The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Could The Russian Federation Be On The Verge Of Collapse?

Episode Date: November 1, 2022

It was unthinkable a year ago but after what seems to have been a botched invasion of Ukraine, some Russian experts feel Russia could be on the brink.  Our regular Tuesday commentator on the conflict, Brian Stewart, weighs in with his thoughts.  Also, as we all get older some a Tuesday end bit on how we can improve our health -- it's simple but apparently effective.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It is Tuesday, that's Brian Stewart Day. We're talking Ukraine. Today we turn the tables a little bit and look at things from the Russian perspective. It's not pretty. And welcome to Tuesday. That's correct, it is a Brian Stewart day, as has been the case almost since the beginning of the Ukraine-Russia conflict. We have been talking to Brian Stewart, getting his perspective, his kind of deep analysis of not only what's going on, but the history behind it. Brian, of course, former foreign correspondent for CBC, NBC, covered many a conflict in many different parts of the world. So he is a man who knows what he's talking about. Before we start today, before we start, a start bit.

You know how I like end bits? And I have some for later. But I wanted to start with this little one. And I'll call it a start bit. It's short. It's to the point. But man, is it somehow a sign of the times. You know that saying, only in Britain?

Of course, you kind of say that wherever you are. Only in Canada. You know, only in America. Well, under the only in Britain headline, I have this story about a chap by the name of Arnie Shoke. He's 40 years old. He works for the National Health Service in Britain. So he's a guy who, you know, understands health, I guess.

Does things that are healthy. Well, Arnie forked out about 400 pounds of his own money. I don't know what that is these days because it changes every day. It's somewhere between five or six hundred dollars Canadian, at least. A little more than six hundred, I think. Anyway, he forked out that money to pay for something to be done to his body in Germany. A little operation, a mini operation. 400 pounds, plus the airfare, plus the hotel, plus, plus, plus. What was the operation?

Arnie's really proud of it. He's got pictures in a story in the Sun, the British newspaper, the Sun. What did Arnie do? Arnie had an implant in his hand. What do you think that implant was? It was a chip, you know, a little microchip. Had it implanted into his hand so he could use it as his bank card.

So when he goes to the grocery store or any store, he just runs his hand over the cash machine. And that's his microchip. Now, why would he go to all the trouble to do that? Have a little operation. There are pictures of the operation, of course. It's like a little pocket in his hand. They open it up, and they slip the microchip in,

and they seal it back up again. He says, oh, I get all these looks from the cashiers. They can't believe what I'm doing, just swiping it with my hand. That's pretty cool, Arnie. But Arnie, why? Why'd you do it? You know what Arnie's answer is? Well, now I don't have to carry a wallet in my pocket.

There you go. No wallet. No little bulge in my pants where my wallet was. But instead I have a chip in my hand. All right, Arnie. Hey, to each his own. Only in Britain. First person ever in Britain to have a chip implanted in his hand to use as his credit card.

There you go. You can only find out these kind of things on the bridge. Your day is better because of it, right? Well, your day is actually going to be much better after you listen to Brian Stewart. We've been toying with the idea lately of trying to look at this Russian invasion of Ukraine from a kind of different angle. We've looked at it a lot from the Ukrainian angle. Well, I'm getting the Ukraine perspective on things because they've been going incredibly well for the Ukrainians, especially in the last month or two.

What's the Russian perspective today? It is a lot darker. And that was Brian's assignment. So enough rambling from me. Let's get to my good friend, my colleague, my expert on the Russia-Ukraine story. Right? Here we go. Here's Brian Stewart.

All right, Brian, let's start the way we started the last few programs because you're such a popular guy. People are writing in questions to ask you on the Tuesday show. This one comes from Betty Armstrong in Victoria. She says she belongs to a current events group, and one person keeps mentioning Putin's main army being held back and that he's waiting for the right time to bring them in. I know at one point Putin stated he was going to deploy 300,000 troops,

but some of us are wondering if this army actually exists. Could you please ask Brian his opinion? So there you go, I'm asking you. Well, that's a good one, because a lot of people scratch their heads at times wondering where the great Russian army is. No, basically, these are the figures. He sent out a mobilization order, and they called it off, they sort they topped it off at 300,000. So they believe now they've got 300,000 new draftees or whatever you want to call them, conscripted soldiers, of which only a very few are actually anywhere near ready for military use. So they can't just be sent to the front, even though that's exactly

what Russia has been doing to the amazement of militaries around the world. It is thought to have sent about 300,000, about 82,000 already into the front lines in Ukraine. These are men who will not have been properly outfitted, who will not have been trained properly. Some of them had distant military experience in the past, but not in any way current. And they've been feeding them into the front lines. And the reason they're rushing them so quickly is because they're so light on the ground. The casualties have been so heavy for the Russian forces there that they're taking a lot of these recruits and just shoving them into existing units. Some of those units, intelligence has picked up, are supposed to be

