The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Billions In New Defence Spending -- Why and Will It Even Happen?

Episode Date: April 9, 2024

The latest round of billion dollars promises from the Trudeau government is directed at improving Canada's defence system, especially in Canada's arctic. Helping us understand what is planned and whether it's adequate or even necessary is one of the country's leading defence analysts and someone who has written and lectured often on Canada's arctic policy as it relates to defence. He's Professor Rob Huebert from the University of Calgary.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. Canada's new defence policy at a time of heightened international tension. Will this policy work? That's coming right up. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge in Toronto today. So are you all eclipsed out? I wasn't sure what I was going to do yesterday. Was I going to actually go outside and put on the funny glasses and have a look? I mean, I'm old enough to have seen a few eclipses in the past.

So really, was this going to be that exciting? Well, as it turned out, I was busy yesterday. I was working. But at the last minute, I had some free time, and I thought, okay, I'm going to do it. So I went down with my son, Will, who works on this program, does the social media for it. And we raced down to the Toronto waterfront.

And the drive down there, the streets were packed, not with cars, but with people. And I'd come in from Stratford yesterday, and there were thousands of cars streaming out of Toronto looking, you know, heading towards the Niagara region, which was one of the big spots yesterday. But downtown Toronto, there were thousands, tens of thousands of people on the streets.

Many of them started looking up, wearing the funny glasses, as they should. And so the closer we got to the spot we wanted to go to, the more interested and excited I got, I'll admit it. We were unbelievably lucky because it was cloudy in downtown Toronto yesterday afternoon at the appropriate moment. But we got to where we were going. We went out by the water right across from Toronto Island Airport. The skies by then were dark.

And there was no, you know, there was no sight of the sun. And then suddenly, suddenly, this little opening appeared in the clouds, popped open. And there it was. There was the eclipse. Not full totality, but pretty close. And, you know, on went the glasses. Had trouble with them at first, but there it was. And it was pretty neat, I've got to say.

I'll admit, as someone who's seen too many things over time, this was a moment that I won't forget, and being there with my son made it even that much more fascinating and everybody seemed into it there were a lot of people there but we all caught our glimpse so there you go, my eclipse moment for 2024

last one I'll ever see so I appreciate that. So that was April 7th. Today is April 8th. And April 8th is a day for Canadian history. And it's a day I'll always remember because I've been to the location that we remember today many times. April 8th, 1917. Okay, it's 107 years ago now. Vimy Ridge. In northern France.

Vimy Ridge was this pretty important figure, place, location, during the First World War. The Germans had taken this ridge. Both the British and the French had tried to take it back, and they failed. So the Canadians, in their first operational moment where they were under Canadian command as opposed to British command, where they'd been for the first three years of the war,

in this particular exercise, well, it was more than an exercise, this operation, they were under Canadian command. And they took the rich. It was a big deal. In fact, some Canadian historians, not all, and it's quite controversial, actually, the discussion, claimed that this was the moment Canada was actually born, 50 years after Confederation.

But in this battle, Canada stood on its own. This was our moment. Now, the argument against that is that the ridge fell again back to the Germans later in that war. But it was a significant moment at the time. There's no question about that. And listen, you know, yesterday we talked with Janice Stein about casualties in war and how difficult they can be.

Canada lost almost 4,000, 4,000, almost that number, in three days of fighting in April of 1917 for Vimy Ridge. Can you imagine that? You know, in the whole Afghan war that Canada was involved in, during the time Canada was involved before we cut and run, there were just under 160 deaths. So at Vimy Ridge,

almost 4,000? Now if you go to Vimy Ridge, one of the greatest military monuments anywhere in the world, if you go there to see that and to remember these guys, there are two graveyards there on the grounds. And I think about a total of 2,000 of the Canadians are buried there.

