The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - From Abortion to The Emergencies Act to Guy Lafleur, It's Your Turn!

Episode Date: May 5, 2022

A real cross-section of your thoughts on the topics of the day.  Plus, if Maradona's old jersey can sell for more than ten million dollars, think of the possibilities.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's Thursday, it's your turn, and you've got lots of things to talk about. Coming right up. And good Thursday morning. I'm Peter Mansbridge in Stratford, Ontario. Back from, well, let's just say a disappointing night in Toronto. I won't go beyond that, other than to remind you what I said the other day. They call it a best of seven series for a reason, not a best of one. So let's hope it stays interesting. Alright, to your

comments, and there's quite a few of them on a varied series of topics this week, so I'm going to get right to it. With, I guess, some of the most recent comments on there to do with the leaking of the draft opinion by the U.S. Supreme Court on the Roe v. Wade decision, which appears to be that the court is going to reverse Roe v. Wade after almost 50 years of being the law of the land in the United States. This will be the first time, if they follow through with this

draft, this will be the first time a right has ever been withdrawn from the American people. And obviously, there's a lot of people wondering about the long-term impact of that and how far a movement like this could go. In other words, could it go beyond the borders of the United States? Anne-Marie Klein writes, My question after listening to your Wednesday podcast, Anne-Marie is, by the way, from Toronto, but she's actually in Scotland right now.

Good for you, Anne-Marie is, by the way, from Toronto, but she's actually in Scotland right now. Good for you, Anne-Marie. My question after listening to your Wednesday podcast was one I haven't seen addressed yet. If a Supreme Court nominee states in their hearings that their position is that something is settled law, which was the case, as I pointed out, the last two days with Brett Kavanaugh and Coney Barrett, I believe. And this answer is what convinces senators to confirm them, which I believe was the case with Senator Susan Collins and possibly others. Can a charge of perjury not be used to unseat them? It seems ludicrous to me that one can issue blatant lies about one's position and intentions without there being consequences for reversing it once on the court.

It is a good question. I'm not sure I know the answer. The ability for the Senate and the House to impeach people in public office, including, I believe, Supreme Court justices, does sit there. But we've watched what happens In the past. It only goes so far. Even for a liar. So. Let's see. What unfolds. It's a little. Different.

I mean I think. Both. Cavanaugh and Barrett. If she was the same. Could I assume. Say. We didn't lie. We didn't perjure ourselves, we told you our opinion at that time, but our opinion changed based on the arguments we heard in the court? I don't know. You're not going to believe that. I'm not going to believe that. But that could be one possible answer. Bill Hertha from Thornhill, Ontario.

What struck me was there seemed to be two issues in this. First, regarding the rights to having an abortion, and second, the role of the courts in the legislative process. My impression is that the court is arguing that, this is the U.S. court, is arguing that the Roe versus Wade opinion stepped beyond the interpretation of law, that role of the courts, into the creation of law, which is the responsibility of the legislative branch. As such, the courts are saying that this is a problem that needs to be resolved by the U.S. Congress. I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know if this is a correct

interpretation. However, if it is, and if they are correct in their analysis, which has been subject to a lot of criticism, then it's an interesting point, a point that has been raised in the past in canada well i'm not a lawyer either bill so i don't know what the the answer is to that question and i'm sure you you'd find an interesting debate even amongst lawyers as to what the correct answer is but i do notice that in a number of occasions, Democrats, U.S. Democrats in elected office have said, Congress has to make a decision on this. We should do that, do it now. Which would make the court opinion moot. Interesting. interesting Code Clements

from Coal Lake, Alberta I have two observations about this and it's a lengthy letter so I'll read one one of the observations from Code Clements it's a sad day for females.

