The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Big News For The Bridge, Plus Some End Bits

Episode Date: March 18, 2026

The Bridge is available through SiriusXM, through podcasts and through some episodes are available as well on YouTube. We started in the fall of 2019 and today marks a milestone -- twenty million downloads. We're proud of that number and toot our own horn a bit today because of it. 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 Wednesday. We've got some big news here at the bridge today. I'm going to share it with you in a moment. And we've also got some end bits we're going to share with you as well. That's all coming right up. And hello there.

It's party time here at the bridge. That means here I am sitting alone, talking into my microphone. But looking at some good news and ready to put up. a few balloons, party hats, the whole bit. It's a big day here at the bridge because in the next little while, probably within the next hour, we are going to pass 20 million downloads since the bridge began. Back in 2019, now, I don't know how many of you were with us back then. It was a small select group who were members of the 2019 club of the bridge.

We started during the election campaign of that year. And we weren't on for long, you know, a few weeks. Then we kind of regrouped trying to decide what to do, whether to actually go ahead with a regular podcast, which is what it was at that time. And then Sirius XM came along. the satellite radio network. And they said, we'd love you to be on our program schedule.

And so we worked out a deal, and that's how we started. Serious X-Ms, you can hear it, across North America. And so right away, we had a potential for quite the audience on satellite radio. But then we started the podcast as well that's released at the same time as the program goes there on serious X-M. And that opened up the doors to a whole new potential audience. And podcasts have their own different platforms. I mean, the majority of our listeners access us through the Apple platform.

But next up is Spotify. And then there's a whole range of different platforms, as you well know, because some of you use them, to access podcasts. So the bridge from its humble beginnings back then in 2019 has grown considerably. We do the program now from either Toronto or Stratford or Scotland, where I am for a few months every each year. But we're there with our regular array of programming on a weekly basis from Dr. Stein on Mondays through the Good Talk of, on Fridays. We're there for you.

And we have a good time doing it. Podcasts, as I keep reminding everybody, is not a newscast. Those days are long gone for me. I loved it. I spent 50 years doing programming for the CBC, working for the news network, working for CBC News, working for the national. did it all over 50 years.

Then I planned to sort of disappear and retire, but this came along. So I do this, and I do consulting, and I do a variety of different things, and enjoy every moment of it. But the bridge is, we've developed a little family here. And when I say 20 million downloads since we began,

what does that actually mean? it's really hard to judge or kind of ratings for podcasts but what evidence there is and what information is available about ratings suggests the bridge is doing really well

Apple has rankings that they put out and update daily in terms of which they have all kinds of of different categories, but in the category of political podcasts heard in Canada, the bridge does extremely well. It's usually first, second, or third, every day. And that includes all

the American podcasts, political podcasts that come into Canada as well. And so we're up against some, you know, pretty stiff competition as well as some Canadian podcasts as well. But we're proud of that and over the last few years, I think we've always ranked us the number, you know, the number one or number two Canadian podcast in the Canada rankings of political podcasts. Where are we heard, you know, podcasts as you know, you can download anywhere. And clearly people do. because Apple also puts out for every podcast that it monitors

a list of the top 10 countries that listen to your podcast. So not surprisingly, most of our listeners are in Canada. But not all of them. Next is the United States where over time more than a million people have downloaded the bridge.

The United Kingdom. is number three. Mexico is number four. And I think in most cases here, we're talking about expats, Canadians, who are either visiting these countries or living in these countries.

And we know there's a fair number of Canadians who live in Mexico. Number five, Germany. Number six is down under. It's Australia. Number seven is France. number eight

Japan number nine the Netherlands and number 10 Spain so there you go there's kind of a glimpse of the bridge audience

it's considerable 20 million downloads is a lot of downloads over a period of it's kind of roughly six years and really it's six years without the summers, right? Because I take the summers off.

And looking forward to this one, I'll tell you. But we're still in March, we're still in winter, and we're still pumping out the stuff. And we appreciate the fact that we've reached this milestone today, or kilometer stone, kilometer stone, whatever you want to call it. We've reached it because of you. because of the fact that people enjoy the variety that we put forward on the bridge.

Some days you clearly like more than others. Good talk is the favorite. But you know who's challenged that? And getting awfully close and some weeks actually gets past good talk. But number two is Dr. Janice Stein on Mondays. And rapidly approaching them, are our Tuesday offerings of either more butts like yesterday. If you haven't listened to yesterdays, you should.

