The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - And Now For Something Completely Different

Episode Date: March 25, 2021

It's potpourri Thursday and topic one is all about drones and the good things they're doing right now. An excuse of course for an old anecdote!  Also the shrinking infrastructure of the news business, and Digital Passports -- is that our future?

Hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge, where today, something totally different. And hello there again, Peter Mansbridge here. And when I say something totally different, well, it's Thursday. And Thursday, you never know what we're going to talk about. Because Thursdays is potpourri day. And as I've told you before, I like to kind of collect things during the week, stories that seem interesting but haven't really kind of fit anywhere in the news agenda. And so we don't get to them. But on Thursdays, I try to get to, you know, three, four, five of

these stories because I find them interesting, and sometimes I can kind of, you know, talk off the end or the beginning of them about some kind of experience that I've had personally. So that's where we get to something totally different today. I was, this story, this first story I'm going to tell you about, intrigued me because it reminded me of a day back in, I think it was 2003, when I was in Afghanistan. And it was one of the, well, it was the first time I'd been to Afghanistan. And we were doing the national for a week, I think it was, with Canadian troops who were there as part of the coalition forces who had been, you know, kicking the Taliban out of Afghanistan and trying to establish a workable government that looked after its people.

That mission, not with Canada involved anymore, is still going on. And you can argue about how well it's done or how well it's not done. And we've had that discussion here before. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about this day in 2003. It was near the end of a week of traveling with the troops and going out on patrol and doing stuff like that. When I was attracted to go over to the Kabul airport, you know me and airports,

but I was attracted to go over to the Kabul airport, near the Kabul airport where Canada was just received its first ever drones. And they were using them for unmanned reconnaissance flights over Taliban controlled areas trying to search out where the enemy was and the americans had the very sophisticated ones as you would expect canada was just getting into

the drone game and now i mean you can argue that we'd been using drones for decades if not 100 years uh the militaries had used drones in different forms you know balloon flights and the whole bit this is you know obviously the drones of the late 20th century and early 21st century were different they're much more sophisticated although when you looked at the Canadian one, it was called a Sparrower, which is a Dutch name for Sparrowhawk. But the Sparrowers were made in France. And I got to tell you, I mean, just Google, go to Google Images and look up Sparrower.

And you'll see what I mean when I say that. They kind of look like, to me, they kind of look like a version of the V1, V2 rockets that the Nazis used at the end of the Second World War to bombard Britain with unmanned rockets. Same kind of weird launch pad kind of thing. Anyway, they were using them that day and very proud of the fact,

hey, we're in the drone game. And these didn't fire anything. They were just for observation. And they would, you know, take off with a flurry from this launch pad thing. And one of the things you notice about the back end of these drones was that they had a wooden prop on them. And, you know, it was at the back end, not the front end. So it was, you know, for guidance and stability and what have you. But it looked really weird because there was, you know,

this all metal drone and at the back was a wooden prop. And what was even weirder about it is almost every time the drones came back, they'd go on their flight, they'd go up to like 15,000, 16,000 feet and they'd, you know, had a flight duration max of, I don't know, three or four hours. And they'd come back and they would land. They would be remotely guided back to the airfield or the kind of landing strip that they were using for the drones near the main Kabul airport.

And they would land. But almost every time they landed, they tore part of this wooden prop off, and they'd have to replace it. So they had all, you know, every time they took a flight, observation, but not every time, but almost every time, it would tear off part of the prop. And so I was standing there watching all this going on. I'm thinking, man, this is an expensive way to do drone flights.

You've got to put a new prop on almost every time, and I asked one of the fellows there. I said, like, what do you do with the old ones? Oh, we just destroy them, and I said, is there any chance that, you know, maybe I could have part of one of those broken props? That's like a souvenir. And, you know, they, they did a little huddle with their officers and the word came back. Sure. That's okay. You can, you can have one of these.

