The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Can The Speaker Survive His Blunder?

Episode Date: September 25, 2023

The Speaker of the House of Commons embarrasses himself and Parliament by honouring someone who fought for the Nazis.  Does his eventual apology end the story?  Then respected international analyst Janice Stein drops by with her regular feature "What Are We Missing?", looking at some of the countries that we aren't talking about as we focus for the most part on the countries in the major headlines.  

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. What are we missing? Janice Stein is here. She's back. Coming right up. And hello there, welcome to a new week here on the bridge. It's our Monday episode, and it's one of our regulars. Every month or so, we ask Janice Stein to come in, and we talk about what are we missing. And that's what we're going to talk about today. But first, I got a couple of comments about something that happened on Friday. It is still reverberating around Ottawa today and may do for a couple of days yet. It was a remarkable moment, an error of massive proportions by the Speaker of the House of Commons.

In fact, Anthony Rota, who is the Speaker of the House of Commons, this perhaps is the biggest blunder he's ever made. In fact, it may be the biggest blunder any speaker in the history of Canada's Parliament has ever made. Friday was a big day. Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, was in town and was speaking to the Canadian parliament. But before he was asked to come up and speak, the speaker decided to recognize somebody

in the audience. A Ukrainian-Canadian who had fought during the Second World War. A man by the name of Yaroslav Hanka. He's 98 years old now. And he's from the speaker's writing. So the speaker pointed to him in the gallery, said he was a Canadian hero, said he'd fought in the Second World War, said he was Ukrainian,

and the house erupted in applause, gave him a standing ovation. That included Zelensky. Well, it turns out that yes, Honka did fight in the Second World War. But not quite the way it had been perceived in that moment in the House of Commons. It turns out that he fought as a volunteer with a Waffen-SS unit of Ukrainians. Well, this sense that here was the Canadian Parliament recognizing somebody who had supported the Nazis has enormous blowback consequences, not just for the Speaker, but for the Parliament of Canada. Questions being raised by the opposition leader, Pierre Palliev, about what did the Prime Minister know, when did he know it.

The Prime Minister's office saying they didn't know anything about this, they never knew anything like this was going to happen. Which seems a bit odd to some because one assumes that everybody who was in that House of Commons area, whether they were on the floor or in the speaker's gallery or in the visitor's gallery, had had some kind of security. Especially special guests who were going to be introduced. But the Prime Minister's office said that they had nothing to do with it.

The Speaker has apologized. Questions are being raised now about whether or not he can continue to be Speaker after a blunder of this magnitude. And who's really responsible? How did it get to that moment? So we'll watch that one unfold over the next little while. All right. Janice Stein.

We did this first as a one-off, this what are we missing idea, more than a year ago now. And it was hugely popular. And so we brought it back, and we brought it back. And we do it about once every four to six weeks because we do miss a lot. We focus on the big stories, and I'm not the we. I'm talking about the collective we, the media in general.

We focus on the big stories, or we'll focus on a story for a day or two days and never kind of follow it up because the world moves fast in our 24-7 world. But Janice has believed, and I agree with her, that we've got to touch base with a lot of these stories, the ones we miss, the ones we don't dwell on, that come at the expense of the focus we do place on the big stores. And it's the continuing problem for the news media and journalism over time.

That's been one of the great benefits of having the printed word, whether it's in newspapers or magazines, they go deep, they go wide, while television and, to degree radio, you know, focus in on kind of the headlines of the day. Remember Walter Cronkite, the great CBS newscaster, said many moons ago, like 50 years ago, when he was being asked about why television is a dominant force and newspapers don't matter anymore. The printed word doesn't matter anymore.

And today that printed word is, you know, it's not just newspapers and magazines. It's also obviously digital online. But Cronkite said television news is just the headlines. If you want to really know what's going on, you've got to go deep. You've got to go deeper, and you've got to read. Well, somebody who reads a lot is Janice Stein, and if you didn't know already, let me remind you who Janice is.

