The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Could It Happen Here?

Episode Date: May 3, 2022

An unprecedented leak of a draft decision by the United States Supreme Court has shocked the legal community and abortion rights advocates.  Basically, the leak suggests that the Court has decided to overturn Roe vs Wade, the 1970's decision to legalize abortion in the US.Some opening thoughts on that.  Plus the legacy of Guy Lafleur; and then Brian Stewart drops by with the latest on the "spy wars" that have dominated the Russia-Ukraine story.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. Roe vs. Wade. After 50 years, has its time passed? And welcome to Tuesday here on The Bridge. A number of topics for today, but I feel I have to start with some thoughts on this decision that apparently has been made, at least at the draft level, the Supreme Court of the United States on the Roe v. Wade issue. Roe v. Wade, passed in 1972-73 by the Supreme Court of the U.S., gave women the legal right to abortion. It's worth remembering that that decision by the U.S. court 50 years ago was a 7-2 decision in the nine-member Supreme Court. And of those seven who voted for Roe versus Wade, five of them were Republican-appointed judges.

So that appeared to become settled law in the United States. The decision had been made, and for the first decade or so, it was basically an accepted fact. Then the rumblings started, and they started coming from a number of different areas, the religious right being one of them. But whenever it came up in legal circles, the response was, it's settled law. It's done. It's not to be overturned or challenged. And that was even the line, remember the controversial Trump-appointed judge, nominee to the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh? Remember those hearings a couple of years ago,

and how bizarre they were, and wild they were, and all the rumors about his youth at university and college, and his involvement on a number of incidents related to women. Well, when the issue of Roe v. Wade came up in his hearings, as it often does come up, his response was, it's settled law. I don't have any opinion about overturning Roe v. Wade because it's settled law. Well, a lot of people accused Kavanaugh of lying about some of his past. Turns out it appears, anyway, at this point, that he may well have been lying about settled law. Because this report that came out last night and shocked the U.S. community includes Brett Kavanaugh's name of those Supreme Court justices who have joined a 5-4 decision to overturn

Roe v. Wade. Now, how does this work in the U.S. courts? I'm not an expert on U.S. constitutional law or the U.S. Supreme Court, but here's what little I know that appears to be fact. And it's kind of similar to what happens in the Canadian courts. Not exactly the same, but kind of similar to what happens in the Canadian courts. Not exactly the same, but kind of similar. What happens in the U.S. Supreme Court is arguments are made in the court about a particular issue, in this case, to overturn Roe v. Wade.

And once the justices have heard the arguments, and these took place late last year. The justices get together in a room, often around a kind of dining room table type thing, and they have a discussion. They have an open discussion about the case they've heard. And they take a very preliminary assessment of the room about where people stand. And if there is a majority opinion one way or the other coming out of those discussions, of the group that are on the majority, the most senior of the judges, in other words, the one who's been there longest, is asked to write an opinion based on the majority.

So in this case, that meant Clarence Thomas, who was the most senior judge, the justice, Clarence Thomas. Remember his controversial hearings back in the early 90s. And you've probably heard about his wife who was advising Trump to ignore the law and try to hold on to power after the last election. But in this case, Clarence Thomas was the most senior judge. He asked Justice Alito to write another conservative judge, part of the majority, to write the opinion. Now, that's all the way it works, right? That's how things are established, and everybody accepts that. So Alito writes an opinion, and that opinion then is brought back to the group and say, okay, here's a draft of the opinion we'd like to release.

How do people feel about this? And then there's another vote taken. And the leak that has got everybody talking suggests that that vote came out 5-4. In other words, all the Conservative-appointed justices voting in favour of the opinion, with one exception. The Chief Justice, John Roberts, who's more, he's a Conservative-appointed judge, but he's more of a moderate than the others. But 5-4 is enough.

And so that's what all the talk is about, because somehow the draft opinion has been leaked. We don't know how. You can theorize what might have happened. Is that a leak by the left-leaning judges who felt, we've got to get this out so there can be a public discussion and perhaps overturn it? Or was it the right who felt, we've got to get this out before somebody chickens out? So you can make those arguments any way you want.

Whatever the case, it's out there now and it's a precedent. Nobody can recall anything like this ever happening before. The final decision, the final judgment, the final release of an opinion isn't expected until the summer. That's kind of out there now. And what happens? Well, all night there were protesters around the Supreme Court. Those protesting against this apparent decision.