100 strong. That's the basic core of a military unit is a company, 100 strong. They're finding in Ukraine, some of the Russian companies are down to eight or ten people so they're throwing in ill-trained draftees to go to the front line their casualty rates are horrific i think two days ago or a day ago they're thought to have lost perhaps up to 900 dead in one day there's a real first world war type slaughter the others others will be somewhat formed into units that will be sent in down the road, probably in the middle of winter or in the spring. But right now, the Russians have very little choice because their front line is so long, the territory they're trying to hold is so big that they simply can't do it on the 190 or 200,000 they've got in place.

So they're having to push in raw recruits as fast as they can turn them out. One of the things you suggested this week that we should talk about, mainly because I think in the last few weeks, we've been looking at the conflict from the Ukrainian perspective and not surprisingly so, because it's been going so well for them, so poorly for the Russians. But what you suggested, well, let's flip it around. Let's look at it from the Russian perspective.

When you suggested that, why is that especially important right now to look at it that way? Well, I think we've got to follow this war with a very, very keen eye on Russia and everything that's happening there. There's a tendency to oversimplify the options here that, oh, if they just get rid of Putin, if Putin was overthrown one day, that would probably be the end of the war right there, and Russia would sue for peace. I think, and many, many Russian experts think, by the way, that the problem is far larger than Putin. We have to remember the scale of the problem we're actually dealing with here. Russia is,

of course, the biggest country on earth. It's one and three quarter times the size of Canada, even if you can imagine that scale, 11 time zones. It borders on 14 different countries from all the way from China, North Korea over to Finland. And it has so many problems. It is a federation. It is essentially a still weak and very ill-tempered empire. It is made up of parts of the world, parts of Europe and Asia that were conquered by Russia moving from 1721 on, when the Romanovs took whole chunks of the Ottoman Empire, the Swedish Empire, the Polish Commonwealth. And after the communists, of course, came in in 1917, the empire was extended. And after Stalin took much of Europe,

after 1945, it became really the Soviet Empire, often sometimes called the evil empire. But whether that was true or not, it certainly was the largest empire the world has ever seen. And it is still large chunks of an empire. It has 22 various federations, but 85 different ethnic groups and religions holding it up. And it is many parts of Russia over this vast size are extremely upset with the way things have been going in recent years. The loss of local freedoms, the war in Ukraine has upset a lot of people because, especially now when mobilization is brought in, they have no interest at all in seeing Russia extend itself into Ukraine. They couldn't care less about Ukraine and this is always then being the problem

of of a Russian Empire it has forever been fearing interference from the outside and upset on the inside and that's what Russia faces now so if if Putin was suddenly overthrown we have no guarantee at all that uh more moderate forces would come to the fore. In fact, there's a good chance very hardline nationalist forces would come to the fore. But we can be pretty sure that there'll be a lot of immediate upset throughout Russia as different areas demand more say, more freedoms, more sovereignty under a different commonwealth. And there are many plans for a different kind of Russia. But the reason I thought we should concentrate a bit on Russia is the problem is so just humongous. It's just gigantic that nobody really in the world has a really clear thought of how to handle it if it did fall apart because of war in

Ukraine. Well, as you know, more and more people have been, well, not more and more people, but certain experts have been worrying about that possibility, that the Russia as we know it today could crumble. Now, you and I have seen a bit of this movie before, you much more so than I, but we were both over there as the Soviet Union collapsed, and we watched that empire kind of disintegrate, certainly around the edges. How serious do you see it as a threat today that Russia, as we know it could collapse? Well, a couple of thoughts. You know, the Russian empire, the Russian entity collapsed twice in one lifetime. It collapsed in the revolution in 1917. And that was a hard collapse. And there was a softer collapse in 1991. but it still was a soft collapse. And just one lifetime it has fallen apart and has always been in danger of spinning apart. These are not idle thoughts of a columnist or two in the media. I can quote, for instance, the former U.S. Army commander in Europe, General, former General Ben Hodges, said that, you know, he thought the West had to prepare for the collapse of the Soviet Union. We need to be prepared for this possibility.