She's at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. In fact, she's one of the founders. She's a Canadian political scientist. A read from her biog. Canadian political scientist, international relations expert, specialist in Middle East area studies, negotiation theory, foreign policy decision making, and international conflict management.

And in all those areas of expertise, she's called upon by a lot more than just universities. She's called upon by governments in different parts of the world, and certainly the Canadian government, through past governments, whether they're being conservative or liberal, to help them, to advise them. And here she is today, once again, advising us. And it's great to have Janice with us once again. So let's get to it.

Let's get organized here. And our latest episode of What Are We Missing? with Janice Stein. Janice, I want to start with India for obvious reasons, but also because often when we, you know, focus on one place in the world on a big story, we tend not to, you know, take the time to understand the context behind the headlines of what's going on in that country. So tell us about India and what you think we should know at this point. There's two pieces of context here, Peter.

One, the big piece that people might have missed is this is a five eyes story. What are the five eyes? The five eyes are our intelligence partners, Canada, Britain, United Kingdom, the United States, Australia. We're all on a kind of clubby in-group intelligence network where we share information because we trust each other. This is not a Canadian story.

This is a Five Eyes story where as much, if not more, good intelligence came from our partners. And I don't think I'm giving away anything because our ambassador, David Cohen from the United States to Canada, gave a little bit of an indiscreet interview the other day in which he revealed that the United States was instrumental in supplying this information to Canada. So when we think of this, there's been so much domestic politics around this story all week.

What did the prime minister do? Should he have done it? Why did he, did he mishandle? Didn't he? We have to see this as a partner story, as well as a Canadian story. So what does that mean to us? Well, bluntly, I don't think the Prime Minister had any degree of freedom left. When your closest intelligence partners supply this information, Peter. So doing nothing was not an option for the prime minister. I think that makes it very tough on anybody of any political stripe because, of course, this is a domestic issue.

It's made even tougher by the fact that this issue was an old, old issue in Canadian politics. It's been going on for 25 years. You would have covered it, I know, in your career at CBC. We have the world's largest Sikh diaspora, three quarters of a million. There have been allegations for years that these are active supporters of what was once a violent insurgency in the Punjab. It is no longer. It was brutally repressed.

And you could say that support for an independent Sikh state, which is called Khalistan,'s greater in Canada than it is in the Punjab right now, and I think that would be fair. But the Indians have been honest about this forever. It just comes in waves, but they've been honest about this forever. And here again, let's talk

for a minute what you do if you're a rule of law state like we are. know the government of prime minister modi may not like having support for an insurgency headquartered in canada it may really bug them but before you can do anything before you can arrest anybody you have to have credible evidence frankly so there's a big difference between warnings, which there were plenty from our intelligence agencies. This is not really a failure.

Contrary, again, to what a lot of people are saying. But you have to commit a crime. Whether it's drug trafficking or gang running, you have to commit a crime before the RCMP will arrest you in Canada. And since we've never declared support for Palestine, the equivalent of a terrorist organization, which is what we'd have to do, there's no criminal activity that the RCMP has surfaced or would make an arrest. Now that's a bind.

Yeah. The relationship clearly between Modi and Justin Trudeau is not a good one. And we've seen that visually. And clearly we've seen it in the back and forths that have been going on in the last week. At the heart of it, is it this issue of the Sikh diaspora inside Canada? And we should make a point that just because you're Sikh and living in Canada doesn't mean you're a terrorist or that you support terrorist activities or that you support the idea of uh canada um but clearly there are you know a significant number who do all of that yeah but you know peter again let's put this one

in context just because you're irish in canada doesn't mean that you supported the ira right it's it's very very similar and that's why we have to be so careful. Nobody in Canada was ever arrested for supporting the IRA. And it's very, I mean, these are tough arguments. Canada, for good and for real, has the largest Iranian diaspora, Sikh diaspora. We can go on and on down the list. We have very large diasporas in this country and

that can make it very tough. Now the relationship between Trudeau and Modi is frankly not good is a polite word here. At the heart of it is this issue, there's no question, but you you know let's go back to the prime minister before trudeau harper um prime minister modi was on him too about this um

