The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Canada Recognizes Palestine -- What Difference Will That Make?

Episode Date: September 22, 2025

Three major issues for Dr Janice Stein today on her regular Monday foreign affairs conversation. What difference, if any, will Canada's recognition of Palestine make? Why the increase in public support of the extreme right in Britain? And Canada is about to spend billions of dollars on defence expenditures -- are we buying the right things? 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 Bansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of the bridge. Canada recognizes Palestine. What difference will that make? Dr. Janice Stein, coming right up. And welcome to another Monday. Another Monday with Dr. Janice Stein, the director of the monk school, University of Toronto. We have a number of different topics to discuss today, all of which I think

you will find informative, and we'll probably get you thinking about just how exactly you want to feel about some of those things. But first, as we always do on Monday, we've got to inform you of the question of the week so you can contemplate your answers on this one. So here we go. Here's this week's question and it's a challenging one are you worried about the long-term future of the United States are you worried about the long-term future of the United States so that's another one of these kind of yes or no questions but we want more than a yes or a no we want you to take a stand and explain why you're taking that stand and you will hopefully do that in 75 words or fewer, right?

You'll write to the Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. You'll have your letters in before 6 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday. Right? And you will make sure you include your name and the location you're writing from. So there you go. Those are the basic rules. The question once again, are you worried about the long-term future of the United States?

We spent a lot of time worrying about our situation, and it's kind of related in some ways to what's happening south of the border. But when you see the various things that are happening in the United States right now, does it make you worry about the long-term future of the U.S.? Looking forward to hearing your answers on that question. A couple of reminders about the week ahead tomorrow. It's the reporter's notebook with Althea Raj and Rob Russo. Lots to discuss there.

Wednesday, normally our Encore edition, but this week we're going to do another one of these one-offs. We're going to talk to two authors. With new books, they're both just on the Canada non-fiction list. So I want to hear what you have to, well, I don't need, I don't want to hear from you, I want you to hear from them. And I'll tell you who they are tomorrow. But that's Wednesday.

Thursday, your turn of curse. Of course, Friday is good talk. Bruce will be back. He was away last week, Bruce Anderson, and Chantelli Bear on Friday. All right, let's get things organized for, Today's conversation with Dr. Janice Stein from the Monk School to University of Toronto, and here she is. All right, Janice, so they've finally made the decision, made it official.

Canada is going to recognize Palestine. What does that mean? Traditionally, what it means is you recognize a state that has borders and control of, of the territory within those borders. And after that, Peter, you start a process. You exchange ambassadors. You create embassies. And there's a complicated set of rituals

that fallen can usually take a while. In this case, we have none of that. I think everyone knows. We have no borders. There's a fierce war going on in Gaza itself, which is part of the territory. Israel has been the government of this prime minister in Israel, unequivocal, no independent Palestinian state, said it in every way possible. So you might ask yourself, what does this meet as many people have?

I think we can't understand this if we look at this in terms of the formalities because, you know, as one commentator put it on Sunday, this is untethered from reality, from the facts on the ground. So it is, I think, a reflection of huge frustration of countries that are looking at the humanitarian catastrophe for Palestinians. in Gaza, feel totally incapable of having any impact and are trying to influence, I think the target is really Washington here, trying to get Donald Trump off the fence on this by saying, you know, we have over 145 countries that... are committed to a two-state solution, unless we do something urgently, the possibility of that two-state solution will vanish. It is really a cry of frustration, and I think also moral outrage,

when they look at the casualties and the death rate among Palestinians and gas, and the suffering. Now, you know, Canada is not alone on this. No. As you have suggested, there are other countries, and namely Britain and France. have said the same thing. Australia is expected to follow suit rather quickly. But you have on the other side, obviously,

you have Netanyahu who is refusing to accept this, and as you say, you have Trump. So as long as you have Israel in the United States against this idea, what difference is it made? It's not going to go anywhere, Peter. frankly, as frustrating as that is to hear, it's not going to go anywhere until and if Donald Trump says to Netanyahu, stop. And what's interesting in the recognition discussion is up until recently, there was a

tremendous focus on ceasefire. Stop the hostilities because that is the the quickest way, by the way, to address the humanitarian crisis. Under any circumstances, it's always really difficult to get humanitarian aid in in the middle of fighting. You look at Sudan, where the humanitarian crisis is orders of magnitude greater and in some ways works because there is famine throughout the whole area. It's almost impossible to get the aid in because of the fighting. That's been the focus for the last year. As these negotiations have crumbled, it didn't happen through Steve Whitkoff.

