Brian Crombie Radio Hour

Brian talks about Habitat for Humanity. His guests are: Ene Underwood, CEO, Habitat for Humanity GTA and Eden Grodzinski, CEO, Habitat for Humanity Halton Mississauga Dufferin. He speaks with these two CEOs representing two local Habitat chapters who provide affordable homes throughout our region about Habitat for Humanity and the housing affordability crisis facing the GTA. They are contemplating...

Brian interviews Naama Blonder, Architect, Urban Designer, Urban Planner, B.Arch, OAA, RPP, MCIP. Naama's practice combines the disciplines of architecture, urban planning, and urban design to bring a deeper, more realistic understanding of how cities can address housing affordability and champion inclusive neighbourhoods with more equitable access to housing. As an architect and urban planner she...

Brian has two guests for today: Elke Rubach and Sarita Samaroo. Elke Rubach is a financial advisor, Principal and Founder, Rubach Wealth. She believes that families need to have open and honest conversations about how to manage their finances during a season that is typically associated with indulgent purchases and merry-making. Sarita Samaroo is the principal lawyer and owner of SST Law Professio...

Brian interviews Jeff Kucharski. Jeff's career experience ranges from providing trade development assistance and advice to Canadian companies to leading complex multi-stakeholder processes focused on important public policy issues. Most recently, as assistant deputy minister at the Alberta Department of Energy, Kucharski co-led various federal-provincial task groups on energy issues, led a major r...

Brian speaks with Steven Paynter, OAA, ARB, Design Resilience Leader, Studio Director, Principal of Gensler Architects. Steven oversees a studio of 40+ architects and designers with responsibility for projects that span large-scale master planning, complex adaptive reuse and repositioning projects, and new, ground-up buildings. As a Design Resilience Leader for the firm’s Northeast region, he guid...

Brian interviews Louroz Mercader, the newly appointed Executive Director of the Yonge St. Clair BIA about their current Gingerbread Festival. Perfect for this season. Louroz has been very involved in community affairs and events for numerous years in Mississauga, Toronto’s Waterfront and several Business Improvement Areas. He knows what produces great communities and assists BIA’s generating traff...

Brian interviews the Honourable Bryon Wilfert. Bryon Wilfert served 12 years in Richmond Hill council and 14 years as a Liberal MP in Ottawa. He held positions as associate critic for finance and foreign affairs. He is currently advisor to Mongolia and Counsel General to Myanmar as well as a policy advisor to the MacDonald Laurier Institute. Hon. Bryon Wilfert talks about the current political env...

Brian interviews Stacey Prieur about her fascinating career as a Real Estate consultant, agent, stand-up comedian, and lead singer of a band. We discuss flexibility in your career and finding your passion. We also discuss weight and not listening to negative voices. Stacey Prieur is a mini titan in the making. Having hailed from the very small hamlet of McGregor close to Windsor, she has a resume...

Brian interviews Anna Oliver about the Real Estate Market. Anna is a real estate agent in Toronto with some strong views about the market and what strategies we all should be following right now. Anna Oliver is a member of The Agency Toronto. She had some dramatic ups and downs, living out of her car, creating a business in Atlantic Canada, and then having to do it all again in Toronto. She hosts...

Brian interviews Orest Zakydalsky. Orest is a Senior Policy Advisor at the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC), the voice of Canada’s Ukrainian community. He graduated from the University of Toronto with an MA in European, Russian and Eurasian Studies and he has an extensive knowledge on the current war that is happening in Ukraine, and the history of Russian Aggression in Ukraine. Orest Zakydalsky...

Brian interviews Dorothy Knight. Dorothy talks about Sexual and Healing energy. According to Dorothy: “Eros is the secret of life. It is the force present in all of nature and sexuality is how we experience and express it. An integral part of healing through love is to create spaces where we can fully accept our sexual nature and freely express it in freedom and trust. The divine world is made man...

Brian interviews Pierre-Jean Esmieu-Fournel. Pierre-Jean talks about a book he has just published: "Living with Bipolar Disorder". He tells us about his life living with his mental health issue, how an incorrect medical recommendation changed his life negatively and how he is fighting back now.

