Ontario votes 2025: Healthcare and Housing (Part 2)

Rupesh Patel (00:05.102) Hey everyone, Rupesh Patel back with you here again. We're here for part two and I have my friend Malamir here joining us. The last part one we talked about, know, Ontario has this election, the things that maybe you might want to consider as you're getting engaged in this election. We did focus on tariffs and a little bit of healthcare. And so we're going to continue on this journey of exploring a couple of big issues. We're going to start off with a little bit more healthcare and then we're actually going to focus on housing. So welcome back Malamir, part two here. Hopefully you had enjoyed yourself on part one. Healthcare. So we did talk about, you I think all the parties understand that a big challenge is folks don't have, many folks don't have access to a primary care practitioner, family doctor, nurse practitioner, whatever it might be. And so I do see a lot of promises around, you know, helping folks out with finding that family doctor. There are different approaches here from the different various different parties. How do you think about health care, especially in Ontario right now? Malumir R. Logan (01:13.648) goodness. Healthcare and Ontario, mean, healthcare, well, globally is a challenge right now, and it's a problem across the country, but I'm not sure if you saw the news clipping from a couple of months ago where a new doctor's office was opening up here in Eastern Ontario, and people lined up, think, I may be off on this number, but I think people lined up, 3,000 people deep in a snowstorm. to try to get in with this family doctor. And at some point, they counted a certain number into the line and then told the rest of the people to go home. But a lot of the people wouldn't leave because of the chance that, but what if I can get a family doctor? That is awful. It is not humane. It is not humane. And, you know, my own personal experience is a perfect anecdote, actually, of where health care is at in this province. I am very thankful to have a family doctor. the same family doctor for, I think it's been over a decade now. However, I've needed a lot of specialists because my medical condition has been very challenging and it kind of masqueraded as other issues at the start. And so I have really struggled to find specialists that can see me in any kind of responsive length of time. There are still referrals out in the system that over a year later, Rupesh Patel (02:39.534) Hmm. Malumir R. Logan (02:45.167) haven't heard a thing. I haven't heard a thing. And, you know, for context, I am of prime working age. I am not able to work my primary role right now. Right. As I mentioned on part one, I have to spend most of my time lying down with my eyes closed because I can't function. And if this is happening to me, this is happening to people across the province. And, you know, this is not good for the economy. My not being able to to to contribute more Rupesh Patel (02:47.874) Mm-hmm. Rupesh Patel (03:07.8) Right. Malumir R. Logan (03:15.137) to the economy, this is not good. you know, the the so the health care in Ontario, we are struggling, you know, just like other places. And it's. You know, again, speaking to the humanity of it. even the quality of healthcare when people are able to be seen can be highly variegated, right? Because it's one thing to be seen, it's another thing for that appointment to be fruitful. And... Rupesh Patel (03:41.614) Mm-hmm. Rupesh Patel (03:47.298) Yes. Malumir R. Logan (03:48.964) Right, healthcare professionals, they're worn out. They're trying to do too many things. They're trying to do too much. And so, you know, their capacity to be able to continue to sustainably deliver high quality service on an ongoing basis is challenged, right? And I mean, I teach leadership from an organizational perspective, you know, in public policy. And obviously I'm not speaking on behalf of any employers here, but this is something that I'm passionate about and is the sustainable, high quality, high performing ability of organizations to continue to deliver services. And that is not where the Ontario healthcare system currently is. It's just not set up to be able to do that at this time. Rupesh Patel (04:36.622) Mm-hmm. Rupesh Patel (04:40.13) Yeah, no, those are really good points. think one of the issues that I see it seems like doctors are facing is they are overburdened with a lot of administrative work. And so that's something that I noticed in some of the party platforms is that when they talk about, guess, all the parties are saying, hey, we want to connect you with a family doctor. I think for me, as a voter, I'd like to know, OK, what does that actually mean? How are we doing this? One of the challenges that that doctors are facing is that they have a lot of admin work. And so is government going to be helping them in any way to be able to streamline that? And that could be done in a number of ways. so I think digging into that, I think is important for me. The other thing is that I think there is an over-reliance sometimes on just the family doctor for basic things where we can actually utilize other health professionals to be able to have that first point of service. And I think a lot of provinces are