The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - How Much Has the World Change in 20 Years?

Episode Date: June 25, 2025

What has Canada learned from its participation in the war in Afghanistan? Is a two-state solution the only way forward for Israel and Palestine? And while the West sees Russia as a destabilizing force on the world stage, is there another legitimate interpretation of what they're doing in Ukraine? Over 19 seasons of The Agenda, we've revisited these themes time and again, to help viewers understand the complex and often troubling times in which we find ourselves. And, with the U.S. now involved in the war between Iran and Israel, all the more reason we do one final program on a world that often feels like it's gone berserk. For more, host Steve Paikin asks: Erin O'Toole (former leader of the Conservative Party of Canada), Arne Kislenko (Professor of History at Toronto Metropolitan University), Doug Saunders, (International Affairs columnist at The Globe and Mail), and Janice Stein (Founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy). See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. Wars in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Canada's place in the world. Over 19 seasons of the agenda, we've revisited these themes time and again to help viewers understand the complex and often troubling times in which we find ourselves. And with the U.S. now involved in the war between Iran and Israel, all the more reason to do one final program on a world that often feels like it's gone berserk. So let's welcome Aaron O'Toole. He's the former leader of the Conservative Party of Canada and a former member of the

Canadian Armed Forces. Arne Kislenko, professor of history at Toronto Metropolitan University, who also teaches international relations at Trinity College at the U of T. Doug Saunders, international affairs columnist at the Globe and Mail. And once again, Janice Stein from the Munk School at the U of T. And it's great to have you three along with the queen of all foreign affairs analysis here at our table today, let me ask you folks, who do you think was on our first ever show of the agenda back in September of 2006? Let me rephrase the question.

Which one of the four of you do you think also appeared on that program 19 years ago? Yes, Professor Stein, let us, Sheldonon roll tape if you would you're confusing me a bit here tonight you're in favor of this war there's no question that I was in favor of removing the Taliban from power and I don't agree with Eric that a government which was brutal in its treatment of minorities brutal in its treatment of women deserved to stay in place. However, I must say that the bungling of the war, that the lack of strategy. Well, by the United States first and then by NATO.

The lack of strategy, the inability to address the fundamental economic roots of this is enough to make you tear your hair. Well, she's on the first show and she's on almost the last show. What do you think? Obviously, we're talking Afghanistan there. What do you think this country has learned

from our participation in that war? It's actually very relevant to the big decisions that are being made today. That war has had a tremendous impact. Forever wars are a disaster. Going in with ill-defined objectives and no clear sense of when you'll leave and the replacement government that you will have in place is catastrophic. And in many ways I think it undermined support for much of what our armed forces do.

We had a very difficult period in Canada when Stephen Harper withdrew our forces from Afghanistan, partly because there was disappointment and a lack of clarity about what the purpose was. I think that's a really important lesson to take forward. Aaron, you've worn the uniform. What do you think we learned from that war? Well, we learned the hard lessons that the wounds of war stay with you for decades. We still have men and women suffering with mental health

injuries from the Afghanistan War. 12 years, our longest deployment of the Canadian Armed Forces in our history. And as Janice pointed out, if you don't have a plan for once you've removed the Taliban, and you have to be committed For as long as it takes to have stability in that country We did pull out a little too early I remember when we we had the parade in Ottawa and we thanked our men and women

The country was still not ready for a standalone democracy And I think this is something leaders have to keep in mind is you need a plan for war but also a plan for peace and stability after and then that may not meet political timelines but I'll tell you that war did create a generation of talented officers within the Canadian Armed Forces who by and large are still there and are able to transition through this difficult time. So I think we should be proud of what we did but it it was a lot of blood and treasure 158 of our citizens there and dozens afterwards. It's it's a price that's a steep one for a country. It taught us the history and culture really really count and that often

decision-makers don't think about that or put it on the back burner where in fact in the country is complicated as Afghanistan that was what really counted up front. I think it also showed us that when we expect our Canadian military to do things like that both then and perhaps in the future we got to be prepared to fund it and we haven't done that since Afghanistan. So we are prepared to say things and even potentially to do things to put our men and women in harm's way and not provide them with the adequate resources to do that job. That's a big lesson.

