The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Episode 1500 -- Welcome to The Summer of 2026

Episode Date: June 24, 2026

Today is a big deal for The Bridge.  First, it's the 1500th episode of our program/podcast, and second, it's our last show before we begin our summer hiatus.  Content-wise, we lead with a special AI report that focuses on the things where AI still can't replace us, the qualities that only we as humans can offer.  That and a lot more on our Wednesday End Bits special.   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of the bridge. And this episode is our last one before the summer hiatus. It's also episode number 1,500 since we started seven years ago. That's all coming right up. And hello there, yes, this Wednesday is a bit of a... I was going to say historic day. It's not really a historic day.

but it's one of those days you mark in your calendar. I've been looking at it for the last month, saying, man, we're going to just get the Wednesday, June 24th, it'll be time to take that summer hiatus, that summer break. So we've reached that point. But as it turns out, and this was just by accident, and I realize this, that this is episode 1,500 of the bridge, since we started seven seasons ago.

And that's pretty impressive. At least it's impressive to me. 1,500 episodes is, well, it's nothing to sneeze at, right? it's a significant number. That's a lot of talk over seven years. And it's been a lot of fun. We've learned things. We've talked about stuff.

We've been back and forth with you on various your turns. Good talk. Still the most popular program we've had. Chased by Monday's conversations with Dr. Janice Stein. We've added new elements. in this past year with the Raj Russo report on every second Tuesday. We've made the more buts conversation more regular. It's every other Tuesday alternating with Raj Russo.

As of this moment, we've had 21,822,370 downloads for whatever downloads mean. That's pretty impressive. We still rank at the top of Canadian political podcasts, according to the Apple rankings. And that's always nice to see. I'd like to see the top ten of political podcasts listen to inside Canada. I'd like all those top ten to be Canadian. They're not. Most of them are American.

but the bridge is always up there at the top of the Canadian ones, and often it's number one overall. So that's nice to know. You know, we started off seven years ago was, well, an experiment, I guess. It was in the 2019 election campaign. And I'd just retired from the CBC year, year and a half before that. And it was Will, my son, who said,

hey, you know, you should try doing something. You want to keep current. I went, ah, I don't want to be doing anything. And I don't, the technology will be befuddled me. But he said, no, no, go for it. And we did. He still helps me out every day, in spite of the things he's doing himself.

Harvard University he's working on a startup he's doing all kinds of stuff but he still every day works on this program and we all benefit as a result of it Mark Bulgich my friend co-author we have a book coming out this fall he does he works for this program as well

the random renter does you know it's all it's all good so we celebrate the 1500 episode point. And we're going to plow through this program. It's going to be what Wednesdays has become. It's going to be an end-bit special.

And I've got some really interesting stuff. So let's get at her. The first piece is from Associated Press. And I think it's a really important piece because there's so much talk about artificial intelligence right now. AI and one of the big concerns, of course, on the part of a lot of people of various ages, is that it's going to replace everything we do as humans,

including our jobs. And that's scary. That's especially scary if you're young. And you're looking forward to a life where there are going to be challenges that's a given. That's always going to be the case. But what is it that I can do as a human being

that AI can't do? Well, that's what this article's about. The headline is the skills people still perform better than AI according to workplace experts. So let me read a little bit of this. I'm not going to read it all. It's by Kathy Busowitz. Associated Press. Many workers fear machines will supplant them at adoption of artificial intelligence

accelerates as it does. But what if people have qualities both unmistakably human and essential to career success that AI could not easily replace them? Some workplace experts argue that with more businesses adopting AI tools, soft skills, such as empathy, critical thinking, and ethical decision-making are worth cultivating to help enable employees to become indispensable. Across the industries and occupations, the skills that are most resistant to displacement by AI are the ones that are most distinctly human. that quote from Maria Flynn, the president and CEO of Jobs for the Future, a nonprofit focused on workforce development.