And they gave me one and, you you know each prop was really basically two pieces of wood put together like in an x shape and so i i got one of them and so you know it's not small in a relatively small how am i going to explain this at customs, right? But we just packed it inside one of the big cases that was being used for the various camera equipment we had to do live shows for a week out of Afghanistan. And, you know, declared it when it went through customs. You know, they didn't go through all of these boxes i don't think anyway uh but we did clear it on the box that it was a miscellaneous piece of equipment and it came back in and it now sits in my uh toronto apartment in my little office where i do this podcast from when i'm in toronto unfortunately, today I'm in Stratford, so I can't show you a picture of it because I'm not there.

But it's a memento of my first trip to Afghanistan. It's a memento of what was clearly a different era now in drones because we didn't stay with the spare wars for long i think too we started them in 2003 and we got rid of them in in 2009 in fact they're in museums now in canada i think there's one in the alberta air museum that's one of the couple in the in ontario air museums uh so you can see what they look like and they're not the sophisticated kind you look at now when you see movies, Hollywood movies, or documentaries on the drone wars, which are, as you well know, controversial. And those are more of the drones that are armed and fire missiles.

This was not one of those. This was purely for observation. Anyway, we phased them out and we replaced them with newer more sophisticated type drones but you know people you know who have visitors to our apartment you know come by look at this thing what is that and i explained to them what it is. All right, Man's Bridge, there must have been a reason you told this old story. Partly because I love telling old stories. You know, about various things that have happened in my little career.

Well, what spurred me on was an article in the Royal Canadian Geographical Society just this month. And the title of the story is Five Interesting Ways Drones Are Being Used. And that's in a non-military way. Drones now, as you know, are extremely sophisticated and you can buy one, you know, and you stick your phone in there and hook it up and take pictures of your neighborhood from the air or your cottage or wherever. And they're pretty, you know, fairly simple to operate. There are issues surrounding them and licenses needed,

certainly in some areas, to be flying these things. You can't fly them anywhere near airports and, you know, the routine. But that's not what this article is about. This article is about where drones are being used in special ways these days. And I loved reading this, especially when I look in my office in Toronto and see that old wooden prop thing that was at the back end of the Canadian,

you know, vanguard of the drone era. So there's five of them. And so I'm going to quickly run through them because they're interesting. Here's one. One of the ways drones are being used today. Some of them in

our country. To deliver medical supplies. Drones will deliver medical supplies to the Stelton First Nation, thanks to a partnership with UBC, University of British Columbia's Faculty of Medicine. The pilot project will serve the remote indigenous community, which is about 100 kilometers west of Prince George in northern British Columbia.

So they're actually using drones, they're sending them out with medical supplies attached to them and taking them straight to the Stelton First Nation. Here's number two, to watch the waters off Nunavut. Starting in 2023, the waters off Nunavut and of Nunavut will be surveyed for oil spills and marine habitats. Shipping will be monitored and ice cover will be monitored. Thanks to a new drone purchase as part of us showing that, you know, we believe that the Arctic is ours, our portion of it,

and we're going to show some sovereignty by doing things like this. And this is moving drones around different areas of Nunavut. And, you know, look at a map. We talk about Nunavut, but we don't really realize until you look at a map of just how much territory we're talking about. So I don't know how many drones they got. One is not going to do the trick, I'll tell you that. But it's a start, right?

They're going to be surveying oil spills and marine habitats. They're going to be surveying oil spills and marine habitats. They're going to monitor shipping, and they're going to keep a close eye on ice cover, where it's receding, at which it's doing at a tremendous rate. To feed koalas, the WWF in Australia, the World Wildlife Federation, is testing specialized seed dispersing drones to plant koala food trees, create wildlife corridors.