And that thought is not outside the Soviet Union, sorry, the Russia itself. Sergei Sunleny, a Russian scholar, believes that if it begins to fall apart, it will fall apart very fast. And the Russian defense minister, Sergei Shogun, just I think three years ago, said that, you know, Russia, other countries could fall apart the same way that suddenly overnight Arab Spring blew up or the Yugoslavia fell apart, Libya fell apart, and said chaos and the collapse of statehood are becoming the norm in the world.

So I guess, you know, we're left really with the thought that a lot of serious people seriously think that Russia could fall apart. And no real preparation has been done by governments, maybe behind closed doors. I'm sure in intelligence services and, they're working hard at it. But there's kind of a feeling, I think, that they can't quite figure out what they could do. I mean, could we have done more in 1991 to prevent the fall of the Soviet Union, turning eventually into a Russia with a failed federation, a failed state, where Putin could come in and build more and more of his powers and eventually turn it back into a dictatorship? Could more outside help have worked? I don't think anybody has a clear game plan here where you even start. I think some of the areas they might start would be looking at the possibility of trying to piece together a federation after Russia.

There's already a group in Europe that meets Free Nations of Russia Forum that is advocating a future Russia where 34 states would be brought together in a commonwealth of free Russia. Democracy would be very much the new order, elements of sovereignty, but it would be done peacefully with absolutely no attempt to rip it apart, rip the heart out of it, and it would turn it into perhaps a new commonwealth of free Russia. Those are lovely dreams, but remember, there are always people outside Russia from Lenin and Han who are living elsewhere in Switzerland, dreaming of the future of Russia. And sometimes the dreams of someone come true. So it's very important that think tanks around the world, I think, should be doing a lot of really serious thinking about, okay, what happens if one day we hear Putin's out? We don't know quite sure who's in,

but several factions are fighting the life out of the Kremlin and whole bunches of different regions of Russia are taking to the streets and protesting. And the army is showing signs that it's not following orders. And even the secret, the police regime of Russia are showing signs of utter fatigue and despair. I think that's going to be a late time to be worried about what are we going to do about Russia, a country this large with 6,000 different nuclear warheads still in the stockpile. You know, I'm sure there are some of our listeners are going, like, I know Brian's an expert on foreign affairs.

I know he's covered conflicts and wars. But how come he's like an expert on Russia now all of a sudden? Well, it's not all of a sudden, actually, because you studied Russian. You even tried to learn a little bit of Russian in your early academic years. Like a lot of youth in the 60s, I was fascinated by Russia, the art that was pouring out, the wonderful, the movies, the poetry, the writing. And I took Russian for about two years, hoping I would eventually get to read the great Pushkin

and Dostoevsky and Anna Akhmatova, the original Russian. After two years, I got, as far as I could say, our tourist group goes into the woods. That was exactly the one phrase I got down. You can already go so far with that, I guess. Exactly. I've tried it many times there in Russia, and people look at me rather askance.

But the reality is, you know, there's so much, as we both know, to admire in that country. I've loved the art, the ballet there, the cities. St. Petersburg is just awesome. And the Russian creativity can be so admirable that it's a fascinating country. It's absolutely fascinating. The problem is it goes through long periods, I think, like right now, where the most creative instincts in Russia are just blotted out by dictatorships and people don't really get to express themselves clearly in the society, doesn't get to shine in that glittery way that Russia in history has many times.