It's really good. And Raj Russo, Althea Raj and Rob Russo on Tuesdays. They alternate Tuesdays. And this does pretty well too. Both Wednesdays and Thursdays are nothing to sneeze out. Both of late getting more than 20 million downloads. each day. All right. Enough

pumping the program here. But we're pretty proud of it. And when I say we, it's like me, Mark Wilgoodch, Will Mansbridge. Together we all have a hand in what happens on this program. Okay. Enough of that. Let's get to some end bits. And, you know, I've got a few.

got a few today. And thanks to Mark, because he finds these things. It might have heard last week they've kind of announced that Simon & Schuster, the publisher has put out a word that Mark and I have a new book coming out. I've told you we've got a new book coming out this fall. The details are very small at the moment. a lot about it, but we can tell you that it's called the noble profession.

It'll be out in November. And what's the noble profession we talk about? You're probably thinking, oh, they're going to talk about. We're going to talk about journalism. No, that's no more we're talking about. The noble profession for us in this book is about teachers. teachers.

And I think you're going to see some great stories about teachers in this book. In fact, I know you are. We've gone through the writing is all done. It's now in the final edit. The book cover is being picked. All of that. So we're pretty excited about this, our latest book. Some of you know are some of our other ones that have been.

being instant bestsellers, number one bestsellers for extraordinary Canadians. And our last book, The Way Canada Works, actually proper title is How Canada Works. It's about some particular jobs and the people who do them and how it defines how the country works at all times, even in the difficult times, like right now. But this new book, The Noble Profession, will come out this fall. And obviously, as we get closer to that time, we'll tell you a lot more about it. And Mark will come on the show as he's done under our other books. And we'll talk about how we decided to come up with this book

and get kind of a hint of some of the stories in it. Just a hint. So that's all coming up this fall after the summer break. Okay, let's get to win bits. The first one is, I don't know, it reminds me of life in the 60s when we used to worry about the nuclear threat, you know, in the late 50s, early 60s, and I was going to school, grade school. And, you know, one of the things that were kind of tests and exercises in the classroom

of, you know, diving under the desks. And some people took the threat so seriously, and it was serious, that they built backyard bunkers, that they would hide in for hours, days, weeks, if there was a nuclear explosion of some kind. So this story appeared a couple of days ago in AFP, a Jean-France Pess.

the headline is with Middle East in flames Texan bunker maker sees a business boom so I'll read you a little bit of this it's a long piece but I'm just going to read the headlines on it because it tells us about our times especially our times in the last few weeks so Moises Avila writes this for AFP since the war in the Middle East began nearly

two weeks ago, the phone at Ron Hubbard's bomb shelter company in Texas hasn't stopped ringing. Foreign and U.S. clients are rushing to buy his bunkers, seeking refuge in case of air raids, nuclear fallout, or apocalypsees. Hubbard has seen demand for his product soar, mostly from Gulf Nation clients in Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. You can imagine how many people are thinking, I wish I had a bomb shelter. Hubbard, who's 63, told AFP in the office of his company, Atlas Survival Shelters.

The respect and the demand for the product is really at an all-time high right now, like I've never seen it before. Now, wouldn't he say that anyway? He's selling these things. There's a picture. it almost looks like, you know, one of those great, big moving boxes that they put on your front line, front lawn when you're renovating your house and you're throwing all the garbage in it. Looks like one of those, except all closed in with a door.

Anyway, but with Iranian missiles hitting U.S. targets in the Middle East and violence on the rise domestically, Americans are also worried. one recent morning a client from Florida called Hubbard to inquire about a bomb shelter for 10 people. That's a big bomb shelter. How it works. A basic backyard bunker housing four people underground for up to a week while shielding them from a bomb blasts and radiation costs around $25,000. Now, you know, $25,000 is a lot of money, but it's not a lot of money if you consider that it actually would keep you alive under those conditions.

My guess is people might look at this and go, really? That sounds a little sketchy to me. More sophisticated models designed for years-long stays can cost millions of dollars, depending on how much food, energy, and water they're stocked with. It depends if they're preparing for the end of the world or Armageddon or they're preparing just basically for a barrage of missile fires, as mostly the Israelis have, Hubbard said.

Now, this is something I didn't know, and we're going with Ron Hubbard's word here on this. A nuclear shelter only needs to be three feet deep because it's the earth and the concrete on top of you shielding you from the gamma radiation. Hubbard explained, adding that he usually tries to build them six to ten feet under ground to allow for protection from artillery fire.