Doug? I think the lasting lesson for Canada and its allies from Afghanistan is kind of a piece with the lesson of Ukraine and possibly the lesson we might face in Taiwan, which is that if a people are wanting to overthrow a monster who has taken control of their country or tried to, the way to do it is not to send in your own soldiers to do it for them, no matter how well designed and how beneficially and so on. But it's to provide the legitimate movements of the

people with the arms, the materials, the intelligence, and the money they need at a robust enough level to be able to do it themselves. Let's continue our tour of the world with the Middle East. Janice, we talked on this program many, many years ago about the Arab Spring and what we thought was ushering in a new dawn for a more democratic Middle East. Clearly, that did not happen. Was it a blip? Was it anything more significant?

How do you see it? It's not a blip. If you spent time in the Middle East, there are many people throughout the area, in Egypt, in Syria, in Iraq, who look at their governments and say, oh, we could do so much better than this. This is such a waste of human talent in our country. But how you do that when you have security services, Doug, that are so well funded.

We just watched this in Iran. There was this week, there was a very strong rally around the flag by Iranians, who are very proud, Arlen, who have a really wonderful history. And so when you're attacked from the outside, you get that rounding on the flag but beneath that conversation was another one going on this government has ruined this country for the last 30 years is this the moment

but how do you do that when you have a well-funded besieged and you have a well-funded Revolutionary. What does it mean to provide arms and material because these people even by taking to the streets cannot withstand the power. They've tried three or four times. It's very hard. Doug, I'm sure we have all talked to members of the Iranian community in this province and country in the last little while. And it's interesting. The traditional response one gets when a country is attacked is, well, we're going to pull together and we're going to repel.

That's not what I'm hearing. I'm hearing, I hope this is going to lead to a revolution on the revolution. What are you hearing? I spent Saturday night and Sunday morning of this past weekend, as the US bombs dropped, having text conversations with friends in Tel Aviv and friends in Tehran, all of them hiding in various basements and things like that, who, interestingly, were sort of united in the view of hoping that this causes a change of leadership in their country,

but not necessarily that that's going to happen. I think the other view is that if the Iran War of 2025 proves to be something that ends in the summer of 2025, the major outcome of it will be that it was a military act to preserve the hold-on power by three men in Iran, Israel, and the United States, and that it didn't actually change anything and that it probably hindered the prospects for a democratic, people-driven regime change in Iran. Let me put that to you, Aaron. Is it too much to hope for that all of what's taking place over the last few days could lead to a public uprising and the throwing out of the mullahs? It's certainly what I hope, Steve, and I've gotten to know the the Persian community or the Iranian-Canadian community in my political life because

after Los Angeles, Toronto I think is one of the largest second largest diaspora and that's really the hope of people that have come here following the fall Because after Los Angeles, Toronto I think is one of the largest, second largest diaspora. And that's really the hope of people that have come here following the fall of the Shah throughout that history. And we've got to remember just how horrific this regime is. I helped lead the debate on declaring the IRGC as a terrorist entity. This is a force that downed an airline that killed 55 Canadians and permanent residents on it. Zahra Kazemi, a photojournalist, professor Sayed Omami, two Canadians murdered in Irvine prison, the infamous prison there. This is a bad actor, and I think there's been so much oppression within the country as well.

The wider concern of a rippling war in the region is the concern and why caution must be exercised. But let's hope the potential of that country, a country that could have, that has great wealth, that has incredible demographics, and does have a history not too far back of a much more sort of liberalized country, not a democracy, but one that maybe aspires to that. So we've got a hope that that's in the future and this is what is sometimes a challenge for us is parts of the world going to Arnt's point don't have a similar history and culture to us and there may be longer-term projects

for human rights and development than we might be satisfied with here but we have to try and work and cultivate that through aid, through diplomacy, and through security. What are you seeing unfolding? Well, it's dirty historians still talk about the French Revolution and World War I and the lasting effects there. So to Janice's point, you know, when people say the Arab Spring and related developments are dead, I think that's ridiculous. They're ongoing. We in the West are a bit arrogant, frankly, in analyzing other countries and assuming these things

that we want to see happen. You know, there was a retrenchment of authoritarianism in the Middle East following 2011, that's for sure. But then you have some celebrated cases like Syria, where a regime was toppled. It's just that we don't know what we're dealing with next. So when it comes to Iran, as optimistic as I am, and I certainly share Aaron's

conviction that it's a regime none of us terribly like, we don't know what's coming next. And I think it's a bit naive of us to assume that we're gonna get the westernized sort of Persian community that lives in North York running the show there. I don't see that at all. As a matter of fact, I would argue probably opposite. You're gonna see a regime that is still abundantly Persian, that has regional aspirations, that still controls a whole host of independent actors, semi-independent actors in the region that could do sizable damage. And they're proud people. So I think we got to get away from this notion that like

