The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - A Critical Moment for the War in Ukraine

Episode Date: June 14, 2022

Our regular Tuesday check-in with veteran correspondent Brian Stewart about the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Brian sees things in a critical and dire moment for Ukraine as the balance seems to have tipped in Russia's favour. Also today, the challenge of aging, and some opening thoughts on two days of the January 6th committee.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. We've reached a critical moment in the Ukraine conflict. What happens next? Brian Stewart and a lot more on today's edition of The Bridge. And hello again, Peter Mansbridge in Stratford, Ontario on this day. I don't know about you, but have you come to any conclusions watching, if you have been watching, the January 6th Select Committee hearings going on in the United States? Yesterday was day two. Today's a day off.

Then they get back at it again tomorrow. I watched all of day one last Thursday night. And much of day two yesterday. I was traveling, so I missed some stuff. I listened on the radio as I was driving, and I watched all the highlights last night and the discussion and the debates on it. Here's my conclusion after two days. They've got Trump cold. They've done this in a brilliant fashion, the way they've laid out the evidence, and for the most part, only use the inner

circle around Trump as their witnesses, who basically declare that he knew exactly what he was doing, that he ignored the advice of almost everyone who gave it, including his own family. He lied and he grifted and he did all those things we've suspected he would have been doing. I mean, let's face it. I've watched this guy since the 80s. He's never been any different. He's always lied.

He's always grifted. That is Donald Trump. Why did we think if he was president he'd be any different? He wasn't. So, I'm... It would be hard to believe that I'm open-minded on this, but I'm willing to watch the rest. Let's see what happens. I'd like to see more live witnesses, especially live witnesses who worked with Trump on the inner circle.

I'm even willing to hear from Rudy Giuliani. Although I've never been impressed with that guy, even when he was the time man of the year and all these wonderful things that were said about him back in the late 90s in the early 2000s especially after 9-11 i've never been impressed by giuliani i mean he was almost run out of town in 2001 until 9-11 happened when he had his shining moment he was he did rally in an almost Churchillian way the people of New York. But that's it. That's all. I don't believe any of the other stuff about the guy. And I certainly have no time for him now.

And if you believe the witnesses, he was hammered on election night, giving bad advice to Trump while everybody else was telling Trump, don't declare victory until we see the votes. But whatever. You can say all those things you want, but at the end of the day, so what? What's going to happen? Is the Attorney General of the United States going to watch all this select committee stuff, plus his own investigation, and charge Donald Trump, a former President of the United States, with seditious conspiracy, an attempt to overthrow the government? Is that what he's going to do? Or is it just going to be another moment where Trump passes by

and nothing happens. No orange jumpsuit, no prison cell, nothing. He just moves on, carries on with his bizarre life. Could be. Stranger things have happened. The number of times he was supposedly caught in the act, but somehow the act wasn't enough to cause a penalty. Who knows? But i'll keep watching as millions of others apparently are still watching too as this story continues to unfold with that worn out old phrase an uncertain future to what's going to happen to it.

Anyway, moving on to our major topic for this day. It's Tuesday. That means Brian Stewart. That means Ukraine, Russia. Brian, the former foreign correspondent for CBC, NBC,

war correspondent, he, war correspondent. He's been there. He's seen it in different parts of the world. He knows what it's like. He's been studying everything he can get his hands on in terms of what's going on in this particular conflict. And he has kept us ahead of the story week after week for the last few months. We're now well past 100 days.

And when you listen to Brian this morning, you'll notice two things. First of all, great audio. We've had problems with Brian's audio the last few weeks, but that's all sorted out. It's clear as a bell. Still could use a little better internet connection there, but overall, this is like night and day compared with what it's been like before.

So you'll notice that first, but then you'll notice that we have clearly reached a critical moment in this conflict. This story has been up and down since it started in terms of the momentum swing. Right now, we seem to have reached a critical moment. So let's get at it. Let's bring Brian in and have our conversation for this week. Here we go.