considering, for example, nurse practitioners to have them more involved in the system. But there are some barriers that prevent that nurse practitioners from fully being integrated or even being covered by the provincial health care system. I don't know in Ontario, do you know if nurse practitioners, whether they can build the provincial health care system? Malumir R. Logan (05:59.398) You know, I'm not sure and I don't want to misspeak, but to your point, the idea of family health teams, you know, at least from my own experience has been incredibly useful because there have been times I've needed to speak to a health professional, but I knew that in some cases I don't need to bother my doctor with this. You know, and by the way, I think something I was having conversation with someone about this recently. So, and it's useful for people to be aware of is because I think a lot of people are not aware of this is how it. it works, at least in Ontario. doctors, they're essentially like business owners, right? They are essentially business owners and they're incorporated and they have to pay for staff, like they have to pay for offices, they have to pay for all these things. And then they get, they have the roster of patients and they can bill for a certain amount per patient on the roster just as a general baseline for Rupesh Patel (06:35.15) Mm-hmm. Malumir R. Logan (06:59.261) for the expense that it takes to do so and then they get paid an additional fee per visit. That fee per visit I think is something like I think it's $37 last time I checked $37 for a doctor's visit. They're only getting, I think about the numerous appointments I've had to have with my doctor in the past year and a half and each of those visits, she was only able to bill for $37. So issues like this, I think it's important for people to be aware of. And yet there were other times that I did not need a family doctor, but I needed to speak to a health practitioner. So I was able to speak with a nurse. Now, I'm not sure whether or not nurse practitioners are able to. I know that there are nurse practitioners at some family health teams, but I'm not sure again how those contracts work. If that's a contract and that's not being billed and it's just something that the doctor has decided this Rupesh Patel (07:54.734) Mm-hmm. Malumir R. Logan (07:59.712) is useful but that's a question and that's something I'm not sure about. Rupesh Patel (08:03.148) Yeah, yeah. Okay, so interesting. I wanted to just ask, so in Ontario, am I hearing that it's not a pure fee for service model? And just for folks who don't understand what that means is every time you a fee for service model really means when you go to the doctor, they will bill you every time there's a certain service. So in Ontario, what I'm hearing is that doctors have a certain roster of patients. okay, and so yeah. Malumir R. Logan (08:14.331) Mm. Malumir R. Logan (08:20.26) No. Malumir R. Logan (08:24.131) It's not fee. That's correct. So they have a roster of patients that they bill OHIP for. Then for each person on the roster, they can bill OHIP a certain base amount. And then in addition to that, for every visit that the patient makes, the doctor bills OHIP for the cost of that visit. And OHIP reimburses them about $37 for that visit. Rupesh Patel (08:51.544) So do you know if doctors are feeling like compensation is an issue and that it's preventing them from wanting to stay in Ontario? Do you have a sense of that? Malumir R. Logan (09:00.559) I mean, doctor compensation has been an issue in Ontario and in Canada for a number of decades after the brain drain that we experienced. But I know something that really hit hard for a lot of doctors was when the federal capital gains tax was, it was supposed to be adjusted federally and they ended up going back on that because there was a lot of pushback and doctors in particular were extremely concerned, right? I think sometimes there's this conception or this perception that doctors make a lot of money but you know they may they may appear to have you know to make a lot of money but so much of it goes into paying for these these businesses. Rupesh Patel (09:49.902) Great. Okay. I'm not seeing much on the acute care side, in terms of, is this not an issue? In Alberta, would say, because surgical wait times in Alberta are a big issue, are they not as much of an issue in Ontario? Malumir R. Logan (09:56.43) No. It is an issue. It's an issue. Malumir R. Logan (10:05.285) my goodness, urgent care, our urgent care is struggling. It is a huge issue. Yeah, it's a huge issue. Rupesh Patel (10:12.194) That's what I thought. So it's weird to me that I'm not seeing much as far as really anything from the party platforms on hospitals and acute care and reducing wait times. There is a little bit about reducing specialist wait times, but as far as like the surgical backlog, I don't see much there. Malumir R. Logan (10:30.649) which I think is also something that's useful for, again, people to think about as engaged citizens. Because why is that? Again, when we're reading between the lines of platforms, why is that? Why are we seeing so much focus on the primary care when hospitals are struggling? I think I saw a recent wait time in Toronto, I think, the university hospital. was