It's kind of complicated how this will unfold, but at least half the states in the U.S. It means now that if this follows through, abortion will be illegal, which promotes a checkerboard U.S. For some states, it's legal., others it isn't. Women who can afford it will have no problem flying to other states or driving to other states to have abortions if that's the way they feel. But poor people who can't afford that will not have that ability, which can lead to any number of tragic circumstances. Well, this has only been out, as I said, since last night,

but already here at the bridge I've been getting letters, and they're so far all very worried about this decision and the impact it could have. And I'm going to read just one of them. From a regular listener to the bridge, who's asked that their name not be used. But I know, as I said, this is a regular listener, so I have no doubts about the accuracy of these words. In other words, this is exactly how this person feels. Women today will now have less rights than their parents and grandparents. Less rights. Not more rights. Less rights.

Young girls, teenager, younger, will be forced to carry babies until full term. No exceptions. Not rape. Not incest. Not assault. Not a stupid mistake in high school. Abortions won't stop, but they won't be safe. Women will die. Women have lost autonomy and control of our bodies in the supposedly freest

country in the world. I'm furious. And we should be vigilant here in Canada now, too. You know, at a time when so many issues are in front of us, the pandemic, a war in Europe, inflation, housing, we now add this. And those who are seeking the highest office in this land are going to be questioned about this and about what their positions are. And will they tell

the truth about their positions or will they be Brett Kavanaugh who said one thing in his confirmation hearings and now appears to be doing quite the other when he has the job? Yes, there are lessons for all of us in this. Okay. Those are my thoughts initially on this with this story basically just having broken overnight. Now, complete change of focus and pace here now. And the change is we're going from that very serious issue to a hockey story. And no, it's not about the Leafs totally

dominating the Tampa Bay Lightning last night in the first game of the Stanley Cup playoffs. It is, as they say, there's a reason it's the best of seven series, not a best of one series. So the Leafs, I hope they celebrated last night, but as of today, that's history. And they move on. No, it's not going to be about the Leafs. It's about the flower. It's about number 10. It's about Guy Lafleur, the Montreal Canadiens. I don't know whether you've been witnessing the pictures

over the last couple of days, incredible lineups of people who passed by his casket in Montreal. And today, the funeral service. This was a very special player, and clearly somebody who was special to the hearts of Montrealers and Quebecers and to many Canadians. And I wanted to try and understand that. So my friend, Anthony Wilson-Smith,

who we call Tony two names, Tony Wilson-Smith, former journalist, a great journalist. He's now the president and CEO of Historica Canada. I'm on the board of Historica, so I kind of report to Tony in some ways. But the other thing about Tony is he is an absolute Habs fan. And so when I wanted to try to understand the legacy of Guy Lafleur, guess who I called? Here's a couple of minutes with Tony Wilson-Smith. So, Tony, what is it about Guy Lafleur that has so many people back,

but in many parts of the country, watching this service today that's taking place in Montreal, kind of a reflection on his life? What was it about him that made him so interesting to so many people you know start with the impact i think in quebec peter were of course there was the holy trinity right there was roger richard there was jean beliveau and there was and there was le fleur and i think you know our friend michael farber put it best as he often does when he said that beliveau was magisterial he was like our father Guy he was like our older brother you know he got into a bit of mischief he was a heavy

smoker all his life he used to drink a little gave it up long ago he always seemed to be living right on the edge but he was the friendliest guy around and the coolest guy around and of course on ice he was the demon blonde right nobody had more style more grace the hair flying up behind them all of it it is uh it's amazing that you mentioned those names uh and there are others uh that played for the canadians over the years you know boom boom jeffrey on i mean there were so many of them and so many of them and all the ones you mentioned, were French-Canadian. And is that part of the aspect of the legacy around Le Fleur and, you know, Richard and his brother Henri Richard and Bellevaux and, you know, all the rest? Is that part of the reason the legacy is so strong yeah i mean remembering peter that for a lot of their history the canadians actually had the rights to the first canadian french canadian

player in the draft that was baked into about the 70s now the floor was not a product of it but it tells you something it goes right back to the days when the old montreal maroons were the english team in quebec and the canadians were the other and you know when you play in montreal you can certainly be beloved but you know if you're a franco you're you know, when you play in Montreal, you can certainly be beloved, but, you know, if you're a Franco, you're, you know, you're of us. And if you're another kind of player, we can love you,

but you're with us, not of us. And that's a big difference. How did he maintain that relationship with the fan base when you talk about all the difficulties he had off the ice? Well, you know, the fact he was fallible was kind of part of his charm and the

style here you know you could see this guy who could go out he was just so ineffably cool and he would kick butt on the ice and he'd come out and the other thing about Lafleur I didn't mention is there never was a more accessible player or person in my time you know a lot of professional athletes behave as though signing autographs or saying hi as a chore he always looked delighted to do it with everybody and he showed up for everything but that sort of mixed like you know he's only human he's like you and me you know he makes mistakes he does things that actually became part of the legend including the year he almost killed himself running his car at very high speed off the road in the middle of the playoffs and it was really only a miracle that