Others are buried elsewhere, some whose bodies have never been recovered. It was a hellhole, Vimy Ridge afterwards. Today, when you're there, it's such a peaceful, beautiful spot. But you walk through those cemeteries and you see the gravestones, the markers, and you realize very quickly how young these guys were. So many of them in their early 20s. So many of them in their late teens. And some of them in their early teens lied about their age so they could go and fight for king and country.

Fight for Canada. So you see, young fellows who were 16, 17. So today, April 8th, we remember Vimy Ridge. And we remember the young Canadians from coast to coast to coast who gave their lives on that day for a moment that stands in Canadian history. Vimy Ridge. If you're interested, learn more.

It's a remarkable story. Well, today's topic is, well, it's related in a way to Vimy Ridge because it's about defense policy. It's about the Canada that we have today that supports its military. Some argue we've abandoned the military through the amount of money that has been spent on new equipment, on new recruits. Well, the government tried to address that yesterday,

and that's what we're going to talk about. Canada's new defense policy, where the money's coming from, where the money's going, what difference will it make, especially today in a time of heightened international tension and questions about what the future may hold. So who do we reach out to? A lot of the policy that was announced yesterday deals with the Canadian Arctic and sovereignty.

And so you know that I've harped on this in the past, but somebody who's been a real constructive critic of Canada's policy in the North, defense policy in the North, is Rob Hubert from the University of Calgary. He's a professor, political science, social sciences. He's a defense expert, and he understands the Arctic story as it relates to Canada's military. So it was a no-brainer to reach out to Rob in Calgary

to talk about this. So we're going to do that in just a moment, but first we're going to take this quick break and then we'll be right right back with uh with rob hubert right after this and welcome back you're listening to sirius xM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform. You're listening to The Bridge.

I'm Peter Mansbridge. We're going to talk about Canada's new defense policy and especially how it relates to the Canadian Arctic. Our guest is Professor Rob Hubert from the University of Calgary. So let's get that conversation underway right now. Well Rob, a lot of defense analysts, including yourself, have been calling on the government to do something about military defending, defense spending in the last little while, and especially someone like you calling for doing something in terms of spending for the Arctic, in terms of defense spending. So in general terms first, before we

get into specifics, when you look at this document today, this paper that's come down from the government, do you give it a pass or a fail? That's such a hard one. I give it at least a pass on the statement element. I remember, you know, these exercises are important in terms of what they actually deliver. Do we actually do what we say we're going to do? That's always a critical point to evaluate. But I also think that it's a very important step to be telling Canadians what we are facing in the international era. And this is probably one of the most, at least in my viewpoint, honest appraisal of the international system that we're facing. They clearly identify the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians and North Koreans as enemies, adversaries of Canada. It's not just simply competitors that we may have gotten off on the wrong foot.

Removed is any discussion about Russian illegal occupation of Crimea. They just say Russian invasion of Ukraine now, as they should have said back in 2014. And so I think a lot of the sugarcoating, a lot of the sort of political messaging that really was in most other political defense statements have been removed from this document. And I think this document, if we look at what it is trying to tell Canadians, receives a pass. The question of really whether or not it delivers in terms of what it is saying it's going to do, and if it delivers in a timely fashion, remains, of course, to be seen. That, of course, we know from government's previous statements, previous defense policies, they've done an awful job on. And so, you know, I'm not willing to give them an overall pass at

this point in time, but at least they get it right in saying that we are facing enemies. They also get it right in saying we need to have a review every four years. This idea that governments only do this when they're extremely pressured to do, and at the very first stages of coming to power, is something that has always been a problem with Canadian security policy for all governments. You know, if there's one thing that's certain about, you know, defense spending, military readiness, is you need those frequent reviews because situations change so rapidly. And you're left, you know, literally doing the old cliche fighting the last war instead of the current one. And you have to prepare your population. If you're constantly

