The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Did Xi Own Trump - Reflections on a Big Week

Episode Date: November 3, 2025

Last week was a huge week for big trade talk -- China and the U.S., China and Canada. What happened and will it make a difference? Just some of the questions for our regular Monday chat with Dr Janice Stein from the Munk School at the University of Toronto. Also on the agenda, Venezuela, Nigeria, the Netherlands and Sudan - Our Changing World. 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 Mansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. Does Xi Jinping own Donald Trump? Reflections on a big week on the trade front. Coming right up with Dr. Janice Stein from the Monk School to University of Toronto. And hello there, Peter Mansprich here. Welcome to another week on the bridge. And Mondays are always Dr. Janice Stein, as you know.

And she'll be with us in a few moments' time. A couple of things, first of all. I think there should be a parade in Toronto for the Toronto Blue Jays. Sure, I know they lost in the end in a heartbreaker. To the L.A. Dodgers. Seventh game, all that. But what a team. What a real team.

You know, brothers in arms, those guys, they were quite something. And I want a real mixture. Sure, there was a superstar, Roddy Guerrero. But there were also just plain ordinary guys. Baseball players, some of whom had been in the minors all their careers. And were suddenly vaulted up onto the big stage this year. And they united as a team And they won their city

They won their province They won their country And I think I think it would be kind of a nice touch To have a parade anyway I mean they were planning a parade If they'd won for today And I know many of these players head home

Right after something like this And home for many of them is in distant places, you know, in the U.S., in the Caribbean, in South America. Some make their home in Toronto. But I think they'd all come back. You know, this was not your ordinary World Series. This was different. And I think it'd be a nice touch.

Anyway, that's just me, and what do I know? I do know the question of the week, which is designed for Thursday's your turn. Now, I gave you a sense last week of order would be and asked you, please don't write early. Wait till it's officially announced on Monday, which is today. And thank you, because you didn't write in, but I know many of you were sitting there thinking about what you'd like to say.

And the question is really, well, it's not even a question. It's kind of a statement. It's where, what it is you think about as we head towards Remembrance Day, which is, you know, a week tomorrow. So Thursday will be our last your turn before Remembrance Day. So the question is, you know, what's your lasting memory of Remembrance? Remembrance Day, what will you think about on Remembrance Day? What's your personal thought?

You know, it could be about family. It could be about somebody you've met. It could be any number of things. You know, memories of fathers and grandfathers and uncles, grandmothers on the home front. And there's lots of thoughts that could be written out here as your answer of the question of the week. So why don't you try that? And this has been an annual thing for us for the last few years,

and it's developed into one of the most remembered programs. I still get letters from listeners saying, I'll never forget that Remembrance Day show you did. so let's make this week's another one like those I look forward to hearing from you and where do you write well you write to the mansbridge podcast at gmail.com the mansbridge podcast at gmail.com You have your responses in by this Wednesday at 6 p.m. Eastern Time Okay. Keep your responses to 75 words or fewer.

Include your name and the location you're writing from. Just follow those guidelines and we'll see what happens. Usually we get a lot of letters for this Remembrance Day show. so we will make sure we pick the ones that will have the most impact for the program. I'm looking ahead to Remembrance Day or week tomorrow. I'm still in Scotland this week, but I'm back in Canada as of Sunday night. And on Tuesday, I'll be in Hamilton. for those special services that are held on Remembrance Day

of the Canadian War Plain Heritage Museum at Mount Hope. It's at the Hamilton Airport. And I'm looking forward to that. They've asked me to give a few remarks, which I will do. And look forward to it. All right. Let's get to today's program. Monday, Dr. Janice.

Last week was a huge week on a number of fronts. It was big on the trade front. And that's what we're going to start by talking about because a couple of big meetings with China, Donald Trump with President Xi, and then Mark Carney with President Xi. What was really accomplished at those meetings because they're critical?

But there were other things that happened in the past week in the past few days that had nothing to do with trade. And we'll talk about that as well. So enough for me. Let's get started with Dr. Janice Stein from the Monk School at the University of Toronto. Janice, I guess we have to say something about baseball,

seeing as you're a baseball fan, and you were at that game on Saturday night. How do you feel? crushed. There is no words for it, Peter. That's just a crushing defeat to lose in extra innings in the seventh game. There's no way to describe how probably 10 million Canadians feel this morning, I think. Yeah. And I think, you know, at least a million. It was really quite something watching the kind of the whole country get behind it. Because, you know, as I've said before, it's not often that happens for a Toronto team.

