my report for the next hour. And I thought, okay, how long is it, Walter? He says, well, it's probably about four and a half minutes. I thought, well, we only have room for three. So I cut it down. I took out all his hums and aahs and put it on the air. He was livid. He said, what are you doing?

He says, Oh, that says my trademark. I survived though, but no, CKO was a, it was a learning experience and I had some interesting experiences at CKO. We interviewed a lot of people. Probably my most embarrassing moment on radio. Margaret Atwood. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of a... I've heard of her. It's kind of an... you've heard of her, yeah, it's kind of an interesting story. So this would have been the mid 80s. She was, she was pretty big even back then, had written several novels, short stories, that kind of thing. So I had, I hosted a kind of a current affairs program, doing interviews, books, arts and entertainment, that kind of thing. So my producer at the time said, arts and entertainment, that kind of thing.

So my producer at the time said, tell you what, we've got Margaret Atwood booked for Monday. And I know she was infamous for being interviewed by people who hadn't read her books. You know, I mean, she would, I heard in one interview, Atwood Glover, that probably doesn't ring a bell. He had a show called Lunch and Date in the early days of CBC television. He was in the audience one day at something that she was at. She basically mentioned my name as someone who hadn't read her book and how it was a terrible interview. The poor man's in

the audience. So I knew this going beforehand and I said listen you know what to my producer I said I'm not going to have a busy weekend I said, I'm not gonna have a chance to read this book I know she will eat me up and spit me out. He did this producer also did some of the interviews He said don't worry. Don't worry. He says I'll do the interview. I think the show started at one o'clock or something like that I'll do the interview and then you're free to do the other for the rest of the show. I said fine No problem, right Friday goes by Saturday or Sunday Monday I'll do the interview and then you're free to do the other. It was for the rest of the show. I said, fine, no problem. Friday goes by Saturday or Sunday, Monday. He comes in and he says,

my producer and he says, Oh, by the way, I've got a dentist appointment at, at one o'clock. I'm not going to be able to do that interview with Margaret Avwood. And I said, you're kidding me. I can't, I can't do it. I, you got to call the publisher. We were just not going to, it's too late. Whatever. He said, I a couple of notes I I you know, I read the book he gave me I think in a little cheat sheet with a couple of points of Cole's of this book Cole's notes version. I thought oh, please please please it's I can't do it. He's got to do it She's booked whatever so one o'clock approaches the newscast is on we came on and I think 10 after 1 1 o'clock approaches No, Margaret, I would no Margaret at what I thought 10 after one, one o'clock approaches, no Margaret Atwood, no Margaret Atwood. I thought,

Oh gosh, I'm saved. Cause we had a backup interview. The commercial is on. We've got 30 seconds to go. The door swings open and in comes Margaret Atwood, dressed in black, she's a black hat, black cape, whatever. And I'm thinking I'm going to die. I'm going to die. So big long, oh, during the commercial 10 seconds left, I said, excuse me, this is what should I call you? Margaret? Should I call you Ms. Atwood? Whatever. And it's Maggie and Maggie.

And it's, she was having none of it. It was Ms. Atwood, please. Wow. So I read this big long intro about this book, you know, and I'm thinking, if I can make the intro longer than it's going to cut down on the interview. Like a book report. You haven't read the book. Published in 1975. So I said, lovely for you to be here. Now you started with short story. Now you're in novel. Now you're going back to short stories. Why? And it was, well, if you have read any of my past works,

you would have known I did not start with the short story. This is what I started. It went, it was painful. It was painful. So I thought I'd take the focus of the interview. One of the stories was about an invasion of a Caribbean island and at that time, the US had invaded Grenada.

So I thought, let's take it away from the book and let's talk about current events and whatever. she was having none of it. It was, it was so painful. I'm looking across the glass. I can see the technical producer just putting his head down, just saying basically wrap this up. You're in pain. Go to Rod Stewart's or something. And I, anyway, I wrapped it. I think I did. I got through maybe four minutes and I wrapped it up. I looked down and I said, and we have been talking with Margaret Atwood

Canada's foremost writer and I'm looking down. Do you think I could even find the name of the book? I'm going through papers like this and she gave me this look Putting cheap and you're like, why don't you tell us the name of your book? She wrote it. She put the cape on and out she went and I just thought embarrassing terrible terrible. So yeah, and yes except She wrote it. She put the cape on and out she went and I just thought embarrassing Terrible terrible. So yeah, and yes except as a guy who's done a few interviews in his day here Okay, Bernie Mac that Margaret Atwood interview sounds like she's super difficult like who bothered with this I mean, I'm just saying I guess I if I had a Margaret Atwood type in the room and I have had this actually and it's

become infamous in Toronto Mike circles, but just being difficult, like who's got time for that? Like, Oh, I'm sorry, Margaret. We're just trying to sell some of your freaking books. Right? Well, you'd got to look at it that way in a way, but, but you know, in her defense, you know, she, she really, you know, I mean, you're going on a program. The person should have at least been better prepared. And if one thing that, that taught me a lesson, you've got to be prepared, even though the circumstances were kind of not in my favor.

Another one, Lauren Green. Okay. I just tell you a fast one. Another CKO. Thank God this wasn't live. This was on tape. So producer came and said, okay, Lauren Green's in town. He's going to be promoting, you know, to Lauren Green, the voice of doom, the CBC, you know, I mean, icon. It's a big one. Cartwright. So they said, Lauren Green's in town.

He's promoting, I think it was Wild Kingdom or one of those animal shows. Yeah, I used to watch it on CBC television, Sunday nights, I believe. He narrated this, whatever. Lauren Green is in town. You know, we were going to send him up for the interview this whatever. Lauren Green is in town. You know, we were gonna send him up for the interview, whatever.

So we'll do, you know, pre-record it and it should be fine. I said, yeah, it would probably be great. I mean, I think he's getting on in years and whatever, but fine. So we arranged the time, call him up. I said, Mr. Green, Mr. Green, it's Bernie McNamee calling from CKO. We're all set for the interview. Come on up. And I said, Mr. Green, Mr. Green, it's Bernie McMeek calling from CKO. We're all set for the interview.

Come on up. And I said, beg your pardon. Come on up. I'm in room 407. And I said, Mr. Green, I'm not in the hotel. I'm we're doing the interview by phone, by phone, Mr. Green. 407 is the room. 407 is the room. Are you downstairs? I said, no, Mr. Green, I'm not. Now the tape is rolling. I'm not, I'm not downstairs. I'm not downstairs. I'm on the phone. Oh, by phone.