Being of our age, Code was born in the late 40s, I reached maturity about the time of birth control, then abortion rights confirmed in the USA. In Canada, we started in 1969 with Pierre Trudeau allowing the foot in the door for abortions, but it still took 20 years to have the old 1969 law thrown out. Thankfully, we have Dr. Henry Morgenthaler to thank for that. However, there are still a vocal minority still challenging the no-laws prohibition prohibiting abortion. Mostly religious, but I wouldn't be surprised if our

freedom truckers, anti-vaxxers, would be in favor or support anti-abortion laws. I'm not so sure of that. But I'm sure some of them would. And Code throws in a PS. I fully support the activation of our Emergency Act, leaving me at odds with your guests last week. That's funny. A number of you pointed that out.

I think you're talking about the good talk discussion we had. I didn't think either of our guests advocated being against the Emergency Act. What they advocated was an investigation of why the Emergency Act was used, and to point out what information the government based its decision on, and what real impact that decision had. I think they were both, you know, open to dealing with the answers on that.

Moving on. This one, I have some problems with this. I know Bonnie Hill from Orillia, Ontario, has written this carefully, but here's what she says. Regarding the four cadets who drove off the pier in Kingston last weekend in what appears to be a military vehicle, I'm perplexed by the over-the-top condolences of our top politicians. Prime Minister Trudeau, Premier Ford, the Mayor of Kingston, the Defence Minister, and one minute of silence in the House of Commons. All these tributes came so swiftly before any investigation by the military and board inquiry, which will take months. It is indeed very

sad that four young men have died. Driving off a pier is a very dangerous thing to do. Did they think they could escape the sinking vehicle? Was this pure folly? Was it an accident? I doubt it. Were they under the influence of drugs or alcohol? Will we ever know, even with an inquiry?

It would have been more appropriate for the politicians to have kept quiet about this incident. I feel there are equally or even more tragic deaths of young Canadians all the time, by health issues like cancer or victims of violence or terrible accidents. These go unnoticed or at least unacknowledged by our politicians. The Prime Minister and Premier and others in power are setting a very strange precedent by issuing heartfelt condolences for something that could very well have been mere hubris or folly.

That's just part of Bonnie's letter, but I think we get her message and her feelings. Yeah, I have trouble with that, Bonnie, I got to tell you. I think all those people that you listed all have said at one time or another things about the tragic deaths of other young Canadians, perhaps not individually all the time, but in general about those.

They have all said things in the past. Listen, there are a lot of unanswered questions about what happened at the Royal Military College in Kingston with these four young people. But the fact is they're dead. They died. And it's a tragic story. Four young cadets just literally hours away from graduation. And something happened.

And they all died. And whatever the reason may be, and we can all think of many potential reasons, the fact of the matter is there was a tragedy. And we can be feeling upset about that and sorry about that. But you're probably not alone in what you're saying here. And we'll leave it at that. Ian Hebblethwaite from Moncton, New Brunswick.

I've been told that it's not. This is about the backups of the airports. And man, they're still happening. I was at the airport early this morning, like early, 5 a.m. I took my son, Willie, to the airport, Pearson International, because he's got work in Los Angeles that he has to do. And his flight wasn't departing until 8 o'clock, and yet we got there at 5, 5 a.m., and he was still in the line for an hour more than an hour the security line because they seem to be understaffed but there are other issues at the airports in terms of the normal flow of traffic passenger traffic anyway ian writes i've been told that it's

not just the training that is holding up the rehiring of pilots. That's one of the areas of the pilot issue. But also they are having a hard time renewing their expired aviation medicals because there are, shocker, now fewer doctors who do it in the post-COVID time. I do know for a fact that here in southeast New Brunswick, we now have just two doctors who do these aviation medicals, down from four or five just a few years ago. Okay, I don't know that, Ian. I haven't heard that, but it wouldn't surprise me. Mike Rego

has a dual address. He lives in Avondale, Arizona. Listens to us there on SiriusXM or on a podcast. And he also lives in Cambridge, Ontario,