something like a, I feel like it was a 17-hour wait time or a 15-hour wait time. that's terrible. And yet, so why is that? I think it's an important question for us to have. Why does that not show up here? And, you know, just thinking about it critically, is it perhaps because the thing that most individuals are thinking about in their everyday life is, I don't have a family doctor or my family doctor is about to retire. And they're not thinking about those times when they end up in urgent care. They're not thinking about that because it's perhaps less salient in their everyday life at that moment. Rupesh Patel (11:07.0) For sure, yeah. Rupesh Patel (11:19.022) 100 % Rupesh Patel (11:30.542) For sure. There are folks who are going to hospitals for primary care needs, right? And that's adding to the backlog. So 100%, I agree with you. I am still though, at least on the surgical side, not seeing much. And I know that that's a struggle. Okay, anything more on the health side that you think we should have people hold in their brains, I guess? Malumir R. Logan (11:36.506) Yes. Malumir R. Logan (11:56.945) I think the only thing I would encourage people to look at, and again I think this applies to any topic that you're looking at is How much does each platform talk about a particular issue? Do they talk about, you know, is it kind of a one liner? Are they talking about various pieces of a topic? Like, are they talking about various issues related to health care? Or are they kind of, you know, do they just kind of have a bullet point and then they move on to the next thing? I think that's something that's important for people to think about with any topic when they're looking at cross platforms. It just shows where the priority is, right? Rupesh Patel (12:10.19) Mmm. Rupesh Patel (12:31.704) I think 100%, I was gonna say, as we both know, governing is all about priorities and I 100 % agree with that, that if you're not seeing as much on a topic that's really important to you, then it could potentially signal that it's maybe not their biggest priority. So yeah, no, really great point. Let's move to housing, because I mean, housing is a national concern. It's complicated for sure in that all three orders of government have a role to play on housing. Malumir R. Logan (12:46.939) exactly. Malumir R. Logan (12:50.864) Yeah. Rupesh Patel (12:59.702) I'll admit it's not my strongest area, but yeah, it's really important. And I imagine for folks, you could be thinking about housing in different ways, right? Like maybe for housing, your biggest issue is that you can't afford your first home. Or maybe your biggest issue is that you're seeing a lot of homelessness on the streets and you're really concerned about that and that we need more affordable housing. Or maybe you're a renter and rent is out of control and you're just not able to keep up. So there could be a number of lenses that you might be seeing this problem under and that applies obviously any of the issues that we're talking about, but housing has multiple layers. So for you housing, how do you think about this topic? Malumir R. Logan (13:44.732) So housing is such a multi-layered issue, is also, my personal opinion is this is actually why it is so difficult to solve for. Because it is so multi-layered and by multi-layered, I mean not only in terms of government jurisdiction, who does what, but also because of the number of categories it hits. What do I mean by that? So housing, when we think about housing, a lot of us just think of houses or we think of condos or apartments. Rupesh Patel (13:53.934) Hmm. Yeah. Malumir R. Logan (14:14.735) not all that housing is, right? We can't have housing that is not on serviced land. What do I mean by serviced land? I mean that you need wastewater and water and roads and electricity and those kinds of things, right? So it needs to be... So that immediately involves infrastructure. Infrastructure is incredibly expensive. And, you know, and then when we're thinking about infrastructure, it's not just about does it exist or does it need to be created, but then also, is it at the correct capacity Rupesh Patel (14:25.506) Right, yeah. Rupesh Patel (14:34.382) Hmm. Malumir R. Logan (14:44.605) for whatever housing you're putting there, right? So for example, if there was a parcel of land that's only ever had, I don't know, houses on it, and now on, you know, at an intersection they want to put a mid-rise apartment or a condo. Rupesh Patel (14:47.406) Mm-hmm. Malumir R. Logan (15:00.333) now that's a lot more homes that are in a small package of land, can the infrastructure actually service that? And so when we think about housing, it's important to remember that it's never just about the walls and a roof and doors and windows. It's also about the connection that it has to infrastructure and other services. Rupesh Patel (15:20.75) Mm-hmm. Malumir R. Logan (15:30.351) also complex issue because housing it obviously needs to be constructed. And so we have sectors involved like the development sector. And there is there are regulations in place to protect people because, you know, we can all think back to times in history, like the Great Fire of London or the fire in Toronto that raised Toronto or the fire that took place in Kingston way