But it became very much Canada's team over these last couple of weeks. And it was... You know, let's just take one second to say, what a great team they are. Yeah. Yeah, what a month of October they gave the whole country clinched the division. I mean, this was just for people who love baseball, it's probably the best. six weeks in living memory for many, many people. Yep. No, it was, it was really quite something.

And, you know, there's always next year, as they say. Well, that's a wonderful thing about baseball. There's always hope. Yeah, always hope. Okay. Last week, we spent most of the program talking about China as it related to Trump wanting something out of China, wanting to get a deal of some kind. Carney wanted to get some kind of a deal

for Canada. So it was the big week. There were the big meetings. Let's deal with the Trump-China situation, first of all, because Trump came away from it basically claiming, you know, victory that made real headway with China.

Meanwhile, his critics are saying he's being dangerously naive, among other things. So what's the truth here? what of those two options is the one we should be looking at? You know, probably closer to the second. We got a truce in this conflict between the two of them.

The big issue was critical minerals, which we talked about last, Peter. Look, the Chinese have tightened restrictions three times. They only agreed to pause the latest set of restrictions for a year. So this has not gone away, everybody from car manufacturers to jet manufacturers holding their breath, frankly. And I think this is the moment that the whole world says, China's got leverage against the United States. It's there for everybody to see. And what will that mean in the short term? So I think, you know, China needs access to advanced American ships the best they can get.

And by the way, ambiguous the deal. He said he told Invidia to talk, which is the advanced shipmaking company. And they make a very advanced ship called Blackwell. He said he's told Invidia to talk to China, but he's the final decider. so it's left in abeyance again you know no fine print in this deal so the chinese need something desperately for me i'd say the united states the united states now need something desperately from china there's an incentive to keep this contained but not forever whoever solves a problem first.

And look, it's going to take 10 years on critical minerals, Peter, if everybody really works at it. I mean, Europe, Canada, Australia, could be a big player here. It's not clear it will take China 10 years to develop the capacity to make an advanced chip. All right. What about Carney and President Xi? You know, if body language means anything, the Trump, she, you know, on-camera session, did not look comfortable, you know, looked awkward.

The Carnegie, you know, photo op, looked more comfortable. I wouldn't want to go too far on that, but it certainly looked more comfortable than the Trump one. Should we read anything into that? No, I think that's important. You know, there is goodwill towards. Canada, in China. There's a long history. And they do remember

that we're not the United States, even though we're in North America. And I think for Carney, and what this will produce is a different matter. But I think for Carney, even how trouble the relationship is with Donald Trump and what that means to the Canadian economy,

he absolutely had to open a door to China, frankly. You know, what does that mean? I think that the Chinese are tough negotiators. The biggest issue the Chinese have with us right now, we have 100% tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. And just imagine if Doug Ford released that ad, the royal Donald Trump, what he might be tempted to do if those tariffs were lowered and the auto sector industry

in Ontario, which is already very vulnerable, had to compete with cars that were both more efficient and cheaper. That's what the Chinese want us to do. Karni doesn't have a lot of running room, but can he do something? Yes. You know, one of the things we've always realized about China, you know, since 1949, is that they play the long game. The long game is what interests them, and it's certainly the long game that she plays. Do we, are we prepared, both us and the Americans, are we prepared for the long game? You know, democracies have a really hard.

time with the long game. The next election is always around the corner. And in Cardi's case, literally, it may be around the corner. It's a minority government. He has to present a budget, which will happen tomorrow. I mean, there's all kinds of stories circulating about an election call. If you're always in front of an election, it's almost impossible to play the long game because you're you're paying so much attention to what people think i don't think the canadian public has caught up with the fact that um we have to create other options for ourselves given the politics inside the united states and you don't trade with like-minded countries peter because if you did we have a diminishing number of like-minded countries

We have to trade with people whose values are different from our own. If our economy is going to grow and create opportunities for Canadians, I think that's where Connie is. But what are we saying in that? You know, are we saying we've got to ignore the values of other countries when we are, you know, sitting at the trade table? You know, this has always been the issue for Canada, right? Yeah. It has. And boy, you put a lot of emphasis on the word ignore when you ask the question.