Some of those things, she said, are relationship building, conflict resolution, the ability to guide and motivate other people, and ethical judgment. So this is important, right? So let's just delve a little bit into some of these things. Empathy. Okay. We have empathy. Does AI have empathy? That's the question. So in this article, Marco Ian Citi, a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, said he saw that firsthand, this during a hospital stay, a nurse has incredibly human impacts. Feeling related to the patient, the type of care that is so important,

I remember times when I was sick in the hospital and the nurse was like the godsend. Would I have let a robot do the same thing? No. There was a human connection there that I found very valuable. Where AI could be helpful in a hospital setting is by taking on mundane tasks such as paperwork, freeing up time for nurses to provide compassionate patient care. That's what AI can do in a hospital. There's a lot of systems that are being deployed.

employed now that I think are very effective, said in CD. In doing this and essentially release health care workers to do the right things that they should be doing and do best. Here's another area, nurturing relationships. Interpersonal skills are also invaluable when conflicts arise. Having that human in the loop to manage those expectations to ease any ruffled feather. to build the type of relationships that are needed to expedite good work is still going to be critical, said one expert. Conflict resolution is a must, a must-have quality for managers, said Colleen Adler, a director-analyst,

in the human resources practice at the Gartner Consulting firm. Here's what she said. People do still have managers, and managers and leaders impact the way they feel, and coworkers impact the way. ways we feel as well. There is still a tone to AI that does not yet mimic human connection. That could change. I don't think we're there yet, though. And here's another one. Critical thinking. Artificial intelligence models collect information and produce responses, but can generate inaccuracies. So it's important to second guess its output, right? Don't.

Don't assume everything you're reading there is right. Critical thinking. Second guess. Developing deep knowledge about your field can help you notice when the AI generated results on topics from your industry are incorrect. You have to have the cognition and the critical thinking and the subject matter expertise to make sense of it and to know when it's wrong, said yet another one of these experts that are quoted in this article. Having a conscience. The ability to distinguish right from wrong or listen to one's inner conscience

is a skill that is innately human, say the experts. Sometimes people rely on sensations in their bodies to help guide their decision-making. Gut feelings are something you feel in your gut. It's not just a pattern of information that's going through your brain. It is actually an emotional reaction

that is intrinsically different from the way that AI operates. At least this generation of AI. You see how everybody puts these sort of conditions on it? Okay, we're dealing with AI as it is today. What it's going to be like tomorrow? Well, we don't know yet. Anyway, that gives you kind of a glimpse of what we're talking about here. How do they conclude this?

Humans make judgment calls based on a constellation of knowledge, and lived experiences. Artificial intelligence draws from a lot of data that doesn't necessarily work well in gray areas. For now, the ability to see all angles of an issue and add context remains a form of intelligence that people possess to a greater extent than AI possesses. Okay, so that's...

There's your AI story for today, which gives you some belief that, listen, AI is going to be able to replace a lot of what we do, but it's not going to be able to replace everything. And some of those qualities that we can offer are qualities that you need as you move forward in life, in your career, and your family. Okay, topic two on this NBits Day.

Our last day at the season. Here's the headline. This is from the Journal of Sport and Health Science. I like this headline because it sort of challenges you about some things you've assumed are the case. Here's the headline. Why telling some workers to sit less

could be bad advice, according to science. You know, this issue that so many of us sit most of the time during most days, especially those of us who, you know, like work in offices, where sitting at your desk is kind of a basic requirement. So here's what this study says in a nutshell. I'll tell you where it was done in a minute. A study of more than 41,000 adults,

41,000 in China, found that sitting too little was linked to a higher risk death and cardiovascular events, not just sitting too much, okay, sitting too little. Risk was lowest around four hours of daily sitting per day. Over 60% of the lowest sitting group work physically demanding jobs like farming or construction. Researchers say public health guidance may need to be tailored differently for people doing manual labor. For decades, public health messaging has pushed a single, seemingly obvious idea. Sid less, move more. A large study following more than 41,000 adults in China for nearly 12 years,

is making that advice considerably more complicated, and the group it matters most for might not be who many people expect. This is published in the Journal of Sport and Health science. The study tracked associations over time in large Chinese population rather than establishing direct cause and effect. Researchers found that the combined risk of death or a major cardiovascular event was lowest around four hours of daily sitting. People sitting fewer than two hours a day faced a higher risk of that combined outcome, driven especially by higher mortality, than those sitting a moderate amount and that finding cuts against the conventional assumption that any reduction in sitting is automatically an improvement. So there you go. Four hours a day to sit.