back, you know, where we're talking we're talking over a century ago. But cities have been wiped out. Right. And lots of people have been harmed, which is Rupesh Patel (15:52.91) You're Malumir R. Logan (16:04.955) why regulations exist for safety. But there are all sorts of ways that we need to think about safety. It's not just about are there sprinklers, right? It's also about how do you get out of a place that might be burning down or what is an appropriate level of light that needs to be in each room? These are all very real factors. And so there are different orders of government that are responsible for that. A lot of them are provincial, but some of them are also municipal. And sometimes we hear the development industry say, Rupesh Patel (16:18.446) Mm-hmm. Malumir R. Logan (16:38.553) costs us so much money to meet all these regulatory requirements. But what I would encourage people to think about that, just to pause on that for a moment, is that, you know, they're business, just like any other business, and businesses pass on the cost to the consumer. That's just this economics. It's how it goes, right? Businesses don't tend to eat costs, except if they're very small, small businesses, often small businesses do eat costs. But, large businesses, they do not eat the cost. Rupesh Patel (16:40.802) Right. Rupesh Patel (16:57.887) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Rupesh Patel (17:03.022) Mm-hmm. Malumir R. Logan (17:08.453) They just pass it on to the consumer. So something to consider there. Another reason housing is complex, as I see it, is that housing used to just be about where you live. You have a place to live. But then housing became commodified, which means that it became a financial instrument. Right. So people started thinking about it, not just as this is where I live, but they're thinking about it both from how is the value of my house going to change and hopefully improve over time? Rupesh Patel (17:08.91) for sure. Malumir R. Logan (17:38.286) And you know for people who have the capital who have the financial ability Can I invest in property because like look the the you know, the the sale prices are just going up so if I purchase this and I'll make a bunch of money and that housing as an investment as an financial instrument that instrumentation has made has incredibly affected the state of housing if housing were just about where we lived who he would be Rupesh Patel (17:38.478) Mm-hmm. Rupesh Patel (18:05.72) Yeah. Malumir R. Logan (18:08.209) in very different place right now. And I'm not saying that it shouldn't be a financial instrument, it's just a reality that it also complicates housing. Rupesh Patel (18:18.904) That's a really great breakdown. you know or have any sense of whether developers are feeling, you talk about developers obviously say there might be lot of regulatory burdens, but in terms of capacity to be able to build, do you know if Ontario builders are facing any challenges that way or they're not really burdened by that in any way? Malumir R. Logan (18:43.291) So what I am familiar with, I do recall at least a couple of years ago in the news, there were a lot of reports of developers struggling because the cost of materials had gone up, which basically there are ratios. So again, talking about developers as businesses because they are, they have to have a certain, so they usually, they don't put in their own money, they get loans. Rupesh Patel (19:00.022) Mm-hmm. Malumir R. Logan (19:14.844) from banks. And so there are certain ratios. They need to have sold a certain percentage of homes. Let's say we're talking about a subdivision or a condominium. They need to have sold a certain percentage in order to be approved. And that percentage represents a certain dollar amount. So I know that there were a lot of problems with that in the past couple of years. I think it was from the earlier times of the pandemic, material, the cost of materials increased significantly because there were supply issues, but that material cost has not gone down from what I understand is that it has continued. This affected how much things were costing for them in turn and affected those ratios, right? The ratios of how much of how much they had to sell in order to be able to continue to pay for the debt because as we know with loans you have to be able to Rupesh Patel (20:00.13) Hmm. Malumir R. Logan (20:13.161) pay a certain amount on the interest and hopefully on the principal over time, but they were struggling to meet that and one part of the issues I remember was that it related to there being fewer investors and part of the issue there is that people need to have the money to be able to to invest and people are struggling. I mean people are struggling to pay for groceries right now and to pay for basic bills. Rupesh Patel (20:29.474) Hmm. Malumir R. Logan (20:42.941) And this is something that's really useful actually for people to think about is when we're thinking about costs, it's useful to think about like how much are things increasing relative, the costs are increasing relative to how much your own income is increasing, right? So when we talk about cost of living, this is the idea that we're getting at, right? But it's really useful to think about in terms of housing