Yes. Okay. Fine. Big long intro. Lauren Green, Canadian broadcasting legend of CBC went on to pot cart, right? That That's this big long opening question about Mr. Green, did you find it hard when you left Bonanza to shed the image of Paul Cartwright after all these years? Silence. Did I what? Mr. Green, did you find it hard to shed the image of Paul Cartwright after all these years? Did I shed what? Oh no. It's bad to worse. So, so I tried, I tried the injury. I ran it. We actually ran out of tape and I had to go into a newscast. It was one of those things. I said, Mr. Green, Mr. Green, I've got to call you

back. I've run out of tape. What? I'm in room 407. So, so I got the phone. I hung up on Lauren, Lauren Green. I hung up on Lauren Green. The newscast or the publicist called me up about 10 minutes later. They said, how dare you? You hung up on Lauren Green.

I said, one thing you didn't tell me. Lauren Green was almost totally deaf at the time, you know? And she said, well, he's a little hard of hearing. And I said, hard of hearing, you know, anyway, I said, probably would have worked better one-on-one, face-to-face, you know, read some lips and everything, but that was not another, not a shining nothing nothing against Lauren Green because you know he was here to publish like I think it was the publicist who should have you know so

another shining moment he was set up to fail and so are you actually on that note now there's shining moment in the days of CKO so did you ever have a successful interview it sounds like Bernie you ever have a successful interview? It sounds like Bernie, you ever have a good one? Well yes, I think I did. They kept me on for a few years after that, surprisingly enough, you know. But we were down on, when I first went over to CKO, we were on Adelaide Street and I remember because going from CKEY with this sparkly high-tech beautiful building down to Adelaide Street, I remember they had shag carpeting on the walls and the place was a dump you know what I thought I thought to myself oh my gosh she

thirty thousand dollars Monday to Friday I don't think this is gonna work but then we moved to the Carlton did on on Carlton Street Street. I guess it was the mezzanine level, brand new studios, so this and that. So it was kind of a step up. And you got to meet Simon Dingley. I got to meet Simon and a bunch of other people who were just yeah, yeah, they were absolutely wonderful and good memories, you know? I mean that's the people you meet, right? And the experiences you had as well. Right. Now is CFTO your next stop? It is, it is. And that's television though? Yeah, people you meet, right? And the experiences you had as well. Right, now is CFTO your next stop? It is, it is. And that's television though.

Yeah, so you know, after a couple years at CKO, and I knew the writing was on the wall, the money just wasn't there, and they had closed several stations, and I thought, yeah, I think it's going down. I think they lasted for about another year, year and a half, and most of the the people you know luckily got got work but I there was a job opening at CFTO you're right a lot of people would probably say what is

that? Channel 9, cable 8? The Gen X knows, Gen X and older well aware yeah absolutely. They're well aware of it. It's the CTV Toronto station. Yeah, so I thought, another try at television. So I was hired as a lineup producer and general assignment reporter. First of all, just as a lineup and then general assignment reporter. First, interesting, my first day on the job was Harvey Kirk's last day.

Wow. That was, yeah, 1984. I remember going into the studio and I'm so impressed. Of course Harvey sang goodbye, that legendary broadcaster. And then... As discussed on the Lloyd Robertson. Yes and then Lloyd became the solo, became the solo anchor. You know, of course after he had left CBC. Sure he left the National. But wonderful, you know, so television, I thought, let's try this out. They're way up in Agent Court.

I'm living downtown Broadview in the Danforth area. So it's quite a hike up to Agent Court every day, especially as a reporter, because this is the day before satellite trucks, the day before cell phones. We had these big phones that, you know, you touch base with the newsroom. But you basically had to go back to the station to edit all of your stories. So you'd be downtown invariably every day. First of all, drive up to the Asian court, drop your car off, come down with a cameraman, do the story, drive back to Asian court on pressure of deadline. You know, they'd be at you. You've got the lead story.

Where are you stressed out hearing about it? Totally stressed out. I mean, to the point where you'd be writing in the back of a cab to go back to the station or in your own car. And I had a stick shift at the time, writing the story, listening to your clips and then screaming you at the two on the two way that you've got the lead. And if you didn't make it, you know, come hell or high water, you better be back in time.

It was very stressful. And matter of fact, one of my colleagues, uh, uh, you know, come hell or high water, you better be back in time. It was very stressful. And matter of fact, one of my colleagues, Kelly Crow, she was actually, she rear ended someone on the Don Valley Parkway while she was trying to get back to write her story. But yeah, so it was TV. But it was as I've been reminded of many times, because at the time I'm watching City Pulse on City TV, but I'm constantly reminded by these CFTO people that drop by that CFTO was absolutely the most viewed newscast

in Toronto, not even close, right? Number one, if it, but a big credo there, if it bleeds, it leads. It was chasing, it was chasing ambulances, it was going, it was local news, it was going up to you know poor mothers that had lost their children in a car accident or something you know how do you feel sticking microphone in somebody's face you know it was it was a good experience as I said for the television side one interesting story I know you've you've had Ben Johnson on your just a couple of weeks ago couple

of weeks ago and I've been reading ago. He was wild, yeah. And I've been reading all about Mary Ornsby's book and everything. Very interesting character. This is before, this is before the Olympics in 88. So he was, you know, breaking all kinds of records. He set the world record, I think it was 87 in Rome, I wanna say.

That was the world record. 9.83. Oh my gosh gosh good for you Well, this was so this before the Olympics, but one of their ideas at CFTO was let's it's it's been Johnson's birthday Why don't you go to his house with a birthday cake and surprise him? I mean these kinds of stories and I said well wait a minute shouldn't we shouldn't we ask him shouldn't we call somebody like He was living. I think we, living with his mother at the time? I said, you know, no, no, no, no, the whole thing is a surprise. You're going to have the camera, you're going to be standing there with the cake, it's going to be

great. And I think it could be great. Famous last words. So we stopped in the cameraman eye, we go and get this great big honking cake, knocking at the door, knocking at the door. I think his mother did know about it. She opens the door and she said, oh, how lovely to see you. She says, he's not here. He's working out, but he will be here momentarily. And I said, fine, whatever, come on in, come on in.

So at least I'm sitting on the couch with this cake, the camera man's all set up, an hour, whatever. Ben walks in with his gym bag, the whole thing looks at me and goes, goes up, goes up the stairs. And I said to the cameraman, I said, gee, that was somewhat, underwhelming. So his mother went up. We could hear him trying to, she said, these nice people are down here from TV. They want to do this thing at your birthday and that. He didn't want to do it. He eventually grudgingly came down the stairs.

And at that time, Ben did have a bit of a problem with his speech. A hundred percent. This was one quick, if we could get back to the story, one of the takeaways I had, cause he sat where you're sitting right now for 100 minutes, unedited, didn't edit a stitch, not one stutter. So he's, he's really, really improved a lot back then, not so much.