The shelters feature a main door that seals her medically and a decontamination chamber where people can shower if they have been in a contaminated environment. Depending on the budget, the interior can resemble a small apartment with a living room and TV, a bedroom, a kitchen, a laundry area, and a bathroom. Some models even include a weapons storage room. I don't know. This seems a little little iffy to me.

Although I can, listen, I can understand the desire some people may have to at least investigate this. We are living in, you know, troubling times. You know, I'll concede this much. Do you recall the early days of the pandemic a few years ago? Well, we really didn't know what was going on. And we were all worried.

There's no doubt about it. A lot of us were afraid. Not everybody, but a lot of us were. There was no vaccine for COVID at that time. People didn't know what to do. They didn't know whether wear a mask, not wear a mask. We got all kinds of conflicting advice on that. We didn't know whether we could safely go out and get groceries.

Now, one thing you need more than anything, is water, right? So the fear was, what if we run out of water? What if water sources become contaminated? So, what did I do?

If I went and I bought those big, big containers of water, and I bought, I don't know, four or five of them, hauled them into the basement. thought if we're, if we could be in for a long time here, we need water. We need water more than anything.

Guess what? They're still sitting there in the basement. Now, I don't know. The water's probably no good anymore, even though it's sealed and closed up. I don't know the answer to that question. But it's still there. Just in case. All right.

Next story. Where are we on time? I'll try and squeeze this one in before we take our break. It's the New York Times. And it too was just the other day. Here's the headline. Why falling cats always seem to land on their feet. Okay, we all know that, right?

We all believe that that's true. that if you drop a cat, it's going to land on its feet. You've known that since you were a kid. And you've probably even tried the odd experiment with that and seen it to be true. So here's how the story by Taylor Mitchell Brown starts in the New York Times. In 1894, the French physiologist Etienne-Jules Marie tried to resolve a particularly vexing question in science. How do cats always seem to land on their feet when they fall? Using that air as rudimentary videos,

Marie was able to definitively illustrate that cats, when dropped from a height, were able to write themselves in the air unaided. The findings shocked the scientific community. But the mystery of how cats ultimately achieve this feat has remained all these years unresolved. In a paper published last month in the journal The Anatomical Record, researchers offered a novel take on falling felines. Their evidence suggests new insights into the so-called falling cat problem,

particularly that cats have a very flexible segment of their spines that allows them to correct their orientation mid-air. Greg Geberer, a physicist and cat-falling expert at the University of North. Now, come on, really? Is that what it says on his door? Is that what his, like, business card says? Cat-falling expert. He's at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Now, he was not involved with the paper,

but he says the study was the first he knew of that explored what the structure of the cat's spine tells us about how a cat turns over while falling. He added that the research uncovered many remarkable details about how cats maneuver while falling. Now, I don't want to go through all the testing because it's kind of... Well, it's not nice because half of it's done with cadavers.

but it all centers on the spine, a cat's spine. Now, people have been curious about falling cats, perhaps as long as the animals have been living with humans, but the method to their acrobatic abilities remains enigmatic. Part of the difficulty is that the anatomy of the cat has not been studied in detail. Explains Yasuo Higarashi, a physiologist at Yamaguchi University in Japan. and he's the lead author of the study. Physicists have tried to model the behavior in relatively simple equations, said Ruslin Believ, a zoologist at the Severzov Institute of Ecology and Evolution in Moscow,

who was not involved in the study, but he added the real cat is anything but simple. This is where it gets a little complicated. I'm not sure how deeply to go into this, but the first, of the two competing models that have been looking at this. The first is legs in, legs out, suggests that cats correct their following trajectory by first extending their hind limbs before retracting them, using a sequential twist of their upper and then lower trunk

to gain the proper posture while in free fall. The second model, tuck and turn, suggests that cats turn their upper and lower bodies in simultaneous juxtaposos, juxtaposed movements. They did a bunch of tests, dropping cats from about three feet up, okay? Only three feet.

But if you've ever had a cat and you've tried this, it's remarkable how quickly they can go from upside down to on their feet. And they can obviously do it in three feet. Now, to prevent injury in these cases, in these tests. They say they place a thick, soft cushion at the landing site, and they had one of the undergrad students do the dropping. Anyways, I said, I'm not going to go too far in all this, but it comes down to an issue of the spine. Experiments on the spine show the upper vertebrae can twist an astounding

360 degrees, which helps cats make these correcting movements with ease. The results also yielded Another discovery, cats, like many animals, appear to have a right-side bias. One of the dropped cats corrected itself by turning to the right eight out of eight times, while the other turned right six out of eight times. Even though the study does not resolve totally the falling cat issue, one of the researchers said it provided insights for physicists on how to adjust their mechanical models and better match to better match the real-life properties of a cat. I don't know.