Donald Trump is espousing that somehow we're going to see a democratic, peaceful transition. I don't see that. Not in the immediate sense, certainly not. If I just think about the college, we'll be unpopular because there are so many different cultures in this region. And I don't think just a single leader in power in the Middle East didn't look at that military operation.

Absolutely. Meaning what? They are impressed by it. They look at that and they say, oh wow, right? You can fly that number of aircraft that far, get in under the regime. And you've embedded the regime to the extent that you have that type of... As I said earlier about it, it was tactically brilliant and perhaps strategically lacking.

Yeah, but the tactical brilliance will matter to every leader in that region who are impressed by that tactical brilliance. So I think the United States paradoxically comes out of this as the dominant external power in the region as a result. Despite them having spent the last decade trying to move out of the region. Correct. You know there's a famous aphorism, you may think you're finished with the Middle East but the Middle East is never finished with you.

Well okay let's pick up on that then. We have all around this table seen rises and falls, better days and worse days for the prospects of peace between Israelis and Palestinians for a very, very long time. I mean, OK, Aaron, is it fair to say that this may be the worst time in memory? I mean, short of all that war, like we saw in 1967 and 73.

And this feels like it's as bad as it's ever been. When you watch what's going on over there right now, what do you think? Yeah, it's hard to watch. And with these counterinsurgency operations, you end up, after you've sort of accomplished your objective after the horrible attacks in the previous October, You're then really just going to be constantly putting out small fires that pop up or going after small targets. And the collateral damage or the potential collateral damage is extreme.

And that, over time, will weight on your allies and support. So it's a careful balance that I think Israel has to strike. They needed to root out a horrific threat to their existence that was being funded in part by Iran and other bad actors. But keeping that balance towards the longer-term goal of peace and some sort of peaceful solution of a two-state. But the challenge has always been that two-state solution, there's one state that's a democracy that expresses an interest in it. And there's so many external forces interfering

with the ability for there to be some resolution from the Palestinian side. When I toured the region, that was the biggest impression I was left with is people want this but a lot of people don't want resolution either and It's something I think we have to work with as a strong friend an ally of Israel But also we want to see peace and we want Civilians to be able to have rebuild their lives. So

Absolutely, but to talk of a peace process between Israel and Palestine right now, Arn feels like, I mean, it's a cruel joke. There's no peace process. There's not going to be a peace process for a very long time. Yeah, certainly not with the status as it exists now, and certainly not with the players who are behind the scene, including the Israeli prime minister. I just don't see the math there, to be honest with you. But if you take an even broader view,

and certainly Janice is more expert than I on this, there's so many players in what we call the Middle East. It's not just Israel and Palestine. You have to consider this enormous potential void or chaos in Syria, Iraq, which is perpetually unstable, even if we pretend otherwise, Turkey. I mean, there's a lot of Saudi Arabia. There are wars, of course, going on.

They're independent or semi-independent actors with Hamas, Hezbollah, none of which are committed to peace, even in our wildest dreams. So that really troubles me. And then on top of that, the nation that we're looking to most for leadership externals of the region, the United States, in my opinion, certainly lacks any coherent policy.

It isn't really driven by expertise or knowledge, not that that ever actually achieved peace in the region in the first place. But it seems to be kind of haphazard. It seems to be off the cuff of one man in particular. Is this as bad as you've ever seen it there? Just in terms of the humanitarian situation, among Palestinians of Gaza, of course,

is the headline number, the number of deaths and the lack of food aid and so on is a problem. But among Israelis as well who did suffer the largest pogrom and mass atrocity of the 21st century in 2003. And there is a lack of leadership interested in pursuing a peace process. I think the elements have always been there.