telling your population, hey, the Chinese really aren't trying to interfere with us. Hey, the Russians, even though they use military force and took territory, they only it's an illegal occupation or the Iranians are only interested in what's happening in the Middle East. East, you have a population that is not prepared to make the necessary steps and have an understanding of what we have to do. And so that becomes the other part that I think has been very hard for this government to be able to do. And at least what we seem to be seeing within at least this effort, of course, it has to be pointed out, they picked to release this information when a major eclipse was happening. And so once again, how many Canadians are, you know, I don't want to give them too much credit for being macrovalent, but you have to wonder how much timing went into that thought process. But nevertheless, it's there. We're at risks. As I said earlier, you have had a particular

focus and care about what's happening in the Arctic and what hasn't been happening in the Arctic in terms of our kind of readiness on that front to protect sovereignty. Once again, in general terms, before I get into specifics, do you like what you're seeing here? Is this finally an admission that we've got to spend real money to stake our claim to the Arctic in terms of a defense situation. Well, the one thing I think has to be really shouted out very loud is the government has just acknowledged that it has been wrong. It's, of course, never going to say it's been wrong. It's going to say things changed. And it's sort of like, well, I can take every single piece to show it hasn't changed. But both in the 2017 document, when it sort of says, well,

we've got sovereignty under control, but we should be nevertheless a little bit more focused on the Arctic. It's about page 88 that they say that. And they do give them credit. They do say that we have to start talking with NATO and the Arctic. Their Arctic policy that they announced on the day that the writ went down in 2019, of course, said that the Arctic sovereignty was completely in hand. If you go through that document, they say we've solved the Arctic sovereignty problem in a way that nobody else was able to do. And I mean, they're using literally that type of celebratory language. In this document, they say the number one threat to Canada is to Canada's Arctic sovereignty. And they do make the link between Arctic sovereignty and the protection of our security. So in other words, rather than just simply using this politicalized term saying, well, we protect Arctic sovereignty,

which is sort of like we like apple pie and motherhood, they're actually saying, well, no, there's a new environment and we have to respond to it. And so they're very forthright on saying it, but it has to be emphasized. This is something where they are acknowledging where they got it, quite frankly, wrong in the dates leading up. And we can talk about some of the details where they got it wrong in the past. Okay let's let's first talk about the kind of money that they're they're talking about new money often government announcements are are sort of re-announcements of past things that have happened but they're claiming in this latest document that there's eight billion dollars in new spending over the next five years. Now that obviously, that's a lot of money, but in defense terms,

you can rack up a high bill pretty fast. What does that say to you, that they're talking $8 billion over five years? Well, what's interesting, in a briefing that was held also, and they were pressed a little bit on this very point. Okay, it's $8 billion over five years. So that's $1.2 billion in new monies on top of the new monies, which is about $8 billion also that they announced back in June of 2022 for NORAD modernization. So you sit there and say, okay, so that's about $2 billion per year. And you say, well, that sounds like a lot until

you look at the list of what they're talking about, ground-based radars, over-the-horizon radars. They're talking about hubs for bases. Anything in the Arctic, of course, is very expensive. And you start saying, well, okay, so at least we can say we're doing more. But again, in the overall scheme of things, it becomes problematic to say whether or not it is enough. And it's still, once again, if we look at it from a political calculation, a $2 billion per year additional spending is something politically the government probably doesn't have that much difficulty being able to swallow in terms of all of its other political orientations. Again,

this government has a real strong habit of saying, but okay, we're spending the $2 billion per year for five years, gets us up to, like I said, it's probably about $16 billion new spending. It's always difficult to peg the government on it. But just wait, in six years, we're really going to start spending at that point in time. We're really going to have a lot of money. So very similar to strong, secure and engaged, this government is again saying, hey, in 20 years, we're going to start getting up somewhere to about, and I think the figure that they use is about 1.76% of GDP to defense expenditures. But again, it's sort of like, okay, so you really think that the Russians, Chinese, Iranians, and North Koreans are going to give us a timeline to get everything in order? And that's the problem. We need to be spending, of course. We need to be just piling on the money to make up for the shortfalls that we've allowed to accumulate because the international system is not going to wait for us.