Why don't they just ask, hey, I'd save a lot of wear and tear on cats, right? Okay. It's time to take our break. When you start do the falling cat stories, you know, maybe we should take a break. So let's do that. We'll be right back after this. Welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge, the Wednesday.

episode, which this week has been two things, celebrating 20 million downloads for the bridge since we went on the air, and a few end bits. Glad to have you with us. You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform, whatever it may be. We're glad to have you with us. Okay.

You know, if we can do a cat story, we probably should do a quick dog story. This is in the telegraph, the UK paper. The headline is, why do dogs keep you healthy? There's something in the air. They're known as man's best friend, writes Cameron Henderson. It's a science correspondent for the telegraph. They're known as man's best friend, offering their owners companionship, love,

and an excuse to get some outdoor exercise. But now a study has found that having a dog in the house could also help boost people's immune systems. Nordic researchers measured the diverse cocktail of gases and particles emitted by dogs by placing two groups of them inside a specially designed chamber. They found the animals and humans gave off remarkably similar levels of gas, but the canines also gave off a cloud of pollen, fungi, and the bacteria from running around outside that could offer health benefits,

particularly for children. Go figure, eh? To measure the effect of humans on air quality at home, the animal's minders first entered the climate control chamber for two stints of three hours at a time. This allowed the air quality to equalize while the scientists controlled the temperature, humidity, and ozone concentrations inside.

Clean air flowed into the room through a vent before being extracted by a vent on the other side of the room, where a series of precise instruments was used to measure what was emitted. The test was then repeated for two hours at a time, once with the owner of the four small chihuahuas and his pets, and once were the three large dogs and their owner. The researchers found that the big dogs, in particular gave off remarkably similar levels of carbon dioxide and ammonia to humans, which we produce through breathing and sweating.

Apparently, this is all really good for your health. So you've got to keep that in mind. Get those dog gases going in your home. All right. A couple of news you can use pieces here. Do you have this issue about, you know, obviously it's not this time of year, but as we get closer to the summer in Canada, some of our listeners in the U.S. may have, you know, already have this issue that they consider, especially snowbirds, such as they are this year.

I know many of them have not gone to their places in Arizona or Florida or California. California. Some have even put them up for sale, but that's a whole other story. Okay. The headline on this story, it's on AP Associated Press, this air conditioning strategy is the sweet spot for saving energy and money, experts say. This is the question here is, and we, you know, for those in Canada who have air conditioners, it is an issue that you wonder about, should you leave it running all the time, keeping your home at a constant level, temperature level,

or should you turn it off when you're out, you know, for any length of time, and then turn it on and have to, you know, cool the place down? What's more energy efficient? So let me read a little bit of this story. Having air conditioning at home is a luxury that keeps people comfortable during the hottest months of the year. year. And it's debated whether the AC should stay blasting or be turned off when people head to work during the day. Some swear the turning off the AC when they're gone for a few hours

saves money. Others say it's better to leave it running continuously. So you don't have to rapidly cool down the house after it's gotten hot with everything turned off. So, oh, AP, dude, what do you do at a time like this trying to answer this question. Well, you go and interview a bunch of experts. While turning an AC unit off for several hours and turning back on typically saves money and energy compared to continuously running it, that approach can lead to mold problems in humid environments, as well as wear and tear that can cause more frequent repairs. The equation can also vary depending on other factors, including comfort level, AC unit type and building insulation.

Strategies differ in humid or dry climates. Experts say there are a lot of factors to consider when deciding what AC habits save the most energy and money. If you're gone for like 15 minutes to go to the grocery store, you don't get any gain by turning off your AC. Says Elizabeth Hewitt, who's a professor and Erdbing planning expert at Stony Brook University, and I'm sure most people can come to that same conclusion

without being an expert. However, as a general rule, if you're going for your workday, say for eight hours or so, you'll almost always save more energy and more money by turning things off, she said. In some climates, however, turning off the AC might not be feasible, so residents can set back their AC a few degrees instead of blasting cold air all day.