So who did they see is the most vulnerable here? Farmers, construction workers. Much of the public health research on sedentary behavior has come from high-income Western countries, where sitting a lot typically means desk jobs and screen time. In this Chinese cohort, 41,000 adults between the ages of 35 and 70, were recruited from urban and rural communities across 12 provinces in China, unfollowed for nearly 12 years. Participants reported a median sitting time of just three hours per day, notably lower than what is often reported in North America and Europe,

where daily sitting time tends to be higher. Okay. You get the picture here, right? My picture is it's okay to sit. And you can sit for up to four hours a day, which is the optimum time. So I'm sitting right now doing this podcast. And I sit at least an hour a day on the podcast.

Now, you know, I walk. I try to walk as much as I can each day. I sit to read books. I sit to watch a bit of television. I sat last night, I was still in Scotland. I sat last night to watch England and Ghana play in the World Cup. Because I'm a big England fan. I'm a Scotland fan too, and of course I'm a Canada fan.

But I watched England last night, and it was one of those games where you can easily end up saying, Yeah, soccer is so boring. Well, it's not boring. It has moments of terrific excitement, but sadly last night there were no goals at all. Now, England still stands on top of their group, just like Canada does. And we'll be cheering for candidates tonight. They play tonight. Okay, last one before the break.

And this doesn't surprise me, although I'd never thought about it. But it is an interesting comment on our society right now. This is an NPR story, National Public Radio. Headline, most parents track their 18 to 25-year-old kids on their smartphones. Is that healthy? You know how you can track people, you know, through their phone. You can find exactly where they are, literally. anywhere in the world. So there's your headline. Let's read a bit of this. Imagine it's the 1980s

or early 90s, and there's a queue for the payphone in a college dorm hallway. Students line up waiting their turn for the once-a-week brief check-in with a parent. That was the norm, says Lawrence Steinberg, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Temple University. Parents and their adult children are much closer emotionally these days than they had been in past generations. The shift from what he observes as a professor is dramatic. To the point where sometimes during midterms or finals, the students have to kind of block their parents from texting them because they're interrupting them too much. More than half of parents of 18 to 25-year-olds say they track their adult children using

smartphone apps, according to a survey at the University of Michigan. And as technology becomes ever more present, and the boundaries between independence and reliance in late adolescence and early adulthood continue to evolve and shift, researchers say tracking can be both a way to stay in touch that is healthy and supportive, but may also cross the line to surveillance or too much interference. Steinberg says he's not surprised by results of the new survey showing how many parents track their adult children. The tracking technology built into smartphones

has become a part of society, both the adoption and expectation of more virtual connection. I don't know, I'm not sure that when I was in my 20s, I'd want my parents tracking me every day. I get the advantages of it for younger kids. Absolutely get the advantages. of that for parents and their kids. Okay, let me read a little more of this.

Sarah Clark is the co-director of the University of Michigan Health. It's the kind of in the area that does polling. She explains the first question put to the 1542 parents surveyed was whether they tracked their adult child's location using a cell phone.