which is actually just down the road from me here in Stratford. I thoroughly enjoyed the discussion with Bill Fox. It's interesting. Bill was on last week and talking about his new book that examines basically the media landscape and the relationship at times

between the media and politicians. It's interesting, back to Mike's letter, it's interesting as I've always been of the mind that something of value should be appropriately monetarily compensated for. But I also must admit, being similar in age to you both, a little younger actually, I grew up with that business model. I wonder how many people would use social media if there was a subscription fee. I recently decided to pay for a subscription again, partly as I felt duty-bound to support journalism. I flipped a coin and the National Financial Post won. I must admit, in the year of my experience, I've had numerous issues with the access. The customer service is pleasant,

but not effective. I'm considering cancelling the service due to this. As a follow-on to your conversation today, you would think these news media organizations would be a customer focus, but sadly, this one doesn't seem to understand. That's how they're going to survive. Or maybe they're planning on the government media fund to survive. Well, I wouldn't do that if I was them. And, you know, it's interesting, a fee for social media. See, our friend Elon Musk is saying, you know, maybe there should be a charge for Twitter on the part of some accounts. Here we go.

This is going to be an interesting ride don dufour from ottawa writes it's also about the media when one minister or another agrees to be interviewed i'm interested in learning more about a recent funding announcement a program or a news story of the day, but time and again I find the interview host is hyper-relentless, if that's a word, in pounding the minister with the same question, trying over and over to get him or her to say something that may not be available yet for the public, or may otherwise be somewhat incriminating to either their own office or another colleague. I find myself scolding the TV with something like, enough already, go on to your next question. To sum up, I'm finding some media to be more adversarial than necessary towards these elected

officials who agree to put themselves on camera to speak with Canadians. I know it's part of their job, but it bugs me. Yeah, Don, you're not alone. I mean, I used to get letters like that when I was, you know, doing the national and doing interviews with public officials. That they sort of get it after a couple of questions on the same topic with basically the same question but not getting an answer. They get it that that person isn't answering the question.

But different interviewers have different styles. And in some cases they work, in some cases they don't. Rob Bjarnason from Carberry, Ontario. I'm a huge Guy Lafleur fan he provided much joy and entertainment in the days of my youth his personality and panache made him admirable the extent of the phenomenon around his death is interesting from a sociological and psychological standpoint the reverence and admiration shown when a hockey player lays in state and is honored with a public funeral truly pays credence to the fact that sports figures transcend a simple

game. Many scientists who have saved millions of lives or leaders who have solved world problems receive far less fanfare. Interesting. Kate Welsh. She's written before because she's here in Stratford. I don't know Kate, but good for her.

I agree with you that the policing was totally ineffective and quite honestly a joke we're talking about the Ottawa truckers convoy earlier this year it appeared that they didn't even really try to move people out and honestly I don't care that the government invoked the Emergencies Act if that's what they had to do to end it it went on too long and you're right

we looked incompetent to the outside world what really irks me is the inequity within our country It went on too long, and you're right, we looked incompetent to the outside world. What really irks me is the inequity within our country. If this was Indigenous people protesting, they would have moved them out no matter what it took. We have real-life examples of this in BC, where Indigenous peoples have protested against environmental issues, saving some of the oldest trees in our country, and other instances in downtown Victoria. How are we doing on time?

Got to take a break here at some point, but here's a couple of letters on the conservative leadership race, and in particular, Pierre Palliev. Cam McCullough. Where's Cam writing from? He's writing from Winnipeg. And he's reacting to the April 22nd podcast. Is Pierre Palliev getting the 2016 Donald Trump treatment? That was the question we asked. As I see it, Mr. Polyev is running a campaign based on anger, resentment, and lies. Let's look at some of his key planks. Vaccine and mask mandates.

Get rid of them for the sake of freedom. The Bank of Canada. Get rid of it and fight inflation with cryptocurrency. The Bank of Canada is proposing we move to digital currency. This is simply not true. Actually, I think the Bank of Canada has opened the door to a discussion about digital currency. I'm not sure you're right on that. Indigenous Canadians, these loafers should quit looking for handouts and work harder.