You know, I mean, he really struggled. He struggled with it. So he finally came down the stairs, we got the cake, we got the camera and he basically, you know, thanks very much. Yeah, boy. He's a shy guy. Any words for our listeners and our viewers, you know,

as you head on on your next competition? No, I'm a bit tired right now. I think I'll just go upstairs. So, you know, it was a little, you know, let's make a story and let's make it work, you know. And it was at 11. And then of course, it's your fault, right? It's, you know, what do you mean?

We can't edit this. You know, I said, well, it was your idea. No, it was an interesting experience. We love the Ben Johnson content. Yeah, you know, it was run by the people running this. Things have changed up there now. People were running the place. They had their idea of how a newsroom should be run and we used to call them must covers. I'm not going to mention any names by people, but must covers. So a lot of times the management,

their hands would kind of go into the editorial side. You'd be sent out on a story, let's say maybe a restaurant, a fancy restaurant in Toronto was closing because one of the executives had had many fine meals there. So you'd have to, maybe you'd have another story lined up, a legitimate news story, and they'd say oh Bernie just just put that on hold we want you go down to La Cava restaurant and interview some of the patrons in the pro quo there

yeah it's kind of thinking wait a minute this is not news but then yeah then the CFTO kind of came to an abrupt end in 1988. Oh so let me bring in Simon's other point. He DMed me yesterday on the app formerly known as Twitter and he said many may not know that Bernie was a reporter at CFTO in the mid 1980s. He quit rather than cross a picket line during a strike there in 1988. Yeah, yeah it was a pretty famous story at the time and it was a lockout and it basically it wasn't over wages it was mostly over use of non-union people at Glen Warren production which was an offshoot of Baytown broadcasting and

they weren't union members and so they were they were farming out a lot of a lot of programs to Beton to Glenn Warren the whole issue was they should be union members and at the time at CFTO the whole place was naebet the anchors the reporters the editors so the whole place so conceivably during a labor situation, if everybody is the same union, you basically shut the place down. It was a lockout, the management locked it out. And I think really deep down, I think it was a union busting. They wanted to get rid of the union. They basically wanted to get rid of the union. But if there was a picket line, my dad was

a big union member. And if there was a picket lineet line I thought I'm not crossing a picket line so it was very divisive all the anchors crossed all the six reporters stayed out six crossed but they kept the place going and it got to be pretty nasty too they were basically using the airwaves to to for their cause as well, the management side. So yeah, on the Pickett line and what we did, we're up in an Indian court with Pickett signs and this and that, not a lot of people see it. And they were getting- Even the 401, right? I feel-

401 and McCown Road. Right, so you can drive right by. So you're up there like nobody's, you're not getting really any, and other stations, of course, we're covering this story as well. But they did get their they did get the the newscast on the air because as I said the anchor I mean that was their choice. The anchors crossed, they didn't want to be back on the street reporting and the reporters the other reporters

crossed as well. So we were picketing out there and the union finally said you know what this is you know we're getting some sympathy or whatever but I think what you you people should be doing is secondary picketing which meant you could take your picket signs and go and pick it where some of the reporters who had crossed the line were working. Would you name it who are these reporters across that picket line? I can't. I can't. Bernie Mac. Yeah no I I sorry I can't. You know some of them are still there. I have to rough them up. Everybody about the people that stayed out, Eric Sorensen, Kelly Crow, uh,

John Borley, quite a few people that did respect the picket line. But anyway, so we, we were involved in secondary picketing, which is perfectly legal. The union checked this out, uh, that it's all legal. Uh, and we will be picketing behind some of these reporters who will be doing stand-ups at some of their stories. But they were getting things on, they were basically getting the use-cast on the air. Some of these reporters went back and said, hey we couldn't, I couldn't do my stand-up Bernie's standing behind me with a picket sign and whatever.

So they went to the police, management went to the police, the police said it's within their right, their secondary picketing. But what we didn't know and what they found out, they went to a justice at the peace. So that person who was trying to doing their job, and I was behind with my picket sign, they could lay a private mischief charge against me, which worked. It worked in the sense that we had to cease and desist. We were arrested. Uh, there were seven of us. We got us the group of seven. We were arrested and charged with mischief. Uh,

my folks were at home that night watching television. Their lead story that night was there are warrants out for the arrest of seven locked out employees of CFTO including Bernie McNamee and whatever and there's I didn't see the newscast because I was out picketing I came home put on my answering machine all these messages hey Bernie Norma Ray what are you doing good for you this is that yeah I'm so interested in the story that I did not know about it was it was it was it was unbelievable and and so the last,

the last message was Bernard, this is your mother, your father and I just saw the newscast. Are you okay? So I'm hearing all of these. That's my phone. You can't even hear it on the mic. It's just a nice little gentle background music as we tell the story. As I go to hell on a hand card, you can hear my wind chime. I just want footage of the perp walk, Bernie Mac.

Well, it's true, I did. You know, we were, and I called the union, they said, yeah, they read your name on the air as well as six others. You're gonna have to be fingerprinted, you're gonna have to turn yourself in. The 6-07, wow. And we're going to have to cease and desist.

It actually worked, it was a very shrewd move on the part of management because it worked. So there I was old city hall sitting there after being fingerprinted and I'm sitting beside. Do you remember the peace lady who just stand over the Don Valley? You know, the bridges. Famous Toronto character.

Famous Toronto. She had a banner. She was all in white and whatever. So I'm sitting in court with the rest of the group of seven and I'm sitting beside me is the peace lady. Oh my god what a Toronto moment. I knew her I said oh my gosh you're the peace lady she said yes my son and I said what are you in for she said mischief and I said me too. You know what what a great story that is and again you just named it so you're not gonna name those who crossed, but you will name those who are part of the CIFTO7 here.

Who was with you there again? Oh gosh. Who is the seven? Oh, the seven. The seven that you will name. Well, I'm trying to think. Kim McNaughton, Dave Kotick. No, these were mostly, I was the only reporter

that was arrested. So you probably wouldn't know these other names. But you know, I mean it just went to show you that, you know, they were really, they really wanted to bust the union at this place. And the lockout was eventually, well I left, bottom line was I left, I thought, can I go back to work at that place? And you know, they brought people in in these buses

with blacked out windows. And it was very ominous. It was eerie. And once they had come to a conclusion, they came to an agreement, the lockout was over. I think it went on for another, it was a pretty rough summer. I think it went on for a couple of months.