and but he the difference wasn't told more than anything else uh he said oh we're gonna do something about this oh i i understand your concern oh, we're going to do something about this. Oh, I understand your concern. I understand. We're going to do something about this. Came home, didn't really do anything about this, or we wouldn't have this issue right now. Again, nobody arrested, ever. But the tone was more sympathetic to the issue. You know the Prime Minister

was in New York for the UN General Assembly and went to the editorial offices of the New York Times and was talking to the editorial staff. You know what a trap that is. You think you're

off the record but you're never off the record. And so there's a piece this morning from one of the journalists nicholas kristoff who was in the room and said well the prime minister said i want to see i want to see some arrests well well which which arrest is he talking about in India or in Canada on the part of people who promptly left the country. And it's not possible for Canadians, for the RCMP or anybody else in Canada to arrest. So he wants to see some arrests. That suggests to me where these people are, right? The fact that the Americans have weighed in now, how much clout is that going to have on the issues like that

in terms of arrests or at least a real investigation? Because the clear signal from Modi last week was he's not doing anything. And that was probably a very popular move on his part internally. So it plays really well in Indian domestic politics, really well. And he's got an election too. Everybody's having an election this year. So he did exactly what, and he knew this was coming because, you know, he was told repeatedly over the last six weeks that this was coming.

So he did exactly what you would expect any politician who's running for election to do. I don't think anything will happen. But Jake Sullivan stepped forward. Because truly, you know, the United Kingdom did not this week. And they have a smaller problem, but they have a problem. But Jake Sullivan really stepped forward when the heat was on the prime minister. this week and they have they have a smaller problem but they have a problem but jake selvin really stepped forward when the heat was on the prime minister and every newspaper in the country

was saying canada's isolated canada's alone well not really when he steps out from behind the curtain and said no no this is an issue and we are talking to the government of India about it. So I think what that really means is he provided the cover that Justin Trudeau really needed badly. Do I expect him to bend Modi's arm halfway up his back and get an investigation? Probably not. So bigger picture, our relationship with India is not going to recover quickly. And, you know, Peter, we have 300,000 Canadian Indians.

You know, if they're Indians, they can go home because they use their Indian passport. But if they've let it expire or there are any other issues, they're not able to travel now to India. And we've had to cut our consular staff in India. And there are huge numbers of Indians who travel back and forth between the two countries. That's going to be choked. I don't think for a short time.

It's a hard one to fix because the politics are vicious. It's a hard one to fix, it appears, and it's one that has enormous political consequences because the Indian-Canadian population, whether they be

Hindu or Muslim or Sikh, are dominant in more than a couple of ridings. You know, it's like 18 or 20 ridings where they can make the difference. Yeah. So when you try to think about the domestic politics here, clearly the stance Trudeau takes will help him with the Sikh community. I imagine there's some members of the Indian community who are not Sikh who are really

annoyed about this because they had plans to travel home. That's all on hold now. You know, universities are very unhappy because they get so many of their students from India. It's not actually universities who do it, by the way, Peter. It's colleges, and that's a whole separate subject about the bilateral relationship when Indian students are struggling. So, and third, we just put $2 a half billion dollars into an indo-pacific

strategy um and the indo part of that indo-pacific strategy seems to be on pretty shaky legs right now um so i expect that our government will do everything it can to contain, but they're really locked in. Let me go to one other one, which actually people are not talking about on this piece. This whole story broke, Peter, because those same security services leaked to the globe. This was being managed, right? It was being managed the way any professional group

of people would manage it. It was late. Now, why? Why? You could make a case that the people inside our security services were frustrated that this prime minister was doing nothing about Chinese election

interference and just felt as on whistleblowers were frustrated that this prime minister was doing nothing about Chinese election interference and just felt as on whistleblowers they had to move out and get this thing started. That's not the case here. Prime minister was doing something. David Vigneault, the head of CSIS, went to Delhi to inform the Indian government to seek additional information. Jody Thomas, the national security advisor, went to Delhi to inform the Indian government to seek additional information. Jody Thomas, the national security advisor, went to Delhi. I must say, leaking that story is not helpful.