I was shocked, she says, 52% do that. And when they do it, the majority of the time, the location tracking is always on. Most parents cited peace of mind about their child's safety is a main reason to track. But Clark says about 25% of parents who track their adult children said the ability to monitor their location may sometimes cause anxiety more than reassurance. The poll found parental tracking is more common with 18 to 6. 20-year-olds compared to adults in their 20s. Tracking your young adults' location and then using it as a way to micromanage their life,

hey, what are you in, why aren't you in class? I thought you had to work at 9. Didn't you have this appointment? When you're going to exercise today? That's a signal that's a parent who's having difficulty making the transition from parenting a child to parenting a young adult. So one of the solutions to all this is, you know, pick a time at least once a week where you connect with your adult child. You know, my relationship with my parents was before this technology existed.

And we used to make Sunday evenings a connection time. And we talk every Sunday night. They were living on the West Coast. I was living in Toronto at that time. time. And we talk every Sunday evening, you know, for a half an hour. We catch up. And it was good. It was a good conversation and everybody looked forward to it. Now, I find myself with Will sometimes doing exactly that concern that was expressed earlier in this article. Gee, didn't you have an appointment today? Weren't you supposed to do this or that? That's just like.

Not so. These kids are adults now. All right. We got more coming up on this Wednesday end-bit special. And you'll hear all about it right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge for this Wednesday. It's episode 1500 of the Bridge.

And it's our last episode before the summer hiatus, before our summer break. There will be a couple of programs during the summer. Good Talk specials, summer specials. One on July 17th and one on August 28th. So circle those on your calendar both Fridays. And we'll see you then with Chantelle and Bruce. You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks,

are on your favorite podcast platform. Those two Good Talk Summer Specials will also be on our YouTube channel so you can find us there. All right, time to get back to some of these NBits that we have for you. This one's related to the last one before the break, which was dealing with smartphones, right? This is a different kind of thing, and this is put out by CNN and its health department.

And this is another one where, you know, I concede there are times I get trapped at doing it. this as well. Hopefully you're better than I am on this. Here's the headline. Parents are on devices during meals, even more than their kids. Here's how to rethink family dinner. That's the headline. Once the school pickup routines begins in the afternoon, it can feel like mental arithmetic. Let me get this right. Once the school pickup routine begins in the afternoon, it can can feel like mental arithmetic. Never seen that word.

Getting everyone to the right place at the right time. One child has math tutoring from two to four. Then it's straight to soccer practice from 4.30 to 7. The other has dance from 5 to 8. Three hour dance class. Yikes. And then the whole family isn't home until after 9 p.m. And then someone in there, and somewhere in there,

you were supposed to eat taco Tuesday leftovers together as a family. When families consistently share meals, experts say they enjoy an abundance of benefits, such as improved emotional satisfaction and healthier diets, but finding the time to sit down together every night can sound like a tall order. Even for those families that manage to make a shared meal time, a reality, the pervasive use of media like smartphones and TVs during meal times is yet another factor that hampers connection. According to a new study that surveyed over 350 parents,

more than 75% reported media use during their last family meal, with the most common type being smartphone use. Additionally, the parents reported that their children, whose ages range from 4 to 10, were almost as likely to have used media with nearly 70% of children also engaging in some form of media use. The findings were published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.

You know, it's funny listening to this because when I was a kid, in the 50s and 60s, obviously there were no cell phones. There were barely any phones. phones. But there was, the TV was just coming of age.

And it was such a thing that one of the big home sellers during that period, late 50s, early 60s, were TV's supper tables. Some of you will remember those. You know, collapsible kind of trays on a stand

that you took to your favorite seat in the living room and you sat there and you had your dinner off it while you're watching television. You know, gun smoke or Perry Mason or the Lone Ranger, whatever. Robin Hood.

So this is kind of the same thing except a modern day era. You don't have a special table for your smartphone. You bring it to the table. And that's simply not good. as media finds different ways of intersecting with our life. You know, the family dinner, basically what this argument, what this article says, is the family dinner is a really important part of what makes a family unit work compatible, respectful.

and so you've got to isolate that time and not make it a time where you're all sitting on your phones, really. We all spend a little too much time on our phones as it is. Maybe banning it from supper. Just like banning it from the bedroom is a good idea. Moving on. This is from the Washington Post. Science suggests cringeworthy dad jokes

may serve a real purpose. Humor is a surprisingly important aspect of parenting and that silly one-liner may help strengthen the bond between fathers and children. When does a joke become a dad joke when it becomes a parent? At some point you've probably been bamboozled by good or terrible dad jokes.