I left, a month into what I left. And that's 88. That's 88. They shadowed Ben Johnson. Yeah. They actually had a, um, a monument in the lobby of see if I don't know whether it's still there. And I know, I know this for a fact. It was a black bus under glass, under plexiglass. Basically bottom line was we won.

You know, but the part that concerned me was that using the airwaves though, you know, to lead the newscast with people that have been working for them, you know, and arrests, warrants out there. Yeah. Yeah. So it was pretty sad. So I thought this is time. Yeah. I had my, I had my television experience and I was ready basically to try something else at that point. Then I freelanced. I freelanced for about

a year and a half. I hosted several television programs, one based in Hamilton called Real Estate Today. It was a Bradford production, Brad Diamond, you probably know of Brad, he'd motoring 88 and sportscaster, former sportscaster. He produced several programs. Another one was another show I hosted. This was strictly freelance, they would hire me for a couple of weeks, a couple of months at the time, a program called Travel Magazine. And we went all all over the world. And it was television, it was syndicated. The producer of the show was a gentleman by the name of Jake DeBoer. And he ran the program. And he said, now Bernie says, you know, I can pay you by the day, or I can you can have residuals, which would mean that if I do

this in syndication I'm not so confident I were going to be able to syndicate this so I would suggest maybe by the day well I'm saying I'm freelancing so I got paid by the day he freelance he he syndicated that program it was somebody said they were in South Africa they saw you in South Africa anyway Oh, wow. Anyway, live and learn. But it was a great experience. Great experience freelancing. And also at that time I was doing the Yod Fill-In at CBC, local radio. And then this is AM 740.

Yes, yes. On Parliament Street. Yeah, down there on Parliament Street and right in the middle of Cabbage Town, you know, open concept there, you know, a lot of people on the street would open the door and yell obscenities in while you were on the air. Interesting times. And yeah, so did that. And then the freelance market was kind of drawing up.

There's a big recession in the early late 80s, early 90s. And I thought, better start looking at something a little more permanent. And then a staff position came up at CBC. Okay so stop right there I'm shouting out meatloaf there but so Bernie Mac we're gonna that took us an hour but we're now at CBC radio in 1989 but listen that's the whole joy of the show is we can we can you know meander a little bit and get the details and I'm very interested so you are at CBC radio from 1989 until 2015 when you retired. So we are going to talk about that, but I'm going to give you some

lovely gifts because you made the trek to be here all the way from St. Catherine's. So all the way. Do you Bernie Mac enjoy Italian food? I love Italian. You love Italian food. Okay. Good answer, by the way. You can tell the truth. I know what's coming. It's in my freezer but that lovely red box from Palma Pasta will be full when you leave here today and it will have a frozen lasagna and you have to just let me know what you think. I've had it before Palma Pasta. Delicious. Delicious. They're in Oakville and Mississauga. We often have events at Palma's Kitchen and the patriarch of that family who started the business in the 1980s, he just turned 100 years old.

Oh, happy birthday. Shout out to Mr. Petrucci, but yeah, we love Palma pasta here. Go to palmapasta.com. We also love Great Lakes beer. I have some fresh craft beer that's going home with you, Bernie. That's from Great Lakes.

Oh my gosh, it's cold too. Yeah,, that's because this basement is cold. That's what's going on there. So, you know, I did as I learned from Troy, I produced the between two fermenters, which is the official podcast of Great Lakes Brewery. And they teach you how to keep your beer fresh, right? So, uh, you know, you got a dark cold spot is where you store your beer. And that's what you do if you can't have in the fridge there. Okay. So you're taking home the fresh craft beer. I do want to tell all the listeners that we have TML X 15 happening on June 27 from six to nine PM and it's going to happen in the South Etobicoke location of Great Lakes Brewery. They'll buy

you your first beer on the house and then Palm Apostate will feed you. It's free to attend. You don't need to RSVP. You don't need to buy a ticket. Just show up at 30 Queen Elizabeth Boulevard in South Etobicoke, 6 to 9 PM, June 27. Bernie, you're invited to you and your partner could drop by and have some pasta and some beer and hang out with the listenership and some other great FOTMs. All right. I've got that written down. Got that written down. Okay. There's a measuring tape courtesy of Ridley funeral home. Oh my goodness. I measure my body. You can, uh, you can do what you wish with that. All right.

And since I brought up Ridley funeral home, I actually have a little bit of music here for us here. Please fellas. We need you. Nelly Kelly, the baseball game, knew the players, knew all their names. You could see her there every day, shout hooray, when they played. Her boyfriend by the name of Joe said, To Coney Isle, dear, we'll go. Then Nelly started to fret and pout. And to him I heard her shout, hey! Take me out to the ball game.

Take me out with the crowd. Buy me some peanuts and cracker jack. I don't care if I never get back. Let me root, root, root for the home team if they don't win it's a shame because it's one two three strikes you're out at the old ball game Bernie any idea whose voices do we hear in this clip any any guess well frank sinatra frank sinatra is correct yes and who else uh jean kelly so it's Frank Sinatra, Jean Kelly from some famous movie. Yeah. Take me out to the ball game. And I'm playing it because on May 12th,

that's this coming Sunday, the home opener of the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team is happening at Christie Pitts here in Toronto. 2pm start. I'm going to be there a lot of, I mean, Steve Paikin is going to be there a lot of, I mean, Steve Pagan is going to be there. All right, Steve. You buddy of Steve's. Okay, shout him out. He's listening to us right now. Who else will I shout out? Wendell Clark, Rick Vibe, a couple of great Toronto Maple Leafs from the hockey side. We have to shout out Rick Emmett. We have to shout out Rod Black. A whole bunch

of surprises. Mike Epple is going to be there. Oh, Mike. I'm 680 all the time. I'm a devoted listener. And well, listen, you're a devoted listener of Mike. Mike's a devoted listener of mine. I'm a devoted listener of yours. This is how the triangle works. So come on out Blair Packham from the jitters, Mark Hebbshire, Peter Gross. Like these are the legends. The legends are going gonna be there. So all these great FOTM. So everybody come on out. May 12, again 2 p.m. and this is happening on Sunday. I'm gonna be recording live from Christie Pitts, one game a month. And my game of May is that home opener on May 12.

So come on out, say hi on the microphone. I have a gift for you. It's the history of Toronto Maple Leafs baseball. So Bernie, you can bring that back to St. Catharines with you and read it. It's a hard cover. It's a great book. Oh, it looks wonderful. Great history. If people haven't heard the Adam Bunch episode of Toronto Mike, which recorded last week, he's a Toronto historian and he started to share the the history of Toronto Maple Leafs baseball and it's such a rich, interesting history. Like just listen to that, you know, 15 minutes in that episode with Adam, when we talked about Toronto Maple Leaf baseball, it's wild.