because, you know, incomes have not kept pace Rupesh Patel (21:02.072) Mm-hmm. Malumir R. Logan (21:12.981) with the increased cost of housing. And then the question becomes, where does that money come from? That money has to come from somewhere and there is not in fact an endless supply of money in the market. The money has to come from somewhere. And so where is it coming from? And so all of these things have put strain coming back then to the developers on can they finish projects? And so I know there have been a couple of projects that kind of struggled because of that. Rupesh Patel (21:19.714) Right. Malumir R. Logan (21:42.734) it was because of their own costs were increased. So I know that there have been some strained investments there, but also at the same time, because of the cost of housing has just been. Rupesh Patel (21:52.526) Hmm. Malumir R. Logan (21:59.942) has been so incredibly weighty, a lot of younger people are actually starting to question whether or not they want those jobs that require them to be in, say, Toronto. Because Toronto is a major economic centre. we discussed in part one, we discussed the idea of businesses kind of just not wanting to change, just wanting to go back to what they were comfortable with. Rupesh Patel (22:15.63) Mm-hmm. Malumir R. Logan (22:29.885) you know, the push to have people physically back in physical offices for a certain number of days a week, for example. What does that do? Like, let's just think what it does. What it does is it requires people to realistically be within a certain geographic area. And for a while, it seemed people were able to handle that. But, you know, I I do work with students who are embarking on their initial careers. And it's a trend I've noticed, actually, just in the past, I'd say, to years students are saying, you know what, I would have loved to take that job, but I can't afford to live there. I can't afford to live there and they're not letting me work remotely or from, you know, another location. So I'm going to have to find something local. just can't afford to like, even if I have a roommate, like people have tried and they just, they're, they're choosing to go elsewhere because they can't afford it. That there then ends up having an impact on the economy and on, on competitive Rupesh Patel (23:04.843) Right. Yep. Malumir R. Logan (23:29.725) Right? From a business perspective. Rupesh Patel (23:32.942) Yeah, that's a great point. like, unless our, yeah, the really good point about, can you still hear me okay? Sorry. Yeah, I think those are really good points about the practicality of, you know, if someone's forced to have to work somewhere, that has an implication on their housing costs, right? And that could really change things. so, Malumir R. Logan (23:43.652) Yeah, I can hear you. Rupesh Patel (23:57.89) I wonder what role government would really play though in that situation. Like what could, what could a provincial government do to sort of help with that though? Malumir R. Logan (24:06.191) So I think that. There are, and again, you know, we're thinking about housing, are orders of government are involved in different ways. So we've talked about some of the regulatory piece as it pertains to mostly safety, frankly, when we're talking about provincial and municipal. But, know, when we think about housing as a financial instrument, now we're talking the federal government, right? Because we're talking about, we're talking about taxation and other related issues. Rupesh Patel (24:37.603) Mm-hmm. Malumir R. Logan (24:37.725) as it relates to finance, investment, sorry. And so that is something that I think is interesting to think about. think that provinces could encourage, they could think about how they encourage businesses. businesses can be incentivized just like anyone can be. Could they be incentivized? what is the priority? Is the priority to have, you know, what are they say, bums in seats? Or is the priority to remain really competitive and to have the best and the brightest? And what are the costs associated with that, right? Like if we're thinking about it, what are the actual costs? Maybe there are costs for the business that the business is worried about. For example, are they really worried about, but I invested in this huge office tower, what do I do with this office tower now? Rupesh Patel (25:14.478) Hmm. Rupesh Patel (25:35.31) Mm-hmm. Malumir R. Logan (25:35.5) And is it possible? So here's just a wacky idea that I encourage people to think about these innovative, push our assumptions a little bit. Could there be an opportunity to, say for provinces to incentivize municipalities, because municipalities are the ones who manage the taxes, they manage the property taxes. Could they say have an incentive program whereby there are property tax rebates or something similar or maybe redevelopment rebates, and there is precedent for this by the way. to redevelop office towers into housing. We have a housing crisis. We have all these really, you know, intensified... Rupesh Patel (26:21.769) Mm-hmm. Yep. Malumir R. Logan (26:27.671) accessible serviced buildings. Of course, they need to be completely, you know, renovated to be suitable for residential, but we already have a lot of the infrastructure there. Are there