Some drone models can dispense 40,000 seeds a day. To monitor illegal fishing operations. In Australia, they're looking at the possibility of using unmanned aerial vehicle technology, the UAVs as they call them, as a cost-effective alternative to traditional surveillance methods that involve using manned surveillance flights, as well as a way to ensure any prohibited activities, are not missed. And here's the fifth and final one of new ways that drones are being used to contribute to our society. In Lindsay, Ontario, a drone operator helped find tracks in the snow which ultimately allowed emergency officials to follow in the footsteps of an elderly man who had gone missing

now there's a nice story right elderly man you know you read these stories you hear these stories every once in a while about one of our seniors who, you know, went off, usually in the evening for a walk or something, and got, you know, for any variety of different reasons, didn't realize where he was going or why even, and got lost. Here we have a drone picking up the tracks in the snow, finding him before anything bad happened. So five interesting ways drones are being used, and thanks to the Royal Canadian Geographical Society for that one Which took me back To that day in Afghanistan and watching that old

That old thing Spareware going up and crashing down In a controlled crash that snapped off the wooden propeller. And that one particular case that I witnessed, that prop's now sitting in my office, or part of it is. And ends up telling a good story. At least, I enjoyed it. All right. I've mentioned a number of times on this podcast that I sit on a number of boards. Now, don't get the wrong image. It's not like a bank or a big energy company or one of these places where board members make all kinds of money and fly

around in private jets and do all that. I'm not on any board like that. Most of the boards I'm on are related in some form to charities or causes. And there is no financial reward for sitting on the board. They at times will cover a limited amount of expenses if there are expenses involved but in the last year that's not happened much because everything's done on zoom um so not that we don't sit there occasionally say hey where's our jet because it's usually a common joke at some of these anyway i sit on a number of boards and you know you tend to make um decisions obviously that or give recommendations that impact the cause that you are a member of the board for.

And the other day I was in one of our board meetings for a certain cause, and one of the things we were talking about was this sort of post-pandemic, not just work ethic, but work methods, especially for the permanent staff involved in that cause and where they were going to work. Were they going to continue to work from home or were they going to come into the office? Was it going to be a mix of both?

How did the actual staff members feel about it? Because some, as you've heard, love this idea of working from home and feel they're more even productive from working from home, but they don't all feel that way. Some feel the absolute opposite. So it's trying to find what the right mix is and whether there is a mix possible in the future for some job areas. And I raise this because I noticed this week a story in the Toronto Star about the decisions being made at a number of Canadian news outlets to close their offices.

Not end their work in whatever community it might be, but to close the office and have the staff work from home on a permanent basis. And the kind of debate that's going on at boards that govern some of these news agencies and by the staff themselves. Now, the Toronto Star is up front in telling this story that they plan to permanently close the physical offices space for the Waterloo Region Record, which they own, the St. Catherine's Standard, which they own, by the end of next month, end of April. As the news media follows industries such as technology that have embraced remote work as a permanent default. All staff at those two news outlets will work remotely on a permanent basis following the same model as the Peterborough Examiner, which closed its offices last summer after the pandemic forced staff to work from home and avoid spreading the virus. No changes to the headcount in any of these or the print and digital products

as a result of the office closures, which allows the company to reduce office space leasing costs. And this is a big issue, and it goes beyond just news agencies. It's one of the things that came up in our discussion the other day about the particular cause that we were sitting in the board for, which was cost, leasing costs.

And was there a legitimate saving there in pulling back in terms of the amount of space we needed versus the arguments for having a staff that was together in one room, in one area. So these decisions that the Toronto Star and others are making have resulted in some debate. As the Star points out, recent journalism school graduates found that almost 57% of the 122 respondents said that it was either more difficult or much more difficult than normal to interact with co-workers under pandemic conditions, according to a study conducted by Carleton University Journalism School and the University of King's College. However, all the respondents also said that journalists were able to continue doing their jobs during the pandemic.