All right, Brian, let's start the way we normally start, by giving you the opportunity to give us an overview of where we are right now on this Ukraine-Russia conflict. I think the reality right now is we're in an increasingly dire situation for Ukraine itself. Remember, it seems so long ago, but that country began in an almost tragic but euphoric moment when it was beating back the big bully before the world, getting masses of praise, and its troops were performing miracles. Well, they're still hanging in in a remarkable way, but the bad news has started to come out from the ukrainian side so very alarming news about

losses and morale and limited gains that they're able to pull off and the more the bad news gets out the more it seeps to the outside world that's supporting ukraine who start to have beginning to have doubts as what's going to happen to this war, how long it's going to go on, and is there any chance of a real success here? I want to get to some of those points, but give us a sense, in terms of the main battle area right now, it seems to be on the eastern side, around the Donbass region, and Russia is clearly making advances there. Yes, they are. The Russians, we've said several times in our broadcasts that the Russians never count them down,

never count them out because they can reform or group and come back. And that's precisely in a way what they've done. They've strung together a lot of very battered battalions with heavy casualties,

put them together, reform them, put them under kind of new management and gone back to fighting the way we all thought the Russians would fight in the beginning, with heavy casualties, put them together, reform them, put them under kind of new management, and going back to fighting the way we all thought the Russians would fight in the beginning, which was sensibly and with cohesion. And they're starting to make advances into more Ukrainian territory. They're not great advances.

They're fairly slow. They failed to cut off big groups of Ukrainian soldiers in the east, the Donbass area, but they are in danger of cutting off smaller groupings. So the Russians have overwhelming superiority in artillery and they're much more air power now used than they were at the beginning. Ukrainians in the meantime have been holding on and where they've thrown themselves into advances, their advances too are very limited. So what we're really seeing on the east are two armies in a state of exhaustion. They're like two fighters who've punched themselves out. They're both bouncing off the ropes. And the problem is this looks like a stalemate down the road leading to a very long war.

And that's, of course, the last thing the world wants to know about. You know, one of the things that Ukraine has been very cautious about was sharing with the world kind of the battle statistics, what was happening in terms of casualties, wounded and dead uh for their side but those numbers are now starting to come out and they're they're not very good they're not very good um you know the government has announced that they're losing up to 200 dead a week soldiers dead sorry per day not per week. So, you know, 200 could be 1,400 killed every single week, thousands more injured. These are getting to be casualty figures equivalent to World War II or even worse, World War I trench warfare, massacres basically. So they're losing a lot of human casualties, but they're also, the Ukrainians now, owning up to a lot of equipment losses,

hundreds of tanks, artillery units have been blown apart. So they're really down. And a lot of their, this is a very serious matter for the Ukrainians, a lot of their artillery no longer can fire because the barrels are worn out. They're also getting towards a crisis in the ammunition they don't have enough ammunition left over from their stockpiles they desperately need more heavy weapons from the west they're slow in coming they need almost even more ammunition from the west and that's also slow in coming so you've got basically a good army but but it's weak in armaments. It's starting to be tattered because of the casualty rates. And some Ukrainians are now even having doubts as to the basic tactics of the Ukrainian government. Did they put too many of their very fine units in the east where they would be threatened with envelopment and capture

and would have to hold on week after week after week of fighting. One thing that I think I should lay a line here, when you look at some of the aerial pictures of the front, it looks like the First World War. The land completely pockmarked with shell holes over and over. But the Russians are firing much heavier artillery than the Germans did in World War I. And the Ukrainians of Unisat have sat on those dugouts and trenches now for weeks on end. There's no army, however fine in the world, that can take that battery. The human nervous system is just simply not up to it. And so the Ukrainians are fighting. The soldiers in the front lines are saying,

OK, we've done our bit. Where's our reinforcements? They're not coming in. And when do we get out of here? And when are we going to have all this heavy artillery we've been promised over and over, which is still not arriving in anything like the numbers we need? So it's a grave time now for Ukraine. It doesn't mean they're going to crack. It doesn't mean the Russians are going to pour out and spread across the country. It does mean, or it likely means, there's going to be a real stalemate. And, you know, think back of those documentaries and pictures of World War I,

what it's like when two armies face each other over a long front, killing each other week in, week out, but not making any major gains until one just basically gives in from total battle fatigue. And that's the dire situation that the Ukrainian government is now starting to talk more honestly about. And this is the first time a lot of people, not just the media,

but intelligence services across the West are hearing of this. In fact, we've had some angry voices i i'm assuming they're quite angry bitching voices from u.s intelligence that they know much more about the russian state of affairs and the russian army than they know about the ukraine because they've been asking ukrainians all along for more casualty figures and more an update of where their forces are and they're not getting them it's a very closed government and the problem of course the ukrainian government has is that the more it tells of its bad news the more it owns up to the fact that we too like the