incentives through rebate programs, say, or other kinds of financial instruments such as, say, you know, speeding up certain approvals? If you can, if you can show that, okay, you know, we can support XYZ levels of infrastructure, if you can show how you're already meeting a lot of these requirements, could that speed up some of those regulatory processes? And, you know, would that be a way of maintaining that competitive edge by having the best and the brightest? Because what you need are their brains. You don't actually need them to physically necessarily be there all the time. It's great to bring people together on, you know, on semi-regular basis for specific purposes. But what you need is their brain power. And we're so connected these Rupesh Patel (26:57.966) Mm-hmm. Malumir R. Logan (27:27.485) days, right? Like here you and I are sitting provinces apart and we're having this conversation and you and you maintain that competitive edge while you also help to address some of that housing crisis with buildings that are already there. It supports the development sector because they have to be involved with the redevelopment. And so, you know, are we able to meet some of those needs? So I think that thinking in those ways are way, you know, and yes, it involves working across governments, but you know what? Rupesh Patel (27:31.822) Mm-hmm. Rupesh Patel (27:45.774) Totally. Yep. Malumir R. Logan (27:57.358) governments have done this before where they have created round tables and created summits and other sorts of temporary groups or secretariats that can bring the different orders of government together to work on these things together. you know, sometimes we don't always need to, you know, how much authority is actually needed. Do, say, municipalities already have the authority they need to start to incentivize some of these issues? Can they already start to show some leadership? Maybe the province can, you know, could could create an incentive and an incentive program. Rupesh Patel (28:14.574) Mm-hmm. Malumir R. Logan (28:37.549) that encourages municipalities to get more involved. And there are municipal organizations that are really, they're already collaborating. So there's a lot of possibility here and it would require likely some collaboration, but it really takes some leadership. It takes someone to start something and then everyone else can be brought along. Rupesh Patel (28:40.792) Yeah. Rupesh Patel (28:54.83) Mm-hmm. Rupesh Patel (28:59.234) Yep. Folks, this is why I have Malamir on the call. I don't even know what to say after that. yeah, no, really, again, just well said, so thoughtful in the things that you're having people consider. I think this is a great way sort of to wrap up this topic. I'm also just mindful of your time here. So I'm wondering maybe just your final thoughts as folks go into voting in this election. Anything that you want people to sort of just hold in their brains as a final thought, I guess. Malumir R. Logan (29:35.02) know, something that we haven't discussed apart because we've been really focused on helping people think through how to approach platforms. But something that I know is on people's mind is the idea of votes getting split. Rupesh Patel (29:49.006) Hmm. Malumir R. Logan (29:49.372) And so, know, in Ontario, for example, there is there is only one conservative party and then there are other parties that people would consider, you know, more centrist or to the left. And, you know, when people were to look up how voting was reflected in the parties last time, they would see they would they would find some very interesting proportions there. And what we're talking about is, you know, when people say the vote gets lit on the left, they're talking about how people who are less interested in in a conservative administration, wanting, you know, voting for a party they're interested in, but then because people vote in, say, three other ways that are not conservative, you know, then this is what happened, for example, in the last election. And, you know, and I'm not saying this to be political, I'm just Rupesh Patel (30:46.222) Mm-hmm. Malumir R. Logan (30:49.245) helping people to think it through, because I know it's on people's minds, right? So, you know, it's something to be aware of. I know there are some academic polls out there that are put together by academics. That's just, you know, pure data that show projections and they show the proportions of where it looks like a particular Rupesh Patel (30:51.95) Mm-hmm. Malumir R. Logan (31:19.165) voting district will will lean. And that's something for people to think about, right? If they're, because some people are, you know, they really, it's causal for them. They feel I must vote for the party that, that I'm, that, you know, shares my values. Absolutely vote that way. Do it. And then there are other people who are, you know, their priority may be less about voting for, you know, voting in a direction of their clear values. And it may be more about, well, I don't want another particular outcome, right? They may be voting more on the overall outcome. So that's something that I encourage people to do and, you know, people can find, you know, these academic polls, I'm sure. But I just wanted to address that because I know