So read that book, enjoy, come on out, see the best baseball in the city, outside the dome. Couple of more quick hits here before we get you to CBC. There should be a speaker there. So that's a Bluetooth speaker, Bernie, and that's courtesy of Meneris. All right. And they want you to subscribe and listen to Yes, We Are Open,

which is an award winning podcast. It's in its sixth season. And here's a recent episode is a woman named Virginia Borges. I hope I'm saying that right Borges. I'm probably butchering that. My apologies. I'm no Bernie McNamee, but she came to Canada from Venezuela in 2014. She had the dream of starting her own business and she wanted her business to give back to the community. So she opened Re Grub Burger Bar in Calgary. This has become a very popular hotspot when you're in Calgary.

They have unique and delicious creations and her story is told in great detail by Al Grego in the most recent episode of Yes We Are Open. So be inspired by small business owners sharing their story. Yes We Are Open season six. And since you're subscribing to podcasts with your new speaker, Bernie, the Advantage Investor podcast from Raymond James Canada,

whether you manage your own financial investments since you retired or you have somebody doing that for you, you learn a great deal best practices insight from professionals at Raymond James, it's called the advantaged investor. Subscribe, be educated. And last but not least, and we're going to turn the channel here and we're going to go to, and I even have a clip for it. We're going to go to where are you there? This is CBC radio one. We're on our way there, Bernie, but recycle my electronics dot C a if you have a in St. Catherine's, you have a drawer full of old cables or devices or electronics.

Don't throw it in the garbage, Bernie, because those chemicals end up in our landfill. Go to recycle my electronics dot C a and then you can find out a place near you. You can drop it off to be properly recycled. Now let's play that one more time. Let's get it all set here. This is CBC Radio One. All right. And in my mind, I'm hearing Canada lives here.

Like that was a tagline for a while. And it was right there. I remember that too. Canada lives here. Now it's your world tonight. Your weather, your forecast, your, and I'm thinking what? It's mine? It's all yours, Bernie. You know, the world in six was, the name was great for 50 years. Now it's your world tonight. Yeah, that's a recent change. It is a change and I wasn't too

happy about it, I'll tell you that. But anyway, that's the way things go. That's the way as the great Dave Hodge once said, that's the way things work around here. Listen, thanks for all these great gifts. I'm going to need a suitcase to walk out of here. You know, the days of CBC, we could never accept gifts. But now, keep it coming. I think that I'm just thinking that Simon's wisdom, even though he's retiring in days, I think he's like, I'm accepting a lot of gifts here. And he remembers those days, but those days are long gone because I've had many, many CBC people who are still with CBC who drop by and they're happy to take their lasagna and their beer.

Let's get names. They got a big, I will listen, they're all in the feed. I, unlike you, I'll name, I'll call them out here, okay? Tom Harrington, have you finished? He'll take anything, gee, he's enjoying it. He wants a little red wine with it. He came up with, in the most recent episode of Simon, and then I thought about him singing

on the Tommy Hunter show. And then I thought, Tommy's not only still with us, but I think he just got married, Tommy Hunter. Oh really? I mean, I don't know, I think he's, you know he's in Ontario, but he might be living near you for all I know. I think you're trying to get ahold of him, right?

I need Tommy Hunter. I'll do it by, for him, he can zoom in. He can even phone in, okay, like Lauren Green style. I need Tommy Hunter on the mic before it's too late. Now what about Margaret Atwood? Well, I know you told me how prickly she is. Do I want Margaret Atwood in this basement? Like I had a tough go with Molly Johnson.

Like I don't need a Molly Johnson 2.0 of Margaret Atwood. And she's like, you didn't read the book. I'm like, lady, I'm trying to sell you some books. Talk to me here. But I would have Margaret Atwood on a heartbeat. Of course, of course. But Tommy Hunter, Margaret Atwood, we'll see if any other names cross. But please tell us about your, like give us some stories. You mentioned, you know, the world this weekend and yeah, well, this weekend was I was one of the first hosts when we, we, we, I guess was 94, 94 the world this weekend. I, it's now called your world tonight, the world this weekend. And it was kind of an interesting concept. They wanted to have a half our,

a radio program, news program, similar to the world at six. But as, as my promo at the time said, it's sort of like the world at six, but with a sweater and a glass of wine. Yeah. I tried to live that one down, but a little more casual, a little more conversational, but we, we had the news of the day. We had culture with Michael crab sports, with Zintar sirs, and then wrap up of the news names. So I'm a big Metro Morning guy for, Of course. You know, of course, but these names, yeah. Yeah.

Bring me back. It was wonderful. Yeah, so first launch of a weekend news program and it went very well. And then I think four or five years, and then went to Monday to Friday and counted at five and then the world at six, world at six for almost co-host with Barbara Smith for almost 10 years. Great, great program, great experience, really lovely, lovely, lovely woman, talented and

working with some of you know Russ Germain, Alana Campbell, Barbara Budd, Mary Lou Finley, you know, got to do as it happens a couple of times, quick story. The first time they asked me to do as it happens, the phones went down. Great chance to do as it happens, the phone went down, phones went down, we eventually got them up, up and running. And I think probably because everything is pre recorded and as it happens you do all the interviews ahead of time and then it all comes together at the when you go to where but yeah that was the first time and then they asked me back at several more times but it was a great experience okay I'm gonna play a little Moe Kaufman here because I've since we

mentioned as it happens here I'm just I went to YouTube this is off the cuff here we don't script anything in the central highlands you know what I'm gonna play a little Moe Kaufman here because since we mentioned As It Happens here, I'm just going to YouTube, this is off the cuff here. We don't script anything on YouTube. In the Central Highlands. Oh, you know what, I'm in the wrong account. I actually have a premium account, but I gotta go to it because right now it's gonna play me ads, so. Here we go.

Okay, so Curried Soul by Moe Kaufman. We'll give it a little bit and I'll tell you my little story. So that's the As It Happens theme we know and love. They've often like re-jigged it and stuff through the years or whatever, but there's the Moe Kaufman Currie Soul. So I was a big fan of this theme song, As It Happens. I'm a big CBC radio guy, as I mentioned to you earlier. So when I started this very podcast you're on right now Bernie and we're going back 12 years I'd say a little more than 12

years I approached a local rapper producer named ill vibe is all turn off the moe Kaufman there occurred so people who listen to CPC radio know that very well as the as it happens theme song and I said what I literally said says I need a theme song for my new podcast I told him a little bit about it and I said I wanted to sound like a like a like a hip hop modern version of Kurid Soul by Moe Copp. That's but that was my request. So he played that and this is so this is what I got. I'll play it again. So if we let it go a little bit here you'll hear elements that are actually kind of you'll hear elements that are actually kind of an homage to Kurid's soul. But do you hear it? Yeah. Okay. So this is Illy and you know, I thank him very much and I played it for episode one and here I am playing it for episode 1482.