Let me ask you just one more question on this issue of Russia kind of falling apart. What's the worst case scenario if that happened? What kind of chaos could that lead to? I think it would fall into probably a number of different groupings of countries. You know, the Western European parts of the Federation would group together, the Moscow and St. Petersburg, the big cities would tend to group together. And they would have to have, I think there would be a lot of rioting and upset and the rest of it, they would be pulling out all the stops in terms of state security to try and

push things down. But pray God, we would not have something of a giant scale, 10 times the Syrian problem, something like that, which would be the ultimate nightmare. I don't think that would happen. I think eventually talks would try and lead towards some form of Russian Commonwealth or giant federation. And I think the outside world would be much more clear at this time than they were at 91 and say, look, we really want to help. I mean, we can help financially. We can help with trade. We're not here for heaven's sakes to cause complete uproar in Russia. In fact, back in 1991,

I should mention, then President Bush, in 91, when he saw Russia, when the world was watching Russia on the verge of collapse and starting to collapse, and parts of Russia declaring independence and,

you know, the United States is not interested in siding with any bloc in this country to break away from Russia and become a dictatorship on its own. We're not interested in doing that. We want us all in stable Russia. Given the period of the time that speech was, and it was given in Ukraine itself, was later called the Chicken Kiev speech of Bush, which is a nasty swipe at how some of the hardline versions were. But really, we could have done more in 91. And I think this time the world will be all very, very anxious indeed to show Russia that, you know, we do not crave any part of this giant land at all. We never have. We're not now, at least. And we want to help you in ways we can.

Whether that would go over, I don't know. We don't know what hardline nationalists might take over. Or we might never know. I mean, nobody expected when Khrushchev took over basically from a few other bodies after Stalin that he'd turn into a reformer. Nobody expected that Gorbachev would be quite the reformer he was. They didn't expect that he would be a reformer. So, Oda the Kremlin might always come, somebody who surprises the world and manages to hold things together and lead Russia into a new era of real reform and democratization. I wouldn't count on that, though.

I'd like to see it. Wouldn't count on it. All right. Brian, stand by for a second. We're going to take a quick break and come back because I've got a couple more questions on this theme. But that's right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge, the Tuesday edition. That means Brian Stewart, and the talk is about Ukraine and Russia, of course. You're listening on Sirius XM,

channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform. We're glad you're with us. Brian, let me ask you, on this same theme of the possibility of Russia, as we know it, kind of cratering, is the West prepared for this? I mean, you talked about the Bush quote, uh, from, you know, 30 years ago. Uh, but this has been kind of like recent talk, recent chatter, uh, of this possibility as a result of the way this conflict has been going. But is the West prepared for anything like that?

I don't think so at all. And I, as I say, the former U SS. Army commander in Europe, retired General Ben Hodges, thinks we're completely unprepared for it. And, you know, he's somebody up to date with all the intelligence. And that has been echoed by others who are seeing the latest intelligence. No, so preoccupied with new political infighting and divides in society and economic problems and the rest of it. We're not giving nearly enough attention to what should be the foremost problem to be confronted in the world right now. Part of it is that we're not ready, we haven't been doing the homework we should have been doing, and we have to get around to very, very fast. The other part is I think people look at this problem and say, after a while, throw their hands up and say, you know,

it'll be what it'll be because the outside world cannot really help when Russia goes into this spiral. I'm with, frankly, that group of people who believes that that's nonsense. We have to at least be thinking of how and what ways we can react positively to, or helpfully is not so much positively, helpfully to a situation where Russia did stumble and did begin to break into various parts of a very intense hostility areas in the country. That would be a great concern for all of us.

And starting with the nuclear talks, which have to be prioritized right away, and some sort of guarantee to the rest of the world about keeping them secure and much of the rest of russia secure from falling into this horror and not to forget the other thing that might flow out of a beginning of a collapse of of the russian federation is a gigantic security crack down they've got like 500 000 various body bodyguards and state security and riot police and army sections and gendarmeries and that kind of things ready to go into action. And it could be a period of absolutely brutal repression. That could be the other thing that would be

awful to watch, awful to see. But part of the tragedy that so often is Russia. Where does Navalny, the opposition leader, fit into all this? I mean, we know he's in jail, but he's still pumping out columns and commentaries on the situation in Russia. I mean, is there any chance they turn to him and say, Putin's gone. Here's your chance. What can you do to make Russia Russia again? Almost like a Mandela figure coming out of prison. The only person the country might possibly rally to.

I would think that very unlikely, though he is one of the clearest minds of all. How he can do that will be solitary confinement in one of the worst prisons in Russia. I don't know. But he, too, is sending out warnings to the West. If you think a nice reformer is just going to walk in and take over and all will be okay after Putin, you're very, very naive. The only thing that will save this country will, in effect, be the introduction of democracy from one end to the other. I don't see a lot of the hardline nationalist, extreme right-wing groups going for that, quite frankly.

