The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Ask Me Anything -- And, The Random Ranter

Episode Date: January 15, 2026

We've never tried this before and it's a legitimate question to ask, why not? We've never had so many entries and we are likely to have enough for two or three weeks of Thursdays! Plus the Random Ranter makes his first rant of 2026 and the target is a familiar one -- Donald Trump. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's Thursday. Normally your turn. It's still kind of your turn, but it's your turn with a twist. Ask me anything. That's coming right up, along with the random renter, right here on the bridge. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here,

kind of an exciting day here for this Thursday on the bridge, because we're doing things a little bit differently. Today is going to be an Ask Me Anything day. We haven't really had one of these in the five or six years that the bridge has been on the air. And therefore, not surprisingly, there have been an enormous number of suggestions, questions, for Ask Me Anything this week. We just decided on Monday to do this. And as a result, you've flooded the zone with all kinds of questions. questions.

I'm going to get to them in a second, but just to let you know, there have been two or three times more than we needed, at least. So we're going to stretch this into next week as well. So if you don't hear your question, if in fact you made the cut, it still could be next week that it comes up. As I said, there are so many of them that came in. for this week. And I appreciate that. And I'll try my best to answer as well as I can. I have not included questions that were, I guess, it's a, you know, deeply personal. Some beyond personal

to, I don't know, just not very nice. So they're not being in either. But your general questions are definitely here. Let's get right at it. And we start with one of our international listeners. Jonathan Young is in Brussels, Belgium. He's originally from Nova Scotia. A lot of Canadians who are living overseas. Listen to the bridge.

It's their connection to what's going on here. And it's great to hear from them. So Jonathan writes this. Today I met some former students who are studying journalism in university. given the media landscape in 2026, my question to you is, what one piece of advice would you give to young journalists today? It's a good question. It's one I often get asked.

And I want you to know that I'm no longer active in day-to-day news programming, right? The bridge is a great vehicle for discussions about current affairs, and public policy and you name it and we try to do as best we can. But it's not a newscast, right? So on day-to-day journalism, I've been out of it for almost eight years now. So let's keep that in mind

in the answers you're hearing today. And I certainly haven't been working for the CBC for the past eight years. A couple of documentaries that I did, more than a couple, actually, I think four or five. But no direct. connection to the CBC anymore. I'm on my own. So your question, what one piece of advice? Well, you know, to tell you the truth, it's not easy to encourage a young person to go into

journalism today, even though I loved it for many years and still love it. The truth is that there are fewer places to practice good journalism today, and even fewer where you might be able to settle in and, you know, be financially secure no matter how good your work might be. Newsrooms are increasingly reluctant to hire full-time employees. Instead, they want to take on freelancers who probably won't be given the same kind of benefits. Not probably, but definitely won't be given the same kind of benefits that the full-time employees have. All that said, one piece of advice I'd give is to enter journalism, you know, for the right reasons, because you believe in its purpose, because you believe it has an important place in democracy, because you believe

an informed citizenry is vital, vital. Michael Williamson in Burlington, Ontario, I have a question about your cabin in Quebec. Do you still have it? Do you still get to it? Who did you get to help you design and build it? You know, I bought the land in, I think it was 1981. And it was kind of 82 or 83 that a fellow, a great guy, a fellow by the name of Ron Nadeau in Baltimore, Quebec, was starting a career as a builder of log cabins. the conventional way.

Basically by hand, we constructed my place without any electrical help initially. It was all done by hand and rope and pulley and all that. But we designed it on the back of a cigarette package. I was a smoker back in the day and we drew it on the back of a cigarette package

and that's how we move forward. There was an old lumber mill up in that area that was going out of business, and we bought all the logs. I no longer own it. I sold it two years ago to my good friend and bridge contributor, Rob Russo, because I just didn't get to Ottawa as much anymore.

My kids still use it. We worked out a good deal on a time that they could use it each summer. I'll get up there hopefully this year. I never got up there last year. It was a crazy year. But a fantastic location and fantastic place. So it's now under the care and guidance of Rob. Mark Renick in Guelph, Ontario.