This is what Cam McCullough is suggesting Pierre Pelliev believes. He did say that. Not recently, but it is something he has said in the past. The CBC, get rid of it. Well, you know, he's not alone in thinking that. I don't think that. My position on the CBC, obviously, is pretty clear. I worked there for 50 years, so I have a lot of admiration

for some of those who do the actual work at the CBC, the broadcasting work. I have a lot of admiration for them. I'm not so fussy about some of the leadership that's been shown at the CBC over time, but that's not unusual for any big, huge corporation or company. But Polyev's views on the CBC are not alone.

He's representing a number of people who feel that way. I'm not sure what the percentage is. 20-25% of Canadians feel there's no need for the CBC. An enormous number feel there is a need for a national public broadcaster, even though they may criticize and feel strongly that the CBC isn't doing the job they want to see it do, but they believe in the idea of the CBC. And the trucker convoy is the last on his list of what he says Pierre Poliev is running for. And his beliefs on the trucker convoy being good, hard-working people

whose hands Mr. Polyev is proud to shake. Well, that's true. He did stand with the truckers. So, in conclusion to all that, what Cam says is, in terms of the title of your podcast, is Pierre Palliev getting the 2016 Donald Trump treatment? In other words, focusing on sort of the clickbait aspect of the campaign and not deeply involve the media, deeply involve itself in vetting the claims that Polyev is making. Is he getting that treatment? Well, Cam says it appears that at least in some cases, the answer is yes.

David Prime writes, and this is once again about the Ottawa situation from earlier this year. Here's my point of view, writes David. He's in Ottawa. It's a simple fact that our city was being held hostage for weeks on end, and that only changed once the Emergencies Act was invoked. I'm willing to learn from the inquiry that the EA shouldn't have been needed and our existing laws were enough, but that better include a good argument why Ottawa residents needed to wait any longer to get back control of our city,

because otherwise it feels like a theoretical argument that academics and journalists like to debate while ignoring what needs solving today. I'm not sure, David. I think you can't have it both ways. You agree with the inquiry, and you're willing to learn from whatever results it has, but you don't think we should talk about that. Academics and journalists like to debate. I think it's an interesting discussion, And I think we've heard eloquently at times, arguments on both sides of that issue. But deep down, what we need is the information.

There were claims made around the usage of the EA, which have not been backed up with examples. Will the inquiry get to those examples or will they be considered? Well, we can't talk about that. We'll have to find out. Okay, let's take that quick break and when we come back, a variety of other letters. First one up will be about Elon Musk. That's when we come back. And hello again.

Peter Mansbridge here in Stratford, Ontario. You're listening to The Bridge, your turn edition for Thursday. You're listening on Sirius XM channel 167. Canada Talks are on your favorite podcast platform. Wherever you're listening from, we're glad you're with us. All right, Jeff Reeves writes from Kanata. Kanata.

That's just outside Ottawa so Jeff points out this is about a podcast last week good discussion on Twitter I'm glad you mentioned the problems the CBC and others had with nasty comments when comments were open to all maybe Elon Musk can fix that problem on Twitter

and even get folks back on the system. I really don't understand why people want to leave Twitter because of the new owner. Much of the complaints about Musk is that he is rich and about to control a major information source. This isn't really new in the media. I'm sure you know of all the rich people who controlled the newspapers and private broadcasters in Canada, and of the obvious bias that competing papers like the Telegram Sun and the Star had over the years. They're all still good papers, and both papers do provide alternate views in columnists. I'm even thinking that the corporate owners today in Canada, Bell Media and Rogers,