Okay, let's talk about a couple of these things. The bases, and you just mentioned them, a fair number of bases across the north. What are we going to use those for? I don't know. I mean, again, the difficulty that we face is the threat is maritime and aerospace. The over the horizon radar, they make sense. The promise to look at new submarine and underwater listing posts, that makes sense. The bases, or they're not calling it bases, they're calling it hubs. And so that the hubs are important, of course, for the constabulary requirements. We're seeing because of climate change, increased forest fires, we're seeing the flooding. And so what I suspect, what the thinking is, is that they're trying to be able to say, okay, we're still staying true to our ability to meet the security needs of Northerners and Northern Indigenous peoples,

and to do so, we have to have a footprint there. But if we're talking about the requirement of land forces in terms of protecting Canadian Arctic sovereignty and security, quite frankly, the money is better spent putting it on your Air Force and your Navy, because that is what you need to meet the threat. If you're talking about responding to the fires, the flooding, and other type of, you know, the next pandemic, most people are saying it's not a question of if, but when, then you need to have that base capability to respond to conservatory requirements. You know, it's so, as you said earlier, it's so fast to see the amount of dollars accumulating. I mean, you mentioned the submarines. Yes, they do say they're going to look into it. They don't say there's any money

allotted for it. And that would be considerable money, especially considering our bad luck or bad purchasing or whatever the policy was in the last set of submarines we got. Talk to me about some of these aircraft. A new fleet of airborne early warning aircraft. Now, you know, in the old days, we had a dew line, right? An early warning dew line. Are we talking about a, you know, an Air Force component of doing what that used to do for us?

Well, and it's meeting the new type of weapon technologies that we're facing. You know, one of the critical points that they finally acknowledge is that we have a threat from what is referred to as a hypersonic missile. Now, we've had missiles that go at hypersonic speeds. All ICBMs, all submarine-launched ballistic missiles, those are all going at a hypersonic speed, but they are on a fixed trajectory. We knew where the Russian ICBM or the Soviet ICBMs were being coming from. We could track the submarines to a certain degree. So something like a dew line was all we really needed to be able to tell us that the missiles have been launched so we could fire our missiles and so that they'd never do it in the first place. The problem with the new technologies with hypersonics, these missiles are now made it to either bombers, and this is the

TULAF-95s and others that the Russians have, or to submarines, the Type 96 SSGNs that the Chinese are now building. And so the problem is, is that these missiles that remain in the atmosphere, are maneuverable, become incredibly difficult to be able to detect. And so people like the former head of NORAD, the American commander Van Herc, she was constantly saying, I don't have a capability of being able to detect and therefore respond to a launch of hypersonics from anywhere around North America. But the fear, of course, is you get into the Arctic, you can hide amongst the ice and launch. And so promising to have some form of an AWAC capability is at least an acknowledgement of what this new deliveries type of weapon systems are.

Now, here's a part that should scare all Canadians. In each case of the Chinese and the Russians, their hypersonics are being designed to also carry nuclear weapons. And so you start saying, okay, well, this goes against the understandings of what supported deterrence, i.e. you had enough warnings so you could fire your missiles when they fire their missiles and no one does it in the first place. Does this start giving the Chinese and the Russians the capability of a first launch nuclear strike that they can get in and actually start hitting targets before we know that they've actually launched and therefore say, well, we've hit Washington, we've hit Ottawa. If you don't want it to be worse, you better surrender at this point. And this is what AWAC, this is what everybody's talking about. You need to have this deterrence, but you need to be

able to convince the Russians and Chinese, you can't get a surprise strike in. And so this is what everyone's trying to figure out right now. Okay, a couple of things that you brought up, I want to probe on just a little bit. You talked about whether Chinese or Russian subs can have the ability to be hiding in the ice in the Arctic. For years, decades, there's been this assumption on the part of some that, in fact, that is what happens, and we just can't track them. Do you assume they have been doing that and are still doing that? They've told us. I mean, once again, there was a scientific paper that came out in Chinese scholarship that said, we now have the capability of an underwater listing capability. We're only doing it for peaceful purposes. We're only doing it to listen for icebergs and science. But it's basically an underwater listening capability, something we don't have. deep diving submersible. You put a deep diving submersible on a submarine in the Arctic waters