Saying a two-state solution is a bit of a misleading term. There are two states. One of them just has not been fully acknowledged or recognized. There's currently discussions among Britain and France and Canada to unilaterally recognize Palestine as an advance move rather than what has been the case for the last 30 years, which is to wait till after. But that's partly because both the United States and Israel are led by people who are not interested in the peace process.

Let me get one last comment from you on this part of the world. And that is, I remember you and I and Ed Luttwak in this studio, probably 25 years ago. And he used an expression that I want to ask you about tonight. And that is, he said, sometimes it's a very good thing to have a quote unquote, clarifying war. Because people look at things differently after you've had a clarifying war.

Is there an argument for that here? There just might be. Let me just say what I think Doug was saying only more strongly. This is the worst time for Palestinians, the worst in the last 75 years. And no matter how bad the trauma was, it wasn't inflicted on October the 7th. And it is really bad and it's ongoing. It doesn't justify. There are no military objectives that are served and there are no political objectives.

It is the total absence of a political strategy. So why do I have just a tiny ray of optimism? Because we have the most brutal president of the United States we've ever had. And this morning, when he thought that Iran and or Israel broke the ceasefire, he took the gloves off with those two governments. And he phoned the Israeli prime minister,

and he said he used an expletive, which I don't think we're allowed to use on the show. It's too bad that we're not there yet. Give it a try. Well, you know, WTF is going on. Call your planes back. And Prime Minister did it. There is an underlying change now.

Netanyahu farmed out. In exchange for those raids, he farmed out and ceded control to Donald Trump. I think there's a possibility, were he interested, and this is the real, were the U.S. president, this one, interested at all in strong arming? Both sides now, because Hamas is weaker than it's ever been. He's lost his big patron. There is an opportunity, if he were interested, whether he is, that's a different question. Let's move on to Europe then and now. We're going to go back to an episode.

This one's from 11 years ago. Russian troops had moved into Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula. And here's how we talked about it on this program then. Sheldon, if you would. I like simple questions, so let's start simple. Why has Russia done what it's done? Well, I think some people have been saying, because it can. But I think, you know, President Putin is,

considers the future of Ukraine something that Russia can't ignore. It's a vital interest. He was worried about Crimea. He saw an opportunity where the West had sort of let things slip. There was a gap between our rhetoric and what we were ready to do. And he moved very quickly. OK, and to today. Arne, the West obviously sees Russia as having committed an illegal,

immoral, world destabilizing military war against Ukraine. Just for argument's sake, is there another different legitimate interpretation of what's going on there now? The loaded word there was legitimate. Certainly if you take a Russian perspective or Putin's perspective, everything the West thinks is totally wrong. This was an act of pure self-defense against the aggressive expansion of NATO. It was Western encroachment in Ukraine.

It was Ukrainian fascism. All of this, for me personally, and obviously my colleagues here will either agree or disagree, this is propaganda. This was an absolutely illegal, illegitimate invasion of the sovereign people. All of that rhetoric is really a toxic mix of Putin's own personal experience, the demise of the Soviet Union, fears of Western encroachment for sure.

He did see and many Russians do see NATO as expanding and that is against Russia's interests. But it's even more complicated than this long steep tea of Russian history, of the Mirsky, you know, this idea of a Russian worldview of the near abroad. There's not one thing that is motivating Putin and what's happened in Ukraine. But I find it terribly ironic that today he is trying to leverage himself as a peace broker in the Middle East when his soldiers have engaged in nothing

but a horrific invasion and occupation and murderous behavior in that country. So how relevant do you think NATO has been throughout all of this? It is finding a need to be relevant quickly and we're seeing that this week with meetings to try and make Europe a lot more self-reliant on defense and to make sure that in a world where you're going to see many conflicts all at once and retreating the United States, Europe needs to really be the backbone of NATO that it hasn't been. And let me give a shout out to this show Steve as you're in your final days. I remember seeing an Apple bomb on your show several times talking about the Holodomor and then talking about the illegal invasion of Crimea which we addressed in

the Harper government where Prime Minister Harper was actually pushing the G8 to be the G7 because of that conduct by Putin and then pushing Germany particularly Chancellor Merkel who was allowing the energy importance of Russia to have Europe almost accede to some of this. And Putin has demographic challenges. They're at their peak military now and they're eroding it quickly. And he wants to control as near abroad. And that's Ukraine, but it's also the Baltics.