So I'm going to flip it back and say, I think the times are over when Canada can go out and preach to the world about its values. People don't want to hear. Other countries don't want to hear at all. And the reason they don't want to hear is because the world order has changed. They're now two big guns. one of which is China, who says, I don't care about your values. I'm all for collaboration, and we can collaborate regardless of whether your values are like mine or not. Just don't preach at me. That's a very welcome message in many parts of the world. I know it's not what Canadians would like, but the world is that now. And I think that's a really important, there's going to have to be an evolution.

of Canadian thinking, to understand the world, does not want to hear people preach them. You go to the Middle East, you go to Africa. There's actual anger when that kind of conversation starts. And, you know, we realized over these last years that we've got to be careful preaching. We have our own issues. Yes. You know, we have our own values that other people have looked.

out and said, hey, you're not living up to what you expect from us. That's right. So, you know, it's a tricky situation. You know, I think what's changed, Peter, there's no hope that China, for example, when China first came into the WTO and the United States was pleased to do it, the hope was China was going to evolve. As it got wealthier, as it lifted people out of poverty, it would become more open, more liberal, more Democrat.

People understand now that it's not going to happen. China has a culture, 5,000 years old. It has a set of institutions that are deeply embedded in that society. So I think there's a growing up that many parts of the rest of the world actually don't want to be like us. There was something else that happened in the middle. All these discussions we're talking about happened at a couple of different summits. in Asia last week but the other thing that happened is

that one of them in South Korea I believe over dinner Trump and Karnie got around to talking about Doug Ford's ad and Carney says he apologized

to Trump for it and said that he'd you know he'd warned Ford about it before Ford you know made it public what did you make it then? Was that a smart thing to do? Was that? I think Carney really understands who he's dealing with. This is, you know, an erratic ego-driven political leader who is in charge of the

world's largest economy that really matters to this country. And he wants this trade deal. Looming ahead of us very soon is the review of Cosmo or USMCA or NAFTA 2, whatever you call it, which is what sheltered us, Peter, from a lot of the disruption, right? And 90% of our trade is still sheltered under Cosma. And it's going to be a really bumpy roller coaster ride, given that Donald Trump is hands-on on this issue. I think Carney and he's probably right, but he can't control it. You know, Carney doesn't want unnecessary irons in this relationship. And he certainly doesn't want anything that pokes Trump in the eye. This ad really did. It clearly got under Donald Trump's skin,

regardless of whether that's what broke up the negotiations or not. You know, as we go through this next 18 months, I think the Canadian public is going to be furious at Donald Trump at different times. So any prime minister of this country has the unenviable job of negotiating with the United States while Donald Trump is hearing in the background the noise that comes from an infuriated Canadian public. Even the World Series, I think, had more meaning. to Canadians this year because it was a Canadian and an American team. And there was a subtext in this country. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely there was. Does it keep the good, bad cop situation with Carney and Ford alive, though? Yes, yes. I think there's no question that's going on. There's actually a good personal relationship between Doug Ford and Mark Carney. So Carney can go out and say, I apologize, I saw that ad, I told him not to do it, I asked him not to do it, I would never have done it, but you know, I don't control him. What are you going to say, right, if you're Donald Trump?

And they did wink at each other at the end, apparently, yes, they were sitting across the table. So I think Carney did the right thing. He took it off the table. But it's, you know, it's tough on a prime minister, Peter, who starts with elbows up, but again and again and again finds itself in a situation where the elbows are down and canadian see it. It's just really hard. It is hard. Very hard.

And, you know, and it's cost him a degree on that. I'm not sure how many degrees, because he still seems to be popular in terms of his leadership style, inability. and those numbers continue to differentiate him from his political opposition in Canada. Right, right. You know, again, Canadians, please understand these are tough times, right? They understand.

They may not know the details of a critical mineral or this particular regular, but they understand that these are tough times for this country. They're tough times for the United States. we have to give any prime minister running room during tough times like this. Okay. We actually do have a fair amount of other stuff to cover today because a lot of things happen in the last week and are still happening right now. It's interesting for Trump who has said, I'm not interested in foreign wars.

We're not going to get entangled in anything. and yet there are two kind of sitting there right in front. There's the Venezuela situation, which we've talked about a number of times, and it continues another, you know, drug boat blown up over the weekend or an alleged drug boat. We don't really know because they don't really tell us anything. There's that situation with Venezuela and an American fleet offshore of Venezuela with all kinds of rumors about whether they're planning some kind of a land invasion.