that we can't listen for. It means all of a sudden, any cables, any submarines, any capabilities that we may have, the Chinese now are developing the very specific means of countering. And this is the stuff that they've told us, you know, as we're seeing in terms of the inquiry right now, the Chinese are doing a lot against Canada that they're not exactly telling us about. And so you have to sit there and say, okay, so they've told us that they can listen underwater. They've told us that they're going to have a deep diving submersible that can attack any of our cables or listen into any of our cables. They're telling us that. What part of the picture here aren't they telling us in terms of capabilities that are going to be all of a sudden a surprise and again the fact that they're willing to spend any types of money that they are an

underwater acoustic listening capabilities in terms of developing deep water submersibles you know that part of their also there's their secret projects are going to be arctic oriented and so that's the part that we have to be, you know, we have to face. They're doing it, whether or not we acknowledge it or not. It does, you know, it sort of begs the question, what do we know that's happening in our own, or at least what we say are our own waters in the Arctic? One of the things in this new program that's been announced is to improve or upgrade the sensors that are in some Arctic waters. Now, we've had some for decades. We had some across the – pardon me?

We think. I mean, again, this is – I mean, I'll be honest on this one. This is something I've been trying to track. We've had certain limited test sites. And I think you were the one that broke the story on it actually back when, in fact, you did an overflight and you saw one of the test sites that they had in the Western Arctic. Yeah, that's correct. I don't think that, you know, we've ever acknowledged that we've ever had a system that has actually been functioning. You know, we could have just sort of somehow marry together D&D spending with the scientists, maybe we could actually be listening. We do it a little bit on the Victoria

course, of course, but in terms of the Arctic, I have been totally incapable of ever finding anyone, even after they've retired, saying, yeah, we actually have a good listening capability under ice that we have it. We've had experiments, we've tried to do it, but we always seem to lose interest in all these elements. I'm very suspicious as to whether or not we actually do have that capability in 2024. Well, I think they, you know, I think you're correct on a number of fronts there.'m i think we lost interest i'm not sure how good it was in the first place but there was at least one line across lancaster sound part of the northwest passage and that is the one that i saw and you know flew over and around because they were doing

some some work there to try and re-establish it It had been like 20 years since it had been working. Now, whether they ever got it working again or not, I don't know. But the idea of it, I assume, is an important part of trying to show the flag, show that you actually believe that you own these territories, these lands, the archipelago in the Canadian Arctic. You've got to either have people live in there or some way of monitoring what's happening in it because we don't. Other than some Arctic rangers who keep an eye out for a periscope in the Northwest Passage,

we don't seem to have a lot. No, and remember, I mean, you know, here's the pushback. People say, okay, you're really talking about sovereignty. Nobody challenges our land. And with the settlement of the Hans Island, we're redivided with the Danes. So even that little issue has been settled. And fine, that's true. But the real sovereignty issue, along with the real security issue, is again, we come back

to the point, it's maritime and it's aerospace. From the maritime perspective, the sovereignty issue, if we're being honest, is that we say we control all those waters like eternal waters. We can say yes or no to anyone. Here's the kicker. I can't find any traces of us ever saying no to anybody who has requested. And in fact, we go back to 2017, and now it's starting to becoming pretty evident that the government knew what the Chinese were actually trying to do in terms of political interference. At least that seems to be my read of what's coming out of the current political interference inquiry. And it turns out in 2017, of course, the Chinese said, oh, can we send an icebreaker through your Northwest Passage? Now, you would think if these were internal waters and we were having these