Have you planned a trip to the South Pole? I seem to remember it is a place you have not been to. No, you're quite correct. I have not been to the South Pole. I have not been to Antarctica. It's the one continent, and I haven't been to. I'm 77. I'm not sure if I'll ever get there, but I'm certainly hoping to. I'd like to complete the circuit and say I've been to all seven continents. So we'll see. Robert McMillan and Hope River Prince Edward Island. I feel political voices are polarizing in Canada. In my opinion, this is a tragic.

mistake. Would you consider this year inviting conservative voices to your platform to act as a balance to discussions around the myriad of political topics you present each week? Once again, let me remind you, this is not a newscast. I'm not looking for, you know, absolute balance on things. I'm looking for what is I consider. I consider. smart political analysis from people who have a variety of backgrounds, which is the case. But if you're looking for straight up, you know, liberal conservative views,

which are the two dominant views in the country, at this point, certainly the two dominant views in Parliament at this point. Moore-Butz conversation, you know, like you want a conservative voice, James Moore is a former Stephen Harper Cabinet Minister. He's on every second Tuesday, along with Jerry Butts. And they are fantastic.

You know why? Because they check their partisanship at the door. You know, I did enough of those kind of canned and sometimes corny political panels where you've got one person from each party. and they echo their talking points. And I don't find those of any value at all. I didn't when I did them and I don't now. But I do value smart analysis by people who have been there,

who have been in the position, to either cover stories on a big way like Chantelle or someone like Bruce Anderson, who has worked for and advised prime ministers of both conservative and liberal stripe is friendly with MPs in all caucuses and is one of the country's best pollsters and analysts. So that's the way I go.

I'm looking for people who understand the system who understand what's going on and are connected. so that's my hope for the way we cover things. But once again, we're not a newscast, not obligated to fit any particular pattern. Andre Sandu in Comoka, Ontario, that's just west of London. Looking back at your career,

what's one piece of advice that shape your view of the world? Who provided that advice, and why was it meaningful? well, my understanding of, you know, of how my view has been shaped about the world. It comes from years of experience talking with people like Janice Stein, who I've talked to since the 1980s and who I rely on now to help me understand the world that we live in and the changing nature of it. And I, you know, my view is shaped by the understanding that it's a big world out there. There are many different views.

There are many different arguments. And you've got to listen to them all before you can make up your own mind in terms of your view of the world. But if I had to rank one person, you know, which is, you know, which is, difficult because my view has been shaped by lots of conversations with lots of people over many years. But he asked me one, it's Janice. You know, she's not on Mondays because I suddenly saw her name somewhere. She's on Mondays because I've known her for 40 years. And what I love about her is she doesn't always pretend to be right.

She gives her view based on years of experience. understanding and study, and we're left to think about it to determine whether we think that's the right view or not. Greg Rogers in Toronto, what's your personal favorite moment in Canadian sport and why? Well, you tend in sports to go back to the last big moment, you know, the Blue Jays in 2025, are fantastic.

And there's every hope they're going to be fantastic again this year. And that was such a, you know, a couple of outs away from winning the World Series. I mean, that was a moment. And I'm old enough to remember the last time the Leafs won the Stanley Cup. That was a moment. But I guess it was 72. You know, for me, 72, the Canada Russia hockey series, the first one. the dramatic Paul Henderson goal

in the last seconds of the third period of game 8 to give Canada the win in that series. And it changed everything about the way we see hockey. Up until the first game, we believe we would crush Russia. You know, they'd never played the pros. They'd never played the NHL. And here we were, you know, Phil Esposito

and all those guys. Man, what a shock that was. I'm trying to remember, I think we jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first couple of minutes, and we thought, oh, my God, this is going to be like 15-0. And then steadily, the Russians came back, the Soviets, as we called them then. And they won that first game, convincingly, and it changed everything about hockey in Canada.

and hockey in general. So I guess 72, the 72 hockey series. Ken Pellyshawk in Newstad, Ontario. I've been watching a lot of YouTube content from ex-CBC radio host Todd Maffin. Good guy, Todd. He claims there's something called the CBC Triangle. When there's a guest in a two box,

that's when you're looking at your screen, you see two boxes there with somebody in each one of them. When they're not talking, they're told to look from top right, wait a few seconds, top left a few seconds, and center, bottom, and repeat. According to Todd, that's the CBC triangle, and it makes guests look more engaged. Is this real? I'll be honest.