There's the story. So As It Happens inspired the Toronto Mike theme song. So you did guest guest host on As It Happens. Yeah, yeah, a couple of times. And the one time when I was talking about the phones went down, we had an interesting story. We're trying to line up a woman who was fighting she was in England and she was fighting a new law that was going to open up bars

in her neighborhood. She was living in a dry, dry neighborhood and she wanted to keep it kept that way. So we thought let's call this woman up and find out what's going on. Well the phones, because phones kept dying. We would talk to her, I said hello Edna we're talking to you in Weymouth, England and oh yes and click. And then we had to wait 10 minutes. We called her back again. She said, I don't quite understand what's going on. He said, we're having problems with our phones here back in Canada. We're really working on it, whatever.

So long story short, we tried several, several, several times, about three and a half hours later, we finally got ahold of Edna when the show was going to air. I said, Edna, are you there? Yes, I'm here. And I said, how are you doing? Well, I've had a couple of G and T's while you were trying to get through. She was half-soused and she was trying to stop the bars from coming in into her

neighborhood. So she was almost under the table. I thought she'd forgotten about me. It turned out to be kind of a fun interview. Well you know that's what I like about As It Happens is it's often fun and it's not all hard serious stuff it's good stuff there and please any highlights like I know you brought notes with you so that's like I had to leave here and be like I had to put dates down because you know you know you don't getting up there you can't remember dates. Okay so wait here let me go to the end and then we'll pick up some highlights. But why did you decide in 2015, nine years ago to retire?

Cause I'm looking at, you know, nine years later, you look like you should still be on the, uh, how are your glasses? They're over here. I should put them on, right? No, don't put them on, leave them off. Well, you sound strong. Like you know what it was, Mike? Yeah, it was they they have a formula you know if your your age and your your years working there add up to 85 you can retire you know and that's basically what it was I and I was ready I was I was ready I was I didn't want

to become you know that grumpy old guy in the corner. I love those grumpy old guys. There's Pa complaining about the grammar and the spelling again. Like, I mean, Andy Rooney and his typewriter. I met Walter Cronkite years ago. So that was, that's another story. Yes. My hero, my hero met him in his office at CBS. Yeah. And wonderful, wonderful man and icon. But yeah, it was, it was time. It was time. And I, wonderful man, an icon. But yeah, it was time, it was time. And I wanted to try a few other things as well. I wanted to travel and wanted to,

probably try a little more freelance as well. And language lessons, taking some language lessons. What languages? Spanish, Espanol, Senor. Still working on it. And Cinco de Mayo was yesterday. Cin languages? Spanish, espanol, senor. Still working on it. And Cinco de Mayo was yesterday. Cinco de Mayo, si. Tap dance, I took up tap dancing in my retirement.

Can you imagine? I should have brought my- Gene Kelly, and I play Gene Kelly. Well, I know, I know. I should have brought my shoes in. It was kind of an unsuccessful endeavor. I'm still looking though for a senior tap group in St. Catherine, so maybe if somebody hears this. But bought the tap shoes, the whole thing. Yeah, yeah. I didn't

graduate though, let's put it this way. And the traveling, so where, any interesting locations? Oh man, well we were down in Mexico for a month this past winter, Costa Rica before that for a month. Did you see Chris Sheppard there by any chance? I'm looking for Chris Sheppard. I hear he's in Costa Rica. Where in Costa Rica? That's the question. Okay. You're the journalist around here.

There you go. There's your task. Find me Chris Sheppard. I'm gonna track him down. Yeah, no, we went to Uganda. We hiked the gorillas in the mist. Several trips to Africa. Yeah, so traveling is big too, but you know,

I figured I'd probably go out on a high note, you know, at CBC, still many, many, many friends to keep in touch with. We have an old farts group we get together over. Well, can you name these people? Ronces Veils, yes, Phil Park, Barbara Smith comes in every now and then. This is going back a few years.

Hal Jones. Victor Johnston was a tech on the show for, on CBC for many, many years. Lorna Jackson, unfortunately, who just passed away. Wonderful voice on CBC, passed away too early. But we get together and we talk about a lot of times with cataracts and hip replacements and things like that. Prepare your blood thinners. What blood thinner are you on?

The old days, you know, but no, no regrets. It was a wonderful career. Got to travel. One of the highlights, you know, we were talking about standing outside of the White House, 2008 Barack Obama had just been elected first African-American president of the United States and people chanting thousands of people, yes we can. Wonderful, wonderful. So great opportunities. We went to China.

I guess that was probably in the early 2000s and we were opening a bureau in Shanghai with Anthony Germain. They sent a big crew over to China. We did all kinds of stories. The descent in China, economics, culture, it was wonderful. And that broadcast won a bronze medal at the New York festivals in the best news magazine category.

Yeah, we did. And a lot of very interesting people. A lot of interesting people, interviews. I think of one, Donna French was one of the interviews we did for the world this weekend, you know, the mother of Kristen French. Of course. It was a tough one. It was, you know, it was one of those things, he had just been convicted, Paul Bernardo,

you don't even really wanna mention his name, but she wanted to talk about her daughter and her basically, you know, forget about the crime, the terrible things that happened to her, but talk about her daughter and her basically you know forget about the crime the terrible things that happened her but talk about her daughter and the positive things and she was absolutely you know something something like that it's wonderful I asked her at one point I said did you ever quite she was a very religious woman and I asked her I said did you ever question your religion after what happened to your daughter this terrible chain of events and whatever and she

said you know I'll never forget. She said, you know, um When we're born we're given free will some people choose evil some people choose good To do good. She says but I do think that god cried when he saw what happened to christian french and uh, yeah, um just You know fortitude and carrying on with their life and things like that. But it's heavy stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, that's heavy stuff. Now, any on the other side of the spectrum, when you look back at those decades at CBC radio covering news, maybe a happier like your favorite, you know, part of your career, maybe on the lighter side, if you will? Yeah, well, you know, one thing that, you know, we interviewed prime ministers and politicians, actors, musicians. But one thing that sticks in my mind is an interview we did with a young gentleman. His name was Eric Averink.