type of concerns, we'd say, sorry, China, we've got security issues with you. These are internal waters. We're not letting you in just for a whole host of reasons. We let them in. And in fact, if you look at the track of where that icebreaker went, it went right next to, I think it was gas inlet where the testing of that cable that we're just talking about, the underwater listing, they sailed right up to it. And you can see it in the detection. There was an article in the Canadian Naval Review by the ice pilot, a former admiral that was a Canadian admiral that was hired to be an ice pilot on the Shulong when she goes through the Northwest Passage. And I mean, I remember scratching my head and thinking,

these are truly internal waters. We truly were going to try to show that we have sovereignty. We can say yes or no to whoever we think on the basis of security, environment, whatever the rationale is. We should have said no to the Chinese at that point in time, and yet we didn't. And so the fact that we don't say no, with the fact that we allow these vessels to go through, I mean, to me, that shows a little bit of a sham of trying to say that, yeah, we have sovereignty well in hand. No, we have it in the protection of environmental treatment and agreements in terms of how people see it as an international transit. We sure as heck have not been like the Russians. The Russians have a clear record of saying no to a whole lot of people that

wanted to go through the Northern Sea Route. And they asserted it in a way that, as I said, maybe I'm just not being a good researcher, but I can't find a single instance where we said no to anybody. Two more questions. How much of what we're seeing in this document this week is as a result not of a newfound interest in trying to do something in Canada's Arctic by Canada, but pushed by U.S.? No, totally. We have two major events.

We have a major NATO conference coming up where I think that everybody in anticipation of the American election with the possibility of a return to power of a Trump who has said that he has very serious questions about NATO, I think that we're going to definitely have our feet held to the fire because we've already started seeing some public statements from our NATO allies just in terms of, OK, Canada, what are you actually doing? And so I think that this document is very much a political document in anticipation of that NATO meeting. Now, the second part, of course, is that we have a Trump administration that we know did not speak favorably about his commitments to his allies. I mean, we're seeing a clear trends of isolationism. And my God, if you look at some

of the, well, what's an academic term of wacko in terms of some of the Republican Party members in terms of they are isolationists. I mean, they basically want to say, OK, Russia, do what you want in Ukraine. And they've said as much. And so you sit there and you say, OK, so if, in fact, Trump gets reelected and at this point, you know, it's even money in terms of who's going to win that election. If Trump thinks that NATO is problematic, but here's the kicker, if he thinks that it's even money in terms of who's going to win that election. If Trump thinks that NATO is problematic, but here's the kicker, if he thinks that it's also a question of North American defense, NORAD, and you're not doing enough, you know that you are going to face severe political trepidations from what the Trump administration will do. And so therefore, Canada not only has to

worry about being lumped, this is the very worst NATO expenditures. And there are certain documents that have been recently released in terms of both our commitment to new capital programs, as well as our expenditures that basically put us in the bottom quadrant of all spending. I think Luxembourg is a little bit worse than us, but we are clearly in the sights of anybody who says NATO is not doing enough. And then you say, OK, if you're not even doing it for NATO, are you actually allowing North America then to be vulnerable? And then all of a sudden that argument, that that discussion goes beyond Trump, that goes into the American security for institutions. And in Canada, I mean, you know, we like to pretend we have that special relationship that was established during the Second World War, but say bye-bye to any special considerations in that particular context. The moment the narrative that Canada is the weak

link and therefore allowing America's enemies to have better entry points to North America. As soon as that becomes a narrative that goes beyond the Republican Party, then Canada loses any chance of being able to protect its special relationship. So obviously there are a lot of questions depending on the outcome of the U.S. election in terms of the impact that it has on us. What about the impact of a change of government in Canada? And if you believe the polls, that's what we're going to see in the next year and a half. If we do see that, does all this go poof, all this new spending, these new plans, and they start all over again?

There's a very real possibility. What we've seen in recent time is it tends to be the Liberal Party that is a little bit more willing to just basically tear up contracts that have been agreed upon. We've seen that, of course, when all of a sudden Justin Trudeau became an air power expert and lectured us on the fact that the F-35 was the worst solution for Canada. I never quite understood how going to a 1970 vintage, I mean, he seemed to be hinting that the F-18 Super Hornet was somehow a better aircraft. And you're going, that's 1970 vintage, that's being updated, full stop. Or the supply problems that you have going with the Swedish Weipen fighter.