And effectively. Now, not everybody obviously agrees with that. So what's the background here? December data suggests that 38 Canadian news outlets closed between the start of the pandemic and December 1st of last year. Compton, this is one of the profs, said he also worries that remote work will make it more difficult for journalists to organize unions, not being able to meet over desk, over a desk, swap ideas and hone a craft leads to a weaker newsroom. No question about that.

And I agree with that. When I think back through my time in the business, if I'd only ever operated from home and never had, in spite of Zoom meetings or phone meetings, never had the opportunity to stand over my desk or somebody else's desk and discuss and debate the merits of certain stories, I would be much poorer for the experience and much less of a journalist. It is part of the interaction that's needed. Another one of the profs, one from Quebec City,

noted that the longer-term trend of newsrooms moving to smaller, more suburban offices has its downside. Even before the pandemic, some journalists found themselves working out of their cars in between interviews and paying for more expenses out of pocket as their deaths were eliminated or shared with other colleagues. Freelancers and others with more precarious employment often shoulder the burden of reduced support and stability.

Now, those studying this situation say it's likely too soon to speculate on how the quality of news or the perception of news audiences will be affected by the lack of physical newsrooms, but there are concerns. For example, a work-from-home arrangement is more likely to favor workers who have more room and privacy at home. A journalist experiencing harassment online or struggling with mental health may also find it harder to reach out or report a toxic work environment. You know, a professor at the University of British Columbia, Alfred Hermita, now I know Alfred, I've worked with him in the past, He wrote a great book about the new technology in journalism. I think it was an award winner for the National Business Book Award

that I chair the jury on. Anyway, Alfred says news organizations are taking a risk by eliminating the newsrooms. But there's also an opportunity. As mobile technology becomes lighter and more advanced, journalists are increasingly able to do more in the field with less equipment. That's correct. That's for sure. Hermita said that rather than just assign more work,

publishers should allow workers to take more time to go out and embed themselves in their local neighborhoods. That's a good point. There's a risk here, he says, that the signal being sent to these communities is, we don't care enough about you to have a symbolic presence in your town. That's from closing offices. I don't think that's the message intended, but there's a risk that could be read as,

by not having a physical presence in that town, in that city, that you're not committed to covering that community. So that's just some of the decision making that's going on within news operations that are, you know, they're all faced with budget issues right now, especially in the print media. And they're trying to find ways to save money this is an opportunity to do that but it comes at some cost if you ignore the downside so nobody making blanket decisions here in terms of this is good or bad overall for journalism but you can see the discussion is clearly underway and in some cases it's moved to the point, as we just read at the top of this, where they're closing down the physical presence in a community, but not the journalistic one. But you worry about that, don't you?

As we should. Okay. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, digital passports. All right, then, digital passports. You've heard this, I'm'm sure in the last little while as you know everybody from airlines to uh you know big box stores to well you name it hotels whatever how do you get in the front door what do you need to show to get in the front door beyond just wearing a mask or double masking and keeping socially distant from others.

Well, the big issue now is becoming, and it's going to be an interesting discussion, especially for air travelers, will be digital passports. In other words, what can you load into your smartphone that you can hold up when you get into one of these areas to show that, hey, you don't have COVID because here's a copy of my recent test and I'm negative. Or here's a copy of my vaccine certificate. I told you I got vaccinated almost a week ago now, last Saturday.

And when you do that, as many of you know who have been, they'll give you, well, two things. I got it done at a pharmacy, so you get the regular kind of pharmacy slip that you would get, you know, if you're able to claim drug expenses, you get a slip showing that you had this vaccine and it costs, in this case, nothing because it's paid for by the government. But it looks like a very official kind of slip.