I got a lot of respect for Todd, but I've never heard of that. Never. And how many of those interviews have I done over time? I never heard of it. Never asked a guest to do it. But I have no idea if someone somewhere has dreamed this idea up in the eight years since I've been there and figures it's a good way of doing stuff. Ron and Sandra Stevens in Whitby, Ontario.

Will there be a world war this year the way things are going? How can Canada stop Trump from taking over Greenland? You know, far be it from me to predict a world war. there will be another one at some point. I can remember doing a documentary on this, The Future of War, just a couple of years ago, did it for the CBC. And one of the leading experts I talked to from Harvard University

said the chances of another future world war were increasing almost daily. And he said that war would be with China and it would be initiated over Taiwan. Now, I think that was before. for Donald Trump. Well, not before, in between the Donald Trump era.

Who knows what he'd do if China invaded Taiwan. He might just do what he's done with Ukraine and say, I'm not going to get too involved in this. How can Canada stop Greenland? Listen to the random rancher. We had hints of it

in the last 24 hours of how Canada could be involved. That hasn't been finalized yet. I mean, number of countries are going to send troops to Greenland and NATO countries. But at the moment, Canada is not in that list. There's been suggestions it is, but it appears this morning that it isn't yet. Larry Russo in Ottawa, what would you do personally if the U.S. violated Canadian sovereignty,

invasion, cyber, whatever? What would I personally do? I would do what my government asked me to do. I believe our sovereignty is important, and we shouldn't waver one second on that. Ronald McGillis in Ottawa. Have you ever seriously considered or been approached to run for political office or consult or advise a government? Many times.

You know, I've said, and I've said before, I've been approached by the three conventional parties, liberals, conservatives, NDP, at different times during my career to run for office either federally or provincially. I've always said no. And I'm not tied to any party. It wasn't when I worked the CBC and certainly not now. I have, you know, deep connections in all parties, obviously from doing the job I do. But I've never felt I was the right kind of person to run for political office.

Tom Farlow in Woodstock, Ontario, that's near London. Did you ever have an opportunity or were tempted to move to the U.S.? Lots of Canadian broadcasters have? For your information, I'm very happy that you stayed here. Yes, I have, and I've written about it and talked about it, by a couple of the U.S. networks, NBC and CBS. Correspondence jobs in different parts of the world, or in 1987, I was offered a top anchor position at CBS.

I chose to stay in Canada for a number of reasons. You know, people accuse me of wearing a Canadian flag for underwear. That was never the case. But I did believe and still do in the concept of a national public broadcaster and the CBC, you know, plucked me out of nowhere when they hired me in Churchill, Manitoba in 1968. And I felt a certain dedication and responsibility to stay with the CBC. And that was part of it. although there was a moment where I had decided to leave the CBC and join CBS

as the anchor of their morning program. But in the end, I decided against it. Don't hold anything against those who've gone. Some great friends of mine work for the American networks. And I've stayed in contact over the years. Carolyn Black in Waterloo, Ontario. What's the latest book you've read or listened to? And would you recommend it?

You know, I'm a history buff. I tend to read history. I just got a book this week that I bought it on the auction in the UK. Let me just pick it up here. Hold on a second. I've got to get up to get it. It's part of a series that was done after the first war. It's called a People's War book and Atlas, which I've just started to read.

It's dense. It's going to take a while. But the reason I bought it at the auction, because this one, this one is signed by and includes a page on one of my heroes. Billy Bishop, it's great. To see Billy Bishop's actual signature on the inside pages of this book is an exciting moment for me. The last book before this,

I just finished reading a biography on Guy Gibson. who was the wing commander for the RAF, the lead pilot on the Dam Busters raid. And I did that because at another auction last year, I was the successful bidder on what appears to be. It's one of these things from an auction where you don't know with 100% certainty, but it appears to have been Guy Gibson's cigarette case. so you can see I'm a bit of a buff and I'm also reading at the moment

just about to finish actually Andrew Ross Sarkin's book on the 1999 stock market crash and it's incredible in its detail and worth reading right now I got to tell you okay you know as I told you a lot of letters here never going to get through the ones that we had hoped to get through today.