It didn't, you know, the Qataris angry beyond belief, frankly, at the attack by Israel on Hamas headquarters. Right now, there are no negotiations, really serious ones going on for a ceasefire, which would, address the profound humanitarian concerns that people have. So you turn to this, because what else is there? Having some sense of the people in Washington, we already saw the first reaction, Peter, let me put it that way. Angry, angry letter from Republican senators

threatening to, retaliate against those governments who are Canada, Britain, France, Australia, Belgium, many, many others, who are at the forefront of recognition and at this special conference, which is being held today at the UN on a two-state solution. It's an impasse, frankly, total impasse. What's the incentive for Trump to do something? In other words, domestically, is there any pressure on? on him beyond, you know, AOC and Bernie Sanders and, you know, the kind of left of the

Democratic party. You know, AOC and Bernie Sanders are not going to have any impact on Trump. So where is the pressure coming from? It's from two sources. One, his own supporters are divided. And it's interesting. There is as strong, as you know, evangelical Christian movement inside the MAGA movement, all the people, many of the people

who will turn up at the memorial service for Charlie Hicks. It's framed within Christian values. And those, by the way, are not the monopoly of the right. There are many who hold Christian values who are outside the MAGA movement, but it is a stronghold within the MAGA movement. And they do not, they are, they do not want to see Israel coerced. That's in the sense that Trump is constrained. There's the other side of the Maga movement who want this war stopped, don't want to, are worried that the United States is going to be drawn in again as it was when it escalated to open fighting between Iran and Israel.

They were very unhappy that the United States. sent fighter bombers in. They're worried that the United States could be pulled in. They are pushing for an end to this. And so you hear Trump one day saying, this must stop tomorrow. The fighting must stop.

I want the fighting stopped. But then you have to do something. There has to be some consequence if you say over and over, I want the fighting stopped. And then you do nothing. And that's frankly what we've seen from Donald Trump.

What about Netanyahu? Has anything changed in terms of pressure on him? I mean, we saw the big demonstrations in the streets over the last month, six weeks. Well, we've actually seen them for months, really, but there have been some pretty significant ones of late. But that doesn't seem to have any impact on him at all. You know, we're talking about this in September, Peter. There's a general expectation that will be early elections in Israel.

The wildest speculation is January, but the spring. And he is down in the polls. His party cannot win with any conceivable coalition because 75% of Israelis want this war over. He doesn't have a long runway to reverse. that. That's one big source of pressure that grows as we get closer and closer to elections. The second source is this is really remarkable.

Uniform opposition from the senior military from his, from a chief of defense ethics, he appointed. You know, he was determined to get somebody into that role that would support him. That support lasted about six weeks and the

It's unprecedented for a chief of the defense staffs, Amir, to come out openly. It's an open seat. When they oppose this war, we need negotiations for a ceasefire and a return of the hostages. We will be fighting for two years, he said, in public, along with the chief of both of the large intelligence agencies. So this is a prime minister that is really isolated at this point, aside. from those really ultra right wing members of his own coalition. He's this, he is on, I would, we've said this for 15 years about Nathaniel, right? He kind of resurrect himself and he always does, but he's a very short runway right now.

Is there, is there, some signals leaks and again, who knows with leaks, right? It's a very leaky, like the only place that's leakier than Washington is everybody talks all the time. And so if you read the press, there's some signals that Netanyahu himself now is beginning to look for a way out, that he does not want to proceed with a full-scale onslaught against Gaza City. There's no win there, Peter. There's no win there. There's only loss. and he's sending signals that he'd like to see these ceasefire negotiations restart.