he survived was he on the say you know you you started off by saying that you know the holy trinity of the of the three and richard beliveau and lefleur was he really on that level was he the richard was he the rocket of his day yeah of course you know in a different media time different otherwise but he was to you no question bearing in mind this is a guy who was a superstar in Quebec from the time he was 10 years old when he was 10 years old he went to the famous Quebec tournament the Peewee tournament he scored 45 goals in five games he scored 19 goals against Lake Placid the first year they started in the C category at the bottom level they won C that was too easy then they won B and then they won A they just kept winning just throw

them on the ice you're gonna win so that just continued on through his whole life his whole career as a hockey player i mean he had that kind of dominance well he did and of course the most famous goal is not even as lovely as he scored a lot of spectacular goals but you know anybody who's been at a half time as long as i have will always hear danny gallivan's voice saying lafleur winding up gingerly in his own end in the last minute of that game against boston Anybody who's been a Habs fan as long as I have will always hear Danny Gallivan's voice saying, LeFleur winding up gingerly in his own end in the last minute of that game against Boston that cost Don Cherry his job, gave the Canadians the tying game, and the Clubs have moved him on to one of their last Stanley Cups. You know, just a miraculous goal.

What, you know, you mentioned that you're a Habs fan, and I've had to put up with that for as long as we've known each other as being a die-hard Leaf fan and you being the Habs fan but it's ironic really in many ways that his death and the memories of his life come at the same time of as one of the lowest points of of that franchise of the Montreal Canadiens it's almost as if they needed something at the end of this terrible year for the team to remember the glory around the Habs. Yeah. And of course, you know, without getting into the year too much, they found a bit of a, you know, a rebirth in the second half of this year.

But remember also that LeFleur is somebody who walked away in effect twice from the Canadians. He walked away as a player before he was really finished because he felt that his old friend and lineman Jacques Lemaire as coach wasn't playing him enough. So he said, I don't need that. So he quit. And then some years later, as a, you know, as a member of the alumni, he felt underused by the Canadians and underappreciated and he left. And it wasn't really until, you know,

the Jeff Molson years of coming in and reopening doors that he came back and once again was present at every single thing. You know, it's easy to forget he closed his career with Nordics and New York Rangers. That's right. It is easy to forget that because you only imagine him as number 10 in a Habs uniform flying down the ice well and you know Peter two things I mean

almost kind of mythical of course the first game back with the Rangers having sat out for three years what does he do in the first game against the Canadiens he scores he's a visiting player he still gets a standing ovation and then there's a fact and I haven't wanted to verify this but this has passed a lot that that the ovation for him at the Habs game about 10 days ago, that the standing ovation actually literally lasted 10 minutes and 10 seconds. Right. The ultimate perfect 10.

The perfect 10 for number 10. How do you think he's going to be remembered? For his flamboyance, you know, this remarkable, you know, effort, seemingly effortless grace and, you know, the fastest guy around this from a guy who used to smoke cigarettes between periods, cause that's kind of what they did. And again, part of his fallibility and of course he was a champion, you know, for Stanley cups in a row. I mean, you know,

he also epitomizes the second best year in the history of the Canadians and the best in their modern times. The other time being in the fifts when they won five in a row. But these were still arguably the greatest Canadians teams of all time. And he was the greatest of the greatest other teams. Well, we'll all remember him, whether we cheered for the Habs or not. He was quite a player. Tony, thanks very much for this.

My pleasure, Peter. Thank you. Tony Wilson-Smith talking about the incomparable Guy Lafleur. We're going to take a quick break. Then we're coming back with Spy Wars. Brian Stewart joins us on a topic I love to talk about. Spy Wars. Coming right up. All right.

You're back. You're listening to The Bridge on SiriusXM channel 167 Canada Talks or on your favorite podcast platform. However you're listening, we're glad that you joined us. Each week since the Ukraine story started, we've had with us Brian Stewart, good friend, former colleague,

one of the great war correspondents and foreign correspondents of our time. Brian is in semi-retirement now. He's enjoying life, traveling the world, and he's still totally plugged in. And if there's one thing that he has always been extremely interested in, and is military conflict, foreign policy, foreign affairs, and spies.

So I'll say no more other than bring in our weekly conversation with Brian Stewart. Here it is. Well, Brian, let's start this week by bringing the audience into how we do this. Every week I ask Brian just to send me a note on the kind of things that he's noticed or he feels comfortable in talking about in terms of what's going on in Ukraine. And this week was no exception. And amongst the notes that he sent was a note about, we should talk about spy wars. And as soon as I saw that, I thought, we're going to talk about spy wars.