But I'll get through as many as I can if I stop rambling. Anurag Joshi writes this letter, and he's in Vaughn, Ontario, that's north of Toronto. After a career spent during the one game at a time cliches of top athletes, which athlete was actually the most memorable to meet in the flush, whether you were bumping into them on the street of which, Whistler during the Olympics or sitting across from them for a proper one-on-one, was there anyone who impressed you enough to make you forget the day's headlines?

You know, as I was growing up in Ottawa, I used to go and watch the Ottawa Rough Riders practice, the CFL team, back when they were called the Rough Riders. And this was 1960. they had two quarterbacks, Russ Jackson and Ronnie Lancaster. And Ronnie Lancaster was my hero. And I was devastated when they traded him to Saskatchewan.

And part of the deal was you can never trade him back to the Eastern Conference. You have to keep him there. And I think they sold them for like 500 bucks. And he turned into one of the greatest CFL quarterbacks of all time. He was my hero. And sure enough, by the mid-1970s when Ron Lancaster was retiring, I was the nationalist correspondent in Saskatchewan by then. And I got to interview him.

And I was all nervous about going over to Ronnie's home. Interviewed him. We became friends. He joined the CBC after his playing career and was a great commentator. Sadly, he's passed away now. But nice guy. but probably, you know, Bobby Orr is a friend of mine. And I know there's controversy around Bobby Orr because of his association with Donald Trump

and he and I have good arguments about that. But in my view, quite possibly the greatest hockey player to ever play the game. And an incredibly nice person. Aside from his Trump association. He cares about his friends And he's constantly connecting with them To make sure they're okay This is a guy who's not had an easy time

But good man, good friend Okay, we're going to take a break I'll try and speed things up a bit Although this is great I love doing these It's been good fun We're random ranters standing by. He's got some words about Donald Trump.

And we'll hear those right after this. And welcome back. Peter Mansperch here for The Bridge. It's your Thursday episode, and this one is an Ask Me Anything, and I'm plodding along here, slowly getting through some of these questions. But we want to take our normal break. You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 167,

Canada Talks are on your favorite. podcast platform. We want to take our break for the random ranter. We missed him last week, first one of 2026 when he had the flu. But this week he's back with his first of the year. And as always, it's a good one. So why don't we...

Where is my... There it is. Here we go. The Random Ranter is first for 2026. Between Venezuela, the Dunrow Doctrine, and the invasion of Minnesota by masked federal thugs, I think it's pretty fair to say that the descent into darkness for Donald Trump's America is nearing completion.

In just a year, they've gone from trusted ally and trade partner to wildcard menace, and the largest direct threat to our nation's existence ever. I know it's hard to comprehend for some people as they blissfully watch their NFL football and reality TV, but it's the truth, and it's being discussed by serious minds in the halls of power around the globe. Now, as far as I'm concerned, the time for waiting things out is over. I mean, elbows up are one thing, but it's time to drop the gloves now, and nothing should be off the table, not economic sanctions, not coalition governments, and not military responses.

I don't think it can be stressed enough. The fate of Greenland represents an existential threat to Canadian sovereignty. Letting it fall into American hands will all but assure we end up a vassal state, if not the 51st state. Now, I know a lot of people out there are afraid of standing up to Trump and drawing his ire. But let's face it, laying low and blowing smoke up his butt isn't working. At best, it's delaying the inevitable. At its worst, it's playing into Trump's death by a thousand cuts timeline. Like every bully, Trump is relying on winning through intimidation.

He only punches when he thinks he can't be punched back. The longer we wait to truly confront him, the longer he has to stack the deck against us. I mean, are we supposed to let him have Greenland so he can completely ham in the Northwest Passage? Are we supposed to wait until he guts our industrial base and, brings us to our knees economically? Are we supposed to wait until he actively interferes in an Alberta referendum? We can't let him continue to ragdoll all the fight out of us. We need to start punching back while we still can. But what can we do in the face of American might? Well, for starters, we're on the right track with yesterday's announcement that we're joining with our European allies

and sending troops to Greenland. Now, I'm not saying Greenland is defensible. I'm saying the United States needs to know in no uncertain terms that if they mess around in Greenland, then NATO is done. And with it, all the lucrative contracts for U.S. ordinance. I mean, given the events of 2026 thus far, why are we even debating the Gripen versus the F-35? Let's just get ahead of things, cancel those American jets, and then let's lobby all of NATO to start canceling their orders too. I know one NATO partner that should be pretty easy to convince, Denmark. On the economic front, we need to give up on Kuzma.

