AANCHAL VASH came to Canada at 17 with her twin brother, carrying the dream of an older brother who passed away before he could come. After her twin brother passed away, she says she saw a gap in how people recognize and respond to declining mental health, and decided to fill it.

Aanchal Vash started Reach Out Together, which began with free monthly Mental Health First Aid workshops. She is certified in Mental Health First Aid through the Mental Health Commission of Canada and says she has written five books.

She explains:
◼ What she did right away as a newcomer to find counselling and community
◼ The signs of declining mental health she says she didn’t recognize in her twin brother
◼ What a mental health first aider does, and why she says the first step is to build connection rather than push someone toward therapy
◼ The equation she says she repeated in her head the day police came to her door
◼ Organizing a funeral and wrapping up an estate at 24
◼ Her first program, which had zero attendees, and why she kept going
◼ Why she says getting stuck in a war zone in Dubai led her to start a support circle for Canadians abroad
◼ Why she sees mental health as a continuum, and a morning check-in on a scale of one to 10

📍 FOLLOW AANCHAL:
Website: https://voteforaanchal.ca/
Reach Out Together: https://reachouttogether.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aanchalvash/

📍 FOLLOW JORDANA:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jordanagoldlist/
Website: https://www.jhgcriminallaw.com/

Toronto has spent billions on shelters and harm reduction, so why is the drug crisis getting worse? Ward 13 candidate Daniel Tate and criminal lawyer Jordana Goldlist debate it.

DANIEL TATE is the executive director of IntegrityTO, a Toronto non-profit whose social accounts document addiction, homelessness and disorder on the city's streets. He is running for city councillor in Ward 13 Toronto Centre in the October 26, 2026 municipal election. In early 2024 he co-organized a petition against renaming Yonge-Dundas Square to Sankofa Square that he says drew 35,000 signatures, and in March 2026 Toronto's Integrity Commissioner found that Councillor Chris Moise breached council's Code of Conduct in comments directed at Tate.

Before politics, Tate spent about 15 years in technology and software engineering and wrote two books on Toronto concert history: The Flyer Vault: 150 Years of Toronto Concert History, co-written with York University musicologist Rob Bowman with a foreword by Rush's Geddy Lee, and a commissioned history of Scotiabank Arena for its 25th anniversary.

He shares:

◼ Why he says Toronto paid $3.2 billion to Toronto Shelter and Support Services in four years with no public numbers on how many people get clean, housed or reunited with family

◼ Why he blames decriminalization and harm reduction for open drug use on the TTC, and Jordana's pushback that jail offers no rehab, counselling or trauma therapy

◼ Jordana's explanation, as a criminal defence lawyer, of why simple drug possession largely stopped being prosecuted at the start of COVID

◼ Who he believes should qualify for involuntary treatment after Premier Doug Ford said he is open to it, and how a 72-hour hold like California's 5150 could work

◼ The rehab gap Jordana sees in her practice: waitlists of up to two years and private beds at about $1,000 a day

◼ Why he wants separate shelters for people who use drugs and people who don't, and his plans for affordable housing and small business

Jordana pushes back where she disagrees. This episode is not an endorsement of any candidate.

If you or someone you know is struggling with substance use, ConnexOntario offers free, confidential support 24/7 at 1-866-531-2600. In crisis, call or text 9-8-8.



📍 FOLLOW JORDANA:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jordanagoldlist/
Website: https://www.jhgcriminallaw.com/

📍 FOLLOW DANIEL:
IntegrityTO: https://integrityto.ca
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/integrity_to/?hl=en
Campaign: https://votetate.ca/

QUINTON JACOBS grew up in subsidized housing in Scarborough, raised by a single mom, and was suspended and nearly expelled as a teenager. Today, he works full time in the nuclear industry while running two community initiatives that cook thousands of meals a year and have taken him running across South Africa with a community of strangers who became family.