There's nothing I like better than spy stories. And so give us the briefing. What do we need to know about the spy wars that are going on in terms of the Russia-Ukraine conflict? Well, I think they're unprecedented. I don't think we've seen anything quite like it in any previous combat situation, a major combat situation. And the thing that really got me thinking about it

was that a lot of speculation has gone on as to why Russia was so weak in its initial invasion, why it performed so badly. And the general assumption out there is that, well, Putin underestimated the Ukrainian will to fight and capability of fighting. And I think that's a good part of it, a very good part of it. But there was something else here that was really quite striking, and that the russians were so ill prepared and the force that went in the forces i should say in five different axes went in were unprepared for a war they didn't think that half of them didn't even know they were going into ukraine when they did

soldiers had no idea what was going on and it turned out that the russians were massively unprepared which is very surprising because the russians are big preparers and they are great planners for war and have been for decades they they really get into that and so why were they so ill prepared well one perhaps aspect is that they underestimate the ukrainians but the other one was surely that putin was absolutely shaken by the intelligence scoops so the west was getting you remember we talked about that i think in our first broadcast the u.s and the uk primarily were coming out day after day after day with a pretty well exact summary where the r Russians were, what they were planning to do, where they were likely to invade when they did invade.

And I think what happened, and a lot of intelligence experts are coming around to this view, is that Putin and his tight coterie of supporters inside the Kremlin say we can't put anything out there. The moment we put any plans out at all, the Allies get hold of it, and then NATO gets hold of it, and the Americans are all over us. The Brits are even doing worse. They're coming out with twice-a-day summaries of what we're going to do.

And I think they were shaken to the point where they stopped informing the normal course of events, their different battalions and brigades, as to what the plans really were. They tried to keep everything secret. Well, that's disastrous when you get into a large military movement where everybody needs to have a clear idea of what their task is, where they're going, why they're going that way. And it's horrific on morale because soldiers say what are we doing we came in here to be treated as liberators and we're being fired on and there are protests everywhere we go against us now the reason that happened was that we're seeing something that has never been seen before in intelligence that's major countries coming out

and saying we have the goods we know what our enemy is planning to do. We know exactly what he's planning to do. We know where their forces are gathering. We know by the supply lines where they're likely to, in fact, their axis of their attacks, where they're likely to go. And when you think about it, you know, the United States intelligence budget is $85 billion a year. Add that to the British intelligence budget and Canadian and other Anglo budgets, you're dealing with over $90 billion a year going into the collection of information by listening devices, by military intelligence,

civilian intelligence, and the rest of it. And I think the Russians were absolutely flabbergasted, didn't know what to do, and still don't know what to do because they're being overwhelmed by the intelligence wars. And, yeah, I know there's a question I should be waiting for you to ask. I have a bunch. Well, I mean, you know, historically, at least in the in the recent past, the criticism has been that the, you know, so-called allied nations didn't know what was going on on any of the major things that were happening in terms of conflict and about to be conflict situations in the world that they totally got it wrong and so that must have been one of the areas of surprise uh for putin and is uh you know those closest to him that this time they seem to know everything now either they were getting it from as you say a multi-billion dollar uh spy operation

satellites what have you um the so-called five eyes network of which canada is one but the major players as you say are are uh us and england um either that's the way they were getting it or or there's a mole in the kremlin who is feeding them everything uh that's going on it seems more likely that it's the the former not the latter but um you know we're this is one of those things we won't know until after after this is all over you're about you want to say some jump in on that well you know the other thing that happened which was unprecedented hasn't happened really before and that is the russians found themselves not only dealing with a gigantic intelligence operation in the West,

but dealing with amateurs, the open source intelligence gathering, which is conducted by everybody from, you know, late teen college kids in Alabama to highly professional, former intelligence people, former military who now are able to ride on satellite imagery and communications intercepts and something called geolocation, where they can locate masses of Russian tank and truck movements. And this has been conducted across the world by thousands, tens of thousands of people

who now can do what the old intelligence services used to struggle to do with considerable ease. And there are all sorts of different OSINT groups, open source intelligence groups, like Belincat, that has just hundreds of volunteers working on bringing in satellite imagery for free, sending it over the airways. So, I mean, the Russian military are looking at this stuff and saying, there isn't a single thing we've got that can move an inch without being spotted.