russians are getting very tattered in the front the more those countries supporting them in the west may start falling out over how much do we want to support this war? What pressure might we put on Kiev and Zelensky to make a land for peace deal with Russia? So the Ukrainians are in a real bind here. They kind of have to give this information out, but they know giving the information out can have some dire international consequences wow uh you're really painting a picture that is uh well certainly if you're trying to support ukraine on this that is not a very pleasant picture to look at what have you been able to gauge what it's done to morale on the ukrainian side there are the first stories coming out because morale was

assumed to be so good indeed it was good it was spectacular i don't want to take anything away from ukraine's triumphs this was an incredibly brave national resistance right up there with london under the blitz and other french resistance and other fine uh pictures of courage we've had they're just a wear and tear of battle that's very hard to deny. There are stories of Ukrainian units now saying we don't want to stay in this line any longer. We want to be reinforced immediately. We want some time off.

We didn't come here to fight a long war. We came here to drive the Russians out, but we don't seem to be driving them out. So that morale is spreading. And with it, again, as I mentioned, with the poor morale in some areas, and I'm emphasizing limited poor morale in heavy engaged areas getting back, the criticism of the government is just really for the first time coming out. It's not a storm of criticism, but it's something not only the Ukrainian government, but the West has to worry about.

It would be nice over, I know the Americans think it would be wonderful if overnight we could suddenly pour massive reinforcements into Ukraine. But they're starting to really have some worries, too, that the original doubts of putting a lot of high-tech modern equipment into ukraine would they be able to handle it with those prolonged periods of training are coming back yes they can get high tech even these giant 155 millimeter howitzers into ukraine but it takes a lot of upkeep and training to keep them functioning so they're also worried that what we're facing here is really a need for an overhaul of the Ukrainian army in the middle of a major war. It's a little tough to do,

although the Russians did at least a partial reorganization of their army after the kind of disastrous first few weeks. Let me go back to a point you were making earlier about the battle statistics we've seen and the and the clear indications that you the ukrainian army has taken a lot of major hits both on on those killed in conflict and also those wounded do they have the backup do they have the reinforcements is that an issue at all on the ukrainian side that's a good question because that's the question a lot of western governments are asking because

certainly ukraine was enlisting an awful lot of people you know in fact i've heard estimates by ukrainian military analysts that now up to 600 000 ukrainians are in arms or have been trained or going through training, and they're ready. But I think their problem is becoming, if we move them to the front, how do we supply them? And if we move them now, we're coming into more precise attack via missiles and the Russian Air Force, which is becoming overnight far, far more active now.

How do you get these reinforcements in and where do you reinforce successfully so i think there's a real dilemma here they've got more manpower than the russians by far but can they engage that manpower without the heavy artillery and backup support air support that the russians have because the r the Russians can still pin down their movements pretty successfully. Remember, both sides, these howitzers, these cannons, these missiles are firing 20, 25, 30, 40 miles even into the behind enemy lines with precision and taking out wherever you congregate troops and supplies and ammunition. So it's a very dodgy game there. You've given us a good sense of where the Ukrainians are at this moment and where the Russians are and the potential problems that both sides have.

You've hinted to us about the West and how the West is looking at the situation in Ukraine and the anxiety on the part of some Western governments. Is the alliance holding here that Ukraine had for the most part with the rest of the world, or are there problems here? It's still holding. Europe is always going to seem like it's on the verge of splitting up. They have, you know 20 all those national more more fractions and they have national dishes in europe but the fact of the matter is ukraine is very disappointed with the support it's received from germany with the

support from france and also from italy those are the three where question marks are put behind them, the big powers, Germany, France, Italy, where Ukraine suspects strongly that these three would much prefer to see this war settled fairly soon and that these three believe there'll have to be a land for peace deal, which will give a good chunk, a very good chunk of eastern ukraine to the russians to make peace and ukraine is trying to block this but still uh mostly europe and nato are holding supplies are going in money is being raised and going in all the countries i mentioned are offering help to some extent i think the french could do a lot more but uh they see their role more as negotiation between Moscow and Kiev, which many people will have doubts about. And the Americans certainly have been giving out a lot.

But people are getting, as happens in war almost invariably, they're getting antsy. They're getting nervous. They're getting tired. Wars tire countries out very fast. Crises tire people out. People start yearning for something new to come along and take over a stability in that. I don't see the Western alliance, which, of course, includes Canada, breaking up anytime soon. I see some fraction.