Well, I'm wondering how you get to any kind of middle ground. I see that the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is once again trying to insert himself into this story. I mean, he's been sort of unofficially there for a number of years, but it hasn't seemed to accomplish anything. He's got a kind of half a nod, at least, from Trump to get involved again. Can he do anything? Can Tony Blair, yesterday's man in Britain at least, can he accomplish anything here? Never mind yesterday's man, Peter, the man who supported George Bush in the onslaught against Iraq, which is world, the Middle East.

We're still paying for the consequences. Look, I think he can't. I think the fact that he got half an odd from Trump really matters. Why don't I say that he has a very capable, grounded team of people, been on the ground who really know the players. He knows the players in Israel. He knows the players in Palestine. He knows everybody on a boss's team.

You can't say that for Trump, frankly. He has no team. So this, in a sense, is the team that under a normal presidency you would have in the National Security Council or the State Department, these people are knowledgeable. If anybody has a capacity to execute on a ceasefire negotiation, it would be Tony Blair. And he has, you know, he, Starrmer is no fan of Blair, as you know well. But he's got the practical knowledge and a team that is really seasoned and well, we're going. They're not going to come up with a hairbrain scheme. Let me put it that way.

They're not going to encourage Trump in any hairbrained ideas. There is no Riviera of gas for the Blair team. Does he have, does Blair have a relationship with Netanyahu? Yes. You know, not with a good relationship? Yes. Surprisingly, he does. Because he's gone back and gone back and gone back.

He shows up and meets with a bus and meets with Antonio. So he actually does, surprisingly. You mentioned his name a few moments ago, the special envoy that Trump has. He would cough. Woodgoth. you were high on him a few months ago. Yeah. He's firing blanks these days.

He's not getting any more. He was the Alaska man, wasn't he? He was the Alaska man who actually, from everything we now know, misunderstood what Putin said to him in that long three-hour meeting. And that's, you know, when does that happen when you don't know the cold? When you're not Tony Blair, when you haven't heard this 50 times and you're looking just for that slight nuance. And so in many ways, I think that's been a catastrophe for Trump and certainly as far as the Europeans. I was high on them because I was hoping that somebody who walked into this region,

naive, might succeed where all the professionals have. failed, frankly. You know, we've had, we are coming up to the two-year anniversary of a war that should have been over after the first six months, frankly, at the longest, Peter, it should have been over. There's no tactical gains, and there's only strategic losses, frankly. So that was the part, and he was so closely connected to the president. The envoys that work always have a good relationship with the president or the prime minister, as it happens to be.

They can cut through. He doesn't have the chop, apparently, and he doesn't have the knowledge. So the bottom line for you, then, as a last point on this part of our discussion today, is that we shouldn't sort of dismiss the Tony Blair thing. No. No, I think that's the best. option we have, I understand the meeting that's taking place in the UN today. They're drawing up plans for the day after, but we have to get to the day after. And the only way we can get

to the day after is if we get a ceasefire. Well, you know, like obviously we wish him luck. Yeah. It just seems so hard. It is. The last couple of years, in fact, after the last, you know, Almost century. There can be anything that's going to bring this to some kind of resolution. Look, Peter, this has been going on for 120 years. Think about this, right? And when the United Kingdom was the imperial power, I sent mediator after mediator after mediator to this part.

Trying to leave the region, if you just think about that for a minute, trying to withdraw. 15 years of commissions and reports and everything, nothing worked. This is a fierce conflict between two peoples who claim the same land, and it's not big. You know, in a famous comment, Luis Arbor once said, I think, I can't remember what she said, publicly or in a private conversation, she said, this is a part of the world that's suffering. from far too much history and far too little geography. Great line.

Great one. Okay, I want to move the topic. We're going to try and cover three things today. So here's our second one before the mid-show break. And it's the continuing evidence of the rise of the right in Europe. and the UK. We look at last weekend, here in the UK, I'm still there right now. And in London, you had, they say it was between 120 and 150,000 people in the streets.

The video that I saw looked even more than that. I mean, there were a lot of people. And they were all waving their, you know, England flags, what is it, the St. George's flag, which has become the symbol of, well, of the right of the anti-immigration, especially. What did you make of that? I'm astonished, Peter. I really was.