It serves no policy purpose. It put the prime minister in a tight spot for sure, but it put Canada in a tight spot. and we can't do anything about the leakers either. Well, I, you know, first of all, I, you know, we're assuming that the leakers were within the security services and that may well be true. But the security services are a, you know, there are a lot in the security services, not just CSIS.

There are a lot of people who can get this kind of information. But it's a pretty serious thing. I mean, if you're going to go to the trouble of leaking this kind of content, there are those who will make the argument that this borders on treason to do that. You know, this is pretty heavy stuff. So I don't know what's going to happen. This is two apparent leaks from inside over the last, well, this year. One on, you know, the stuff on China and now this. All right.

Let me add one more comment just for our listeners on this one. And this is part of running a large organization. You know it from the CBC. That when you start to go after leakers inside your own organization, you lose. You lose. You lose because you unify those people and they ultimately have scads of information and they will find a way. So I think we in Canada, we have a problem now

with no obvious way to address it. And the globe used code words, security officials, right? And that means us. That means from our services. Right. Well, you know, this story is not going away anytime soon. No. And, you know, we'll keep following it.

Meanwhile, we build this little segment. We're going to take a fast trip around the world, dropping in a lot of countries. So far, we've done one. And we have a half a dozen or so to go. So let me take our midway break and get it out of the way, and then we'll pile in on the other stuff. So back right after this. And welcome back.

Peter Mansbridge here with the Bridge Monday episode. You're listening on Sirius XM, channel 167. Canada Talks are on your favorite podcast platform. The guest today, Janice Stein, is with us again on the segment that we have called What Are We Missing? We dealt a lot on this, the Indian story in the first half of this, but we've got quite a few places to drop in on. So let's get right to it. Next on the list, we've seen a lot of horrendous pictures over the last few weeks from both Libya and Morocco, where two natural disasters have happened in Morocco.

There was the earthquake in Libya. There was just an unbelievable flooding. And natural disasters are natural disasters. They're going to come and go over time. But this is where your governments and the agencies that are in place are supposed to be there to deliver in terms of aid, rescue efforts, first of all, aid, rebuilding, et cetera, et cetera. It doesn't appear in either of those two countries, Janice, that governance has been that good.

That's the story that we're missing, Peter, that you can't explain this entirely by natural disasters. This, in both Morocco and Libya, terrible government failure to manage the disaster once they happen. In Libya, and by the way, the tragedy of Libya starts when a multilateral coalition went in to protect civilians and broke that government. And ultimately, Libya was divided into two parts. This is in the east. And Field Marshal Hafter, who's one of Gaddafi's inheritors, is in charge in that part of the country.

But, oh, by the way, the city where this happened, Durna, has been a historic site of resistance to them. So no investment in the dams. Tons of warnings that these were not stable, that they were going to go. No investment in the dams came whatsoever. The tragedy happens. Nobody comes in to help. And then Haftar puts his son in charge, relief management. You know, a great Indian economist said there are no famines that aren't results of politics. politics, I would tell you that this kind of performance, the failure to do almost anything for a disaster of this magnitude, that's all politics all the way down. Just hop over to

Morocco. Terrible earthquake. Well, first of all, where? In the poor remote mountains, where there's been almost no investment. but there's a king that is one of the best regarded in in north africa in the middle east king muhammad the sixth spends most of his time in france wasn't in the country when it happened um has visited three times, that's all. No services available. No government people show up to provide any kind of emergency help. His personal worth is estimated at $5 billion, and you have this kind of performance. So this is the abject failure of government to deliver

even the most minimal level of service. When, as you put it, natural disasters happen. All right. Let's stay on the African continent and go to Niger, which seems to be catching that epidemic epidemic.

That's impacting a number of places in Africa. And that's the coup epidemic. That's. And that's the coup epidemic. That's the coup epidemic. That's right. And, you know, there are contagion effects because one coup succeeds and dissenters, military dissenters say, oh, boy, that's doable. I can do that too. And that's really what we've seen.