He was a young man, probably 18 years old, with a very severe disability, had spinal muscular atrophy. And he was at the Children's Center in St. Catharines. And they came to me and they said, he wants to make a documentary. He was bright, bright, bright, bright, you know, he, he, big science fiction fan. He wrote poetry, interested in politics, but he was basically on a gurney. He could have moved one finger, his ring finger on one hand,

operated everything on a computer. He wanted to do a documentary on how people perceive people with disabilities and how normally they're wrong. So we got together with a group of students at Niagara, my alma mater, and I was teaching down in Niagara as well. We put together a documentary, Eric was co-producer, and basically he wanted to get it, I think the title of it was,

I'm Not What I Am, I'm Not How I Look, or something like that. And it won several awards, and I think of him, I think of there's somebody with that big challenge ahead, yet he still pursued his dream and he was helping others. He helped others with, you know, he's unfortunately he passed away a couple years after but his mother wrote me a little note after she went with the documentary to one of the film festivals and won an award and she said, you know, I was driving home the other day and there was a star in the sky

and I thought it was Eric looking down at me. But somebody like that, somebody has a profound effect on people and wanting to change things. Lovely. Now, Simon Dingley, we talked about him many, many times on this program. His ears have been burning in Mexico,

but it was a weird coincidence that, so we recorded it, but then I dropped it. And he's so he in the feed, he's the episode before yours. And it was just a wild coincidence that so we recorded it, but then I dropped it. And he's so he in the feed, he's the episode before yours. And it was just a wild coincidence that his, his friend Bernie was going to make his Toronto mic debut the next Monday, but I'm going to shout out a guy. Um, maybe you can say a few words about him because he was scheduled to make his Toronto mic debut earlier this year. And then a health scare postponed it, but he happily reported back to me.

The health scare is in the rear view mirror and Robert Fisher is going to make his try to make to you any words to say about another voice that cbc heads will recognize. Wonderful, wonderful Robert. Mr. Robert I know he's up in Portland, you know he's talking about my brother on the Rideau, he's just down the lake in Portland and been retired for some time, I've been following him on Facebook and in Instagram. Now there's a broadcaster for you and boy is he going to have stories for you. And maybe he will tell you where some of the skeletons are buried. Well, especially at Queen's Park. Won't he be surprised?

Yeah, I want to know where all the skeletons are buried. Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. But won't he be surprised when I spend 90 minutes with him asking him who crossed the picket line at CFTO in 1988. He's like, I wasn't even there. I'm like, Robert, I asked the question here. Okay. Don't pull a Margaret Atwood on me.

So coming soon again for the CBC heads listening, you're getting a whole bunch of whack of good stuff here. Uh, and now the emission, I won't name names, but I know I've had on this program, there are FOTMs who were reporters at CFTO in 1988 that you did not mention. You know, so I'm, I've already done this. I'm out of respect for you. I will not say the names right now, but I've already done a little bit of work on that in my head as we chat here today.

All right. So what a great career. Any regrets? Like, did it all work out as you hoped when you were listening to 610 there in St. Catherine? You know what? I couldn't imagine it to have been any better. I mean, really, I always say it beats working for a living. My dad used to say to me,

my dad we know worked in a factory, he worked in terrible conditions. He had to, six, seven children at home. My mother was a teacher, whatever, he worked very hard and he used to say to me, he was very very proud and it was nothing better than when you sit in his van listening to the world at six and there's his son on there, but he used to say, they pay you to fly them gums? Absolutely. It was a pleasure. Quick question.

I've always been curious about is a CBC radio versus CBC TV. TV pays better. Is that true? Or is that a common misbelief? It all depends on you. No, no, it's actually union scale. It's everything's union. And then you have your additional remuneration if you can negotiate whatever but generally speaking it's a bit pretty well the same pretty well unless you're the biggie like right up there at the top like I like you were a Peter Mansbridge or something like that but he's doing okay before Rogers took over our hockey coverage like a Ron McLean or a Don Cherry yeah that's the

stratosphere we're talking yeah yeah that us lowly types working in the in the trenches you know well I trenches, you know? Well, I suppose, you know, prior to Rogers taking over hockey night in Canada, that Don Cherry would have been the highest paid on-air CBC person. Oh, I'd say so. I'd say so, I'd say so, yeah. Very interesting.

You a hockey fan by any chance? Yeah, yeah, I was devastated. I was in Buffalo watching the game in the Irishman pub in Williamsville, New York and saw the sad situation. Oh man, that set plays. So you know, that's an overtime goal and Lindholm I think it was, but that bank off, it was one of those things where you're watching, I'm watching live, it's overtime.

And I'm like, how did he end up, you know, with nobody between him and the goaltender with the puck? And then you kind of break it down like this, a Pruder film. And you're like, okay, there's a Riley Marner kind of lapse. This is a set play. Like they know the boards. This is their home arena. And that board, the bounce off that board is wild at that spot.

And he nails it. And then of course, should Pasternak have been able to receive that pass off the boards or should the goaltender Samson off have, you know, played the puck and it's at that spot where you can kind of see why he doesn't pay the pay the pay. But anyway, typical Napoli fending here, kids are going to roll. I think I can't imagine heads don't roll like so there's a new guy in charge at MLSC Keith Pelly is now the man in charge. So I guess Keith has to decide what he does with a gentleman who much like Peter Mansbridge, his wife went to the high school. I went to, so Brendan Shanahan attended Michael Power high school here in Etobicoke. So I guess Pelly decides what happens with a, this is some, uh, puck talk for the, the leafs heads out there, but the, you know, what happens with Shanahan? I guess Pelly's got a decision to make there, but I can't imagine they bring back the coach.

I mean, this is a team that, you know, not the Sheldon Keefe was there for all these years, but eight years now of Austin Matthews and Marner and Nylander in the gang. And of course Riley was already there and eight years, one single playoff round victory in eight years. It's not happening. Yeah.

Like that's wild. That's wild. And then if you want to go back pre Austin Matthews, you can say the fact is we have only won we, cause I'm part of the team, you understand that. I'm not a journalist. I can say I'm part of the Leafs here, but we have only won one playoff round since 2004.

That's 20 years. In the past 20 years. That's bleak. Yeah. I got a 22 year old kid who's only ever seen us win one playoff round in his life. It's bleak. It's bleak. Yeah. I got a 22 year old kid. Who's only ever seen us win one playoff round in his life. It's bleak. It's bleak. Okay. You're depressing me. Now let's depress. Let's go out on the lowest note we can hear Bernie. You've been amazing.

I love this chat. Thank you. You got your lasagna, your beer, your book. I've got my suitcase. I've got my measuring stick. CBC doesn't give swag like this. That's for sure. You're telling me. As Tom Wilson tells me. You're lucky to get a coffee. Well, that's what he says. He's going to go like, come here, I get this great lasagna. This is Tom Wilson from junk. I can't do it. Tom Wilson, obviously. But although that's where I just saw Dave Hodge at the Tom Wilson musical in Hamilton, he's got a, it's called. Oh, I heard it. I heard it's fantastic.