But I do see, in fact, I do see still a lot of Western, sorry, armaments going into Ukraine and a long period of regroupment of the army. But, you know, the Ukrainians have to talk to themselves a bit and say, you know, what are we risking here? What are we asking of allies? We keep coming out and lecturing them over and over again in increasingly strident tones about how they should be doing more. We can't go on doing that unless we're more honest with them about what kind

of challenge we really face here. And I think they need a lot more advice of how to maybe regroup their whole command structure, get their training system back up and running, and start listening to perhaps a bit more strategic tactical advice, that would be a help. But Ukrainians are very proud, with great reason to be proud. And also, they haven't reached the page, the point now, where they can conceive of giving up national territory for that peace.

Russia is convinced it's a long war and they're digging in for a long war. Ukrainians are going to have to face a long war as best they can with as much help as they can get out of the West. That seems to be the dire situation at the moment. All right. Well, on that point, let me ask you my last question. Someone who's in the kind of foreign policy area and gives advice to governments in different parts of the world, and somebody who both you and I respect, is somebody who I was talking to the other day,

who said, you know, Ukraine got greedy about a month ago. It looked like they could actually win this war. Everything was going their way and everything was not going the way of the Russians. Putin was making statements that caused all kinds of problems in different parts of the world. He's been actually pretty quiet of late, which is interesting. But the feeling on this part of this expert was they got greedy. They could have had a really good deal to end this a month ago. And now they look like they're in it for the long haul

and they're off their back foot right now. Well, you know, there's certainly some justice for that point of view. I wouldn't use the term greedy. I would tend to say use the term they got euphoric. Like many armies do when suddenly they're winning big and everything seems to be going their way. They naturally start really dreaming of victory. And I think Ukraine, having seen so many battered cities and refugees and pain, wanted naturally to go for broke, get the whole country back, even the Crimea. That was probably never realistic.

No matter how bad the Russians fought, they would always have some way of resisting. And I think they got euphoric. They got unrealistic. And I think now they're having a terribly painful time coming to terms with exactly that viewpoint. You're going to have to make a deal. Russia's going to have to make a deal. So when will that happen? I doubt we'll see anything until the fall and

both are going to want to try for knockout punches or at least see if they can grind down their opponent more before they return to really serious negotiation so i'm looking at october november more well it's it it's funny isn't it when When this started, there was a sense that it might only last a week or 10 days because the Russians were overwhelming, it was felt. That turned out not to be true, and it's gone back and forth ever since. And now you're talking about something that could go on the rest of this year, who knows, maybe into next year as well. Brian, we once again

thank you did you want to make one last we have to end on hopefully not hopefully you know sanity will prevail there will be some development that will shock Moscow for instance into saying we don't want a long war this is ridiculous I mean their economic

pain of the sanction of the rest will hit in much more in August and September. Maybe something will start bringing people back to their senses more. But you're right. You know, you already know what you're ending on. All right. Thank you, sir. You know, as always, we really appreciate your thoughts on this and guiding us through what has been a very difficult story to tell.

And a story that's incredibly important, not only for Ukraine and Russia, but for the rest of the world, as you pointed out last week with the likelihood of the famine coming. But you've kept it front of mind for us on at least every Tuesday during the weeks. And that's important because it's stories like this that can kind of disappear when other things come along, as has happened in the last couple of weeks because of events primarily in the United States. But the story doesn't go away. The war doesn't go away. The stakes don't go away. So, Brian, thanks very much.

My pleasure, Peter. Brian Stewart joining us with his regular weekly Tuesday look at the situation in Ukraine. The 30,000 foot look down at what's happening there and the impact it's having not only there but in the rest of the world. So as always we thank Brian. Okay we're going to take a short break. When we come back, we've got a couple of stories in our Tuesday notes right after this. And welcome back. Peter Mansbridge here in Stratford, Ontario. You're listening to The Bridge on SiriusXM Canada,

channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform. A couple of other stories. I called it the Monday Notes yesterday. A couple of those other stories. I've told you before how I have kind of a pile of other stories. And that pile keeps getting bigger and bigger because it gets squeezed out every day. Well, I've been trying to reinstitute some of these because they're really interesting and they're important.

And I like to get them in. So a couple for the Tuesday notes section on this day. You've heard the term, you know, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. We've heard that all our lives, right? And it's true. The rich do get richer. While the poor get poorer. Here's the latest example.