And so we had to stand up, or it wasn't going to end with Crimea. We saw that with the full invasion. So NATO really has to show its relevance and I remember a few years ago the first term of President Trump talking about pulling out of NATO, President Macron called NATO brain dead. I'm glad NATO is coming back from the dead because we're in a dangerous world and alliances are good for peace and stability and are critical to Canada. So Canada plays a critical role in bringing this linchpin between North America and Europe. I know everybody at this table and surely everybody in the Ukrainian community remembers

Stephen Harper going right up to Vladimir Putin at one of those summits and saying you got to get out of Ukraine. Might have been the first world leader to tell him so to his face. You're still giving him props to all these years later for doing that? Canadians have have led the way partly because we have one of the largest Ukrainian diasporas in the world. It's important discussing NATO in this context to clear the air of what you correctly identified as Russian propaganda, which is the idea that NATO had anything to do with Russia's reasons for invading Ukraine.

I was in Ukraine a lot during the decade before Russia's 2014 invasion of not just Crimea but Donbass. And there during that period after 2008 there were no Western countries interested in having Ukraine join NATO and there were no political parties capable of being elected in Ukraine interested in joining NATO. This idea coming out of Russia that that there was a NATO country, of being elected in Ukraine interested in joining NATO. This idea coming out of Russia that there was a NATO country, people in Ukraine were interested in joining the European Union and the community of democracies.

And that was what triggered Vladimir Putin. And in a way, it's been healthy of NATO to step back and, as I said earlier, say we're going to provide material we're going to provide arms and support not just because we were worried about NATO obligations causing us to be engaged in a war with Russia but because actually it's it's the better way to deal with this. We are a little more than five minutes to go here and I want to make sure we get a reasonable amount of time to discuss one last thing here. We've had three Prime Ministers of Canada during the time this program's been on

the air. Harper, Trudeau, Carney and each in their own way has pledged to make Canada one of those countries that punches above its weight on the international stage. Janice, how have we? Well, when we look at our assets, they've degraded over this period, right? Under all three, frankly, less defense spending. This is not something that happened in the last 10 years. Less development assistance. So if you look at the hard and the leaner, not necessarily meaner, global affairs department, but leaner too. Relatively speaking, its budget has shrunk,

and other parts of government have been funded. So if you look at the assets we deploy, no, we haven't. But there's a rhetoric that we use when we tell ourselves stories about ourselves in the world and we constantly talk about Canada in the world. Like my other three colleagues here, I spend a lot of time out of the country at meetings or with colleagues. You have to work really hard to bring up Canada's name.

You will have a whole evening, frankly, if we're being honest, of discussion. And I might be the only one at the end of it who races Canada and they're polite. And they're all, oh yes. Right? And in many conversations, Canada is simply not at the table. Now, you know, this government is again talking about making Canada matter. It is investing in defence. Finally, finally it is investing in defense. Finally, finally it is investing in defense.

Somebody's, if that's going to have to come out of some other part of the budget, and it may be the development assistance budget, because that's what they did in the UK. That's not a US story. That's exactly what Keir Starmer did in the UK. But I think we have to be very careful. We are a small to medium country that shares a continent with a big elephant, as Pierre-Elliott Trudeau has to say.

Okay, okay. But I do remember the days when Ronald Reagan, before taking major international decisions, used to call his buddy Brian Mulroney and say, what does Canada think about this? No one does that anymore, do they? No, but that was personal. They don't. Janice is right, it was personal. And Brian Mulrooney took a great effort to make sure that he built those personal ties and relations with the US. And he used to say to me when I was conservative leader,

the two most important decisions for a Canadian prime minister, national unity and relations with the United States. So Canada, as Janice said, if we want to return to more relevance as leader of a middle power, we have to equip a smarter diplomatic corps, we have to engage in aid, you know the migration crisis and everything we're seeing, some of the solution to that is not backing away from aid and military. So we have to be able to really deliver the 0.7% for ODA, the 2% or plus this week on defense. Then when we're able to attend these sessions or when we run for the

rotating seat on the Security Council, we're actually paying our dues. And we haven't been. And it's all three prime ministers for the time the agenda haven't lived up to that. At times we've stepped up individually within that consistency has been lacking and so let's let's really you know the world needs more Canada but Canada needs more Canada the world needs more Canada was something we used to hear said all the time you see that poster at bookstores right and indigo the world needs more Canada the world doesn't feel like it needs more Canada these days. Canada doesn't seem to be missed on the international stage.