it's been heavy on some people's minds and I know people often have questions about that. Rupesh Patel (31:52.014) Mm-hmm. Rupesh Patel (32:09.582) Yeah, great final thoughts. Maybe just to build off of yours, what I would say to folks is in addition to some of the things we talked about, party platforms, the things that Malamir just spoke to, I think what I always think about too is the person at, can you still hear me okay? The person at the top and just thinking about the character of their leadership. Malumir R. Logan (32:29.689) Yep, I can hear you. Rupesh Patel (32:40.91) I might have to do some editing there. okay, interesting. I thought it was breaking apart. Anyways, just to come back to this. So I think what matters to me too is the character of leadership, right? Sometimes in those really crisis moments, you start to see what someone's leadership quality really looks like. And sometimes it's not really guided by any party platform. It's guided by... Malumir R. Logan (32:42.905) I can totally, I can hear you, you're not breaking up at all. Rupesh Patel (33:09.122) their character, the way they approach things, all these sort of things. And so that's something that I also consider is the person at the top. Premiers have extraordinary powers, and sometimes premiers might enable their ministers to make decisions, and in some cases, premiers might not, right? And so I also factor that, and that's the political part of the equation, right? Like we talked a lot about the policy and the issues, and thinking about this from a more logical a logical perspective, but there is the politics aspect of this as well and I I imagine that will factor into voters minds But that's something that also weighs into how I would approach votes as well Yeah Malumir R. Logan (33:51.398) Can I add something to that? So completely agreed. And what I would also encourage people to think about with that is, you know, I had a conversation with someone the other day who felt very strongly that they were not interested in one of the particular party leaders. They just had a really bad impression. The thing is, you know, I don't know if they'd actually heard this person talk. Rupesh Patel (34:18.638) Mmm. Malumir R. Logan (34:19.483) I don't know if they knew anything about this person. What we were actually seeing there is someone's unconscious beliefs. And so what I would just encourage people to think about is whatever you do think about the various leaders is to, and we need to do this in all areas of our life, frankly, because it's everywhere, is to really question if we're having a reaction to someone, let's pause a moment and think where is this coming from? Right? Like, let's say, you know, for example, it's very common that female leaders are Rupesh Patel (34:25.685) Mm-hmm. Yep Rupesh Patel (34:34.766) 100%. Yep. Malumir R. Logan (34:49.447) seen as being aggressive or and especially if they're racialized are seen as, aggressive or they're nagging or they're angry or they're they're, you know, whatever, add any adjectives when actually they're not saying anything differently that, you know, say a male counterpart may not be. So that's the only thing I would just encourage people to think about is, yes, think about those folks, but also just question if you're having a reaction as you think about Rupesh Patel (35:09.944) Yeah. Yep. Malumir R. Logan (35:19.497) each person, think about where the reaction is coming from and just make sure that you know that we're not assigning some unconscious belief about you know say you know women leadership or racialized people in leadership when we're when we're thinking about leaders. Rupesh Patel (35:37.272) Yeah, that's a really good follow-up. Check your unconscious biases. That requires a certain level of self-awareness of people themselves, right? That's some internal work that I think we all have to do on our own. Yeah, 100 % agree. Malabar, thanks for really making time. I think this is going to be really valuable for folks to, especially for folks who are just not really sure who to, first of all, how to approach this election. Like you said, many people probably are feeling surprised about this. They're probably just starting to get engaged over this last week or two. So I think we're providing information at a crucial time. But yeah, really appreciate you making time for me today and to be on this podcast and just sharing your brilliance. It was really great to have this conversation. We've never had this kind of conversation before in the time that we've known each other. I really, really loved it. it's, who knows, maybe some of our... Malumir R. Logan (36:24.131) No, I loved it. Rupesh Patel (36:30.508) Our MPA colleagues will see this and be like, man, Malamir and Rupesh are talking to each other. So, but yeah, I hope folks got enough of this, got something out of this conversation. Stay tuned for future episodes of this podcast. Again, my hope is to break down the most pressing policy issues for folks so that you can make sense of it and ultimately hold your leaders accountable. So see you next time. Thanks again to Malamir and yeah, enjoy the rest of your time and happy voting to folks in Ontario. Cheers. Yeah, get out to vote. Cheers. Malumir R. Logan (37:00.517) Get out the vote.