It's a losing proposition at this point. Trump has laid his game bare. There's no negotiating in the Donroe doctrine. There's dictating what you want and then going back on your word the moment it becomes convenient. Look, I understand there's not a tremendous upside to fighting back against Trump. It's not without risk and it's not without pain. But as anyone who's ever been in a real fight can tell you, it can hurt to deliver a punch. But that said, we need to start punching anyways.

It's time for export taxes. It's time to start restricting the amount of tungsten we sell to the U.S. defense industry. The amount of potash we sell to American farmers and the amount of critical minerals we supply to Silicon Valley. I'm not talking about complete bans. I'm talking about disrupting the supply chains just enough to raise costs for Americans. We need to stop playing nice and start playing hard. There's an affordability crisis in the states too. We should be looking to exasperate that wherever possible.

Because the only people who can stop this are the Americans themselves. But currently, there are more boots on the ground in Minnesota than there are in Venezuela. America is in the grips of madness. They shot a woman in the face, cursed her out, denied her medical attention, and then because they were so proud of their cruelty, they unabashedly released the tape for all the world to see. Yet a huge swath of America remains nonplussed.

I mean, where is the grassroots surge of protests we saw with George Floyd? It's like Americans have given up and resigned themselves to a despot who plays a diplomacy the same way most people play at the board game risk. Might is only right in the absence of morality. Hoping the situation somehow returns to normal is not a plan and waiting to act makes us weaker by the day. It's time we accept the situation for what it is and start fighting back like our existence depends on it. Because in my opinion, it does. Not holding back, our friend the random renter.

And just a quick clarification. It's still not clear this morning Whether Canada is going to take part in this Collection of different countries Who are going to Greenland with military representation It was announced that Canada was a part of it And then Canadian officials have said not yet Or at least we haven't made a decision

So we'll see How that As we record this on Thursday morning, it does not appear that Canada has signed on, but that may change as the day progresses. So there you go. All right. Moving on with our questions on this. Ask Me Anything episode.

And, you know, if you sent stuff in, don't hear your letter. Don't worry. We very well may get to it. Next week or even the week after, we have a lot. lot. This is a, you know, we connected with this idea. I mean, it's not original. Ask me anything's happened all over the place. But it's the first time we've done it. And I love your questions. Here's one from Ian Hebbelswayton, in Moncton, New Brunswick. The other thing is Ian's been a regular, but there are tons of new writers. And you're hearing some of them

during the program, and you'll hear more next week and maybe even the week after. Ian writes, the question I would like to ask is, why can the CBC not make money? CTV makes money, global makes money. Why does CBC not? Actually, that's pretty easy, even though I'm not a spokesperson for the CBC. I haven't worked there for years. And I don't want the answer to seem like a series of excuses. But here's the general answer to this question.

The easiest way to make money in Canadian television is to run American programs. There's an old analogy that says, you know, you put $1 into a machine that buys U.S. programs and $2 comes out the other end with no added value from CTV and global. They buy, and I'm not blaming them. You know, they owe things to their shareholders and the shareholders want to make money and they're making money. They buy a lot of U.S. programming. CBC buys none. Instead, CBC Prime Time is all Canadian, including an hour of news and current affairs, the national.