Quinton Jacobs is the founder of Ubuntu, a Toronto not-for-profit that cooks and delivers hundreds of meals a month to organizations across the city, runs a major holiday initiative with over 200 volunteers, and recently launched Pathways, a youth mentorship program that has taken him into schools and a youth detention center in Ajax. He is also the founder of Escape, a global running community whose relay races have taken friends from Toronto to New York, Chicago, Boston, Paris, and across South Africa, a journey now told in Escape the Documentary, currently touring film festivals. By day, he works in the nuclear fuel industry, a career that started almost by accident.

He explains:
◼ How Ubuntu started with him and one friend committing to cook 300 meals in his home kitchen, and clogging his sink for two weeks in the process
◼ Why he believes writing a check isn't enough, and how bringing volunteers into the kitchen and on deliveries changes the way they see their own city
◼ What it was like becoming a single dad to three kids during his divorce, and how he worked through the guilt that came with it
◼ How a group of running friends turned "let's run from Toronto to New York" into international relay races across three continents
◼ Why running across South Africa and finishing with a 5K alongside kids in a township became one of the highlights of the entire project
◼ What Ubuntu actually means, and how the philosophy behind it is reshaping how his volunteers see their role in the community



📍 FOLLOW JORDANA:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jordanagoldlist/
Website: https://www.jhgcriminallaw.com/

📍 FOLLOW QUINTON:
Website: https://ubuntu.family/

JAPJI ANNA BAS says the systems meant to protect her failed her as a child. She says Children's Aid Society granted her father unsupervised access despite documented warnings, and the abuse continued for years. Decades later, she earned a PhD and sued the organization she says failed her.

Japji Anna Bas is a researcher and founder of Flourish Energy, where she works with senior social-purpose leaders on nervous system regulation, thought patterns, and behaviour change. Her doctoral research focused on children's well-being, and she has shared her work with federal policymakers. She has also helped train frontline staff working in anti-human trafficking response. At 41, she began legal action against Children's Aid Society over its handling of her case decades earlier. She says the case was resolved in her favor, around the same time she was navigating a cancer diagnosis.

She shares:
◼ Her account of how her father manipulated caseworkers and the court system to gain unsupervised access to her, despite what she says were documented red flags
◼ Why she didn't come forward again for years after visits resumed, in her words, because she'd learned the system could be outmaneuvered
◼ How she built her own support system as a teenager, balancing school, activities, therapy, and community
◼ Why she waited until she'd finished her PhD to begin deeper trauma therapy, and what her therapist told her that led to the lawsuit
◼ What she says it took to hold Children's Aid Society accountable, and why the acknowledgment mattered more to her than the money
◼ The three-part framework she now uses professionally: somatic practices, cognitive hygiene, and aligned actions

If this episode raises anything for you personally, Kids Help Phone (1-800-668-6868) offers free, confidential support.


📍 FOLLOW JORDANA:
Instagram: /https://www.instagram.com/jordanagoldlist/
Website: https://www.jhgcriminallaw.com/

Alejandro Vivar spent much of his youth and early adulthood involved in Toronto's drug trade, eventually serving the equivalent of 16 years in prison. Today, he works as a tourism and travel coach, helps others build online businesses, and hopes to begin mentoring at-risk youth in the community he grew up in.

Alejandro grew up in Toronto's Christie Pitts neighbourhood in a stable, hardworking family, but was drawn into the drug trade as a teenager. He was acquitted of first-degree murder as a young man, tried briefly to leave the life behind, and ultimately built a large drug operation before an extended police investigation led to his arrest and sentencing. During his time in prison, he found therapy, public speaking, and fitness, later launching a community fitness program in his old neighbourhood. He speaks candidly about the choices that shaped his path, the toll those years took, and why he believes earlier support and mentorship could change outcomes for young people today.

📍 FOLLOW JORDANA:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jordanagoldlist/
Website: https://www.jhgcriminallaw.com/

📍 FOLLOW ALEJANDRO:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_alejandrovivar_/

AT 19, HARVEY BROWNSTONE told his parents he was gay. They cut him off completely, financially and emotionally. He went from a comfortable home to stealing food from wedding receptions to survive. Nineteen years later, he became one of the youngest judges in Canadian history, and Canada's first openly gay judge.