Those silly one-liners known for their puny, puny, puny, often grown-worthy humor. But there may be more to them than you think. Research suggests that humor may play a meaningful role in parenting, and shared laughter may help strengthen father-child bonds. It's a fun genre of humor because it's welcoming. It's kind of affable.

It's good-natured. It's light-hearted. That's from Paul Sylvia, a professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. But what makes a dad joke work? Don't worry, there are going to be a couple of hidden here. Classic dad jokes. While there are a few studies on dad jokes themselves,

Sylvia has been analyzing them to determine what makes some funnier than others. In a pre-print of his study titled, What's Brown and Sticky? Hint, a stick. Sylvia and a colleague analyzed more than 32,000 dad jokes. Oh my God, they must have been... I hope they took some time to do that. They studied all these dad jokes.

Some of the classic ones use a pun. So long, boiling water, you'll be missed. I actually found one in here that's really funny. I'll get to it in a minute. Literalization, which turns a common concept or expression into a physical reality is widely used as well. I'm worried about the calendar. Its days are numbered, right?

With pedantic humor, the jokester sets up the joke and then derails it. What's blue and smells like red paint? Blue paint. You're not laughing. So there is at least a weak recipe for humor, says Sylvia. Sylvia determined that when it comes to a, solid dad joke structure. People found the question and answer framing funnier, such as, did you hear about the two thieves who stole a calendar? They each got six months.

I'm not laughing. Are you laughing? In a survey portion of the study, people reported that they connected more with the jokes that used family characters, such as mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, grandparents, and animals. Okay. So the Washington Post asked its reading. to send in their funniest dad jokes. I found one of these very funny, which shows my sense of humor. So let's just, I'll read the three they use. Why does the Danish military put barcodes on its ships

so they can Scandinavian? Okay, once again, you're not laughing, but you have to listen carefully. Next one. How do you catch a unique bird? Unique up on it. Unique up on it. I don't know.

This one I find funny. This one I laughed out loud when I read it. And it was sent in by Stephen Dudzik, a 69-year-old guy from Maryland. Here's his dad joke. I was wondering why the frisbee kept getting bigger and bigger. Then it hit me. See, I'm still laughing. I love that joke. I'll try using that joke. I just tried using it. I don't think you can take any more of these. Like the dad, I'm hungry. Hi, hungry, I'm dad. Humor is a playful social glue that makes everyone feel a little bit better, a little more at ease, and closer to

the people there with. And maybe that's the true spirit of dad jokes. All right, here's our last one. Our last end bit before the summer break. Earlier, I talked about, you know, one of my favorite television shows from back in the, you know, way back, 50, 60s. And it was a Canadian, no, it wasn't a Canadian show.

It was a British show with Richard Green was the actor, who played Robin Hood. And Richard Green was a famous British actor. He was in the Dam Busters, the Guy Gibson story. He played Guy Gibson, the famous R.E.F. Lancaster Pylon, who won the Victoria Cross for the Dambusters raid.

But he also played Robin Hood. And this is a Robin Hood story that's in the New York Times. Where did Robin Hood live? He lived in Shrew. Sherwood Forest, of course. Well, this story is about Sherwood Forest, about Robin Hood, and about a tree he apparently liked.