At the same time, the president asked his military to be ready to intervene in Nigeria, where there is a, you know, there's clearly tension between Christians and Muslims. There are stories that it's outright, you know, murder on one side that the Christians are being murdered. And Trump is saying, get ready. have to go in there. What do you make of this situation, the two, both Nigeria and Venezuela, where he is, you know, putting his military on alert for one and the other, they're there. You know, Peter, it's almost inconceivable that a president who says America first,

America first, no more foreign wars. We're going to rebuild America and make it great again. with the talk the way Donald Trump just talk. You know, the Venezuela case, you can make an argument, and I am not, but at least I can get inside the heads of people who make an argument that the oil in Venezuela is a tremendous asset, that this is a United States backyard. And if you actually look at the most outrageous things until Nigeria, the most outrageous things that Donald Trump has said.

Where is it? Panama, Canada, Greenland. This is kind of Monroe Doctrine territory. It's an American sphere of influence. And he might well see the world that way. You know, Ukraine, that's Russia's sphere of influence. Taiwan, that's China's sphere of influence. What's ours?

The Americas in the, and as far north as you can go. Nigeria. and to even think about using the American military to intervene in a civil matter, no matter what we think of it, is preposterous, frankly. It's absolutely preposterous. You have to hope it's a throwaway line. You have to hope. I'm speechless feeling.

Nigeria is a very large country. It's the most powerful country in all of Africa. The last thing that any Nigerian would want is American intervention. This is part of, if you notice what Donald Trump has done on immigration reform, and he is now privileging access for white. South Africans. So on the hierarchy of values of people that need rescuing in the world

are white Christians. That's fundamentally I think how he thinks about the world. But to use a military, you have to hope that any chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff would say, Mr. President, we don't have the capacity to do this and they don't. And we don't have the track record.

They don't have the track record in Africa, I think Somalia and elsewhere. Do you think it's... And to intervene on behalf of Christians, Peter? Right. Do you think it's just that it's just talk? I think on that. So let's distinguish between the two. I don't think Venezuela's just talk because he's assembled a very large fleet anchored by the Ford,

which is now just the day or two away, the big air car carrier, that's not talk. And when you do that, there's a limited amount of time. You can keep them there a month, two months, three months. It's very expensive, and it diverts from the other areas. So I think that is far more than talk. I'm hoping that that comment about Nigeria is just talk. Okay.

But wow. Yeah. Hold on to your hat. We'll see. Let's take our break here because there are three or four other things I want to discuss as well, but let's take our break and come.

We'll be right back after this. And welcome back. You're listening to the Monday edition of the bridge, Janice Stein. Monk School, University of Toronto was with us, as she always is on Mondays, trying to sort out our changing world and boy

there are lots of things that are changing in our world as we've already mentioned on this program today you're listening on Series XM Channel 167 Canada Talks are on your favorite podcast platform all right Janice I want to look at the Netherlands because they had

an interesting vote result in the past couple of days It had been assumed that the Netherlands, like a number of European countries, was swinging to the populist right. And there's no doubt there has been a drift towards the populist right. But in the end, when the votes were counted, a bit of a surprise, really. You know, the party expressing more liberal views was the winner, with now the youngest, Prime Minister in the Netherlands history. Did this come as a surprise to you?

Because, you know, the Netherlands has had this issue about the right for some time. You know, it did, Peter, it did. It's this Rob Jetton, who's young, whose party, the 86, Democrat 66, actually pushed back again. the far-right populist party. So that's really encouraging, right? Because I think for many people who look at the rise to the populist right and look at the United States and are becoming increasingly worried,

how do you push back? What's the path to pushing back? What's really fascinating is the ballot question, which was immigration, a liberal, you know, open seafaring, trading, Holland, which characteristically had very open attitudes. So what are we seeing in the center party that won, literally lifting the agenda of the far right on immigration

and adopting it as their own? And a fascinating set of interviews with some of the people. And they, and one comment really stuck with me, they said, look, to save liberalism, we need to adopt some illiberal policies. That's probably, that's the kind of, you know, bellwether statement that we might see in other parts of Europe and even, even in the United States. So they're using language like we have to get immigration right. We've had too much immigration. That's a direct borrowing from Garrett Wilder's Party for Freedom that far, that right-wing nationalist populist party.

So if you looked at the platform of the two on immigration, be hard to find much of a degree of difference, frankly. Is that what we're going to see over the next couple of years? Well, I mean, look at the flip we've seen on immigration in our own country. Yeah, yeah. It was like wide open a couple of years ago and opening up even more. Yeah. And now that's all reversed.