Oxfam, the worldwide organization, put out its latest release, Oxfam International, just the other day. And the report's titled Profiting from Pain. So it studied the two years of pain being the pandemic. And it concluded this, after going through all the stats from all the countries, that a new billionaire was minted every 30 hours, with a total of 573 of the world's richest becoming billionaires during that time frame. On the flip side, in 2022, Oxfam expects a million people to fall into extreme poverty every 33 hours. A million into extreme poverty every 33 hours. A million into extreme poverty every 33 hours. Nearly the same rate a new billionaire is minted. The astonishing rate that people the world over are set to fall into extreme poverty, 263 million people in 2022 alone, is due to the rapidly rising costs of living,

including everything from the cost of energy to the cost of food. While the billionaires who control these assets will profit even more, hundreds of millions could be priced out of staying alive, Oxfam warns. Got to thank FastCompany.com for relaying this information to us. A couple of other shocking findings in this report. The world's 2,668 billionaires. You know, I'm so old, I remember when you used to count billionaires worldwide on the, you know, the fingers of both hands. But now 2,668 billionaires own $12.7 trillion of the planet's wealth. I mean, all these numbers are also like

mind-boggling and like what does it mean anymore the world's 10 richest people owning more than the poorest 3 The 10 richest people on earth owning more than the poorest 3.1 billion people on earth. The conclusion of the Oxfam report, this is divisive, corrosive, dangerous. This is inequality that literally kills.

As I said, you can find more on that at fastcompany.com Alright. Here's the last part of my Tuesday notes. This will take a few minutes. You know, and I, every day, I've told you this before, I have a little one of those, like an old, it's a 1920s, I think,

calendar on my desk where I have to flip the day, the month, and the date every morning. And so there I was today flipping those categories to Tuesday, June 14th. And when I flipped the 14th, I thought, you know, it just seems like yesterday that I was making a fuss about, wow, here we are at June. Can we slow the clock down, please? I mean, it just seems to be moving so fast. Now, it's partly an age thing, right?

The older you get, the faster time seems to go by. I mean, I remember those days, those summer days when I was at school, at grade school, then high school. And boy, it used to summer was, that was like a year. July and August went by so slowly it was wonderful. Now it's like things go by in the snap of a finger. And you start thinking about, the older you get, about how old you are. And I'm coming up on another birthday in the next little while. And you think about that number, even though age is just a number. You do think about it. And so you actually want things to slow down, but you

also want to kind of age gracefully, right? So I've holding on to this column looking for the opportunity to do uh to run it it's by it was in the new york times and the writer is jane brody and she wrote this article how to grage acefully grage acefully age gracefully see that's one of the things that happens. You start to have trouble reading. Anyway, it was How to Age Gracefully. She was inspired by a new book, Stupid Things I Won't Do When I Get Old. And as a result, she's been taking you know stock of her life deciding what she needs to perhaps

reconsider so i'll read little chunks of this because it's really interesting and it kind of dovetails with some of the things i've been going through she said i she writes, I found considerable inspiration and guidance in this new book. It's written by Stephen Petro and Roseanne Foley Henry. Petro, she says, is also a columnist,

but is nearly two decades younger than she is. She just turned 80. Jane Brody. So he wrote the book when he began thinking ahead after watching the missteps of his aging parents like waiting too long to get hearing aids. So that's what spurred my interest in this column. Because, well, I've noticed for the last couple of years that I suffer from one of the things my father used to suffer from. And that was separating, you know, especially when you're in a crowded or noisy room and you're trying to have a conversation with somebody right in front of you, but it gets clouded out by the noise surrounding you. And you're often asking people to repeat themselves, or you just kind of fake it and pretend you can hear them and nod your head every once in a while. Now, I know that the audience of this podcast is kind of split.

There are a lot of people my age who listen to this podcast, given my background, but there are also a lot of young people. And I've been surprised at the number of young people who listen to this. They didn't necessarily watch me when I was doing the news, but they were aware of me because their parents talked about the national or what have you. And they write, and they're focused. They love politics, and they write as we deal with a lot of politics. Anyway, most of the audience is going to identify with what I'm saying when I talk about, or many in the audience will identify with what I'm saying when I talk about that audio problem.