have probably dumbed down the broadcast to avoid confrontation. Maybe Musk will even improve information on Twitter. Even adding Trump may be beneficial by further exposing who he really is. Not being on Twitter sure hasn't reduced his support. Might have even increased it. I'd also add that Musk's company, Starlink, is enabling all of Canada to get internet service and great podcasts. He's also providing service to Ukraine. That's true. The Starlink satellite system would give those parts of the country that are having real trouble getting internet a much cleaner line and much better access. However, it will come at much greater cost to the customer,

like much greater cost. I know because I've been looking into that to try and put better service into one of the areas my kids and grandkids use. Karen Bosche from Edmonton. Enjoyed watching Arctic Blue this past week. That was the documentary I did on the high Arctic, Arctic sovereignty, climate change, which addressed several important issues regarding Canada's history of indigenous mistreatment and current reconciliation efforts, Arctic sovereignty and security and climate change.

It was informative and oddly even more timely now than months ago when you were there making it. That's true. And if you haven't seen it, please go to CBC Gem and you can get it under the documentary section. There's no cost for CBC Gem, right? You can access it as a streaming service. Now, there will be commercials in it if you take the option of not paying for anything. If you don't want commercials, you can get access to CBC Gem with a small monthly fee.

It's a couple of bucks. But nevertheless, it is there and accessible for you. Karen's last point. I did purchase What I Remember, What I Know, The Life of High Arctic Exile. The book you previously recommended, written by Larry Audle-Luke, whose family members were interviewed in the documentary, as was Larry. Haven't read it yet, but hope to get to it this summer and may recommend it to my book club in hopes of educating

and exploring different kinds of issues for discussion it's a really good book you know it's a easy access it's an easy read from the actual reading process it's a difficult read when you understand what we did to a group of Inuit in northern Quebec and moving them into the high Arctic, basically without their understanding of what was about to happen to them and basically lying to them about if they didn't like where they were being moved to, they could move back

because they never were allowed to move back. And when I say we did to them, I'm talking about the Canadian government representing the people of Canada. Connor Whalen writes from Flushton, Ontario. It's a slippery slope when we try to mitigate online hate. I agree there are some limits that would be ideal. However, when those attempts at mitigation inevitably go too far,

it will get to the point where criticism is perceived as hate by some people. Who decides where that line is? I'm not sure I trust any one person or group of people to make that decision for the rest of society. When the government gets involved, it becomes even more worrisome. If you don't want a government on the other side of the spectrum from you making these decisions, you ought to be careful to approve of the government you do agree with doing it because they won't be in power forever.

Marilyn Sewell writes from Paris, Ontarioario writes from paris ontario in 2018 i told you about being involved in organizing an all candidates meeting for the provincial election in our riding in branford brandt in southern ontario you were impressed with this initiative and even quoted the late john turner in your remarks when you read my letter on your podcast about participating in the democratic process. That meant a lot to me. Last night we held our meeting and the current MPP, a member of the PC party, declined to attend. He said he was too busy. He had ample opportunity to submit answers to our written questions, but chose not to show up. We were insulted and extremely disappointed in his arrogance and lack of respect for our organizations and primarily the electorate. I've heard via the grapevine, the grapevine is not necessarily a reliable source, I might add,

but I've heard via the grapevine that there has been direction provided from the party not to attend local events. I'm not sure that's accurate. I've already seen some conservative members attending some events in their ridings, but now that the campaign's really on, we'll find out fairly quickly. Anyway, the other candidates were very professional and didn't throw them under the bus.

It was an important and informative night. It's hard to convince others not to be cynical and to still have faith in and gratitude for our democratic process when this is the response. Thanks, Marilyn. Okay, a couple of last things. I mean, I think Marilyn's letter is important. When she refers to John Turner, it was John Turner's passion about democracy,

how important it is, and we miss his voice right now, I can tell you. But the importance of democracy for each one of us is that if you believe in it, you've got to participate in it. And that's what Maryland's doing by helping organize all candidates' meetings. Participation doesn't mean you've got to run. But it means you've got to be interested enough to be asking questions

in whatever format you can. So that's the last letter from you this week. But I have a couple of other things I wanted to drop in. I don't know whether you've heard this, but I can't help but repeat it.