And so I, you know, I took it. It's about the size, a little bigger than a credit card. And I, you know, I cut it out and I you know put a cardboard backing on it and put a wrap on it and put it in my wallet as if it was like a credit card because I know somebody at some point is going to ask for proof that I've been vaccinated and that's one era area that I can use now there's also the government sends you within literally within minutes of your vaccine having taken place because the shot taking place because it's registered, in this case, by the pharmacy with the government. The government sends you basically a receipt and a statement that you've had your first shot, in my case. And that is your real proof so you take a picture that you put it in your smartphone and you know app developers are coming

out with basically you know digital wallets of some kind that you can put certain things in to show your passport, your vaccine, your latest COVID test, if you've had one, or whatever it may be, that is going to get you through certain areas. And in some cases, it may become required, especially for international travel, that you have some form of digital passport, whether the records of all these things. And that becomes the discussion point. Is this something that can lead to, you know, an invasion of privacy.

The circulation of personal data on you that you don't necessarily want out there in the wide world. Well, you know, right now, I mean, I was looking at a, where is this article from? It was actually from NBC News. And as they say, all travelers who want to fly to the U.S. are required to present proof of negative COVID-19 tests. For now, proof takes the form of a printout of a test result or a photo of the result, creating opportunities for misunderstandings or potential fraud.

Newly launched digital initiatives hope to clear up any ambiguity, standardize information, and share the information securely. And a number of airlines are looking at something that will kick in at the end of this month. It's called a travel pass, and it's going to be an app and you know i tried to find it on my you know app finder and it's not there yet but apparently it will be by the end of march international travel is likely to be the first industry to use new digital passports one of the first flights to trial a new digital passport embedded with vaccination information and test results,

took off last Thursday, a week ago today, a Qatar Airways flight from Doha to Istanbul. Flyers log into the Travel Pass app using Face ID on their smartphones, then take selfies to authorize access. They can then scan their passports using the cameras on the phones. From there, passengers can add their itineraries, vaccination certificates, and COVID-19 test results. So look, that's a lot of personal data and information you're putting in there.

And, you know, some people are worried about where all that may lead in terms of the circulation of your information. The authorities are saying, you know, this stuff needs to be private. The data should be secure. The access to it should be free. It should be available both digitally and in paper and in multiple languages, and it should be open sourced. While privacy and human rights advocates are concerned that requiring a digital vaccination passport could create an unfair two-tier system,

those who have easy access to them and to vaccines and those who don't. Vaccine passports carry the danger of creating inequity and false assurances of public safety, says Nida Farahani, a professor of law and philosophy at Duke University in the U.S. And Liberty, the U.K.'s largest civil liberties organization, warned in a statement it's impossible to have immunity passports which do not result in human rights abuses. So this is yet another one of the debates that's going to take place as we ease our way out, or as the Prime Minister said yesterday in the interview on SiriusXM, as he said, we are emerging from the darkness. Not there yet.

I loved his example of, it's like a horror movie where you think, oh my God, this is finally over. When wham, something else hits right near the end of the movie. And he equated the issue with the variants now that are being fought from coast to coast to coast in this country as that final wham.

If we can get through that, we just may be out of the darkness. But as we get out of the darkness, things like this, digital passports are going to become the out of the darkness. But as we get out of the darkness, things like this, digital passports, are going to become the way of the future. And we've got to make sure they're done safely and appropriately and not in a way that abuses one's rights. Okay, that wraps her up for this Thursday,

the potpourri edition of The Bridge. Tomorrow, it's the weekend special. Lots to talk about. Look at your mail, and you've already written a lot this week, but if you want to get in on the action for tomorrow's show, get something to me today. You may want to talk about what the Prime Minister had to say. You may want to talk about any of the things we heard about here.

The continuing issue, and that's a big one. There are a lot of mail on it about teachers and vaccines, students and vaccines. There's a very interesting discussion that's in your letters here about this. You're not all of one opinion, but you are all extremely thoughtful on it, as you always are every week. I just, I love reading your letters. Please remember, not just your name, but your location. Where are you writing from? And you write to themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com,

themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. That's it for today. Thanks so much for listening. I'm Peter Mansbridge. We'll talk to you again in 24 hours. Thank you.