Right. But let me ask you this about, does Netherlands teach us something about whether or not we've overestimated or overstated the power of, of the far right in various European countries? You know, I think I was really encouraged, frankly, by this result. And I think it's a really important point because if you overestimate, you don't do much about it. And that's the real risk. In the exit polls of Dutch voters, they said they were tired. of a government that over-promised and under-delivered.

So at some point, you know, populist rhetoric isn't enough. You have to deliver for that big swath of voters in the center. And so there's a really, really encouraging story there, Peter, you know, now in a small country, you know, has different, has a parliamentary system. we have to be careful, but I think there is a really encouraging story here. It's hard to find an encouraging story in Sudan these days. And I, you know, I feel somewhat guilty that we haven't spent more time talking about Sudan over the last couple of years. I know that you've talked about it a number of times.

Sam Nut has been with us a couple of times talking about it, including from Sudan when she was last, time she was in there from War Child, Canada. Sudan is, it's clearly the worst, most brutal war that's going on in the world today. And yet it doesn't get the coverage that it should, given that. We're focused on other conflicts in different parts of the world. But this was another not good week in Sudan with the last big city falling in Darfur. What do you make of where we are on the Sudan story? You know, this is really an awful story, Peter.

You're absolutely right. You know, El Fasher, which is the best city in Darfur was undersea. for 18 months. So no humanitarian Sam would know this. No humanitarian aid got through in 18 months. And UN officials tried to get attention.

We just failed, frankly, to do that. The numbers are absolutely staggering. You know, almost a half a million people died. So look at the scale in comparison. As big as Russia, Ukraine in terms of deaths, probably bigger. 12 million people displaced. Famine, no question, no argument, famine, full-scale, famine. And this says now, so Sudan is now divided. That's what this was about, really. The East is controlled by the Sudanese military. The West, which is where Darfur is and where

Al-Fashir is, is controlled by the rapid support forces. may remember the Janjuid and therefore the rapid support forces are the successors to the Janjuice. Everything is mixed in here, Peter. There is an ethnic conflict, frankly, between Arabs, of which the Janjuid is and in other parts,

you know, of other parts of the country where they're darker, African population. So there's differences of ethnicity here that are exacerbating this. Outside powers stirring apart the United Arab Emirates that we see so much of now on the world stage, single biggest military supplier of the RSF that is committing these atrocities in Darfur. And on the other side of it, are the Egyptians and the Iranians supporting the Sunnius military? So all the factors that could exacerbate this conflict, domestic differences, ethnic differences, different outside powers are fueling this one.

And there is very little prospect that this will end. And it's terrible to say, but the only possibility probably that civilians will survive is if there's some kind of partition here. You know, I think I've asked Sam this before and may well have asked you at some point in the last few years, but why don't we seem to care about this? Is it because it's dark-skinned against dark-skinned and, you know, there's no threat to white? Yes. Yeah. You know, in Israel, Gaza, Jerusalem, for better or for worse, everybody cares about, right? The Christian world cares about.

The Jewish world cares about. The Muslim world cares about. And so what happens? There gets an intensity of coverage. that surpasses any other part outside of Europe and maybe Japan and South Korea. Russia, Ukraine is a war, first of all, in Canada, that affects a million and a half people so directly because we have such a large Ukrainian diaspora. There's huge interest in it.

Sudan doesn't command that kind of attention. It's a, you know, it's a structural. between Arabs against other tribes in Sudan. It seems remote. It seems uninteresting. And

people don't identify with it in the same way, frankly. And you put on the table, you know, is there an interest, is there disproportionate interest in somewhere where people look like us?

That's a play way of saying what you said, Peter. But there is, but there is, frankly. That's true. Look at the number of news crews that have been in Israel and Gaza for the last two years. And frankly, the scale is nothing like what's been going on in Sudan. Not far. Not far away. But no CNN's, right?

Very few BBC's. Yeah. I don't know what to say about that because, you know, we have made the distinction before. When I think of our friend Brian Stewart's work in Ethiopia and 84, you know, that was about people who don't look like us. Yeah. And through his work and others who followed him in there, the world reacted. you know, saved a nation. Yeah. And that was terrible starvation, terrible starvation.

And they, and, you know, people mobilize in a timely way. And as you said, got the attention of the world. So is it that, you know, in Sudan, there is not that charismatic figure. Somewhere outside Sudan, who's going to say, this matters to us. It's usually from the music business, right? Yeah, that's right. It is because they have a huge reach and huge capacity to draw attention. Or it's religious groups.