I think they would fear democracy as some kind of plague that has to be put down as quickly as possible. That's been their instinct under the last 10 years and more of Putin. So I think they would hold to that. But who knows? They may lack will. They may find the security services don't want to listen to them. Maybe the security services who are complaining all the time, I should point out, sorry, about being underpaid and poor working conditions and handled like with no regard whatsoever for their well-being, they may have a little protest of their own up their sleeve,

and that could be really surprising. Okay's your last question um for this week um there are a lot of ironies in our world these days and i seem to use that word a couple of times a week describing different things and there's an irony in this story as well because in some ways putin in his move into ukraine was trying to restore at least elements of the old Soviet Union. Here we are, whatever it is now, eight or nine months later, and it's the opposite that's happening, which is pretty, well, it's pretty ironic. Absolutely. We went in to strengthen the former Soviet Union or the former entity,

Russian Federation, on the lines of the Soviet Union, and it ended up weakening it to an enormous degree. But that's the lesson that Russia threw in its history. Whenever it is engaged in foreign wars, foreign wars, whether it be in Afghanistan or the Ukraine or in Asia against Japan, they have weakened the state in fundamental ways, and the state has never quite been the same after them. And I think this is one more example of, you know, Putin should have been very wise to stay within the borders he had, which are the most liberal borders the world sees. I mean, not liberal, but the most generous borders the world sees, I'm not liberal, but the most generous borders the world has, as several people have pointed out, there is no country on earth with less need to demand more territory than Russia. One and three quarter size, that of Canada.

And it was just a terrible, terrible, terrible decision. And so I wouldn't be at all surprised if the country comes out desperately weakened as a result of it. All right. We're going to leave it at that for this week. Here's what I want you to think about, Brian, for next week. Next week is leading up to Remembrance Day by

the end of next week. So on next week, I've got a couple of special programs planned. I'm going to be talking to Tim Cook, the fabulous Canadian historian, on his latest book, which is another book on the First World War, with particular emphasis on those who were trying to save lives during the First World War on the medical front, and some of the remarkable things he's discovered

as a result of his research into that book. I'll also talk to Ted Barris about his new book on the Second World War, which is about the North Atlantic War, which is often forgotten in terms of what happened with those convoy ships crossing the North Atlantic from Canada to Britain and everything that happened along that. Not forgotten by old Heligonians like me. No, exactly. But here's what I want you to think about. I want you to think about, I mean, obviously we'll deal

with the Ukraine conflict, especially if there's something new to discuss, which it seems there is every week. But I'd like you to think as well from your perspective also as a military historian, as somebody who's studied and has studied for their life, some of the conflicts that Canada has been involved with over the years, some of your thoughts as we head into another Remembrance

Day. So you might think about that a little bit this week. But in the meantime, thanks so much for this. As always, Brian, we look forward to hearing from you, and we'll look forward to hearing from you again next week. Okay, thanks, Peter. Brian Stewart with us, as he always is on Tuesdays,

at least he always has been since the conflict in Ukraine started. All right, we have a couple of minutes left for an end bit. You heard the start bit before Brian, now the end bit. This one deals with your health. And it's talking about the kind of foods that we eat. And there are always studies going on, right? Every day this new study comes out, says do this, do that, don't eat this, don't eat that, don't drink this, don't drink that,

drink this. So here's a new one. But it's a pretty reputable source, and it's an interesting, some things may not shock you in this study, but I think it's worth reminding ourselves of this, especially as we get older. That's the key on this. It's a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, which is regarded worldwide as one of the premier health analyzing periodicals. In this study, scientists followed roughly 74,000 people between the ages of 30 and 75 for over 20 years. Now, during that time, and I'm reading this from the msn.com website,

during that time, they analyzed their diets and lifestyle habits and track changes in what they ate. The researchers used several scoring systems to assess the quality of their diets, including the Alternate Healthy Eating Index, which was developed by nutrition experts at the harvard school of public health now the index gives low scores to unhealthy foods and higher scores to healthier foods what a concept among the foods that received high scores were and you could probably name these right Here we go. Fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, beans, whole grains, and foods rich in unsaturated fats this off, that received lower scores were things like red and processed meats, foods high in sodium and added sugars, such as sugar-sweetened beverages,