Is that programming good? Well, maybe it is, maybe it isn't. It's your decision to think one way or the other on that. But if it isn't as good as American programming, some of that may be because the budget for a Canadian TV program is usually a tiny fraction of the budget out of an American program. An episode, here's an example. you know, an episode of Law and Order,

which is not one of the more expensive series, still costs about $5 to $6 million. An episode of Murdoch Mysteries cost about $1 million. CBC Radio has no commercial, so every minute it's on the air is a money loser. Plus, CBC serves more remote areas of the country, like our north, much more extensively than the private networks. So that's where the answer to your question

Ian begins. Tom Coshan in Wouldby, Ontario. What's the most patriotic event that you attended as either a broadcaster or as a proud Canadian? You know, I've been lucky. I've been to many, many events that were patriotic Canadian moments, both at home and abroad. The ones that touch me best, you heard me talking about my fascination with history

and especially Canadian history. When you've been on the beaches of Normandy, a Juneau Beach, where the Canadians landed in June of 1944, you can't help but be gripped by that moment in that location. So I'd probably say that, Juneau Beach. I'd say Vimy Ridge. I'd say Appledorn in the Netherlands, where Canadians are thought of, constantly for their work in the liberation of the Netherlands in 1945. And the parades I've attended in Appledorn, thanking Canadians, are extremely emotional.

Dane Stewart, I love this one. I love this letter. Dane is in Montreal. The instructions are you can only pick one. lobster dinner in Halifax, smoked meat platter in Montreal, parochies with extra sour cream in Saskatoon, a bison burger in Calgary,

or a sushi platter in Vancouver. Which one are you choosing and why? You know, I've done all of those. I have loved all of those. I would wish I could do. any one of those today. But that's not your question. Your question is, which one would

you pick? Oh, this is hard. This is really hard. I picked a lobster dinner in Halifax. You know, Parogeys in Saskatoon has a close second. They're all

a close second. But I'm a lobster guy. Lobster Pete, is my nickname. All right. Moving on, James McDonald. Man, looking at that, I can smell Schwartz's in Montreal.

Smoke meat platter. Yeah, man. Moving on, James McDonald in Surrey, BC. I have a basic question for you that has been really bugging me. It makes me very sad to see such a lack of decorum

in the operations of political systems. Why has uncivilized behavior become so popular. I don't know. Maybe because it works. Pierre Poliyev spent a lot of years taking swipes of Justin Trudeau and was 25 points ahead in the polls.

Donald Trump has been Donald Trump and has won the presidency twice. Plus negativity is a good way to raise money with your base. And that's worked in both countries for those who I just mentioned. Anthony Jackson in Quebec, city.

In all of your time working for CBC, I'm curious if there is a moment that stands out as the most shocking. It could be shocking because polls were wrong, but ideally this is a moment on an election night that made you really say, whoa, that's out of nowhere. I don't know, the 1995 Quebec referendum. We knew it was going to be close, but we didn't know it was going to be that close. Kim Campbell's conservatives, winning only two seats, was shocking. That was 1993. The liberals wanting to dump John Turner in the middle of an election campaign.

It wasn't an election night story, but a campaign story that was pretty shocking. And I was in the middle of that one because I was the one who broke the story with the help of colleagues, especially in the Ottawa Bureau. broke that story and it took a lot of heat. People saying, ah, it wasn't true and there's no proof of. And there's still somebody, you know, there was a book last year or the year before saying it wasn't true. Sorry, it was true. And if you're going to write a story that suggests it's not true, you might want to talk to me.

Callum Arnold in Guelph, Ontario. at a time when national identity and introspection have never been more important, I'm curious what insights you have on one way Canadians have remained the same as they were at the beginning of your career and a way in which they are now different. Hmm. You know, that's a deep question. What is the same? Well, what people care has probably never changed.

They want to be able to make a reasonable living. so they can raise their family and offer greater opportunity for their kids than they may have had. What's different? There's definitely a strain of coarseness that has entered the country. The so-called Freedom Convoy was probably the best example of that. We've had plenty of protests in our country in the past, some of them violent. But the convoy was something we have never seen before,

not just aimed at politicians, but at fellow Canadians. Josh Winters in Surrey, BC. This is one of the reasons we're not getting a lot of letters read here because you can't give the answer in one line. Josh writes, how does an episode of the National get made from start to finish? How does an editorial meeting work? Who decides what story goes where in the lineup and how much time does each story get?

Okay, this changes every night, and it may well have changed since I was there, but I don't think so. This is generally the way it works. Here's a short summary. First, putting together the National takes a team, even if we focus just on overall editorial decision-making rather than all the smaller decisions made by reporters, camera operators, field producers, tape editors, directors, etc. A fair number of people are involved.