That's a big part, as I said, while Jerusalem matters to everybody. Or it's diaspora groups that do this. The misfortune of Sudan, it has really none of those in the same way. Okay, we will commit ourselves to keeping our eye on Sudan in the future here. Last topic, and it returns us to our friend, Mr. Trump, who in the last week has said that he wants to start testing nuclear weapons again. Well, you know, that was a moment, again, Peter, where sometimes I'm just left, you know, a guest. Why did he say this? Because Vladimir Putin announced that he had two successful tests of nuclear-powered, one-case missile, one-case and underwater, you know, torpedo, just to the signature two for our listeners, although they're both missiles, that are nuclear-capable that could carry nuclear.

nuclear weapons and are going to be very difficult to stop because they're now nuclear power. They're going to be so fast, so powerful, and move far ahead, for instance, of what we understand to be. We don't know a lot, the design of the Golden Dome, which is going to cost billions and billions of dollars. Russia did not test a nuclear weapon, though. well Donald Trump just blighted over that and his announcement was in fact a response to Vladimir Putin's announcement and Vladimir Putin made that announcement because he was trying to say to Donald Trump hey don't think you can ignore me the one asset I really have I have the world's largest nuclear force and we're getting better and better at it so you better come to the table but what does don't

Donald Trump here, he hears, they're testing nuclear weapons. We better do that, too. That is not inaccurate. That is not what Putin said. All right. So where does this end? You hope that when he gets off the plane in Washington, somebody says we haven't tested for now 30 years, more.

We don't need to test. We don't want to test because, If we start testing, the Chinese will start testing, the Russians will start testing. There's only one country in the world today that is testing. And they're not testing nuclear. They did explode, North Korea. That's how we know we have a nuclear bomb. But most of their recent tests are missiles, which are capable of carrying.

So there's one country that is remotely testing in this world today. I don't think the United States wants to be North Korea. and break the test ban treaty, which is actually 1963. So my math was off at 60 years, Peter. Has it been 60 years since the Americans tested anything? Yeah. And they used to test underground, of course, in, you know, Nevada in that area, and they tested underwater.

Yep. Wow, 60 years. You know what, I have to, let me go back to check the world. put it in the show notes, because the first test ban was a result to the Cuban missile crisis between Kennedy and Crucia, but it came in phases. But more or less, that's the origin story for that. It makes no sense to break that. It makes absolutely note. And by the way, at the same time, as Vladimir Putin said, the only remaining arms control agreement that's left supposed to expire, I would like to extend it for a year

and Donald Trump says that's a good idea Well, if you want to get yourself in the mood for that kind of stuff I'm trying to remember the name of the thing it's on You know, it's on one of the streaming services of a movie House of Dynamite, is that the one? That's what it's called. The House of Dynamite I haven't seen it yet, but people are telling me

It is ripping because it's so realistic. And the reason I know that is they had some experts, work with the film crew so that the discussions of launch time and response time, those are all accurate. Well, it is, I watched it a couple of days ago. And it is, it certainly has you on the edge of your seat. Yeah. um okay let me tell you Peter what's had me on the edge of my seat or the blue jays

I'm going to have to restructure my life now that they're gone for five months well there's always the Leafs you know always the Leafs that's right you know I told somebody the other day that I've uh you know I was ready for a parade in Toronto with the Blue Jays and I had the same spot that I've been holding reserve for the last 58 years for the leaves. I'm not going to need it again. Anyway, thanks for this. If one can say thank you to some of the things we discussed today,

which are terrifying in a sense. But listen, as always, thanks, Janice. And we'll talk again in seven days. It'll be in a week. Well, there you go. Dr. Janice Stein for another, week right here on the bridge. Tomorrow, coming up, Raj and Russo join us.

It's Budget Day in Ottawa. That's a big day in the parliamentary calendar each year. This one perhaps bigger than any we've seen in recent times because it's supposedly a budget that's going to change the way Canada works. We'll hear and see about that. as the details become clear, probably late tomorrow afternoon. But before that, we'll have Raj and Russo, Althea Raj and Rob Russo, will give us the latest from the hallways of power in the nation's capital.

They'll be joining us for tomorrow's The Bridge. I gave you the rest of the week's rundown, including your question of the week. If you missed it, go back to the top of the program here and get it. It's about Remembrance Day and your own memories. of it. So that's it for this day. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening and we will talk to you again in less than 24 hours.