pizza, sorry folks, potato chips, and other junk foods. What are ultra-processed foods? What should I eat instead of ultra-processed foods? More from this article. I'm going to read a couple more chunks of it, because I find it pretty interesting. Not, as I said, surprising. Not shocking, anything I've said here so far. But this is useful information. the more nutritious foods people ate and the fewer

junk foods they consumed the higher their diet scores make sense right the researchers found that people who had consistently high diet scores were up to 14 percent less likely to die of any cause during the study period compared to people who had consistently poor diets. That alone is enough to make you think, well, you know, maybe I should take a closer look at what I'm eating. But perhaps most important, people who improved their eating habits saw big benefits. The researchers found that people who increased their diet scores by just 20% during the study

had at least an 8% reduction in mortality during the study period and a 7-15% drop in their likelihood of dying from heart disease specifically. Achieving a 20% increase in your diet score could be as simple as replacing the sugary drinks in your diet with sparkling water and eating at least one handful of nuts or one serving of beans or lentils daily. Now that's a pretty easy hint to take. Replace any sugary drinks you have. And we're not just talking about soft drinks. Look at the sugar content in some of the things you drink and think are healthy, like orange juice in the morning

right even just like freshly squeezed oranges you know how many oranges you need to squeeze to get a glass right of juice but how much sugar content is in those oranges quite a bit i'm told so you got to be careful on how you deal with some of these things. And certainly in the processed orange juice you get, look at the sugar content. But replacing those sugary drinks with sparkling water or just water is going to set you on the right road. And a handful of nuts, you've got to be careful with nuts. You can't have too many nuts.

But a handful, a small handful of almonds or what have you, not the salty stuff, can do some real good for you. Just that combination of things now i guess as i get older i find these stories more and more interesting why because i found at least in my case may not be the case for you but the older i get the easier it is to put on weight. You know, I'm still fairly active, perhaps not quite as active as I should be, but I, you know, I exercise, I walk, I golf. I don't use one of those electric carts.

I either carry my bag or I pull a little pull cart with my golf clubs in it. And I walk the course. And the courses I play most often are in Scotland, as you know. And they're great for walking. And walking in all kinds of weather in Scotland. But, I mean, that's all good. But I, you know, I eat a healthy meal whenever I sit down to have something to eat. And I found that as I moved into my 70s, it was a lot easier to put on weight

and a lot harder to take it off. So you look for little things like that, hints like we just saw in this article. And, you know, going to try that, see what happens. Because if it makes that kind of difference overall for you in terms of your lifespan well that's probably something you want to take some some guidance with right okay that's it for this day tomorrow Wednesday smoke

mirrors and the truth with bruce anderson see what we're going to talk about then we're also toying with the idea of doing two of the podcasts each week and make them available in their zoom nature i mean we do all these shows when we're doing interviews by zoom um and you just use the audio. But there's video there available, right? So we're thinking of at least on Wednesdays and Fridays, a good talk with Chantelle, Iber, and Bruce, putting those out in a video format through Zoom on a YouTube channel.

Now, I haven't figured out all the details on that yet when we do i'll let you know and how you can get it if you want it you know some of you have written over the last year say why you know can we we want to see you guys as well as hear you actually you probably don't like there are days where let's just say i don't exactly get dressed up for these podcasts you know i'm in a t-shirt uh right now and um very casual well i'm wearing more than a t-shirt but i'm not wearing a suit and tie, if you know what I mean. Anyway, that's Wednesday. Thursday, Random Renter, and your turn.

So your thoughts, your comments on whatever it may be. Can I please remind you, name and the location you're sending from. And I know occasionally I'll get letters saying, please don't use my last name. Well, the policy is we use the last name. So if you don't want that to happen, then you can say you don't want your name mentioned.

So that means it won't be on. There's no automatic entry onto your turn. It's, you know, it's kind of the best of the, you know, dozens and dozens, hundreds, some weeks of emails that I get from you, our listeners, and it's great to hear from them. But name and location you're writing from, please. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com.

That's Thursday. Friday, of course, Good Talk with Chantal Hebert and Bruce Anderson. All right, that's it for now. Looking forward to tomorrow. Thanks for listening today. Talk to you again in 24 hours. Thank you.