And my dad used to explain it and say, well, you know, I was in bomber command during the war, and I, you know, for mission after mission, the noise was incredible, and, you know, the bombs going off, the flak, the engine noise, all of that impacted my hearing. So that was one thing. And I figure I'm going to figure out how to live with that. Well, in the last year or two, I find myself increasingly having to say, what did you say? Or can you turn that volume up just a little bit on the television? And my wife or my son kind of go, oh, geez, ever thought of a hearing aid? And I go, well, don't be silly. I don't need a hearing aid. Well, the last two years in my annual physical,

I've had hearing tests. And clearly, it wouldn't hurt to have a hearing aid. So I actually tested one last week, and it definitely makes a difference. But there is this kind of thing about it, you know, you're wearing a hearing aid, and I'm still at that point where I've got to get over that, that last hump. But that line struck me in this piece by Jane Brody when she talks about the author of this book saying

his parents waited too long to get hearing aids. Now, I'm not sure what too long means, although it affects quality of life, right? And it affects relationships, everything. So anyway, I'm working at that. And I'm sure some of you who have hearing aids are probably going to write to me to tell me why I should encourage myself to go a little further on this. Anyway, a couple of other notes in this story. From Jane Brody, she writes, I took a similar inventory of my life and started at the top

with my hair. I'd been coloring it for decades, lighter and lighter as I got older. But I noticed that during the pandemic many people men as well as women of all ages had stopped covering their gray and they looked just fine sometimes better than they did with hair dyed dark above a wrinkled facade Rudy Giuliani anyone today I too am gray and loving it I've also resisted the common temptation to cover up other cosmetic issues i now rarely use makeup and my usual summer costume remains short shorts and tank tops wrinkles be damned i'm proud to have them i don't wear a tank top but i haven't worn makeup since the last night I was in the studio doing the

national, you know, more than five years ago. And even then I, I stopped. There were only so much you could do to help yourself, uh, in those days at my age. And I, I stopped wearing makeup as such. I'd powder a little bit just to, you know, stop the lights from shining off my dome, mainly off the top of my head. She goes on to write, and I'm just going to read a little bit more of this. It's a good column. You'd have to dig back into the archives of the New York Times to find How to Age Gracefully by Jane Brody. But let me read a couple more lines. I will stubbornly resist altering my habits to avert potential tragedies that others foresee.

I walk my dog in the woods over slippery rocks, roots, and fallen logs so I can enjoy his fearless energy and athleticism and improve my own balance and self-confidence. The doctor who monitors my bone health ends every consult with an order, do not fall. And the treacherous woods walk is part of my response. As Mr. Petra emphasized, that's the author, fear of falling can actually lead to more falls by making you unduly anxious, hesitant, and focused on your feet instead of what's in front of you. My kitchen was built for a five-foot tall cook.

That means I often climb to reach items that I can't store on a lower shelf, but I always use a sturdy stepstool, unlike a 78-year-old friend who foolishly climbed on a chair a big no-no fell and injured his back when i asked a woman in my age how she was feeling she said i have issues and i said well we all have issues the secret to successful aging is to recognize one's issues and adapt accordingly. I'm constantly learning what I can and can't do and asking or paying for help when needed. Okay, as I said, I'm not going to read all of this. But I found it interesting. The fall thing is, as many of you know, is a big deal the older you get.

Most serious injuries and even death for the elderly is often caused by falls. I know that's what led to my dad's passing. He fell, he slipped, and he hit his head. And two weeks later, he slipped, and he hit his head. And, you know, two weeks later, he was gone. So all of these things are things you got to think about the older you get, as that calendar flips by even quicker. But you've got to find ways of aging gracefully and i guess that's what really this article is all about and so whether it's something as simple and easily um resolved through a you know a new modern era hearing aid well well, you probably should consider it. If you can afford it.

They're not cheap. There's some help from governments, but they're still not inexpensive. But other simple things can add to a graceful, you know, I was going to say final years. That sounds so awful.

I don't mean that. Sort of the, you know, a graceful next stage of your life. Anyway, I know all the millennials and Generation Xers are sitting there going, can you get back to something that we would like to talk about? Trust me, you'll be here soon. That's what I used to say. It seemed like yesterday, right? Anyway, it gives you something to think about in terms of your parents and your grandparents and some of the things that they may or may not be going through.

That's it for Tuesday. Tomorrow, Wednesday, smoke mirrors and the truth. Bruce will be by. Thursday is your turn. And I've given you lots of things to think about today that you might want to write about. And as always, I love to hear from new listeners. And I know we've got lots of them because I see the numbers and they keep going up.

And we're, you know, very happy with that. We're glad we're giving you something that you're enjoying or you're stimulated by. And for those who are stimulated to the point where they write something in, please do it. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. Looking forward to reading your comments on whatever you want to talk about. That's Thursday's show.

On Friday, of course, is Good Talk. Chantelle Hebert and Bruce Anderson. I'm Peter Mansbridge in Stratford, Ontario. This has been The Bridge. Hope you enjoyed it. We'll be back again in a mere 24 hours.