But here's where the stories tie together, Peter. And it was very interesting. I think the president of Nigeria, who came out swinging against this coup in Niger and encouraged, you know, the ECOWAS, the West African

community to respond with a threat of force to restore President a threat of force to restore President Buzuma of Niger, who's still, by the way, in prison in his house and hasn't been released. But he said, and just this week in New York, he said, look, this is not democracy versus autocracy, which is the way the story gets told in the West. These are military coups to overthrow democratically elected government. You know, President Bazum is the son of the previous president. This family has been in power in Nigeria for 30 years or more. And, you know, finally,

Tenubu, the president of Nigeria, came out and said, this is that same story we were talking about. It's a failure to meet the basic needs of Africans. And that's why you saw people in the streets in Nigeria supporting the coup. You know, it's not, to me, Peter, democracy versus autocracy. It's kleptocracy.

Right? It's kleptocracy in Morocco. It's kleptocracy in Niger. And that's what we're finally seeing. There is a sense that it's enough. And that's why we're finally seeing. There is a sense that it's enough. And that's why we're seeing it. You know, we're haunted, many of us, by the scenes from a few years ago. Well, 10, 15 years ago of Darfur in Western Sudan. We still remember what that was like.

But now we're remembering it because we're seeing it seemingly again talk to us about that well that that's you know this the last african story that one just struck home with me for the same reason that there was a terrible terrible genocide in Darfur, which is in the western part of Sudan. We had a great story a few years ago when southern Sudan finally achieved its independence. People were so optimistic. Well, we have, again, a civil war in Sudan between the Sudanese army and a paramilitary force called the Rapid Support Forces.

The Rapid Support Forces are backed by those same Arab militias. You remember the Janjaweed? Oh, yeah. Who inflicted, that's who. The Janjaweed were the ones who inflicted the genocide they are now, their heirs are now supporting the rapid support forces and therefore again

1.5 million people displaced refugees pouring into southern Sudan which is among the poorest countries in the world and has no capacity to absorb these refugees, pouring over the border, and just a sense, I think, of absolute despair that there's any capacity

in any international institution right now to do anything about this. Boy, there's like a theme running through all these stories that you're talking about. Yes, there is. You know, bad governance on the part of the country and sort of unwillingness, it seems, on the part of governments outside these regions to do anything. Yeah. The story is bad governance, failure to meet basic needs. And if you don't do that, you get what you and I have just been talking about.

But the second part of the story is great power politics are back. That's what preoccupies Russia, China, the United States. So a continent like Africa, frankly, gets the shortest end of the stick. All right. I don't know, moving off the African continent, I don't know what part governance plays in the story of Saudi Arabia, but the country that was a pariah to much of the world after the Khashoggi murder seems to have

is back. It's the darling. Yeah, exactly, which is you know, I was making the comparison the other day that the Khashoggi situation is so, you know, clearlychered this guy and at first denied any role in it and then basically had to admit that there was a role by rogue agents is the way they painted it. And you wonder whether that's in some way, if there ever is an investigation on the part of India into this is we're going to end up with the same kind of solution,

you know, rogue agents. It wasn't directly done by the government. something got out of hand or what have you but focusing on saudi arabia right focus on saudi arabia for a moment and tell us how they manage this is it all because of oil is it all because of money is it all because of supporting golf tournaments and whatever else? Well, much as you might like it to be golf, it's not golf, Peter. And I don't think it's oil because the Saudis aren't market makers anymore in oil. I mean, we're in an energy transition and oil is still important, but it doesn't have the impact that it did 20 years ago.

This is, again, part of a much bigger geopolitical game. And it's actually, astonishingly enough, led by Joe Biden and his national security team who want to lock Talk Saudi Arabia in. The Saudis, you know, he's played a very skilled game. Mohammed bin Salman, he's reached out to China. He's invited Chinese investment into Saudi Arabia. China got all those kudos. You know, I talked about it for mediating between Iran and Saudi Arabia last time. Made the folks in the Biden team very, very uncomfortable. So they are spearheading these talks, which are astonishing, frankly,

to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. They're astonishing that the Biden administration would pick this time with this government in Israel to do this. But they're also astonishing because Biden has had to walk all the way back from his description of Saudi Arabia as a pariah. And the price of this, it is to give the Saudis a civilian nuclear reactor. That's what they're talking about. As well as some sort of defense or security pact, similar to what they have given to Israel. These are not small concessions that the Biden administration is being asked to give by the Saudis, but it is designed to make sure that the Chinese don't get a foot deeply into this part of the world.