It was called the Major Oak. That's the name that's been given to it. The major oaks in Sherwood Forest was between 800 and 1,200 years old. It succumbed to a combination of over-tourism, climate change, and misguided efforts to save it. So the headline,

The Major Oak, ancient tree of Robin Hood legend, has died. The Major Oak, a tree that grew to tower over Sherwood Forest as the black death swept England and the wars of the roses sundered it, shading huntsmen who spoke of Robin Hood and outlasting the reigns of six Henry's,

six Georges, and two Elizabeths, among others, has died. The death of the tree, which was between 800 and 1,200 years old, was announced just last week by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the British Conservation Charity. There was no single cause, but rather a web of factors, including tourism, climate change, and damage from past efforts to save the tree. The Mighty Oak, named after a soldier who retired to the area in the late 18th century,

grew to gigantic proportions with a twisted trunk whose circumference measured 36 feet. There's a picture of it in this New York Times article, which you can find, and it's a glorious-looking tree. Huge. Its legend nearly matched all the stories. The tree's wide, hollow trunk was said to be a place for Robin Hood to hide himself or his loot. The legend, however, implausible, even by the mythical status of Robin Hood, turned the tree into a tourist magnet. But in the last five years, the tree has been struggling. In 2025, dentrometer devices that attached to the tree like a heart monitor showed only murmurs of activity.

The Society said in a report, This spring, when no buds or leaves appear, the tree's custodians declared, It's dead. We're waiting for any signs of life in the crown, said Chloe Ryder, who manages the Sherwood Forest Estate for the Conservation Society. We really wanted to give it a chance. At its peak, the canopy spread 91 feet. But over the years, the tree has been shrinking.

Its roots had become depleted, and the soil had become hostile. It looks like they tried everything they could to save the life of the tree. I remember when I was, when was it, it was in preparation for one of the royal weddings. I spent time in Windsor, where Windsor Castle is, where the Queen lived a lot. and there are, you know, there's obviously great parkland all around Windsor Castle where the queen would go riding and Prince Philip would go driving in his land rover. And I don't know how, but one day I got lucky

and one of the park conservation people who happened to be a Canadian who knew who I was from doing the national offered to take me on a ride through the area. I had to make sure the queen wasn't out there riding her one of her horses at the time. But we went out and there was, and he pointed out to me in one area, a tree. It wasn't the great oak, but it sounds a lot like the great oak. It was said to be at least a thousand years old. And it was huge.

It looked kind of like the one, the New York Times. pictures as the Great Oak, huge, big canopy and still alive. And Windsor Estate legend had it. Sorry, I just had to sneeze there. The legend had it that Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, used to drive out to this tree and park, sit under the tree. contemplate life art and history, all the things that a Duke does, I guess. And we didn't see him that day,

but we did see the tree. And when you look at a tree and you're told, this tree is a thousand years old. And it's right there on the estate of the reigning monarch. And it has been all these years. accents, you know, 1066. So that was pretty neat. That was, you know, an interesting hour or two

driving around different parts of the Windsor Estate. Okay. Enough babbling from me on this episode, 1,500 of the bridge. Some of you have been here all things. through the process. And I appreciate that. I appreciate the long-time listeners and the new listeners,

of which we keep getting more and more each year, to the point where we've hit that astronomical figure of downloads, which is quite something. Anyway, summer, hope you enjoy yours. I'll certainly be looking forward to enjoying mine, heading back to Canada, starting tomorrow, actually. And we'll be back for Canada Day and for more World Cup soccer. I'm not a big soccer fan, but I usually do enjoy the World Cup.

And we'll see, I'm told that Toronto was like crazy and Vancouver with the crowds that are attending these different games and the chaos that is in the surrounding area of each. stadium and arena. Okay. That's going to do it for today. It's going to do it for this season. I will be back in the fall. I haven't decided about next year yet, but I have decided about this fall.

I'll be here and look forward to keeping you up to date in the various different ways that we do, whether it's politics, whether it's foreign affairs, or whether it's just interesting stuff like we do on Wednesdays with with end bits. All right, take care.

You travel safe if you're traveling this summer. Have a great summer. Talk to you again in September, if not earlier, with the special summer good talks in 1 in July, 1 in August. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening.

Thanks so much for your supporting the bridge. The buzz, by the way, we'll keep going through the summer. Talk to you again in September. Bye for now.