Brian interviews John Mykytyshyn. John is a long-time Conservative organizer. We talk about a conference he ran, CLF Municipal Learnings, which was about what was learned from the last municipal elections. How to win with low turnouts, how to get media attention, dumb mistakes made, are policies important, how Premier Ford changed everything just days after… this is an educational and fun chat.

Brian interviews Mary Kidnew, the Green Party candidate in the December 12 by-election in Mississauga Lakeshore. Mary has been active in both the Green Party and the community for numerous years and believes voting in one more Liberal or Conservative in this current Parliament won’t make any difference, but another Green could really change things.

Brian interviews Lisa Danielle MacQueen, or Elle. Elle's educational background is a clinical behaviorist, with a specialized background in trauma and behaviour, areas of practice include family assessment, psychodynamic psychotherapy and cognitive behavioural therapy. But Elle MacQueen is now the owner of Sugar Cove Cottages, Small Batch Beauty and Queen and Co, she is a multiprenuer who consults...

Brian interviews Maryam Monsef. Maryam is a former cabinet minister and Peterborough-Kawartha MP. She recently wrote a very provocative and personal piece about the resilience needed to survive a losing an election. We discuss her up and down and up career in politics, Afghanistan, Iran, resilience, women in politics and her new company ONWARD which is about channelling the power of relationships...

My guests are two impressive young men who both ran in the last municipal elections: 📌 Evan Sambasivam who ran in Eglinton Lawrence in Toronto 📌 Brennan Bempong who ran in Ward 10 in Mississauga. They are both in their twenties, active in the community, with progressive views focussed on affordability and jobs, housing and youth participation. These two inspire me about our future leaders.

Brian speaks with Imran Hasan and Peter Costello. They discuss the largest Drive-Thru Charity Breakfast with Santa event which returns to Mississauga this Saturday. Food bank volume is up 60 % and we discuss the challenges new comers, people between jobs and the impact of inflation on people making ends meet. 100% of proceeds from the Drive-Thru Charity Breakfast supports Eden Food For Change, a l...

Brian interviews two impressive men: Jake Stika and John Campion. Jake Stika talks about masculinity. Jake is Next Gen Men's Executive Director and is passionate about changing the way we see, act, and think about masculinity among youth, in communities, and at the workplace towards a future where boys and men experience less pain, and cause less harm. John Campion talks about Life Long Learning....

Brian interviews Ron Butler of Butler Mortgages. Ron has twenty years of experience in the mortgage business, is a prolific writer of opinion pieces on the market and interest rates and we have a spirited debate where he argues we are already in a recession and housing prices are already down record levels, and we all need to adjust. Ron talks about the real estate market, interest rates, the comi...

Brian interviews Theresa Winters. Theresa is a Michigan native who operates several travel businesses and is currently competing in Fab over 40. Far Away Places travel is an agency booking group and individual travel to adventurous destinations. Single Mother Adventures inspires single parents to take trips and keeping up with Theresa is inspirational solo travel. Now 45 and single, she is living...

Brian interviews Jaime Watt. Jaime is the Executive Chairman of Navigator. He specializes in complex public strategy issues, serving both domestic and international clients in the corporate, professional services, not-for-profit, and government sectors. He talked about his personal health care crisis, the need for a kidney transplant. He’s recently posted a compelling video about his journey, his...

Brian interviews Josef Filipowicz. Josef is a public policy specialist producing research on housing, land-use and local government finance. He previously worked at the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and the Fraser Institute, and continues to publish independent research reports, op-eds and blogs on these subjects in Canada and abroad. He’s recently written an article arguing that develop...

Brian interviews Eric Morris. Eric is Managing Director and Head of Retail for Google Canada. Tonight's topic is: Black Friday searching insights and Retail Trends on and off line. Eric Morris has been with Google researching and understanding retail trends for over 20 years. We speak about privacy, the growth of on line shopping, price a matching, discount codes, store and brand loyalty, the impa...

Brian welcomes Charles Burton back to the show. Charles is the Senior Fellow MacDonald-Laurier Institute, Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad and Non-Resident Senior Fellow, European Values Center for Security Policy, Department of Political Science at Brock University specializing in Comparative Politics, Government and Politics of China, Canada-China Relations and Human Rights, Counse...