It is designed to make sure that Saudi Arabia doesn't move too close to Iran, which is still a big worry in the Biden administration. A murder? What's a murder? Between friends, right? Yeah. You mentioned Israel. Netanyahu was in Washington, was at the White House, was with Biden. What do we read into that?

Wow. Again, this is a government that is so controversial at home that the protests are still going on in the streets the case of judicial one version of it is it went before the Supreme Court no ruling yet

you know the visit with Netanyahu in New York and a promise of an invitation to the White House before the end of the year. If you want to deflate the protesters in the street who are doing it in the name first of all, to move along the Saudi deal, because the Saudis are asking for someone I would think are relatively modest concessions on the Palestinian issue. And that's going to break up Netanyahu's coalition. It's not an easy, this is not, the path forward is not easy here. And so he may have, he may have extended the olive branch.

But the key asset for Netanyahu is, you know, a visit with Biden. That's what he wanted. He wanted that photo op with Biden. He got it. And that just

strengthens his hand at home with the most righting government that Israel has ever had. So you have to ask yourself, Peter, where's the Biden presidency that said we're going to organize this world around democracy versus autocracy? Where's that? It was really hard this week to find a trace wherever you looked. It was really difficult. He's having enough trouble finding it in his own country

these days, Biden. But tell me this just before we move to our last country. Tell me this. You know, Netanyahu has been a player for what 40 years i know i you know i've interviewed him i don't know how many times during the past 40 years um at different levels you know he's obviously been a prime minister off and on a number of times but he's also held major portfolios, defense, foreign affairs. He's a survivor. How has he done that?

He's had everything thrown at him, right? It's not only political defeat. He's had charges thrown at him. Threats of going to jail, the whole bit. And yet there he is. He's on trial for corruption. Right. He's on trial as we speak. He's on trial for corruption.

So you have to give him his due. He's really politically skilled. He's very, very skilled. And in probably the roughest political system anywhere in the world, this is the roughest. They play tougher there than anywhere else. He's the toughest, but he's also the most skilled. And that's why he survived.

I think there was some hope that this last crisis was going to do him in. And in some ways it still might, but the Biden administration, it's hard to over-exaggerate. He's thrown a lifeline, Peter.

All of a sudden the Saudi deal, which to Israelis, who would have thought something they want? Even for that group that he's running with, which has no concern whatsoever, zero about either democracy or about Palestinians. No, they are a right-wing nationalist and fundamentalist group. That's who they are. Even for them, it's going to be tough to say no. So he's in a much better position now because of what because of what's happened and you say this guy you know he's nine lives no he's 64 it sure does it's amazing okay last stop

on our uh i was going to call it a world tour, but there's so much of the world, obviously, that we've left out. But nevertheless, for this segment, this time around, these are the countries we wanted to focus on. But last stop is North Korea. What do you want to say there? Well, there's another one with survival skills that would surprise many of us. he took his luxury train across, you know, all the way to the Siberian peninsula in Russia to meet Vladimir Putin. He did it this time with a very strong bargaining hand, which he's never had before, Peter, because he is going to supply scarce artillery shells,

ammunition to Vladimir Putin, who really needs it because this is turning the war such a slog for him. But what's he going to get in return? He's going to get much more advanced military equipment than he's ever had. So this is the first time in 30 years, and that's why I thought this one was worth a stop. This is the first time in 30 years that China or Russia is willing to give North Korea advanced military equipment. Any thought that these sanctions, and food, and food. So any thought that these sanctions might work against North Korea, done.