You know, when you think about the palace-line demonstrations that you've seen in the United Kingdom, I don't know whether they, it's so hard to tell the numbers from the visuals and all these estimates, frankly, you know, are... inflated by whoever's trying to make us set up and pay attention. But they were large, but this was large too, really large. Tommy Robinson, you know, a figure on the right, far right, of British politics, was involved.

you see a labor party in Britain plunging in the polls. It's astonishing, again, to me, how short, it shows you how fast the pace of politics is moving now. Prime ministers don't get honeymoons. And they certainly don't get a year anymore. And Farage, Nogel Farage, who's very similar in the movement he leads,

It's very similar to the populist movement that Donald Trump reads, is climbing in the polls. Now, we might have said, oh, yeah, but he elected nobody. But that's not true if you look at the council elections that took place in Britain. Those are local council elections. That party did far better than people had anticipated. So I'm struck by how, again, by how the populist right, is able to send a message not dissimilar from what Charlie Kirk

although Charlie Kirk did it in a far more civil way really this is a struggle for our civilization this is a struggle for the West this is civilizational all the fundamentals of who we are this is an identity struggle that's the language that they use

over and over and over and they are appealing as we talked last week to younger people I looked at that crowd to the extent that I could see it they're younger, they're frustrated they feel that their own opportunities are less than their parents had I talk to these young people all the time

my parents had a good life they bought a house, they had a mortgage I'm never going to happen to me that's what I hear and so it's this mix of frustration and frankly the failure of our liberal democracies over the last 25 or 30 years

to make space for these younger folks in leadership positions and to pay attention to what was bothering them they feel the system is rigged and that's powerful. That's how you get them out in the streets.

So what do you focus on? You know, I think back to Germany again for a minute in the 1930s. After the, you know, the ruinous cost really of reparations that the Germans paid and the German economy began to deter in the middle class, fundamentally wiped out. Who do you pay attention to? far right that deflex the blame explains why there's no opportunities and appeals

we need a total change to make this system work for you it's the same language the same phenomenon you know you talked about some of this last week when you did your were failing young boys and I know you spoke on it later during the week elsewhere what kind of reaction are you getting?

It was, well, it was very interesting. Where I spoke was to a group of women who had come together years ago to change the role of women in financial services. And, you know, that was not a place where doors were easily opened for women. and this group has grown and become mentors to other women. And I think when they asked me to speak, what they thought I would talk about was geopolitical instability. And we didn't telegraph in advance what I was going to talk about. And when I said I was going to talk about voice,

the shock in the room was palpable, right? they're polite. But as I worked my way through it and got to that end and explained to them why boys are women's issue. Some of that skepticism, somebody said,

I never would have believed that at our conference we would have had a speech about boys. She started that way, but then she said, but I get it. I understand why it matters. And of course, it does matter profoundly.

Leave aside again the human element, which is very important here. We don't want a series of alienated, frustrated, disappointed boys who grow up to be that kind of man. That's all we want. But they can actually see how destabilizing that is for the issues that they care about. These are investors. Sure. These are investors, right? Those are the people who have to get involved, and that's what I said.

So other than that came, oh, we need to do something. Now's the hard work. What do we do? All right. We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we'll focus on a Canadian political issue that's coming up. And, you know, it's more than political. It's budgetary.

It's going to affect everybody's pocketbook. Yeah. So we'll do that right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge, the Monday episode with Dr. Janice Stein from the Monk School, the University of Toronto. You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Janice the budget is a little more than a month away we already know there's going to be a big chunk of money on defense spent whether it's you know the F-35 fighter jets or whether it's first installment on submarines we're talking billions and billions of dollars here yeah so the question is You and I have talked a little bit about this before, but we're getting into crunch time on this issue now,

and the issue is, are these really the right things to be talking about spending that kind of money on when we know, and we're witnessing that the battlefield, so to speak, out there, has changed considerably in just the last couple of years. And we're talking about kind of rewinding the clock to in some ways a different era, or are we?