You know, listen, I worked at the CBC for 50 years, you know, joined in 1968, left at the end of 1967, sorry, joined in 1968, left at the end of 2017. That was 50 years. I didn't get any, you know, special little pin to put on my jacket or plaque to put on the wall. I did have a hall named after me in the Broadcasting Centre in Toronto, which is a deep honour, considering the only other two people who have areas of that building named after them are Glenn Gould and one of my broadcasting heroes and friend, colleague, Barbara Frum. So that was very nice. And really, you couldn't ask for more, so I'm not complaining.

But I always thought, 50 years, man, that's a long time to work for one company. And most people don't work that long, so that's pretty special. Until I saw this tweet from CBS News earlier this week. Walter Orthman, who's 100, set the Guinness World Record for working at the same

company. How long did he work? 84 years and 9 days. He got a job at

Renault South Africa, or Renault SA, in 1938, working as a shipping assistant at the textile company Renault. 84 years and 9 days.

Man, I hope he got a great pension. He must have got a great pension. He must have got a great pension. I wonder if he decided to retire or they offered him a package to retire. And if they offered him a package, that must have been a hell of a package. Because you get a certain amount for each year, usually. Anyway, 84 years.

Love it. And then this, this one that came down, I think just yesterday. The shirt, the shirt worn by Diego Maradona in the Hand of God game

against England in the 1986 World Cup sold at auction this week. That's just the shirt, the jersey. And there's even a dispute about, you know, he wore two jerseys in that game. He wore one in the first half. Then he wore one in the second half because the one in the first half got

torn or something. And which one was this and how important was it in the second half because the one in the first half got torn or something. And which one was this, and how important was it in the grand scope of things? He scored twice in that game. Maradona was, like, if you know anything about soccer, even if you're only the kind of guy or gal

who watches soccer or football during the World Cup, you should know the name Maradona. He was a magician like Pele had been. Anyway, it sold at auction for 7,142,500 pounds. So we're talking about, you know, 13 or 14 million Canadian dollars. For a shirt, a jersey.

So, listen, that got me thinking. Now, I'm no Maradona. But some of you seem to respect that 50 years, and you remember certain programs. So I thought, okay, you know, I've saved up all my ties, or a lot of them. I got bags of ties from all those years doing the National. In fact, I had so many ties so early

that my good friend Mark Bulguch, co-author of Extraordinary Canadians, out in paperback this week, once again on the bestseller list because of paperback, the overall bestseller list. This is very nice. But anyway, Mark was my co-author on extraordinary canadians and

you know 30 years ago or more he came to me one day he says my one of my daughters is and there was melissa is doing a project at school and her idea is to get some of your ties and sew them into a skirt. So I said, well, sure, like really, if she wants to do that. So I don't know, I got 20 or 30 of my ties together and gave them to her. And she did exactly that. But that was early in my career doing the national. So there were a lot of ties left.

So I thought, okay, well, if Maradona can get 7 million pounds plus for his shirt, what can I get, you know, why don't I put a package together? The tie that I wore at the Charles and Diana wedding. The tie I was wearing in Berlin when the wall came down. The tie I was wearing on 9-11. The tie I wore at Vimy Ridge for the 100th anniversary of the great battle that some say defined Canada.

And you can go on and on. Sorry, it might be an easy 7 million pounds if i put those ties together i'm joking all right stop writing i'm joking it's a joke i thought it was hilarious all right that's it for this day. Tomorrow, good talk. Chantelle Hebert and Bruce Anderson will be back. And as we always do, there's lots to talk about. And talk about it we will.

Thanks for your letters this week. There were many more. And as you know, I kind of highlight some of them. And that's what I did today on a real cross-range of topics so this is peter mansbridge this has been the bridge thanks so much for listening talk to you again in 24 hours Thank you.