So anyway, but remember, we delayed the decision for the F-35, took us out of what was a pretty special relationship. We never lost it totally, but when we started making noises that we're going for the F-18, we did get hurt on that. All of our allies went ahead, the Danes and the Norwegians, the Finns, all of them jumped to go get it. But the prime minister was an air power expert, but we saw that type of a situation. But do the conservatives do that? No, we don't have as much evidence that the conservatives will all of a sudden tear up the contract for the replacement helicopters for the Sea Kings or the replacements for the F-18s. But the problem is, is will they be committed to raise the defense expenditures to the degree that they need? And once again, politics kick in. The government is, you know, if there's a change of government, they're going to be trying to reach out to a new sector of the population, which requires social programs that have been

established. Where does the money come from? Because you're also going to be, remember, Polyev has made it clear, he wants to reduce the deficit that has been run up by the current government. So how do you do all of that at once? And the question is, well, you can't. And so the danger is not so much that the new policies or the new promises will be torn up and we'll do it all over again. It's just a question, will the necessary funds be allocated to do what is promised? And that's more of the pressing issue that I think coming before. I mean, we get words from Chong, from Buzan, you know, members within the shadow cabinet that they understand the issues to a higher degree than anything that we hear from the liberals. So on that hand, that's promising. But the political realities of getting elected, again, that's where I think this falls down. And it gets back to our initial discussion,

why it is so important for Canadians as a population to understand we're not playing games. We face real enemies. We face real threats. And I think if that narrative is reinforced, perhaps we'll see the type of meaningful expenditures that will be required to maintain Canadian security. You've given us lots to think about, Rob. We appreciate your time. It's always good to talk to you. Thanks so much. Always my pleasure, sir.

Well, there you go, Professor Rob Hubert from the University of Calgary, one of the country's leading defense analysts, and one with a particular concern about Arctic defense policy on the part of Canada. So it's good to hear his thoughts on what we heard announced yesterday. All right. I know that some of you were hitting the keyboard during that interview, writing not about what Rob said or disagreeing with anything we said in there, but writing about my wonkiness at the beginning of the program getting the dates wrong. Now, I blame it on the

eclipse, alright? When I was staring up looking through those glasses at partial totality, clearly something jogged that internal calendar in my brain. Because I got, not only did I get the date wrong, today's date wrong, I got the anniversary of Emmy Ridge wrong. Today is not April 8th. Yesterday, Eclipse Day, was April 8th.

Today is April 9th. Today is April 9th, a significant date in the history of our country because it was 107 years ago in 1917, April 9th, that they went over the top at Vimy Ridge. Canadian troops took a ridge that the British and the French were unable to take, but at considerable cost.

As we mentioned, almost 4,000 Canadians lost their lives in the battle. It actually lasted two to three days. Now, I said it was April 8th. Well, technically, I guess you could say that on April 8th, they were in the tunnels getting ready to go over the top. Early on the morning of the 9th. So early that it may, in fact, have been April 8th here in Canada when they went over the top. Do you think I'm trying to make excuses here

for me botching the date? Yes, I am. And I apologize for that all around. April 9th is this day. Tomorrow, Wednesday, April 10th, is an encore day for the bridge. Wednesdays is an encore day. Thursday coming up, your turn and the random renter

and your turn this week is the completion of your voting, your nominations for the best Canadian television program past or present. We've been swamped. The date has been cut off. It was cut off over the weekend. So if you've been sending stuff since, it's not going to make it. But we appreciate all the entries that we've had. And we'll sum them up on Thursday. Friday, good talk.

Shuntel Iber and Bruce Anderson will be back. So looking forward to that. That's it for this day. I'm Peter Mansbridge thanks so much for listening on this day April 9th we'll be back again in 24 hours