I think that's the biggest question that faces the prime minister, honestly. It is the biggest single question because let's just understand the order of magnitude here, Peter, we are trying to spend $9 billion on defense in the next fiscal year. Probably won't be able to do it for a whole variety of reasons, some of which is they don't of the capacity inside to spend that money right now. But there's a bigger issue that $9 billion is the first installment. This could be the submarine bill alone will be $120 billion, $130 billion over the life of the program. The F-35 sees advanced fighter jets that all the NATO members have if we go forward.

we put a pause, we bought 18, their pause now, if they go forward 88, which is roughly another 100. So in those two programs, a quarter of a trillion dollars, yeah, that's the easiest way to explain this, right? At the same time, and so what we do on these programs, crucial to the future of the Canadian economy, the rumors are just rumors nobody knows this you know but the rumors are that we will have somewhere around an $80 billion deficit in the budget so think about the debt servicing costs going to grow and you think about defense costs how do we grow the economy where does the money come to invest in our declining productivity and growth you know how do we meet the needs of those young people we were just talking about, it's got to come through defense spending.

That is the only public spend. So, again, just to put this in context for Canadians, people are working over time on a defense industrial strategy for Canada, rebuilding the defense industrial base in this country, because that's the only levers of growth we will have. what's happening at the same time on the battlefield profound change in the battlefield at a pace wow it's unbelievable how fast it is so what's the new battlefield is first of all smart

so you know artificial intelligence is going to be in every weapon everything some of these weapons are going to be crewless. They're going to be autonomous weapons. And if you're thinking about that from a military point of view, you're not sacrificing men. They don't die in combatless aircrafts.

And that's a huge advantage at a time when we have declining populations and we have trouble recruiting and filling the quota for an advanced combat. For those F-35s, for those submarines, we need crews. And that's a growing problem at a time where our population is getting older. They're going to be smart. The second thing is they're going to be cheap. Look at drones, right? You know, you've seen them.

They started. People bought them from Walmart. That's where it all started. And the Ukrainians led the way in adapting these cheap. smart weapons, which did require drone operators this generation, but they could stand somewhat behind the line. The Ukrainians are going to be manufacturing a million a year. This year, that's the estimates, that they will be able to manufacture a million. They've stood up. Plants are not hard to manufacture. They're cheap. You lose 40 and 8. That's

fine. You haven't lost a pilot and it can manufacture 40 more. The drone operators who use these first person view things, which they use and they can see the battlefield, those drone operators are no more valuable than the drones, cheaper to manufacture the drone. So look at the balance, right? And let me just think an extra minute here to talk about what happened. we did talk about it quickly last week, when Russian drones, 21 now we know, went into Poland, right? What kind of response did that take? So one smart soldier who was monitoring the radar screens said one dot looked odd, sent the message right up. The Polish chief of the defense staff alerted their fighter aircraft.

some of those fighter aircraft have advanced missiles on them and they scrambled. They had to decode which were decoys and which were real. There were a few that were real. And they fired a missile that conservatively cost depends on what they fired exactly, $100,000 to take out.

a cheap drone, right? When Israel was taking out drones and ballistic missiles that came from Iran, it was a million dollars a shot from a Patriot missile system. And frankly, they ran out of interceptors. So cheap, they matters. Well, cheap matters, you know, as long as they work. And depending on where they're made, you know, like if Canada's going to spend $9 billion in the next year on defense products, you know, where's that money going to and how much of it's staying at home? That's right.

And if you're going to rethink the battlefield to make it more like what's actually happening out there right now, where's Canada said, say, on drones? I mean, drones are going to, you know, above ground drones. underwater drones is the next big thing, right? Yep. So do we have the technology and the innovation to be in this game? Yes. And it seems to me everything that the Carney people say is they want the money that they're going to be spending, that there's going to be soaring that deficit to be spent

in Canada. Yep. And you know, here's the good news, Peter. We have the technology, right? We have a thriving startup community in Canada, which does what we call dual-use technology, which means you use it in the civilian sector, used in the military sector. Same technology that, you know, a retailer uses, and that's what's going to happen to you in a couple of weeks. You're going to order your dinner, no more Uber-eats drivers, the restaurant's going to connect it to a drone.