What do you say? I found what Janice said very funny, because I get it too, right? They're very polite when you're abroad, but we're not significant. And let's cut right to the chase. I think those three governments, maybe other ones would have been different, but those three

squandered any opportunity we had, any status that we may have had at the end of the Cold War moving forward. Canada has become relegated to a second fiddle in a lot of ways. Do we mind that? I don't think many Canadians really are that engaged in the international spectrum, to be honest with you. So I'll tell you why. What Aaron says is really important.

I would be amongst the many, I think, in at least in my fields that would say we need more NATO spending. And people always look at you like you're a war hawk or something like that, but it's not. NATO, our NATO commitment is indicative of our multilateral commitments in a much broader exercise. Obviously our relationship with the United States hinges on that too. And it is a facing reality of a dramatically difficult world in which we live. We didn't get to it of course, but Arctic sovereignty, tops the list here in Canada, a border security. These are things which most Canadians get really nervous, anxious about. They don't want to talk

about it because it sounds like a sort of American narrative when we start talking like that. But that's the reality we've crafted since the end of World War II, Steve. This is Canada was a founding member of NATO and many other institutions. When we had the fourth biggest Navy in the world at that time. And what about peacekeeping? Like Canadian peacekeepers were of course,

celebrated and rightly so for many, many years and now we're amongst the poor contributors too. I want Doug's view on this. Should we aspire to play a greater role on the world stage? There was a sobering moment during Justin Trudeau's first term as prime minister shortly after Donald Trump won the US election when his government realized that we were unable to carry out a lot of our international agenda because we are dependent on the United States supporting us. And not just in defense and in trade and the things

we tend to think about, but we were unable to do the things we wanted to do in China and India and places like that because the United States was not on our side. And we got caught up in bad situations with those countries that were immediately resolved when more normal government came to the United States. Whether that happens again, we don't know. And I think the last decade has been

a lesson for Canadian governments, really, of both parties, that we need to forge an independent route. That doesn't mean we're going to become a member of the European Union or something like that. But it means that our membership in collective defense alliances like NATO or whatever succeeds it if it falls apart is going to have to be more than just a way to spend less money. Collective defense alliances are an important way

to spend less money on defense. It's a way to spend less money. Collective defense alliances are an important way to spend less money on defense. It's a way to share burdens. But that we actually are going to have to start spending money on things. We're going to fulfill a tradition on this program right now, which is Janis Stein always gets the last word. Of course. We have a minute to go, Janis, and not more than a minute.

Tell me one thing. I don't know anybody in this country who thinks, you know what, when George Bush went into Iraq we should have gone into. There's nobody in this country who thinks that. But I bet there are people in this country who think, you know what, here's one thing Canada should have done over the years that we didn't do. What should that thing have been? Well, I think Arne put his finger right on it.

We don't know what is under our waters, over our airspace or online, in our own North. That's frankly shocking. That is just shocking. That is not being, that is not, you know, more Canada in the world. We're just very fortunate that NATO and the United States in the lead have agreed to count that as defense spending. But we have not invested in the resources to know what is going on in our North, nor have we built the partnerships with our indigenous peoples. There's no other way to say it, but that's frankly a disgrace. That was job one that we didn't do that we should have done.

Our own backyard. Is it too late to do it? No, it is not too late to do it. But if you think about it in terms of where the world is going right now, that has become a front-line problem for NATO, and we are at the front line. So let's put our own house in order before we talk about some grandiose vision of what we can do in the world. Okay. Christine, how much time I got left? 20 seconds? That's enough time to thank everybody, I think.

Yes, indeed. Okay. Erin O'Toole, former leader of the Conservative Party. Doug Saunders, International Affairs columnist, Globe Mail. On the other side of the table, Arne Kislenko, Professor of History, TMU, and the one and only Janice Stein. There she is, Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. So great to have the four of you around this table tonight. And thank you, Steve. Thank you, Steve.

For 19 years. It's been a joy. It's been a joy. Absolutely. Thanks, everybody. It's been a joy.