right? That's obviously another possibility. Just turn it down. In dry places like Arizona, you can let the home warm up more by raising the thermostat a few degrees higher. But in humid climates like Florida, air inside the home can become damp and harder to cool, and turning the AC off for long periods can increase the risk of mold since the system helps control indoor moisture. bumping up the thermostat by 1 degree Fahrenheit or 0.6 degrees Celsius yields about a 3% savings in cooling costs said another expert

who also said leaving your AC off for hours and then turning it back on could lead to where that results in more frequent repairs okay this is one of those on the one hand on the other hand It's stories It'll keep moving on here I got room for one more

Let me try something different Okay, there's a good one I like this I like this story So let's give it a whirl At least I like the headline I don't know what the story's like I haven't really read it yet

It comes from RealSimple.com That's clearly the kind of website I go to. Real Simple.com. The headline is six clothing items. You don't need to wash after everywhere. Wash after everywhere?

Okay, let's read on here. Save yourself some time and energy by re-wearing these items before tossing them in the wash. Okay, don't tell me there's socks or underwear or stuff like that. that surely once is enough for those before you put them in the washer. Here are the ones they say. Washing your clothes too often can wear them down faster, so it's good to cut out unnecessary laundering when you can. While some items like exercise clothes should be washed after everywhere,

some can last quite a few more wares before they need to be laundered. Scott Schrader, a cleaning expert at cottage care, says that unless a clothing item smells is stained or is soaked in sweat, he recommends simply refreshing it, via steam, air drying, or sunlight drying, rather than washing it. This will keep your fabric looking newer. It will reduce how much your clothes shrink and will cut your laundry by half. Here are six items.

You don't need to and shouldn't wash after everywhere, so you can cut down on laundry and keep your clothes in better condition. Jeans. Our expert, Scott Trader, says jeans are one of the most overwashed clothing items. They're often laundered after just one wear. Or if they get wet. Just hang them out to dry, says Scott. Denim is tough as nails.

Unless really dirty, washing is something they don't need to be. done over a lot. What's next? Jackets and blazers. They're like sweaters. They're typically worn as outer layers over other clothing. So they don't need to be washed as frequently as something like a t-shirt. That's kind of obvious.

I mean, how often do you put your jacket in the laundry? Okay. Dress pants and trousers. Same as jackets and blazers, says Scott. Dress pants often have more specific tailoring and creasing than can be damaged by standard machine washing. Pajamas. Okay. If you're a super hot sleeper who sweats a lot, then you probably need to wash them.

Often. Not so much if you're not. I don't know. Really? Isn't this kind of obvious stuff? Come on, Peter. Maybe I should have read that before reading it on here. I'm not sure what we got out of that.

Is there another one here that's actually... Okay, here's one. Just opening it up here. Hold on. No, that looks too long. Okay. I'm not sure. This wasn't the greatest end bits special ever.

Although the falling cats thing, I really like that. I like the falling cats, something like the air conditioner strategy. Although even it, it's kind of obvious. Maybe I just won't talk about what we had on InBits today. Maybe I'll return to where we were at the beginning of the program to thank you for being a part of this bridge experiment. You know, as we look back, we can say probably every show we've ever done on the bridge

has been worth it except this one. Just kidding. No, listen, we thank you for being a part of this. This program over how many weeks, months, years, you've been a part of it. I know occasionally I get letters from people who say, I was listening to the bridge the very first time you did a program back there in the fall of 2019. Now, I'm not sure whether, I'm not sure that that audience was that big. I thought it was pretty small.

It was kind of like friends and relatives. But it's grown over time to the point now where we get between 20 and 30,000 downloads, which is the one way we have of kind of sensing how many people listen to the program. 20 to 30,000 downloads a day. Now a download can be one family. It can involve two people, four people. And I know some of you write and say, you listen to the program before dinner at night

and you end up talking about it over the dinner table depending on what topic we came up with. And that's great. But I love knowing that so many of you are listening, that we've accomplished a lot in a few years. As I said before, I'm not sure how long this is going to carry on, but it's fun doing it,

and it's really fun hearing from you as we do every week. It's the basis of our program on Thursdays, like tomorrow. When it's your turn, we'll have the final segment of what you think are the possibilities of Canada and the United States ever returning to the kind of relationship we used to have. Plus, we'll hear, as we always do, do on Thursdays from the random renter. And we look forward to that as well.

So thanks so much for listening today. Thanks for being part of the celebration of our 20 million downloads. I think we just passed it right there as you were listening. So thanks for joining us. We'll talk to you again in, well, less than 24 hours. Thank you.