The drone's going to land on your front porch. You'll have your dinner. It's fundamentally the same technology is going to be used in the more advanced technology. So, for example, we have a startup company in Canada right now that has the technology to develop an autonomous drone that can actually accompany the F-35 aircrafts and be decoys and distract the missiles. that that might be coming. We need to have a core number of F-35. I don't think we need 88. We need a core number,

but we need to invest in all the smarter, cheaper, and many, many more, because the third component is multiple, actually swarms of these things that are going to confuse the other side. Underwater, do we need 12? submarines. I understand we need some because they control the choke points. But again, bang for the buck. If we can put really smart, autonomous, underground, underwater vessels, which

are coming. I think they're coming in the next two years versus submarines will take 10. Right? We need, so what do we really need to do in this country, I believe? We need to connect up that this new set of companies, they're small. They don't have big staffs. They don't how to procure, Peter. They're not experienced. Our Department of Defense doesn't know how to sell to them. Because it takes three years to get a procurement proposal through them.

By the time you do that, these smaller companies are gone. Yeah. But the UK is getting it right. They've got a new agency that joins these up. The U.S. is getting it right. We can't be far behind because a big, significant chunk of that spend has to be on the next generation of smart, autonomous, cheap, flexible, maneuverable weapons that will surround

the clunkier, old weapons that we've committed to buy. Is anybody rethinking this? Yes. The answer is yes. Are we doing it fast enough? No. Do I feel a sense of urgency about it? Yes.

Can we get there if we understand the order of magnitude spend and what it will do for the economy? Yes, do we have a prime minister? who's paying attention to that? Yes. Can we get it done in time? That's a big question. What's he up against?

Let's assume that he's thinking even remotely the way we're talking. What's he up against? A defense department bureaucracy that says, I don't know, we need yesterday's weapons now? Of course there's that. Of course there are. And look, let's have some sympathy for the civil service. here. And, you know, you work for a very large organization, the CBC. That has a significant

bureaucracy. And there's held to account when money doesn't get spent wisely. So these bureaucrats are accountable. You know, the global mail finds one story where money wasn't, there wasn't, you know, value for money. And if it's not the global mail, by the way, it's the auditor general who does that to them. And that's the end of their career. But, But if you're in a rapidly changing environment like this with a venture community, you're going to take a chance. You're going to spend on 15, hoping that two will really get there. That's what the Americans do.

And that's why they've got the most innovative economy in the world. We have to lose, I would say we have to loosen up some of the constraints. We have to put that money in an envelope. That's called venture spending for the defense industrial space. And we have to explain to Canadians, if you invest in 15 and you get two really great runs that compensate for all the spending. It's a changing culture that we need to get that. Look, Peter, I'll tell you from personal experience. I've done that at the monk school.

boy you know 10 don't work I'm fine with that because you learn from your mistakes but if to work that knocks it out of the park that's the culture we need but that's hard and we have to be and this is going to sound funny coming for me we have to go easier on the defense bureaucracy or the I said bureaucracy because this is defense industrial base we have two two bureaucracies that have to start to talk to each other. Ministers have to talk to each other. We have to be easier on those folks and stop the gotcha journalism about one misspent.

Okay. We're going to leave it to that for this week. Fascinating conversation, all of it, as always, and leaving everybody with lots to think about. Thanks to this, Janice. See you in seven days. in a week. Dr. Janice Stein, University of Toronto, the Monk School.

And again, lots to think about, as I'm sure you will be doing as you contemplate the answer to your question of the week, which you heard at the beginning of the program today. Have your answer in before 6 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday. Include your name, the location you're writing from, write to the Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com and keep your answer to 75 words or fewer. All right, that'll do it for this day tomorrow. Once again, Tuesday morning.

Every second Tuesday, it's The Reporter's Notebook with Althea Raj and Rob Russo. They'll be by tomorrow and lots to talk about from the corridors of power in Ottawa. We'll hear it from Althea and Rob. All right, that's it for now. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Great to talk to you,

and we will talk again in, well, in less than 24 hours. Thank you.