I was there for the premiere. I saw some great people, including Steven Brunt. And I want to shout him out because he will be also, uh, at the Toronto Maple Leafs home opener on May 12th and he'll be sitting down with me on the mic Stephen Brunt I got questions for him about what the heck the Leafs should do. Say hi to Stephen for me he's terrific terrific writer and met him a couple of times. We'll do that but what do you Bernie have to say about the the next government federal government let's let's let's just look ahead and assume that the conservative party forms the next government.

And Pierre Pauliev becomes the prime minister. He is basically, I think he has pledged to defund the CBC. Like in, please, I want to know your perspective on this because I know you follow this closely, haven't been there for so long and you have friends still there, I'm sure. But that's what I said to Simon, like your timing might be perfect here but what do you see it doesn't look good happening for the CBC well it doesn't look good and you know he's at these rallies and he basically when he gets on the CBC and they're chanting yeah you know as well as axe the tax you know axe the CBC you

know I'm as you know I'm very personally involved. Well, your bias has been disclosed. Yeah, it's been disclosed, but I think there's a need, you know, there is really a need for the CBC and everybody's cutting back, you know, private radio, private broadcasting, print, everybody's cutting back. They're cutting, they're going to be cutting back at the CBC as well. But I think there's a need for a public broadcaster. It's not a, they, it's not a spokes spokes. No, there's no interference. Like this is something people like you can attest to, right? You don't get a memo from the, uh, the government.

We'd be at Stephen Harper's government or John Kretzschian's government, or let's say Justin Trudeau's government asking you to not cover this or cover this. Like there is no interference. There isn't, and I can honestly say that, but I think the perception out there is that there possibly could be. If anything, the CBC is probably more anti-government than any other broadcasters.

But I think there's a need for it, It's well worth it. Television, you know, television, commercial television, that's a whole other matter as well, whether they should be doing you know, some of the programming, the reality TV shows that they're doing, you know, family feuds, you know, I have personal feelings about that. No, I'm with you because we're in a television side. I feel they're out there best when it's, for example, the Olympics, for example, or like I just watched some like world athletic stuff on jam. I was watching like a, like a diamond league track meet and stuff and I feel like, Oh, this is, this is, this is a great, you know, role that the CBC can play. Investigative journalism. I mean, you know, and radio, of course, I mean, I'm,

you know, biased towards radio. They're still doing a great job. I mean, you know, and radio, of course, I mean, I'm, you know, biased towards radio. They're still doing a great job. I mean, they've had to cut corners as well, you know, but I think it does. It sounds like a cliche, but it does bind the country together, especially when you travel outside of the big cities and you get some of the smaller centers and you realize that it's a big part of people's lives. I know that the writing is on the wall. We'll see what happens, but there you go. I had a good kick at the cans. You know, yeah, your timing was pretty good too there. But I always wonder when somebody suggests like,

oh yeah, like Justin Trudeau's, you know, like it's his state news or something and CBC is biased. And I always say, like, I always wonder, I said, so when we had like a decade of Stephen Harper rule in this country, not that long ago. So during those 10 years, it was a conservative slant and then like, and then none of it, they always have no answer. Like, oh no, like

it's just Trudeau's thing. It's like, and then as I, you know, many people point out of it's snowing outside is like, oh, Trudeau's fault. Anyway, it's like, this seems to be the move here. Now, uh, what kind of music do you listen to Bernie? Oh, I love, well, I love the move here. Now, what kind of music do you listen to, Bernie? Oh, I love, well, I love the old stuff. I love old jazz, I love blues,

big fan of Bonnie Raitt, big fan of Alison Russell, you know, up and coming, rising Canadian star from Montreal. Yeah, you know, Broadway, you know, Sinatra. Nice. Okay, I just bring up music on our way out here because I close every episode of Toronto Mic with a song from Shakespeare, My Butt,

by a band I love called Lowest of the Low. To be or not to be, that is a question. We have a t-shirt that says Stratford Festival. Okay. Okay, once again, shout out to Peter Mansbridge. I'm sure he-shirt that says Stratford Festival. Okay, once again shout out to Peter Mansbridge. I'm sure he has a home there. Okay, and Ron Sexsmith lives in Stratford too, speaking to musicians, but I bring up Lois to the low because I close every episode with Rosie and Gray, but there's another great song on Shakespeare in my butt which we're listening to now.

I'll tell you the name in a moment. Let's let Ron Hawkins tell us. Well now I know, well now I know All the pain that was in your mind is still inside your soul Well so long Bernie, you're the friend I'll never know, I'll never know I'll never know No, no, no, no, no, no You're the beast inside your soul This song is called So Long Bernie! Okay, you need to know this stuff. As a Bernie, you need to know all the beast inside. This song is called So Long Bernie. It's called it Bernie. OK, you need to know this stuff. As a Bernie, you need to know all the Bernie content. So So Long Bernie, great song by Lois Alou on Shakespeare, My Butt, the same album that has this song, Rosie and Grey.

So thank you, Bernie. This was fantastic. Mike, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for inviting me to your basement and all of this allude. It was a real pleasure. And that brings us to the end of our 1482nd show. You can follow me on Twitter and BlueSkyMacToronto. Mike, hey Bernie, is there anywhere in the social media universe where you maintain a presence? I'd say Facebook, Mike. Yep, see me on Facebook. Bernie Mac.

Instagram. And Instagram. Much love to all who made this possible. Again, that's Great Lakes Brewery. That's Palma Pasta. That's RecycleMyElectronics.ca. That's Raymond James Canada. The Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team.

That's Minaris and Ridley Funeral Home. See you all later this week when my special guest is radio veteran Danny Kingsbury who I'm having on because he was the program director at CFNY in 1989 and Ivor Hamilton, very angry he wouldn't play Pixies. This was discussed recently with Scott Turner. So maybe CBC's got the heavy lifting doing the main, the major news, what's going on in the Gazette, what's going on in Ukraine, all the important stuff. I will focus on why CFNY did not play the Pixies in 1989 with Danny Kingsbury who by the way brought Humble Howard from Montreal to Toronto and created Humble and Fred a

Podcast I literally produced this morning. So it all comes together Danny Kingsbury. That's Wednesday at 11. See you all then I've been skinned for more than eight years It's been eight years of laughter and eight years of tears And I don't know what the future can hold or will do For me and you But I'm a much better man for having known you Oh, you know that's true because Everything is coming up rosy and gray Yeah, the wind is cold with the smell of snow, won't be the day And your smile is fine and it's just like mine and it won't go away

Because everything is rosy and gray