Assignment editors move reporters and camera crews around the country and around the world deciding what stories will be covered. Those are daily stories dependent on what's happening. Other assignment editors might be responsible for feature stories that take longer to plan and produce. Those two elements are called Dayside and Nightside. Nightside is made up of the editors and writers and producers and on most days the anchor, who's also the chief correspondent, who come in later in the day and we'll prepare the final look of tonight's program.

First meeting I had each day was at 9 in the morning. It was by phone, but it was still an important editorial meeting. And I was there until 11, 11.30 at night. And if the story was breaking during the evening, we'd stay there and keep doing it until the final edition in BC. There's a meeting usually in the early after,

where dayside tells nightside what's going on and hands over responsibility for reporters working on tonight's stories. Keep in mind, this is the way it was. I can't say that this is the way it is today. In my time, there was also an earlier phone meeting, as I said, early in the morning at 9 o'clock. The lineup editor is responsible for choosing the stories that make the show and the order they run and the length they run. Those decisions will usually be reached in a continuous conversation with the producer and the anchor and the writers. So it's a consultative approach, but the newsroom is not a democracy. We all like to reach consensus on decisions, and we usually do, but the senior producer breaks any ties.

Pat Ryan in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Who, in your opinion, is the greatest Canadian? CBC ran a show on this in, it was a long time ago now, 2004, and viewers chose Tommy Douglas. But considering the Don Cherry finished 7th and Wayne Gretzky 10th, you can see that the passage of time can change views.

My feeling about the greatest Canadian has always been, well, has always been since the early 80s, Terry Fox. That's who I would place on the top pedestal. And you know why. Luke Wa in Ottawa. Man, we're almost out of time. How do you go about deciding how and when to compensate the contributors to your show?

Some podcasts pay their guests nothing. Others do pay. Can you shed some light on this? Yes, I can. If you're just a guest, a one-off, there is no pay involved. If I'm trying to lock down people committing to a certain amount of time every week, then there is a small compensation.

This is not the CBC. Okay. But we do compensate for regular guests, not the occasional one-off guess. so there you go Michael Artendale in Sudbury, Ontario and this is probably going to be the last one for this week

with all the talk of media being biased as a reporter or any other deliverer of news not opinion pieces how does someone check their biases and just deliver the best quality of news they can hey it's part of the game you check your bias at the door when you decide decide to be a journalist. A top-ranked journalists on a top-rated program would not survive if they were always biased.

Telling the news. I mean, their opinion shows, and you get the opinion that you dial in. But on a news program, that's not what it's for. I mean, that's the job. A professional journalist is dedicated to being fair. That's a key word. we can't magically forget everything we believe in, but we can realize that none of us has everything figured out

and that we are right about everything. We all have our biases. Some biases are actually good. We're biased, for example, in believing that children should be healthy and happy. But no journalist is a blank slate. We come to stories with all the baggage we've gathered every day of our lives. But the best journalists recognize that baggage

and work to try to see the other side of things. things and get that other side into their reporting. The other thing to remember about the best news organizations is that nothing gets to wear or into print without the eyes of someone other than the reporter seeing the story. So now two sets of eyes, or three or four sets are weighing the balance of a story, and if everyone's trying to be fair as they should be, the worst biases should fall to the side. Okay. I've got five or six pages more of Asked me anything questions that I had planned to do today,

but it takes a while to answer these questions. It's not like the regular your turn, or you just read it and move on to the next one. So I'm going to make an executive decision here. We'll keep this going next week. Just based on the letters we've received, so far. I see at least one more week, maybe two more weeks, have asked me anything. I'm also going to listen to you. If you tell me and write to me saying, I love this stuff,

keep it going. We'll definitely keep it going. If you write and say, come on, that's enough, my instinct is you're going to say, keep it going. And if so, we will. Of course, we'll get back. back to the regular your turns at some point, but not yet. Okay. Hey, I'm out of time. Thanks so much for doing this. You've enjoyed it. Glad we tried it.

Tomorrow, Friday, it's a good talk. Bruce and Chantel are all itching to get going. And obviously, the China story is a big one. Things starting to dribble out all. already about the deals that or potential deals that the prime minister's making on his trip to China this week. We'll get at that and other things tomorrow on good talk. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening today. We'll talk to you again in less than 24 hours.