We now have stripped away the veil. North Korea is a nuclear power and it's hanging out, let's put it this way, it's hanging out with a group of countries that are all desperate for their own reasons, all under sanction by the United States and the West.

And I think at some point you have to ask yourself, there are a lot of costs to this strategy, frankly. Sanctions have not worked almost anywhere. You know, when David Frum coined that phrase, axis of evil for George W. Bush, that axis was what, korea iran iran and iraq and iraq so the axis of eagle now dropped one partner in iraq first two are still there and i guess you could you could say they've added Moscow and Beijing.

Yeah, yeah. To the way they look at it. And those two, the two that have survived, are nuclear powers now, right? Threshold nuclear power, nuclear power. You know, if you ask me what I worry about here in this when you isolate and you sanction and there's no off ramp for anybody and you do this over time you drive people to

collaborate and when you build when you enable collaboration among the four we just talked about, that is not a safer world, Peter. No. No, it sure isn't. It sure isn't. And now we head into an American election, and God knows what that will bring into that unsafe world.

Okay. This being, you know, as it always is, it's a fascinating tour to a number of places in the world, Janice, and only you can do it the way you do it. So we really appreciate the time and we'll talk to you again. We'll talk to you again probably another month or so. Looking forward. Okay. Take care.

Janice Stein with us with What Are We Missing? Another great edition. Hope you enjoyed it. If you have thoughts on any of this stuff, don't be shy. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com.

That's where to write, include your name and where you're writing from. And we consider all letters that come in, some of them end up making the Your Turn edition on Thursday along with the Random Ranter.

Okay, before we wrap it up, one end bit for today. And it's you know, it's once again we're trying to to every once in a while at least once a week say something about climate change now you probably expected this to come but they've finally been made official now the national oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has been compiling records

for 174 years. Well, the temperature records that they compile continue to topple. Last month was the planet's warmest August on record. The global surface temperature for the month was 2.25 degrees Fahrenheit or 1.25

degrees Celsius above the 20th century average. July and June were also the warmest on record globally, meaning the northern hemisphere saw its warmest summer on record, and the Southern Hemisphere its warmest winter. Global surface sea temperatures hit a record high for the fifth month in a row. In the United States, August was the ninth warmest on record, but Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi were especially hot, with all three states experiencing their warmest August ever. I'm reading this in the New York Times. Why does it matter?

Well, climate-related disasters come with huge costs. We talked about the floods in Libya with Janus. But listen, August saw the formation of 19 named storms across the globe, eight of them reaching tropical cyclone strength. Six of these storms, including two hurricanes, happened in the Atlantic Ocean, more than usual for the region. The United States has had 23 separate weather and climate disasters that cost more than a billion dollars each in damages so far in 2023. The most ever in one year, even adjusted for inflation. These included the Category 3 Hurricane Idalia in Florida and the wildfires in Hawaii last month.

The Maui wildfires were exasperated by winds from Hurricane Dora and are believed to have killed 97 people. Well, we haven't been protected from all this. We've seen the wildfires in different parts of the country. We've seen hurricane force winds and rain in Atlantic Canada. I mean, it has been a year that has seen a lot of different things happening. I mean, listen, some of this stuff happens every year,

but not to the degree it's happened this year. That's the point. And that's the argument on climate change, right? Things are changing, and they're having an impact. All right. That's going to wrap it up for today. Tomorrow, Brian Stewart will be by. I mean, there's been a lot of stuff said.

You saw Zelensky last week in both Washington and Ottawa with lines like, if you don't support us, we will lose this war. I'm not sure that he's ever been that blunt about it. But what's happening there? Is there a pullback? Is there a clear pullback in support? It may not be in the words that are being spoken, but it may well be in the money and the arms that are being supplied.

We'll talk about that with Brian tomorrow as he makes his regular Tuesday appearance. Wednesday, Smoke Mirrors and the Truth with Bruce. Thursday, as mentioned, it's Your Turn and the Rantor. Friday, Good Talk with Bruce and Chantal. Okay, that's it for this week. No, it's not this week. That's it for this day.

I'm Peter Mansbridge. We will be back in 24 hours.