And the tricks they were playing on the Russians, and again, I'm not sure this has ever been done before but they were doing things like calling they were listening in on calls from russian soldiers to their parents saying you know i've been in this war now for two days two weeks i don't know what's going on my feet are frostbitten and they had hundreds of these calls that were going out before the invasion they were even called using a dating service to attract Russian soldiers over the border from Ukraine on fictitious dates, where they would get on the date, would ask, so how's your life going? And are you planning any movements? And the Russian officer corps seemed to be banning this and banning that, but really shaken.

And I don't think that should be underestimated. It is really a new phase in warfare. We haven't seen before, as I've said several times, but we're likely now to see have a profound effect on the shape of war to come. Because if frankly, because of satellites and communication and hacking and geolocation armies will not be able to move and that means western armies too next time around perhaps without everybody knowing exactly where they are at any given time i don't know how they're going to handle that unless they come up with some ways to to actually bring all that listening stuff down and blot it out and i'm not sure how they're going to do that

you know this really this really has been a major factor in the war and the ukrainian army has its own very professional intelligence service so they're not only getting fed by the best of the best from the west but they've got their own very good service working and the the Russians, we all think they were great at spying. I mean, they sure did a lot of it. They were relentless at spying, but they don't seem in any case here to have really scored any great triumphs against Ukraine or the West. The way you paint the picture, you can't help but think of, what was it called, Bletchley Park in the Second World War in Britain,

which was their little kind of camp operation with a number of buildings filled with men and women who were experts at trying to figure out and break codes, the code breakers and all that. And that's the way they worked to try and get inside the operation of the Nazi regime in Germany. Very successfully. Very successfully, yes. But nothing like this. It's a long way in 75 or 80 years.

Now, there was one other thing you put in your notes that relates in some ways to this because at a certain point if the russians were convinced that everything they were saying to each other and to their forces in the field was being intercepted the only way around that is not to say it through a microphone or but to say it in person which may explain why the generals the russian generals have been at the front many of them targeted some of them killed um but they were going there because that that that might have been the safest way to transmit orders and plans absolutely face to face where you know right word to word and i think they've lost close to 10 generals now. I've never heard of that in modern warfare. Generals will be lost at that particular rate.

They almost lost, apparently, their chief of defense staff, Gerasimov, who's a very major figure. And he went into Ukraine to try and sort out the shambles of supply lines and the rest of it in orders and put together these battalions that have been chewed up and mauled by a ukrainian resistance and they almost apparently got him he managed to drive off and go back into russia but the ukrainians still attacked and they killed another general apparently so i mean there must be a case where the russians are looking at their command and control system and saying you know whatever we do even if we drive quietly to a gathering place somebody's watching our every movement you know and uh and this is becoming very very dangerous for us to pass on orders and uh you know it's just i don't know how they handle something like that. Can you imagine, say, in the Second World War, if our generals were too timid to leave their bunkers because they thought the Germans overhead would get them any second with a precision guided missile? It would be very hard to conduct those operations which were conducted successfully.

So the Russians got a big problem, which is not to rule them out I always come back both of us to this point that the Russians can put together sometimes a seemingly disastrous beginning of a war and bring it together whether they have the will with this financial economic war against them or not

it remains to be seen but certainly it's been a miserable beginning and I think it's spy wars as you put it are a major factor why they've been doing so badly you know um i i was intrigued by that that phrase when you used it in your note to me today and i'm no less intrigued by it now and fascinated by by that story somehow when all this ends, and it will end sometime, it's going to make the basis of a great movie

when we find out exactly how all this was done. Brian, thanks so much as always. Look forward to talking to you again next week. Okay, Peter. Nice talking to you. Bye-bye. Brian Stewart joining us on the Spy Wars question.

Don't you love that? There's got to be a novel in that somewhere or a movie script. Okay. So a multifaceted show today. A number of different segments. All of which I'm sure must have provoked some thoughts from you. And if you have some thoughts, don't be shy about sharing them. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com.

I read all your emails, respond to some, use some on the Thursday edition of your turn. So don't be shy. Lots to talk about there. Before we wrap up, tomorrow, Smoke Mirrors and the Truth, and Bruce and I are looking at one potential topic, and that is,

did you see any of the White House Correspondents' dinner the other night? It's kind of similar to the Ottawa Press Gallery dinner that's held once a year, and a lot of people have, it didn't just start this year, but it's been going on for a while,

have been asking the question, is this appropriate? Are these kind of dinners of journalists and their, in some cases, their sources, certainly those who they write stories about, are they appropriate? Is there good that comes out of these kind of events? So we may talk about that. And who knows, there are other things that may come up in our conversation, as they often

do. So that's it for this day. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening to The Bridge. Really enjoy having you with us. And we'll talk again in 24 hours.