Harvey Brownstone practiced law for 12 years before being appointed to the bench at 38. He served as a judge for 26 years across Toronto and Niagara, including a stretch as senior administrative justice, before leaving to build a media career that now reaches 10 million viewers a week through Harvey Brownstone Interviews. He is the author of Without Prejudice, and his life story is now being adapted into a film starring David Arquette and David Mazuz.

He explains:
◼ How being cut off by his parents at 19 led to poverty, and what kept him from spiraling into addiction or hopelessness
◼ Why he fought the Ontario Lottery Corporation after a man who owed $35,000 in child support won a $14 million jackpot and sent it overseas to avoid paying
◼ Why he believes family court and the correctional system are fundamentally broken, and why almost no other judges will say so publicly
◼ What happened when he tried to modernize his own courtroom, and why his Chief Justice personally ordered him to stop
◼ Why he thinks judges are systematically discouraged from speaking out, even after retirement
◼ His take on the Jordan decision, court scheduling failures, and why drug treatment courts are underused in Canada

📍 WITHOUT PREJUDICE:
Amazon: https://www.amazon.ca/Without-Prejudice-Life-Gay-Judge/dp/1770418784
Indigo: https://www.indigo.ca/products/without-prejudice-my-life-as-a-gay-judge

📍 FOLLOW JORDANA:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jordanagoldlist/
Website: https://www.jhgcriminallaw.com/

Cassandra Harvey is a survivor of human trafficking turned advocate and aspiring criminal defence lawyer. Raised by a mother who struggled with addiction from a young age, she entered the foster care system as a child and aged out of it as a teenager. She was trafficked by three different men over the following years before finally getting out with the help of a lawyer, a detective, and a support group. She now shares her story publicly and advocates for a side of the conversation that rarely gets airtime: addressing why men become traffickers in the first place.

She explains:
◼ How she grew up caring for a mother struggling with addiction and entered the foster care system as a child
◼ How grooming can begin early, and why it can come from someone barely older than the person being targeted
◼ Why she didn't recognize what was happening to her as trafficking until years after it started
◼ What a trauma bond is and why it can keep someone tied to the person harming them
◼ Why she believes preventing trafficking requires addressing the exploitation that often shapes the men who become traffickers
◼ What finally got her out, and why she's now applying to law school to become a criminal defense lawyer

If you or someone you know may be experiencing exploitation or trafficking, the Canadian Human Trafficking Hotline is available at 1-833-900-1010.

📍 FOLLOW JORDANA:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jordanagoldlist/
Website: https://www.jhgcriminallaw.com/

Orlando Da Silva is a lawyer of over 30 years, former president of the Ontario Bar Association, and one of the first people in the Canadian legal profession to publicly disclose his struggle with treatment-resistant depression and generalized anxiety. When he became OBA president in 2014, he spent two years working up the courage to go public, eventually sharing his story in a Law Times interview that was picked up by the Toronto Star. He is the author of Thank God I Failed, a memoir about depression, meaning, and what it took to build a life worth living after a childhood that gave him every reason not to.

He explains:
◼ What it was like growing up in a home where violence was regular and unpredictable and why he still struggles to call it abuse
◼ How a grade eight teacher crossing out "basic" and writing "gifted" on his high school application changed the trajectory of his life
◼ Why he spent 20 years hiding his depression from colleagues, certain that disclosure would end his career
◼ Why he abandoned the pursuit of success and chose to pursue meaning instead



FOLLOW JORDANA
Instagram: jordanagoldlist

GET THE BOOK - THANK GOD I FAILED
Amazon: https://www.amazon.ca/Thank-God-Failed-Lawyers-Suicide/dp/1067369988
Indigo/Chapters: https://www.indigo.ca/products/thank-god-i-failed-a-lawyers-suicide-attempt-and-the-case-against-trying
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/thank-god-i-failed-orlando-da-silva/1150201737